#anyway american animals was a really good movie you should go watch it

[sangfielle]

i will see a famous actors face and go "where do i know this person from". i go looking. theyre in a bunch of shit that everybody on earth except for me has seen. i go no, that's not it. i open their filmography and the one thing ive ever seen them in is them playing one of those college students from the transy book heist movie. and this is how i operate with every famous actor more or less

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

--

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

[joe-spookyy]

asks you about american werewolf in london

hoooly shit it’s finally happened. someone asked me The question. thanks anon.

i am now going to try and sell you all on this movie cause i can’t recommend it enough and i think everyone should watch it. so: let me tell you a thing or two about hit 1981 horror comedy an american werewolf in london!!! and this is off the top of my head so if any of it is slightly off numbers wise im sorry. if you like 80s horror, men, queercoding, re-animator, the thing, jaws, saw, the lost boys, or just werewolves in general. hear me out on this one. link included to watch.

The Premise:

fresh off the heels of his cocaine fueled jazz musical masterpiece The Blues Brothers (1980), director john landis decided he was going to cook up the greatest film ever made. and he did. he was actually gonna have john belushi (jake blues) and dan akyroyd (elwood blues and yes the ghostbuster) play the two main characters, david kessler and jack goodman. now, who are these fellas? well i’m so glad you asked. david (played by david naughton) and jack (played by griffin dunne) are two dear pals from new york on a cute little backpacking trip across europe. david's the tall one. he's silly and gleeful to be out and about. jack is the short one. he's very much not gleeful about the fact that they're on the rainy moors and wishes they were in rome. together they find their way to a cute little pub and go inside, looking for hot drinks. the locals do not love this. they also do not love when jack asks them why there's a five pointed star on the wall (since lon chaney and universal studios assert that that's the mark of the wolfman!) it gets awkward. so they leave, with nothing but the warning to stay off the moors, stick to the roads, and beware of the moon. obviously, they do not follow this. wouldn't make for a very interesting movie if they did. and, as i'm sure you've assumed, they encounter a werewolf, leaving jack like this (dead):

and david, who survived the attack, with the curse of the werewolf. but fear not! david is transported to a hospital where he makes a lovely recovery, and jack um. well he stays dead. but he comes back to haunt david! he shows up a few more times in further states of decay to tell david that he really ought to just kill himself so that the curse is broken, jack and all the other werewolf victims can rest in peace, and david won't accidentally maul any additional civilians as a werewolf. hey while we're talking about jack heres me when i dressed up as him at a horror con. and the man himself.

anyways. hijinks ensue, and you're taken on a delightful romp across 97 minutes of fun as david tries to navigate life as... you guessed it. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON!

why it rules:

in my opinion, that's enough to make this movie flames as fuck. but if you're not convinced yet? let me tell you some more. first off. the practical effects on this bad boy are straight up excellent. they're done by my personal favorite vfx artist rick baker (who also worked on star wars, men in black, videodrome, king kong and more!), and he does not hold back. the picture of jack shows how nasty and detailed the wound is pretty well, but in action it's even better with all the nasty fleshy bits dangling and wiggling and eugh. it's gross. but it's so well done. and he does a terrific job showing how jack decays throughout the rest of the movie. but of course, what really matters is the werewolf. it's not called an american dead guy in london. which is good. cause that would be a dumb name for a movie. anyways. if we’re going to talk about the werewolf, we have to start with the iconic transformation scene. sped up.

wow! pretty impressive stuff right? it’s all practical, no cgi, and i think the way it’s almost drawn out and the relative silence of the scene adds to the impact it has, since it sort of forces the audience to sit with and feel just a little bit of the discomfort that david seems to be feeling. we just have to watch him scream in pain and beg for mercy. yeesh. now, the transformation scene is hard to top. but i think the final werewolf design is actually pretty solid. it’s distinctly not man, but it’s also distinctly not wolf. i would include a picture, but i feel like part of the allure of the film is how it (jaws style) doesn’t really let you get a good look at the monster itself until the end of the movie. it’s a great way to build the tension and leave a little bit up to the audience’s interpretation. and the audience will always imagine something way more horrible than you could have ever created. which is kind of beautiful. the first time i watched, i found myself kind of disappointed in the werewolf’s appearance - its face seemed to be stuck in a sort of permanent scowl. i was kind of lost, because i couldn’t imagine why a static face had won out over whatever the vfx team was clearly capable of making. but Oh. dear reader. when nurse alex price, david’s dear love, who cared for him in the hospital, allowed him to live with her, and even banged him, approaches the wolf. when she tells david she loves him. the wolf’s eyes soften. it begins to drop the snarl. see. i lied here’s part of the wolf. all snarly like and scary. before it melts at three simple words from alex. god.

it hits me like a huge truck every single time. rick baker never misses and this movie was certainly not an exception. he got an academy award for it and it was well deserved.

not so into the technical stuff? that’s okay. i have more to praise about this movie. it is one of the best blends of horror and comedy that i’ve ever encountered. although some of it looks a little dated, i do think it maintains its fear factor. it’s plenty gory, and in my humble opinion, the subway scene (you’ll know it when you see it) is one of the most effective bits of horror i’ve ever encountered. even when isolated from the film, it still packs a punch. but i’m not gonna put it here because i want you to just watch it with the rest of the movie. sorry. and on top of the horror, it’s honestly hilarious. if you don’t think seven dead people ganging up on one dude and listing ways he should kill himself in the middle of a porn theater while a porno plays very loudly in the background. well. i don’t know what to tell you. you probably won’t like this movie that much. also, the final needle drop over the credits at the end is so abrupt and so funny. love it.

and of course, being an 80s horror movie with two male leads. i’m sure you can guess what i’m going to say. it is not hard to read jack and david as friends, but it’s also not very difficult to read them as having a little something going on. like love. fellas is it gay to go on a little trip across england with just yoh and your best bro? hard to say. textually, i do think it’s kind of telling that every time jack shows up, it’s either right after or while david is having a heterosexual experience (flirting with alex, banging alex, watching straight porn in the porn theater.) it’s almost like… something other than jack… is haunting david. i dunno. i’m not a cop. but it’s interesting. seems like something the average tumblr user might like to keep an eye on, so i’m letting you know. also they have a conversation while david is completely naked which is like. hello. plus the inherent queerness of the werewolf narrative is something i could talk about for HOURS and was especially prevalent, alongside vampire movies. in the 80s during the aids crisis. my short essay on this ⬇️

also, there’s a classic john landis third act car crash scene, where, in the same vein as the blues brothers, an obscene amount of cars are absolutely demolished.

also also, the muppets make a brief appearance in this movie. this made me jump for joy, because i love the muppets. and you should too.

fun and true facts

still not sold? well, check out this last ditch effort in the form of fun facts. or, if you just want to know more, read on.

micheal jackson was so impressed by the effects in this movie, particularly the transformation scene, that after seeing it, he promptly hired rock baker (vfx guy) and john landis (director guy) to work on the music video for his hit song thriller. you’ve probably seen it, but if not, go watch it. tbh, even if you have seen it before, go watch it again.

david naughton was a doctor pepper spokesman before the filming of this movie. he was in at least a few bits of promotional material, including at least one commercial. unfortunately he lost the job because of the amount of time he spent dick out in this movie. doctor pepper did not want that to be the representation of their brand. cowards, the lot of them.

speaking of his dick, you actually never fully see it at any point in the movie despite the fact that it seems they never felt like telling david to wear pants on set. there is a reason for this! david (character) is jewish and canonically circumcised (dunno how else to put it) and david (actor) is neither of these things. so, to avoid ruining the realism in his. werewolf movie. john landis took great care to never show the whole thing.

the american ambassador who visits david in the hospital is played by frank oz, who also voices miss piggy. because of her brief cameo, he technically plays two different roles in this movie, although miss piggy is simply credited as “Herself” in the end credits of the movie. he also voices yoda which isn’t relevant but it is really funny to me.

see you next wednesday, which is the name of the porno in the movie, is actually a fun john landis easter egg! many of his movies include the phrase “see you next wednesday.” it’s also seen on posters in the subway scene.

in the scene where jack first visits david in the hospital, he was supposed to take a bite of david’s toast, after which it would immediately fall out of his ruined and torn to shreds throat. however, it was cut for being too gross. which is sad i feel like it could have been funny.

when david calls home to talk to his parents, he mentions two siblings: rachel and max. these are the names of the directors children in real life.

griffin dunne, who plays jack, also appears as the family therapist in a season 2 episode of succession. this was a jumpscare.

while they were filming the naked in the zoo scenes, they were unable to actually close the zoo, so when filming carried on past the opening time of the park, they just kept going and allowed butt naked david naughton to run loose around the zoo. they did, however, succeed in closing piccadilly circus for the car crash scene.

in the beginning when jack is being attacked by the werewolf, it was in fact half a wolf prop on the front of a wheelbarrow. this is a very funny vision for me.

jack is right - the five pointed star is considered the mark of the wolfman, according to 1941’s The Wolf Man, played by lon chaney junior and produced by universal pictures. the guy knows his stuff. interestingly, rick baker did the makeup for the 2010 remake of the wolf man as well. he did pretty good, i think.

this isn’t even about this movie but blues brothers is an awesome film too and a fun fact about that one is there was a whole part of the budget devoted to buying cocaine. and you can tell. great movie.

director john landis did in fact kill three people the year after this movie came out. so. i do feel a little bad promoting it because jesus christ. but. no harm no foul in pirating it. it’s one easy internet archive search away. and sometimes it’s on tubi. but just in case, here’s the internet archive link. https://archive.org/details/an-american-werewolf-in-london

so. anyways. please check out this baller ass movie and talk to me about it. thank you so much to whoever asked this. i love you. thanks for reading. bye.

[ilovescaredysquirrel2]

The problem with Disney right now...

I know I usually state my opinion on movies I see recently and give reviews but sometimes I give my opinion on movies that are going to come out soon. So, I heard about the unnecessary sequels for Moana and Inside Out, which are great movies but they don't need sequels. In all honesty, after seeing what they did with Wish, I think Disney should take a break on making animated movies for a while! Not forever, just for a short time.

Okay, so I think we all can tell that they used A.I on Wish. It's not the animation and stuff, it's just the story! I even think the songs were written by real people, it's purely the story that feels A.I generated. Watch them use A.I on Moana 2, Inside Out 2, and Frozen 3... oh gosh that would break my heart to se them ruin the sequels with A.I. I don't consider myself a Disney fan, in fact, even as a kid I wasn't a Disney-movie kid, but I did have a Frozen phase back in the day. Every kid had a Frozen phase. Inside Out is okay but it was kind of emotional, but the first Moana was really good. The thing is, Frozen is based off the Snow Queen while Moana and Inside Out aren't based off any fairytales and are Disney's own original ideas for once. Plus, I think they're only making these sequels because their original ideas like StrangeWorld and Wish are failing so they're proffiting off live action remakes and making sequels of already existing characters because they're desperate. They're just so greedy and can't stand to see the competitors, who are smaller animation companies, beat them!

I'm mostly boycotting Disney (and have been ever since I saw Zootopia) but I'll watch Disney movies pirated on free websites like Actvid and Moviesjoy. The only thing I like from 2024 Disney is Kiff! LITERALLY KIFF! KIFF! Of all things, I never thought KIFF would be the only thing that's stopping me from abandoning Disney all together. I don't use Disney plus but the website I watch Kiff on doesn't have the recent episodes and I refuse to get Disney plus. Disney should focus on stuff like Kiff and Phineas & Ferb anyway. The only good show they got on Disney channel now is Bluey and Bluey is NOT EVEN DISNEY! Bluey is an Australian show and should be seen as that, instead of having the greediest corporation in the world act like they own an Aussie show that they didn't have anything to do with. Bluey should be on PBS kids or something, not greedy Disney! Who agrees? I'm American, but If I was in Australia I'd be so mad at Disney. Disney literally censored episodes, removed episodes, and stopped the writers from throwing in a Bible reference... when they weren't even making the show! If I was in charge, Disney Channel/Disney Junior would have shows like Jungle Junction, Phineas & Ferb, Bear in the Big Blue House, Good Luck Charlie, Suite life of Zack & Cody on Deck,... ect. Basically I'd bring back everything except JESSIE because it was racist (R.I.P to Cameron Boyce tho, he wasn't a bad guy he was just on a bad show).

Anyway, Disney is on my last nerve rn, and if it wasn't for Kiff I'd hate it all together. I still do hate Disney but the only thing that keeps me from wanting it to go away is Kiff. If you haven't heard of Kiff, it's a recent show by Disney, about an orange squirrel who's really energetic (and no, she's NOTHING like Scaredy Squirrel). As far as movies go, I know for sure that I will never see another Disney movie in theaters and I encourage you too, as well. They'll end up on Actvid or Moviesjoy before they even end up on Disney plus anyway, because Disey is popular and people care enough to record it off some hidden camera in theaters. I'm not saying you have to follow in my footsteps and boycott Disney, I'm just telling you on how I do it. Like, the day they come out in theaters is the same day they end up on free websites. Plus, you don't have to waste your money if the movie is going to be bad, like how Wish ended up being bad.

So yeah, please share your thoughts! If you're a Disney fan, I'm sorry. You have to know that they've been really shady recently (they always have been shady but particularly now).

[gayboyrocklee]

I saw this post on Instagram abt Patrick Bateman pony in My Little Pony (background pony), and how his cutie mark was a vinyl, and someone commented it should be an axe, bc “he kills people and all 🤓” but that irks me as not only a fan of My Little Pony but arguably a fan of the American Psycho movie. Anyway, as we all know, cutie marks in My Little Pony are (oftentimes abstract) representation of a pony’s true calling, their special talent. Applejack has apples bc she’s gonna work at the family apple farm, Fluttershy has butterflies bc she’s good with animals. You get the gist of it. Patrick Bateman’s cutie mark being a vinyl makes a lot of sense, it’s meant to represent his passion for music, one he clearly displays in the movie American Psycho. He knows about Huey Lewis and the News, discussing their discography in great length. Patrick REVELS in this type of discussion, the niche cultural nuances of how each piece of music is received. Patrick’s fixation on the systems in place, as well as his interest in music, make his cutie mark as a pony make a lot of sense. Patrick’s autistic ass ramblings abt social structures and the way things are perceived (same as hell btw) couple great with that interest in music. So you know what his talent is, what his calling is, and who he is as a pony.

Now for the counter argument: his cutie mark should be an axe. No. Not at all my guy. Patrick’s cutie mark being an axe would imply one crucial thing: that he is in any way exceptionally good at murder. You could argue the axe is abstract, but it is still a much looser fit than the vinyl. Patrick’s thing w music ties into his personality and is something he’s more attuned to than murdering. Because here’s what that commenter fails to understand, and what many people watching American Psycho don’t get: Patrick Bateman is not good at murder. He gets a few kills in, sure, but those are people in explicitly vulnerable positions (ex. the sex worker), or just animals. Patrick Bateman fails to kill anyone who is in any way an equal or greater than him. “But he kills Paul Allen!” Did he? Because if he did, he sure as hell is never going to get the credit for doing so. No one believes him when he says he did. Patrick Bateman is robbed of the glory, the power, of killing Paul, because no one believes him. Or maybe he didn’t at all! American Psycho is a weird movie. My point is Patrick Bateman is a killer, sure, and he’s good at what he does, but what he does is weak. The axe is a sign of the one piece of victory he really gets, one that is robbed for him at the end of the movie. The axe is not representative of who he is as a person, but rather who he wants to be. Who he will, fundamentally, never be. No way in hell it would ever be his cutie mark. The vinyl and music notes ties in much deeper to his personality and mannerisms (as per the movie).

I went on this rant to my friend Bella the other day and I think she got hung up on the Patrick Bateman pony bit. She and I had different viewing thoughts, tho we viewed it at the same time. It’s whatever, I think the movie is cool. It’s passed midnight here and I think I’m getting sick goodnite

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week? (Specially Ultimates, Action comics and Absolute Batman)

Absolute Batman #1 - This was entertaining! After years of the mainline Batman book constantly trying to one up itself, it's fun to read something as simple as Batman going up against a gang again. It's an issue that is very much in conversation with Snyder's New 52 #1, with both issues musing on the nature of Gotham. Difference here is that Bruce himself is the heart of the city, he grew up amidst his own Rogues Gallery, and he's trying to do good in his public identity by rebuilding what he breaks as Batman. Also did anyone else think that the reference to the Party Animals being multiple animals across the globe is setting up the reveal that the "Illuminati" Black Mask works for is the Absolute equivalent to the Court of Owls? Very excited to see Martha is still alive, she's always been underserved compared to Thomas, and I just realized, they've flipped Batman and Superman here. Batman loses his father but still has his mom while Superman has neither of his parents in this AU. I kinda think Batman is going to be the brightest of the Trinity while Superman will be the darkest. Only thing I'm unsure of... rich Joker. We all knew this was coming, no way was Snyder not going that route, but I wish he had held off on Joker for longer.

Great first issue regardless, this delivers the summer blockbuster energy Snyder delivered with the New 52, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

Action Comics #1070 - At long last, Waid finally does a run on one of the main Superbooks and... it's boring? Ok it's only the first issue but still. Maybe reading this right after Snyder prejudiced me, but there's nothing here to draw you back. The body horror is fairly tame, Henry's style is too smooth to evoke the disgust this needs. Waid's take on the Superman/Jimmy relationship is pure Silver Age which I don't like, for a guy who hates Superdad, Waid sure does like writing Superman as paternal to everyone he meets. Supes and Jimmy should be brothers not father/son. Did appreciate Jimmy being useful and taking down the Kryptonian baddie with his signal watch, but we should've gotten more of a tease about what's going down in the Phantom Zone. Despite being on the cover, neither Xa nor Mon are actually in the issue. Good thing this is weekly and we won't have to wait long for the followup. Supergirl backup was pure setup too, nothing really to say yet about that either.

Batman & Robin #14 - Poor PKJ, his first issue of B&R is going to be completely overshadowed by Absolute Batman. Enjoyed this issue, new villain seems interesting, but Damian sounds off. I'm sure it would be even more egregious if I had been reading Williamson. Going to stick with this for now as my one mainline Batbook.

Ultimates #5 - I like the Ultimate Hawkeye, had thought he would be someone we knew from 616 but instead he's like She-Hulk, a new face for an old name. Commentary on how symbols and stories not meant for you can still end up inspiring you anyway was insightful, as seen through the prism of a Native American enjoying cowboy and Indian movies.

[cogentranting]

*Don Bluth had no involvement with this but it was theatrically released direct sequels to his movies and I wanted to include it ** Don Bluth had no involvement with these and they were not released in theaters but I decided to include them anyway Thoughts/Propaganda below the cut

The Secret of NIMH- I can only recall like 2 seconds of this movie, but I have full faith that it's good (unless all the hype is for the book...)

An American Tail- A I don't remember this one well either but I do remember liking it and the giant steampunk mouse they built and also the absolutely iconic Somewhere Out There

The Land Before Time- We all know this one is good right?

All Dogs Go to Heaven- This movie is my go to example of INSANE 80s/early 90s kids movies. The hero runs an illegal casino until he's murdered by his business partner (who is named after Scarface), and then he spends most of the movie trying to cheat death because he'll be sent to Hell and he's exploiting a child to gamble the entire time. Also the Alligator???? Anyway this movie is wild and I watched it a LOT as a kid.

Rock-A-Doodle- Never seen it. Rooster?

Thumbelina- Do not remember it but I remember the vibes and they are good.

A Troll in Central Park- I have never seen this movie BUT I could probably recite the trailer verbatim because it was on my VHS of Black Beauty and I watched that movie all the time (also featured the trailer for Little Giants and a Chuck E. Cheese commercial where a child turns into an old man)

The Pebble and the Penguin- Too much talk about Don Bluth only knowing how to draw one man (or two) and not enough about the insane character design for Drake

(that's a PENGUIN). Also it stars Martin Short, Jim Belushi and Tim Curry. Anastasia- You don't need me to hype Anastasia. you know. Also I KNOW that I left off Bartok the Magnificent but I ran out of room. You can vote for it on this one if you want.

Titan A.E.- You should absolutely go watch Titan A.E. because it's just really really solid sci fi. Cool alien designs, nice use of a mixed cgi and traditional animation elements. Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Nathan Lane (But evil), Bill Pullman, John Leguizamo. incomprehensible grunge movie. And random lines that are forever burned into my brain like "fight the good fight, Precious". Fievel Goes West- This has John Cleese as the villain, and is the Hollywood Icon Jimmy Stewart's last movie. A fun western! Fun fact; the VHS copy that we got when I was a kid (and gave away like... last week) we got from our Dentist's office. I do not know how that came to be. but I want you to be aware of it. Also for further lines forever in my mind: "your darling baby bubby bunka boo"

All 13 Land Before Time Sequels- My research says there are 13 but I suspect there's more they just don't want to admit to. But on the other hand, Chomper.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Ugh...

Here we go again with this... Something something, "It's not my fault Disney is making these sequels! I avoided their latest original movies because they sucked! I shouldn't be to blame for that!"

A) These Disney Animation and Pixar sequels were likely always going to be made regardless of how the recent original movies performed financially. In the biz, if a movie makes a shit-ton of money, it's likely getting a sequel. It ain't 1997 anymore.

B) There is no blame or punishment, per se... The system in the world of mainstream American feature animation is working as intended. It's capitalism 101. It sucks, yes, but that's how it is. The performance of one movie dramatically affects the slate, or even the studio's survival. Must we dredge up what happened to Blue Sky after The Walt Disney Company bought them and their first movie released by them lost money at the box office? Better yet, all the times Disney Animation faced shutdown for many decades.

C) What if... Hear me out... These sequels are all pretty good? Better than the recent original stuff, even? Impossible! Something can be a critically-acclaimed audience favorite, and you'd still have gaggles of people online insisting the thing in question is garbage. Just look at TURNING RED, for example. It's all fuckin' subjective at the end of the day.

D) It's never gonna be good enough anyways, so why bother? I don't think I can name a *single* Disney animated movie where almost everyone was on the same page, praising it... Since THE LION KING? The latter-years Renaissance movies all had their detractors, as did the early 2000s movies, as did all the "Revival" movies (why don't they do 2D anymore? Because a lot of people avoided PRINCESS AND THE FROG and WINNIE THE POOH). I remember there were at least a few people who didn't like TANGLED, WRECK-IT RALPH, etc. etc. Were very vocal about that or didn't think they were "Disney enough" or whatever. Hell, even LION KING used to get flack for the KIMBA similarities. Plenty of the now-beloved films overseen by Walt Disney himself were largely greeted with mixed or negative reviews upon initial release. It'll never be perfect, it's just the nature of the beast. How the movies live on, is the more important part. Not the opinions of self-appointed "experts" on the Internet. Again, it's all personal preference.

The thing is, the movies Disney chooses to make is kind out of our control. No one should be obliged to pay for a product so that you get the next one like it ("vote with your wallet!"), but unfortunately, that's how the biz works. If you're not game on the latest films from the studio, you're also not to blame for what they do next, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do. That's just that about that. Hell, the thing can be a big success... And they'll still do the opposite of what people want! Off the top of my head, not an animated movie, but WORLD WAR Z 2 not moving forward despite how well the first one did. Again, it sucks. But... If WDAS ever got to a point where they were making things that I just did not want to see whatsoever? Then I'd go watch something else. It's ultimately the higher-ups' decisions that are at fault.

Very rarely are financial failures looked at logically, very rarely do executives ever try to pick up the pieces from there. Instead it's "never make this kind of thing again" or "shut this place down". It happened to Blue Sky. It happened at DreamWorks, projects cancelled (B.O.O., MONKEYS OF MUMBAI, etc.), staff laid off, a whole animation unit closed down (Pacific Data Images), etc. Disney Animation threw 2D features out twice, cancelled many movies, laid off tons of people multiple times, they faced complete shutdown multiple times. Animated movies are expensive and require lots of people and resources, they're fragile as is. COVID-19 really cut into their box office, and it doesn't help that going to the movies costs a fortune.

I'm not saying this is all a good, it's not. I've just made peace with it, and can only hope films keep getting made, staff still have work and roofs to keep over their heads, and maybe... Just maybe, I'll like the movies, too?

Anyways, I hope I like MOANA 2. I'm curious to see what the director and writers and artists and musical talents all bring to this world that was created by the first film.

[finalgirlminamurray]

while i'm here i might as well do something of an introductory post.

horror as a genre has been a big special interest of mine for a long time. i've always been kind of drawn to "scary" things out of...i don't even know, some kind of interest in why certain things were considered scary and an inherent fascination in things that were deliberately designed to be scary because of that. i didn't really grow up watching horror movies like some people did (because as a kid i assumed i wasn't allowed to watch anything r-rated and i didn't have a strong interest in seeking out movies that were above my age) but i sure did read a lot and there's plenty of genuinely scary kids' books out there, even before i read my first stephen king novel (misery, age 13, borrowed from my aunt-who-was-really-mom's-friend who knew i could handle it.)

anyway once i turned 18 and went off to college i took full advantage of being able to watch whatever i wanted and started watching every classic horror film i could find and never looked back. i like horror from all decades and subgenres - i like to think i have a good variety in my tastes. i'm pretty desensitized at this point so i don't often find that movies actually "scare" me; that's not the primary reason i watch them. it's just my favorite genre.

it would be impossible to list all of my "favorites" but here are some particularly special and important movies to me:

the texas chain saw massacre (1974) - obviously. i was fascinated with this one ever since i heard the title and my brain latched onto it and wouldn't let go. there's just so much there to talk about with it and i've found it an endlessly compelling setting to work with. i'm also very fond of the texas chainsaw massacre 2 (1986), which is mostly a more "fun" movie but i still feel doesn't get analyzed enough. i watch both every year on the 18th of august. i know there are other films in the series but. i don't care for them.

the wicker man (1973) - i'm a big fan of folk horror in general but this is the ur-example for a reason. the soundtrack alone would probably have pushed this into my top 10 and yet it's still an extremely well-made fascinating film. another annual watch for me because how else are you going to celebrate may day

black christmas (1974) - i don't really think of myself as a slasher fan but the ones that i like i REALLY like. i really feel this one does not get its due in terms of the influence it ended up having on the genre nearly enough. great characters great atmosphere great sense of dark humor while often being genuinely scary. also coming up on its 50th anniversary this year so we should do something to celebrate

a nightmare on elm street (1984) - another slasher i really like. when wes craven's films hit they hit. nancy thompson one of my favorite horror protagonists ever. strangely enough i often find i'm alone for liking the first film best in the series. i would probably like 3 better if nancy didn't die. sorry!

re-animator (1985) - this is what i think of when i think of 80s horror. again the perfect combination of good characters great practical effects and an excellent dark sense of humor. it just suffers from regrettable treatment of its only female lead character but there's also always bride of re-animator which ups the wacky frankenstein nonsense without any scenes you have to warn people about before they get into it. jeffrey combs' herbert west one of my favorite little freaks in horror fiction.

american psycho (2000) - if you don't get the satire of this one that's on you. i just enjoy this one so much. it's brilliantly executed (ha!) i did read the book but i think the film does a very good job distilling and presenting its ideas in a more marketable but no less effective way. i really hope it doesn't develop the reputation of being an overplayed Meme Movie because it's such a good film.

the ring (2002) - okay i don't know if i'm putting this here because i think it's a great movie or if it was just such a formative experience for me but i'll allow myself one nostalgia choice. this was the first real horror movie i ever watched (anyone else's middle school have a pre-halloween event night where they'd have costume contests and show spooky movies? well we used to have one pg-13 rated film each year and this was the one that made an impression on me.) normally i hate 2000s horror remakes and this one does itself no favors by being an american remake of a foreign film (it does have more in common with the film adaptation of ringu than the original novel) but it's probably the best you can get with one of those. i was obsessed with this for a year after watching it and it's probably what actually kick-started my horror film interest. i went down a rabbit hole of ringu lore on my own at age 12-13 and sadako yamamura ended up being the first horror villain i really loved as a character in their own right while everyone my age made a big deal out of being terrified of "the ring girl". that might say something about me or it might not.

that's a brief tour of my horror history i guess. there are so many more films (and books!) i love and i'm always looking for more. my favorite decade of horror is almost definitely the 70s but there's something to love in every era (there are trends but they're not monoliths) and i love seeing new stuff. i can be pretty opinionated and can get a little pretentious, in a way, about my chosen genre so be assured it all comes from a place of love. i like more things than i hate, i think.

i'll be using this space to drop my thoughts about various scary movies and books i've seen and read recently or not so recently. i'm just glad to have a repository for All Of My Opinions.

final note: it's horror if i think it's horror based on vibes. hope this helps

[crmsnmth-journal]

4/14/2024 9:00 PM

I had a really good Sunday. I didn't get much done at all, but I got to refresh my head. I went down to the river's edge and hiked to the bridge and back, about four miles all together. The woods are really waking up now that it seems spring is officially here. I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, we probably hit seventy degrees today. There's a tradeoff though, because now my room seems unreasonably hot. I won't open my window, because my screen has holes in it, and I really do not like bats in the house. I love to see them outside, but I do not like them flying around my house. They freak me out, and for some reason or other, rabies scares the absolute hell out of me. I don't mess with wild animals that can bite me and kill me with a disease that looks like something extremely horrible to go through.

I got my first negative "you suck" comments on one of my poems, and, maybe this is weird, but that makes me beyond happy. Sure, getting likes and reblogs, and nice comments are fun and all, but I was waiting until someone thinks I am so awful at what I love to do, that they need to tell me. If it's constructive, I'm all for it, and I will take those opinions with deep consideration, but to those who just tell me I suck, without really knowing anything about what I do, or more importantly WHY i do what i do, I feel sad for. Art critics. The idea of being a critic in any form of art fields is a laugh. Art is subjective. What I write means something different for someone else. What I see in my head is a totally different painting then the one hanging up on the wall. What I hear in music is far off from what someone else's ears hear. And that should be respected. I can't stand Taylor Swift, but I respect her place in the music world. I don't think Van Gogh paintings aren't all the beautiful, but I still consider him one of the masters but I'd put Robert S. Connet on that hill too. Memento dragged on, but Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors. And if you see something, and your thought is "wow, this sucks" and not "Let's try to make it better" maybe it's best you just shut the fuck up and let people have their thing. I will always love "You suck" comments, on the simple fact I've pissed one more stranger off.

But now, I'm sitting here, writing this and I'll write a few other lines while watching Melancholia for who knows how many times. I love me some Lars Von Trier films. The guy is a master at his craft. I need a break from Futurama anyway. As much as I love the show, after a bit some of the characters just irritate me and I can't do the show. I'm at a good spot to take a break anyway. The very beginning of the "movie" season.

Hopefully my brother turns up soon. They were headed into town so I sent them with some money to pack me up some soda and pop tarts. Yes, I know. I eat like a twelve year old. I don't care. I don't eat much, and when a strawberry poptart and a coke is all I can get down, it's healthier than not eating anything at all, right? Kind of ironic isn't it? A chef with no appetite. I can't remember the last time I ate something from where I work.

I did forget to take about Jolie yesterday. I've known her for years, as she used to run the kitchen in the American Legion at the same time I first took over the bowling alley kitchen. And we have always gotten along extremely well. It's always a good time when she's around. Just that kind of person. So she left the legion and hasn't done anything in the business since, but her and her husband are looking to buy a restaurant, and she offered me the job to come on has an actual head chef. I mean, I'd get to do menus again, and work with distributors and come up with stuff and have the actual fun parts of the job handed back. Of course, that means I'd also have to do the shitty parts too, budgets, scheduling, budgets, most maintence, did I mention budgets? Still, maybe it's a sign? I've been talking about how badly I want out of the alley, that maybe this is the universe giving me an option to do that, and maybe even re-light the fire and the passion for food to burn bright again?

[creativename87]

no wait wait please please I have so many

Tearjerker movies: - I want to eat your pancreas y

Tearjerker movies part two - A silent voice x

Tearjerker movies part three - Your Name x

(^ all romance and animated beautifully. best animation would be your name, and while I love it, the best plot would be i want to eat your pancreas but my god are they all so good)

Tragedy/war anime with a protagonist many consider to be better than Light Yagami in both charisma and intelligence (like if you hate Light you'll probably love him, if you love Light you'll probably love him) like he's the highest-rated character on my anime list if that matters to anyone- no? well it matters to me. great cast, and the mind games in it are amazing. The ending is the best I've ever seen- it's a story revolving around our main protagonist Lelouch Lamperouge as he decides to mecha fight with a bunch of mind games and war planning his way and becomes the leader of a group of terrorists working to overthrow the oppressive government who have taken over japan. But his best friend joins the opposite side and tries to defeat the system from the inside, working in it to change it. Due to the fact that they both wear masks, neither knows the other's identity. And yes, they have so much sexual tension it isn't even funny. We have a bunch of other characters and lots of secret identity stuff while also a bunch of other stuff (do you see me absolutely struggling not to spoil anything?) anyway it's a great show if anything I said sounds compelling to you, you should watch it -- code geass (there's a lot of nudity and gore though so keep that in mind while watching-- also I've been told by my ex-friend when i tried to get them to watch this that the animation was bad-- you do get used to it and it's totally worth it) y

A mix of jazz-funk, western style American television shows, space sci-fi, noir, and so many more, with an amazing ending, compelling characters, and a very potent theme that can speak heavily to people who are struggling with depression or who can't let go of the past - it revolves around a group of bounty hunters who all have some ache left behind from their past as they try to make ends meet by taking any bounty that comes their way-- cowboy bebop (it can be very episodic though, so if you aren't a fan of that type of storytelling keep that in mind) y

Found family, great characters, an amazing plot, a really good ending, and just an absolute joy to watch. If you haven't heard of it, it revolves around an underdog class who's been ostracized by their school and the very powerful alien teacher who comes into the classroom to teach them. The government, believing that the students have a better shot assassinating the teacher than they do (since the teacher says he'll blow up the planet in one year) put a huge bounty on the alien and task the class with killing him in any way they can. It's really fun and I highly recommend it-- Assassination Classroom xy

I can't say much at all since it would count as a spoiler but if you're curious please please watch just the first three episodes of it, trust me you'll understand what I mean -- Puella magi madoka magica xy

A comedy that plays upon anime troupes and is one of the funniest things I've watched. Not only that but characters who were initially introduced as stereotypes of the genre become full fleshed-out characters and not only begin to grow on you, but you begin to fall in love with them. The relationship they build together is absolutely amazing and it's way less serious than most of the other anime on this list and still manages to get you connected and invested in these characters and their little found family -- The Disastrous Life of Saki K. y

And that's it. I have others but uh I'd rather not over pile you (I already wrote a lot-- very sorry about that! I just like writing about animes I like I guess) if you do watch any of them please please talk to me please I love all of these so much, and they're really diverse so i feel like there's something for you in here :D

Below is what types of ending each anime has (whether they're good or bad) so if that's something important to you, you can keep reading. if not, then I'd recommend just going into whichever one you find interesting

all the titles i end with x is sad ending

y is happy ending

and xy is bittersweet.

and for one anime I put x even though it's really a more bittersweet ending (code geass) i think you'll see why

hello may i ask you guys to recommend me some anime to watch i already finished thousand autumns

[lil-tachyon]

Hey logan, i'm trying to get into sci fi more, do you have any media, movies or otherwise you'd say it's a must watch for someone starting to get into it? Thanks

Super broad question! And precisely the thing I love to talk about. Although unfortunately I really don’t watch a lot of movies or TV so the best I can do for you is list some stuff I like and hope that you find something you enjoy. If we were talking sci-fi literature, that’s something I would probably write a full essay on- if anyone’s interested in reading my thoughts on that and getting my really long list of recommendations, just let me know. I might even do it on my own anyway, just for fun…

I guess if we’re going to talk about “must-watch” sci-fi movies then we have to talk about Star Wars first just to get it out of the way. I’ll keep it brief, far too much ink has been spilt regarding this franchise and you can find more in-depth opinions somewhere else. The original trilogy is great- there’s a reason it launched one of the biggest media franchises of the past 45 years. Endlessly rewatchable, somehow still looks better than basically any other big budget SFF popcorn movie and just plain fun. If you somehow haven’t seen the OT yet, get to it. 

You don’t really need to watch any other Star Wars stuff aside from the OT. The prequels aren’t exactly essential and they’re unquestionably worse in terms of dialog, acting, pacing (i.e. the nuts and bolts of storytelling.) If you’ve never watched Star Wars before you won’t have any nostalgia for them so you can skip them. Don’t even bother with the Disney sequels- pointless and incoherent. If you DO for some reason want more Star Wars in your life I can give you two recommendations: 

First is the masterpiece that is Genndy Tartakovsky’s (creator of Samurai Jack) Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) (no, not the CGI Clone Wars show you’re probably thinking of). Split into 25 episodes ranging in length from two to twelve minutes, the whole show is only about two hours long but boy is it sweet. There are no main characters and not much in the way of an overarching plot. Instead the show is composed of a series of rapid-fire vignettes that take place across the entire Star Wars galaxy and tell dozens of unique microstories. It’s pulpy and fun and never takes itself too seriously and the whole thing is on YouTube because for some reason Disney actually hates everything that made Star Wars good and hasn’t taken the time to copyright strike it.

Second recommendation is the Mandalorian. I didn’t believe it when people started raving about it, but it really is great and tells a poignant, self-contained, original story. It’s not perfect and it definitely suffers from the Disneywars curse of really obnoxious references to the OT, but it’s absolutely worth the watch.

Damn that’s so much more time than I wanted to spend on Star Wars. I always forget how much of a SW geek I am until I start talking about it…

Quick list of the other big “essentials” that I’ve seen and can recommend before I get into more personal stuff (in no particular order):

Alien (1979) - Weird and creepy and gross and with impeccable visual design in every single frame. I need to rewatch it, only seen it once.

Akira (1988) - Massive, groundbreaking, unsettling, beautiful. Brought cyberpunk into the visual realm, brought anime to the West in a whole new way. I could rewatch it a hundred times. 

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - A foundational film that moves at a foreboding crawl and leaves you feeling unsafe and unsure of what you just watched. (Also my dad’s band referenced the monkey scene in their big-label debut music video, so that should be reason enough to watch it)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - UFOs, the American West, and the most 70s-looking cast imaginable. It feels more a product of its time than most of the others on this list, but I love it for that and it does nothing to make it any less impactful or engrossing.

The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) - I waited waaaaaay too long to watch these. I only got around to seeing them this past year in fact. I had always just written them off in my head as nothing more than cheesy 80s action flicks but my God are they good and so much different from what I expected. The first one is basically a sci-fi slasher film and the second is probably the best sequel film I’ve ever seen and takes everything in a totally different direction that still manages to build on all the groundwork laid by the first. Please watch, don’t be like me and wait until you’re twenty-six. 

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) - My favorite Ghibli movie. For being a film about people flying airships and fighting bugs in a giant toxic jungle, it really has a lot of important stuff to say and says it very well.

Castle in the Sky (1988) - Hits a lot of the same plot beats as Nausicaä and, imo, suffers a little bit in comparison but still a great anime sci-fantasy romp. 

The Thing (1982) - Disgusting sci-fi horror in the glacial Antarctic wastes

The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) - The first, the best. Sure, it’s inconsistent in terms of quality, but it’s at least consistently weird and inventive and the good episodes are really damn good. Also something I love about it is the acting- it’s very over-the-top expressive and exaggerated. Feels more like it’s meant for the stage than for the small screen. You don’t see a lot of TV like that these days. 

The X-Files (1993-2002, 2016-2018) - Absolutely in my top 5 TV shows. It was great to watch as a 14-year-old because I was still young enough to find it scary, and it’s great on every re-watch because I can really appreciate how much chemistry Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny have and how fun, goofy, and overall weird it is. As I recall it starts to decline noticeably in season 8. Season 9 you’ll have to grit your teeth to get through. The 2016-2018 revival is half composed of unwatcheable “storyline” episodes and half surprisingly good-to-great “monster of the week” episodes.

Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999) - My number one favorite anime, I love everything about it. So much effort goes into small background details and characters that only appear for a few seconds and it really goes a long way to making the whole universe of the show feel so real that you could see yourself living in it. Also the soundtrack is top-notch, I listen to it regularly. 

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) and End of Evangelion (1997) - Another one that I took too long to get to and to be honest I probably would’ve been more into it had I watched it when I was younger, but it’s still great and I recommend it. Features a classic “inflation suit” episode

Stuff that’s less “essential” but I really like it:

Planetes (2003-2004) - My second favorite anime. Starts off as a workplace slice-of-life and slowly builds into a really, really emotional conclusion. Can’t recommend it enough.

Forbidden Planet (1956) - A sci-fi adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (I’m an illiterate piece of shit so I can’t tell you how good an adaptation it is). It’s slow-paced and eerie, and way more atmospheric than its decidedly 1950s visuals would lead you to believe.

Digimon: The Movie (2000) / Summer Wars (2009) - A short story: as a kid I probably watched the Digmon Movie about a million times. It was huge with kids my age and was probably an entire generation’s first introduction to ska-punk. It’s a great movie. Anyway, fast forward about a decade and a half and at some point I sit down to watch Summer Wars with my brother on no other information than that we heard it’s good. And it is! But pretty soon into the movie we both notice something odd- it seems to feature almost the exact same plot as the Digmon Movie. After a bit of digging we find out that they were both directed by the same guy and it seems he just had this idea in his head for a story that he really wanted to make for over a decade because Summer Wars is basically a more mature and less merchandisable remake. Watch them both!

Samurai Jack (2001-2004, 2017) - the first cartoon I saw as a kid that really made me say “finally, something for me!” I wouldn’t get another TV show aimed at me that was “cool” and “epic” and “badass” until ATLA came out. Nothing beats watching a samurai fight a million robots and bounty-hunters on an endless quest to go back to the past. Also the season 5 revival is great and I genuinely don’t get why a lot of people seemed to really hate on it. 

Moon (2009) - It’s been a LONG time since I watched it, but I liked it quite a bit. A lonely lunar miner runs into what seems to be his double and things get spooky…

Prospect (2018) - More space miners running into trouble! Really great costume and prop design on a super small budget (but you wouldn’t know it from how good it looks). 

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989) - Listen- I’m not a gundam guy. I don’t care about all the different robots and I’m not about to watch 40 years of TV to try and figure out the story. Which is why War in the Pocket is great because it’s six episodes long and it just tells a really touching story punctuated by cool robot battles and you don’t need to know anything about Gundam to enjoy it.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987) - A story about a space race set on an alternate world. What really sets it apart is the visual design- every detail from books, to currency, to texts to vehicles, to architecture is unique enough to feel totally alien but also grounded enough to somehow feel familiar. It’s quite an achievement. Trigger Warning: there’s a very uncomfortable rape scene in the middle of the film that seems to come out of nowhere. I’m still not sure why they chose to include it.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) - Military police get up to some real nasty stuff in alternate history fashy 1950s Japan. Very depressing, all my friends complained to me about how sad it was even though they went into it knowing what it was about and agreeing to watch it with me. You just can’t win sometimes!

That’s about all I have for now. I know it’s all kind of basic bitch stuff but like I said, I don’t often watch movies/TV. Hope it helps and thanks for the great question!

[azumasoroshi]

stronghart is such a dick holy shit :sob: susato is so disappointed in him

gregson really is the gumshoe of the game sheesh

a comprehensive roast of britain (deserved)

didnt hobo phoenix have a beard lmfao i guess it was just stubble so he was on thin ice but didnt fall through

a comprehensive roast of japan (deserved)

japan strikes back with a hard hit

japan hits itself

i cant possibly screenshot the whole rabbit boom conversation but japan hits itself again lmfAO id love to see a rap battle between susato and gregson about who had the weirder taxes itd be hilarious

the rabbit boom is fair though who wouldnt want rabbits i want rabbits

also susato's mascot is a bunny right that's actually really cute

oh my god her bunny name is usato that's so. awwwwwww

what i would give for susato art with bunnies ugh (that is a cue to send me all susato bunny art in existence)

can i learn all my history lessons from dgs characters please

actually why isnt that a thing. people hang onto every word said by uhhh what are they called. vtubers right yeah why arent there any history or chemistry vtubers id watch the shit out of those lmAOo

if i get a psychology and teaching degree you can bet on what my career path is gonna look like following college

or maybe in college. get ez money from being an anime professor

ANYWAY

fuck what's your favorite movie icebreakers this should be the new standard

SUSATO WHAT THE FUCK AHUSGDHKJSDGJKJSDHJSD

watch that have been an actual tax britain or japan had. actually i guess it kind of is in american healthcare or in heavily polluted cities hm

THIS IS THE LINE EVER

ryuunosuke you would be a great politician/lawmaker you'd fit right in with the rest of them

NAHHHHHHHHH france what the fuck

ace attorney suddenly becomes a pay to win game like episode where all the good choices are paywalled help

episode traumatized me dude you'd have like the nicest outfit ever and it would be locked behind diamonds and youd have to go in rags and everyone would be like "lmao why are you wearing rags" and your character would be like "why didn't i go with the paywalled outfit :(" it fucking SUCKED

actually that mightve been where i got my restraint on spending in game currency from because i never spent anything on those choices even though i really wanted them

holds up well even now since im a master at saving in gacha games

anyway i wasnt expecting to like this escapade as much because im kinda eh on stronghart and gregson as characters but surprisingly it was really entertaining agffgjhhghkj in no small part to how much of an unapologetic douchebag stronghart is

i might actually like stronghart a lot more than i did before because of this escapade lMAOO funny how that works out

(source: x)

[1kook]

kissanime & foreplay

this is part of my netflix & chill collection !

summary; You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans. warnings; mentions of hentai yes u read right, kook leads most of it, cunnilingus, masturbation (f), oral (f), use of a sex toy, fingering, nipple play, face sitting/fucking/riding idk (f), praise kink, hints of dumbification, cum eating, jk is like passive aggressive in this one, 4 (f) orgasms, this is the kicker: sub kook at the end😳, like 2 sec of dom yn lol, & u get 0.002 sec of adams apple kink misc; more dumb story lines, made up sex stores bc my creativity knows no bounds, Jungkook plays nice but is actually mean for the majority of it, once again doyeon plays a pivotal role in the furthering of women empowerment, internal love monologues about jk best boy<3 wc; 8.2k

notes; back when kissanime was offed I remember looking at this fic in the drafts like what the hell we gone do now.. n almost deleting it but I was like yknow what this isn’t a 1kook fic unless there’s smthn weird going on so here we are. also yes I know ohshc is on Netflix shut up!!!!! 

HAPPY BDAY MY LOVE AND MUSE JEON JUNGKOOK !!!! 🥺💜

—

The good thing about getting your own apartment is that you finally have a place to call your own. There’s no limit on how many potted plants you can squeeze into a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment, and if there was one, you’re twelve in and no one has said anything to you yet. You don’t have to share the shower space with anyone, label all your products with a hastily scribbled name. There’s a bathtub—something you haven’t had the pleasure of using during college—and a fairly open living space. There’s so many empty spots to fill with useless decorations and family heirlooms and that ugly plastic rooster Jungkook won you at the summer kick-off fair last month.

The bad thing about having your own place is that the entire world and their mothers seem to know now. Despite graduating from college, you still keep in touch with your trusted graduate mentor Kim Namjoon, who is still very much in school, and has made it his mission to bring you a new plant every week, hence your growing collection. Your childhood friend comes over every Saturday morning to lounge around after her Friday nights out. Jungkook, although the only one who is ever actually invited, runs through your strawberry scented body wash like a madman.

And of course, Doyeon.

Your beloved college roommate of four years, Kim Doyeon, has been the bane of your apartment experience so far. Unlike you, who had slaved away for four years, saving every penny you made during college for this moment, Doyeon was a big spender. She blew every dollar she ever came across, which is why she’s going to be stuck living at her parent’s house for at least a couple more years.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, if she wasn’t the most maniac online shopper in existence. It hadn’t been a problem in college because she was always good old pals with the students who worked the mailroom. If they saw something questionable, they’d let it slide as long as it was under Miss Kim Doyeon, Room 229.

The reason it became an issue for her now is because it’s poor Mrs. Kim who signs over the package from Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide! one Tuesday afternoon as it is delivered to their suburban home.

So now she’s taken to ordering all her freaky stuff to your new apartment, where the small cabinet by the door has quickly become home to her impulsive shopping habits. Truthfully, you don’t mind accepting Doyeon’s weird packages, and have long since grown used to the uncomfortable looks the mail carrier gives you.

Jungkook’s supposed to come over today and you really hope he doesn’t ask about the state of your hall cabinet. Now that you work at a small company outside of your degree to make ends meet, time with Jungkook has been significantly decreased. You weren’t in college anymore, so you didn’t have the luxury of dropping by his house whenever you wanted to in between classes. Of course, it’s mostly your schedule that conflicts with your planned hangouts, because Jungkook is still working his dream job from home.

However, because Jungkook is quite possibly the most amazing person on this planet, he’s started coming over every Saturday night to make sure you’re still alive and not dying. And so weekly media binges are a thing, and it’s currently week four.

He gave up on showing you the Marvel movie franchise last week, after you had asked where Wonder Woman was three times in a row. Since the Barbie Movie Debacle of last month, you’ve found a nice medium between who picks when. Jungkook picks most of the time, because most of the time you don’t really care. It’s become a running joke between the two of you that movie binges are usually just terribly masked excuses to go to town on each other, so you don’t mind missing an entire 15th Century French Revolution documentary if it means Jungkook is deep in your guts by the time King Louis XIV gets beheaded or whatever they did to him. Is it too obvious you didn’t watch the documentary?

Occasionally, there are instances where one of you genuinely does want to watch something, in which case you have an intense match of rock-paper-scissors to decide who’s picking that night. Most of the time, Jungkook wins. But for every match Jungkook wins, he promises you’ll pick the next one so you’ve long since stopped trying to actually beat him.

Long story short, last weekend you sat through a two part Ancient Aliens episode on the connection between aliens and American presidents.

It was the most god-awful conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard of, but Jungkook ate up every minute of it. By the time the two hosts announced their conclusion you were just about ready to rip your own ears off and single-handedly fist fight every producer on the channel for allowing the production of such an atrocious show.

Anyway, because you had so bravely sat through the entire evening without complaints— well, no complaints towards Jungkook’s terrible taste; the show, however, was not safe from your wicked tongue —Jungkook has so graciously allowed you to pick the media for this weekend.

You’ve been telling him for the longest time that you were going to hook him on anime. It was one of the few interests you always believed Jungkook should possess, being a weeb and all, because it was only fair that he had one questionable trait to balance out the rest of his perfection. Liking anime isn’t bad— if a hottie like you enjoyed it, then it obviously had its perks. However, you know a lot of other people are turned off by anime-enthusiasts due to preconceived notions of the genre and the viewer-base.

Now, it was a widely known fact that you always had ulterior motives. So maybe turning Jungkook into a weeb was just a ploy to turn other women off from him and keep your jealousy at bay. Sue you, your boyfriend was a walking wet dream, and you’d do anything to keep him to yourself.

After long deliberation, you’ve decided on introducing Jungkook to anime with a classic: Ouran High School Host Club, a god among anime, a true Beyonce among shoujos. The only problem was that you absolutely refused to pay Crunchyroll or Funimation when you could so easily find the entire show on KissAnime.com, home to only the finest of hentai ads and Are You a Robot? questions.

He sends you a text when he’s outside your building, and five minutes later there’s a rap against your door.

“Hi,” you smile up at him, heart fluttering in that same trademark way it did whenever Jungkook was within a five foot radius. He smiles back softly, leaning down to peck your lips as you step aside for him to enter. He’s got on those cotton sweats that you love, the ones that send your brain into a censored frenzy. But he’s also got that soft curl to his hair that lets you know he came here straight out of the shower in his hurry to see you. How you managed to bag a dream boyfriend like him was beyond you.

You bask in the overwhelming feeling of unannounced love for all of ten seconds before Jungkook is lifting up a square package you hadn’t seen at his hip. “Mailman gave me this,” he says, waving around the signature bright pink packaging of Sexuality Unleashed. Jungkook, for all his politeness and respect, seemed to falter in those categories when it came to you. He turns the box over, reading the big fat name of the company on the side. “Since when did you start buying sex toys?” he asks rather loudly in the hallway.

You yank him inside, hurriedly slamming the door shut before any of your neighbors can come out into the hallway and get a peek of this avid sex toy consumer. “They’re not mine!” you hiss, standing still when he uses you to balance himself as he tugs off his shoes. You snatch the box out of his hands, turning it around to make sure it is actually addressed to your home. Sure enough, it’s for you. Couldn’t there have been some other sex toy fanatic on this floor?

With his shoes off, Jungkook wastes no time enveloping you in a hug, the Sexuality Unleashed box tumbling to the ground. “It’s okay, baby, no need to be embarrassed.”

You groan, leaning your forehead against his shoulder as he continues to pat your back like you’re actually embarrassed to be caught buying toys— you’re not. You’re embarrassed he caught you with a sex toy you simply can’t put to use. “Whatever,” you sigh, “your gross popcorn is in my bedroom and it’s probably stale.”

He releases you, not before pulling you into a slow and languid kiss that has you clutching tightly at the front of his shirt. He pulls away with a soft smooch, right eye falling into a wink. “Bring the box, gorgeous,” he teases, before sauntering off in the direction of your bedroom.

You groan loudly. “It’s not mine!” you repeat, but for some reason do as he says.

Not only do you have no idea what’s in this package, but you’re frankly not too keen on finding out. You’re more interested in Jungkook’s reaction to one of your favorite animes of all time. The package is tossed onto the end of the bed, where Jungkook has already stripped himself of his socks and cuddled beneath your covers.

Your laptop has gone dark from inactivity so you slam down on the space bar to bring it back to life. Your first mistake was pressing anything at all. It flickers back on alright, but you forget that you are working with a minefield of ads ready to explode. You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans.

“What the hell is this?” he asks in a tone that screams he has never had to fight viruses off his computer just to watch something at two in the morning.

You ignore him, cuddling into his side as you hurriedly type in the title of the anime before another annoying ad can intercept you. “KissAnime,” you answer for now, accidentally clicking down on the mousepad with the heel of your palm. Another tab opens up to some sketchy credit site. You huff.

“Baby, I swear I just saw like twelve viruses,” he says. “And what even are these?” he scoffs, jabbing a finger at one of the many ads that lines the perimeter of the website. “Animated teacher porn?”

By the grace of god, you somehow manage to get onto the episode selection screen without having another tab open on you. You smile in relief, turning the power of your excitement onto Jungkook… only to find his eyes narrowed in on the square advertisement for some hentai website. “What? You wanna watch hentai now?” you snort, placing the laptop on his legs as you cuddle into his side.

Jungkook sputters, cheeks tinting red at the mere insinuation he would ever consume such media. “No,” he glares, releasing the arm around your shoulders to huffily cross them over his chest. “I am not going to watch anatomically incorrect illustrations of a woman teacher relieving herself, ___,” he says rather matter-of-factly.

You snort, repeating, “a woman teacher,” mockingly and in a high pitched voice that, honestly, doesn't sound anything like him. You click play on the video box that appears after only about twenty more pop-up ads. “Silence, you nymphomaniac, the episode is starting.” Jungkook pulls you close with a displeased expression, finally quieting down when you put it on full screen and the ads disappear from his view.

You’re beginning to wonder if Jungkook really is the script and plot dissector he claims to be, or if he just lives to get under your skin. He doesn’t make it three minutes without finding something to critique. First it’s the quality of the frames, and then it’s the characterization of the lead character. He nitpicks everything about the best anime in existence, and by the end of the first episode you’re considering breaking up with him.

“Oh my god,” you groan, tearing yourself away from him. He’s all laid up against your mountain of pillows, tongue prodding at the insides of his mouth in that ridiculously attractive habit of his. Usually, you’d be tripping over yourself to kiss him, but you’re about two seconds from ripping his head off. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, baby,” you sigh, picking up his hand in yours. “You gotta shut up.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “I have to shut up?” he asks in a scandalized tone. “You sang through the entire intro, off tune may I add.”

At this rate you’re getting nowhere, so you just snatch the laptop back up before you actually hurt his feelings. You escape the full screen, met with those hentai ads that are slowly becoming the bane of Jungkook’s existence.

“Who actually watches those anyway?” he mumbles, covering the sidebar full of naked cartoon ladies with his palm for you, a real gentleman if you ever saw one. “Really?” he says, knocking his pointer finger against a particularly raunchy ad with the caption Be a Good Boy and Let her Play beneath it.

You snort. “You are such a baby,” you tease, pinching his cheek much to his annoyance. “What? Can’t handle seeing some anime titties?”

Jungkook shoves your hand away, leaning back to become one with the pillows as you continue onto the next episode. “They’re just weird,” he admits. “And make unrealistic faces.”

“Unrealistic,” you repeat, finally giving one of the ads the time of day. There’s an adorably drawn character making the most perverted expression, knees hiked up to her chest. Her face is twisted up, drooling like a dog and with her eyes crossed in ecstasy. You shrug. “Just because you can’t get those faces out of me doesn’t mean they’re unreal.”

The second the words leave your mouth Jungkook is letting out a scandalized scoff, sitting up to level you with another glare. “First of all, I can get you like that,” he defends, tapping his finger against the ad on screen. “In fact, I can get you like that without even trying, so let’s not say anything too drastic now, okay?”

His sudden bout of defensiveness makes something playful in you switch on, laying back down beside him with a smirk. “Oh, you can make me all stupid like this?”

Jungkook scoffs. “Yes.”

“Uh huh,” you drawl, tracing a finger up his chest teasingly; Jungkook knocks your knuckles away, obviously still butt hurt about your comment. That’s fine, because a slightly riled up Jungkook was always the best Jungkook. You sit up and lean in close, letting your hand slip beneath his hoodie, palm running over his bare shoulder and around the top of his back. You give his nape a light squeeze, lips pressed against the shell of his ear. “Why don’t you prove it to me, Jungkookie?” you purr, before pulling away.

His jaw twitches at the nickname, one shapely brow unconsciously arching as he regards you with a calculative expression.

The thing about Jungkook was that, after almost a year of dating, you know just how to push his buttons. He has a rather calm and collected exterior to him, the same one he’s had since the day you met him, but beneath it all was a childish competitiveness that raged with the heat of ten suns. He disliked being taunted like you were doing now, especially when his credibility was at stake.

Honestly speaking, you don’t doubt Jungkook can make you look as goofy and messy as those hentai ads. In fact you’re rather confident he can. Either way, him being right or you being right, you would still get some fun out of it.

“Hm?” you add, tracing your hand up to dance over the skin of his cheek, pads of your fingers running over that stiff jaw. “Are you scared I’m right and you’re wrong?”

A hand snaps up to catch your wrist, fingers tight around your skin until you’re shivering against him. “Oh baby, I can make you cum until you cry,” he murmurs, his usual sweet and lilting tone dropping to a low vibration that makes your pussy throb beneath your panties. Your heart leaps in your chest, lips falling open when he ducks down to brush them against yours. It’s too light, just a simple touch that makes you follow his mouth when he pulls back.

With one firm shove, the laptop is tumbling off the bed, thudding loudly against your bedside rug. Jungkook leans over you, his usual trademark doe eyes zeroed in on you with the focus of a laser. “Have a little faith in me,” he teases, and when he presses close you can feel his fattening cock flush against your thigh. Your body is begging to be touched, every brush of his fingers against your skin searing trails in their wake.

Suddenly, he’s drawing back. “Kook?” you frown, barely biting down on a childish whimper when he snuggles back into your mountain of pillows, one arm stretched behind his head.

He flashes you a smile. “Go on,” he says, arms behind his head. “Show me how to get you like that.”

“By myself?” you ask, shifting onto your knees anyway. Jungkook nods, a soft jut of his chin as he gives you another one of those easy going smiles of his. His goal seems a little unclear, but you had a ridiculous amount of trust in your boyfriend that whatever he had planned was certain to be good. With one final skeptical glance his way, you sink down onto your bum, knees spreading and giving him a clear view of your little pink boy shorts, elastic band hugging your waist.

The material of your t-shirt is guided away, held to your chest by the hand currently not traversing the length of your stomach, gliding across soft skin, over your belly button and past that band until it slips beneath. You chance another look Jungkook’s way, only to find his eyes wonderfully downcast in the direction of your core. That smile is gone now, replaced with a somber look as he watches your hand move mysteriously beneath the fabric of your undergarments.

The first brush of your forefinger against your swollen button makes you twitch, back arching at the sensation that is magnified by his watchful gaze. “Mmh,” you bite down, hand twisting in the material of your shirt. Jungkook’s eyes glare a molten path across your skin, from the comfy bra that peeks out from beneath your rumpled shirt to the wrist slowly working beneath your panties.

A hand falls over your thigh, tattooed fingers giving the skin a light squeeze as you get to work swirling your bud around. The sight of his inked skin on yours makes something warm blossom in your lower abdomen, your eyes following the inky swirls up, up, up. They lead you to the face of your very handsome boyfriend, long lashes fanning across his cheekbones as he watches you play with yourself. “Wanna take these off for me?” he says, the tip of his pointer finger wiggling beneath the fabric of your shorts.

You nod hurriedly, wiggling around on the bed until you’re on your back, legs bent in front of you. The shorts come down your legs; the simplest press of your thighs makes something quiver in your abdomen. You toss them off to the side, and just as you go to sit back up, Jungkook places a hand on your knee. “Stay like this for me,” he says, sitting up from his mountain of pillows to glance down at you. You melt into the plush mattress beneath you, staring down at him between your legs. He’s got that adoring look in his eyes, the one that makes you feel so warm and in love, it’s only natural your hand slips down to play with your bare clit again. “That’s my girl,” he smiles, rubbing a hand down the outside of your thigh, urging your legs to fall open.

There’s this overflowing vat of arousal that builds up inside of you everytime Jungkook is around, like the moment your eyes land on him you’re reminded of every position he’s ever had you in. You remember the soft brush of his hands on your body, the way his lips feel on yours, the soft tickle of his hair when he gets too close. It makes your heart lurch in your chest, like if you don’t grab onto him tightly this feeling will slip through your fingers and out of your life. So you were crazily in love with your boyfriend— now what?

A puckered set of lips meets the inside of your thigh, the action ripping you from your overly gooey, overly soft inner rambling. Your hand trails down your quivering pussy lips, collecting your dripping wetness as you go. At the same time, Jungkook kisses down the inside of your thigh, soft smacks of his lips against your skin filling the air with an emotion that makes you bite down a whimper. Your hole puckers at the brush of your fingers, anticipating an entrance that you yearn to give into soon.

His mouth is on you before your finger can go deeper than a centimeter in. But Jungkook doesn’t brush your hand off, doesn’t shove you away to prove his mouth was undoubtedly better. He places a kiss over your knuckles, before swallowing up your significantly smaller hand with his, that of which he clasps together over your navel.

You groan, head rolling from side to side. “Don’t be so soft with me,” you whine, leg twitching when he presses a kiss against your engorged bundle of nerves. “Push me around like that one time, you know I like it.”

Jungkook grins, mouthing over your clit with practiced ease that has you releasing all kinds of whimpers and sighs. He’s got his other hand wrapped around your thigh, strong arm pulling you closer to that devious mouth and tongue that lavished attention on your clit. “Need me to be mean to you, baby?” he purrs, curling his tongue in such a way that it makes your entire body tense up, muscles pulled tight. “Want me to push you around like the stupid little girl you are?” You moan, head bobbing up and down at the ideas he stuffs in your mind. As he moves down the length of your cunt, that round nose you love brushes against your bud, and the cheeky shit takes an obnoxiously loud sniff of it, a soft groan breathed against your lower lips. “But isn’t this better?” he hums, languidly molding his lips against your lower ones, much in the same way he does with the ones on your face; he moves slowly, slips his tongue in every few seconds before eventually diving in head on. “Slow... and so easy.”

“Kook,” you mewl, getting this overwhelming urge to cover your face with your hands. But you can’t, because he’s knotted one hand with yours and his fingers only tighten when you try to yank them apart. Instead you’re left pressing one knuckle against your mouth, brows pinching as he begins slowly fucking his tongue into your cunt. “F-Faster,” you beg. He, of course, ignores your plea.

The wet mass moves past the clenched muscles around your hole, nose brushing against your lips with every intrusion. Every few cycles he stops to press a kiss against your pussy, so hard and wet that it hurts when he pulls off. You’re left writhing and moaning, your heel knocking against his shoulder when he pushes your leg up closer to your chest. “It’s enough,” you cry, your entire body shivering.

Jungkook pulls off with a loud pop, lips glistening with your arousal. He’s got this glint on his eyes, like he’s thoroughly entertained by your reactions. He shuffles around to get comfortable, finally releasing that grip on your hand. Immediately, your newly freed hand jumps forward to tangle in the hair above his ear, tracing down the delicate curve of his cheekbone. Jungkook turns his head, pressing a soft peck against your open palm that makes your heartbeat thunder in your ears.

As he moves around, his leg bumps against something that has both of you pausing. It sounds out of place next to your shallow breaths, and both of you glance down only to catch sight of that stupid package from Sexuality Unleashed teetering on the edge of the bed.

The moment you see it, it’s like you’re transported into an omnipresent view of the scene, the next few hours flashing before your eyes as Jungkook snorts. You know he’s going to reach for it in two seconds, and you know he’s going to tear the hot pink packaging apart with his bare hands. He does so with a scary amount of power, the industrial tape not standing a chance against him. A box roughly the same size as the package falls out, and before you can kick it away and save yourself from suffering beneath Jungkook’s teasing antics, he’s snatching up the box.

“The Bullet Bestie,” he reads aloud, dark eyes flying across the text with lightning speed before that box is also being ripped open. (Briefly, there’s a voice in your head that thinks of Doyeon, but you’re not sure why.) Out tumbles a little pink bullet with a strap on one end that bounces against your thigh and an even smaller remote.

“Baby,” you rush out, the sight of the tiny toy making your heart thunder in your chest. “We can look at it another time,” you try, hands coming up to brush against his face again. “Why don’t you finish off here?” you ask, a sickeningly sweet politeness dripping off your tongue as the knot in your tummy fades into the background of his attention.

Jungkook ignores you, picking up the remote with a wondrous look in his eyes. Before you can try to persuade him back between your legs, a quiet click cuts you off and the little bullet whirls to life. You yelp at the sudden vibrations against the inside of your thigh, so close to your throbbing core. The jump of your thighs has it falling onto the mattress below you, wide eyes snapping back to the smirk that grows on his face.

“No,” you say slowly, sitting back up, “no, no,” you try, your usual assertiveness melting into a whiny cry as you try to wiggle away from him and the nefarious ideas infesting his lust-addled mind. You’re barely turning, ready to make a run for it and hand him his victory by forfeit, when Jungkook is catching you by the waist. Your hips get pulled up, arms clawing uselessly at the sheets beneath you as he drags you close to him. He’s fast, already having moved onto his knees behind you, and when he yanks you up, you can feel every hot plane of his body aligned with your backside. “Kook, please just make me cum,” you gasp.

There’s a smile pressed against your shoulder, lips still wet from before, kissing along the side of your neck. “Look at my girl,” he murmurs, and you nearly jump out of your skin when something smooth is traced along your thigh. One hand slips beneath the material of your shirt, soothingly rubbing circled against your skin. This hand also holds the tiny remote between two fingers, and every nerve in your body is on edge waiting for it to be used. “Where’s that smartmouth now?”

“Jungkook,” you try to warn. But there’s no bite to your words, only an anticipation that grows the closer he moves that damned toy between your thighs. “Baby, we-we can play another time, okay? Just please—“

A soft click, and suddenly your spine is giving out on you, upper body flopping forward as Jungkook runs the vibrations over your clit. Of course Jungkook follows, never letting you slip far from his reach. A loud moan spills from your lips, lower lip wobbling at the unreal amounts of pleasure he bestows upon you with such a small toy. “W-Wait,” you sob, the coil from before suddenly magnified tenfold. It makes your orgasm loom over you bigger than ever, a wave that threatens to spill over and drown you in one go. “No-please.”

His mouth presses against your ear, hot breaths fanning against the skin there. “Hey pretty girl, does it feel good?” he husks out, kissing just below your ear. “Aw fuck,” he groans, something stiff pressing against the cleft between your cheeks, “can’t even see if you’re making that stupid face right now.”

You are, but you don’t even have the words to tell him that. The moment the vibrator had made contact with your already ravished clit, your eyes had rolled into the back of your head. You don’t doubt you look like those silly ads you’d laughed at earlier, mouth opening and closing every few seconds as he circles the toy around your bud. You settle on a high-pitched whimper that has Jungkook laughing meanly against your ear.

It ends too soon, the stimulation from Jungkook eating you out for a few minutes combining with the bullet to form a powerful duo that swallows you whole. An embarrassingly loud moan rips itself from your throat, hands twisting in the sheets beneath you as it washes over you. It’s so powerful, it blinds you, pussy spasming. Jungkook’s name is repeated about a thousand times in between, your body eventually melting back into the mattress as the final shocks run through you.

The vibrator clicks off just as quietly as it turned on, your harsh breaths filling the room in its place. “Good girl,” Jungkook praises, raining down a parade of kisses against your shoulder. You mewl in appreciation, still awkwardly shoving your face into the mattress, and your hips in the air. From the corner of your eyes, you watch him set the glistening toy off to the side, and you’re just about ready to thank the heavens for such an experience with your boyfriend, when said boyfriend hits you with a curveball.

The gentle pecks against yours shoulder dissolve into harsh kisses, rough hands trailing up your waist. The t-shirt gathers around his knuckles, pushed and pushed until he’s got those same hands cupping your breasts. “Did you like that?” he asks, biting down against your shoulder; the sensation is dulled by your shirt being in the way but it still makes you whine. You moan softly, nodding against the mattress as he gets to kneading your breasts over your bra. “Mm,” Jungkook sighs, “my pretty girl was so good for me, wasn’t she?”

Those deft fingers run back down, crawl beneath the elastic of your lounge bra and push it away until your breasts are bouncing out of their cage. “Kook,” you sigh, eyes fluttering shut as he traces circles around your nipples. “W-Wait,” you whimper, suddenly reminded of the swollen cock pressed against your backside when he leans closer.

“Shhh,” he soothes, tweaking your nipples. “Relax for me, sweetheart,” he coos, flicking your hardened nipples with his fingers. You can’t relax, not with your body still so sensitive and him playing with you. Still, the low intonation makes something soft and warm settle in your chest, the kisses against your jaw making your eyes fall shut. “That’s it,” he says, giving one nipple a playful twist that draws a high-pitched moan from you.

Just as you’re beginning to fall into the rhythm of Jungkook’s caresses and voice, he releases one breast to traverse his hand down and over your tummy, to your sensitive pussy. You gasp, biting down on your lip as he teasingly flicks your clit with his fingers. “Bet you could come again now,” he murmurs, taking the tip of your earlobe into his mouth and nibbling softly. You groan, shoving your face into the sheets as if that will save you from your doom. “Bet your pretty little pussy can cream itself just like this, isn’t that right, sweet girl?”

You whimper, hips bucking back against him when he begins nudging your bud, lewd sounds reaching your ears. His other hand remains on your breast, no longer toying with your nipple but simply holding it almost comfortingly. There’s a smirk pressed against your skin, that pearly white smile you usually adore so much teasing you as he circles your nub.

“Come on,” he encourages quietly, kissing up the column of your neck again. You moan, thighs quivering as he strokes a second orgasm out of you with no struggle. Your eyes and throat burn at the heat that washes over you, and you release a hoarse scream into the mattress— Jungkook chuckles at the sound, egging you on with that low voice until your muscles go limp a second time.

When he rolls you onto your stomach again, you try desperately to cover the tears that blur your vision, turning away from him like a child when he tries to look. “Crybaby, crybaby,” he sings teasingly, prying your hands away to capture your mouth with his for the first time that night. “Lemme see those tears, baby,” he purrs.

He tastes like you, tongue dripping with that sweet tang of your pussy, and he smells like you too. It strokes the flames of you ego, arms eventually wrapping around his shoulders as he settles above you. He pulls off with a curl of his tongue against your swollen lips, brown eyes lazily staring down at you. It’s embarrassing how well kept he still was compared to your half-nude state of dress. His skin is all glowy and pretty, not a single tear track in sight, and his grin is still too relaxed for your liking.

Jungkook’s body feels so warm and comforting against yours, muscles keeping the heat trapped between your bodies. You go to brush a hand through his hair, needing to feel the familiarity of those silky locks, before he’s suddenly leaning away. He shuffles onto his knees again, glancing down at your thoroughly abused cunt with a quirk in his brows.

“God,” you groan, knocking your foot against his side. “Just fuck me already,” you huff despite your earlier fatigue. You could only go so long without feeling Jungkook’s fat demon cock inside of you.

He snorts at your snappy tone, cutely tilting his head to the side to move his hair out of his face. His jaw looks sharp from this angle, facial features covered in shadows the lamplight behind him can’t touch. “Can’t,” he announces, and you could pull your hair out from all this unnecessary build up.

Truth to be told, you and Jungkook were both equally as unrestrained when it came to each other. Most of the time, the lead up to actual, penetrative, key-in-lock sex included a couple minutes of heavy petting from his end, and maybe a half assed handjob from you. Sometimes if you felt extra attentive, he’d eat you out and you'd him off. But for the most part, the two of you jumped straight into it after an orgasm, like horny teenagers despite the two of you being twenty-three now.

The most adventurous you’d ever gotten up until the point was maybe two orgasms bestowed upon you by a crazed Jungkook. And, well. You had hit two orgasms now. You were ready for his monster cock.

“Kook,” you whine childishly.

Jungkook shakes you off, placing a palm on both your knees. Slowly, he spreads your thighs apart again, eyes zeroed in on the glossy folds that come into view, the sparkling pearly cum that leaks out of your hole. “I can’t, baby,” he says, almost pained. “I gotta clean you up first,” he insists, and before you can tell him how counterproductive it is to lick you clean of your arousal before fucking you, he’s diving face first into your cunt.

But the biggest surprise doesn’t come from Jungkook going in for thirds, but from the hands he clasps around your thighs, the sheer strength he uses to roll you over (ignoring the shriek you let out) to sit you on his face. “No, no,” you yelp immediately, “I-I‘ll break you,” you cry, trying to escape from his hold.

From beneath your thighs, dark eyes peering up at you daringly, you can see the clear warning on Jungkook’s face. It’s a look that loudly says don’t you dare fucking move, shapely brows sending a jolt of genuine fear down your spine for a moment. “Jungkook,” you fret, trying to ignore the arousal that only continues to blossom as his tongue laps against your folds for the second time that night. “I’m, I’m,” you stammer, hands burying themselves in his hair as he ignores your cries. “I’ll break you,” you try again, spine arching when he slurps your clit into his mouth. “I-I’ll—“

He pulls off with a pop. “Fuck my face, baby,” he says, as if he hadn’t heard a single of your concerns at all. His nose nudges against your clit, a whimper catching in your throat. Briefly, his hand disappears from around your thigh, and when it returns, that tiny bullet vibrator from earlier is pressed against your thigh. “You got that?”

You nod, internally torn apart by your fear of crushing him and your need to drag your cunt all over your boyfriend’s handsome face. You glance down at him, watch him slip that vibrator into his mouth for just a second and lewdly coat it in his saliva, before he’s reaching around to shove it past your pussy lips. They’re still swollen and puffy, but have long since relaxed enough for him to slip it in. “B-But what if—“

“You won’t,” he cuts off, readjusting himself closer to your cunt again, “come on, pretty girl.”

The reason you think you and Jungkook click so well was because he was able to bring that vulnerable side out of you every now and then. He knew you liked to parade around with that huge superiority complex, and he loved it. But he also knew there were things you liked and disliked, and sometimes it took a little pushing for you to reveal them.

For a second, that horny cloud over his irises lifts, and he gives you one of those cute, sloppy winks as he taps your thigh gently. “Fuck my face, sweetheart,” he whispers, “drag that pretty cunt all over me until I can’t breathe.” A gasp catches in your throat, hands unconsciously curling against his scalp. He notices, and flashes you a lazy smirk. “You can do that, can’t you?”

Something akin to adoration blooms in your chest, and before you can blurt out something embarrassing—like I love you—there’s a soft click that has The Bullet Bestie revving up inside of you. You gasp, the sudden vibrations deep inside your pussy making your hips snap forward, clit rubbing against Jungkook’s nose.

“O-Oh,” you cry, and that’s all it takes for you to lose it. Your hips start off slow, at first just savoring the wet drag of his tongue against your lips, his nose against your clit. He sticks his tongue out for you, and part of you wants to tell him he’s a good boy, that corny hentai ad flashing in your mind, but you doubt you’ll survive the aftermath of that. Once you find that perfect pace, your hands are practically yanking at his hair, pushing him further into the mattress as you ride his face like he’s nothing but a toy. “Kook, Jungkook,” you pant, grinding your lower lips against his all too eager mouth.

It feels oddly weird being over him like this, using him like this. You like to think you and Jungkook have equal power in the bedroom, but you will admit that more often than not, he assumes control by default. You’re not particularly bothered by that, because you doubt you’d ever come up with the crazy ideas Jungkook did when he was horny (okay, a lie, because you definitely have thought of crazy sex schemes before).

But, this moment…

The power was quickly going to your head. “Fuck,” you sob, roughly dragging the length of your pussy over and over his face. The hands around your thighs are pressing against your skin with a strength that would hurt were you not blinded by arousal. His eyes are shut, lids fluttering open every now and then as he watches you buck wildly over his face like he was a pillow in high school and your parents were gone for the weekend.

It doesn’t help that the rhythmic pulses of the vibrator inside of you are doing their job well, the tongue that slips into your pussy joining together to form a powerful combination. It’s ultimately what has you halting your manic thrusts, instead falling into a slow grind over him. Your hips circle, eyes squeezed shut as you lose yourself in the lapping of his tongue against your dripping hole. “Mmmf,” you mewl, biting down on your lower lip as the wet muscle prods against a delicate spot within you. You hear feels light, view of the gorgeous man beneath you obstructed by the eyelids that can't seem to stay open. “N-No,” you cry, pulling his hair more roughly than you intended to in order to redirect him. “There, there,” you whimper, holding him tight against your pussy.

Beneath you, Jungkook exhales harshly against your lips, hands moving frantically over your thighs as he works his tongue inside of you alongside the bullet vibrator. If you weren’t so caught up in your own pleasure, all kinds of sounds spilling from your lips, you would have heard the quiet moans that fall from his. Alas.

It takes a few more pulses from the toy and a few more licks from Jungkook until you’re coming for the third time that night, features twisting up as your pussy clenches around his tongue before spilling down his mouth. Your back arches, a defeated moan escaping you as you release the same mess he’d claimed to clean up onto his lovely face. You can barely breathe afterwards, mouth dry and head dizzy when Jungkook finally pops back out from between your thighs. You barely have enough time to lift yourself up, pussy lightly brushing across his Adam’s apple as you stop yourself from crushing his windpipe. It makes you twitch.

“Good girl,” Jungkook praises with a cheeky smile that distracts you from the bullet toy he retrieves from your quivering cunt. His face is absolutely glistening from your arousal, skin warm and flush. He’s looking up at you like you’re some mythical goddess and he’s but a humble villager coming to pay his respects at the temple that is your body. Fuck, were you okay? You don’t think you’ve ever felt this good in your entire life, and Jungkook’s mushy gaze was doing things to your heart.

He presses a kiss against the inside of your thigh before helping you off of him, laughing meanly when you flop limply down beside him. He’s still fully clothed, a fact that irks you when he leans over to kiss you with that glossy face of his. “D’you like it?” he mumbles, kissing softly down your face. You nod, legs twitching from the aftermath of that wild ride. “I saw it, y’know,” he says suddenly.

“Saw what?” you mumble, mindlessly rolling your head to the side and exposing more skin when he begins kissing along your neck.

Jungkook says nothing, just rolls over you. Part of you thinks he’s crazy, but you’re suddenly hit with the realization that while Jungkook’s drawn three orgasms out of you in the course of an hour, you hadn’t done anything for him. Before you can dive head first into swallowing his cock, he’s kissing you softly. “That stupid face,” he smirks, slotting his mouth against yours. “That weird, now realistic face,” he tacks on.

You huff out a laugh, throwing your leg around his waist comfortably. Jungkook smiles, kisses you one last time before settling in your arms, face cutely pressed in between your boobs. “Hey,” you call, “don't you wanna cum too?”

He shakes his head, a soft sigh filling the air. “Nah,” he says, cuddles closer into you. “Rest now, baby.”

You roll your eyes. “I can feel your dick against my thigh,” you point out, wiggling your pelvis upward to brush against his throbbing erection. Jungkook holds you down in an effort to stop you. “Fuck me.”

He groans against your collarbone. “No, you’re tired,” he tries to convince you, but his skin is warm and flushed in the way it always gets when he’s riled up. “Sleep.”

With the leg around his hip, you pull him closer. “Fuck me, Jungkookie,” you purr, using the hands in his hair to turn his face up towards yours. His dark eyes are drawn down cutely, pouty lips too. “Use my body,” you suggest, “I’m yours anyway.”

His eyes flutter shut, a quiet whimper falling from his lips. “Don’t say that,” he sighs, “makes me wanna do very mean things to you.”

You smile. “You can do whatever you want to me, don’t you know that?” Another groan, his head falling forward until he’s hiding in your neck. Still, there’s movement from below, he sweats slipping down at his hips until that throbbing cock is pressed into the tiny crease where your thigh meets your pelvis. There’s a moment of hesitation, and you wonder if this is what he felt like earlier when he’d managed to get you to sit on his face. “Inside, Jungkookie,” you murmur, reaching down to line him up with your sensitive entrance. He whines softly, arms wrapping around you as he pulls you close. “Good boy.”

Despite your earlier belief that you’d never survive an encounter with Jungkook after using such a term on him, the result is much different from what you had anticipated. He visibly melts into your arms, cock slipping past your folds easily. “No,” he says, his voice feathery and whiny against your ear. “I can’t.”

You soothe a hand down his back, eyes fluttering shut as he begins slowly rutting against your swollen lips. “That’s it,” you encourage, tugging softly at his wavy hair. Jungkook moans wantonly against your neck, rolling his hips harshly against you until his arms are the only things keeping you from jostling out of his hold. “Do you like this pussy?” you ask, purposefully clenching around him, tummy tightening at the stimulation you keep packing on.

Jungkook shudders, pace growing slipping inside of you. “Yes,” he pants, “s-so wet… creamy.”

“Yeah?” you huff, pressing a smiley kiss against his forehead. “It’s yours.”

“Ffffuck,” Jungkook chokes, picking up his pace as his well-deserved orgasm reaches its peak. He’s breathing harshly now, and it’s taking everything in you to keep your pussy tight around him. But after the night he’d given you, the sounds and faces he pulled from you, it’s the least you can do. Besides, your body, after being so thoroughly pleased, still rears up for one final orgasm with him. “Mine,” he growls, bucking his hips into you. “You’re mine, baby, mine,” he seethes, ending his little tryst with a piston of his hips that makes you gasp, body almost unconsciously spasming around him. It’s painful, but so, so delicious how he manages to pull this last orgasm from you as he finally busts inside of you.

He comes with a stuttering garble of words, none of which you catch as he collapses into your hold for the final time that night. “Fuck,” he pants afterwards, leaning into your touch when he finally registers the soft combing of fingers through his hair. “That was evil.”

You laugh, pulling him closer. “As evil as you making me suffer through three orgasms before putting your dick in me?” you tease. Jungkook slips out of you, and you know it’ll be a hassle to clean your sheets tomorrow but it’s worth it.

“It’s called building the scene,” he weakly defends, blindly tugging the puffy blanket over the two of you. “I was gonna rhyme it with that horrible website you made me use but I already forgot it’s name.”

“Rude,” you snap, “it’s called KissAnime.”

“And fore-play,” he suddenly says, and you almost yank his eyeballs out of their sockets for doing that stupid thing again.

—

epilogue 

Two weeks later, your favorite website and home to hentai ads is shut down after years of piracy. Jungkook laughs at your demise, sits and actually cackles at your heartbreak, until he eventually comforts you with his flaming demon cock and a subscription to both Crunchyroll and Funimation. Doyeon spends weeks tracking down a missing package, apparently some freebie she’d gotten for being such an avid customer on Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide! before eventually finding it in your drawer. And because her and Jungkook have some awkward life-long rivalry for your attention, he doesn’t pay for that. 

—

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[courageous-she]

Extracurricular- Charlie Gillespie

Teacher!Reader x MusicTeacher!Charlie

Word Count: 2707

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! Just wanted to say thank you for all the love on “Needing You”! I wrote this up, a little self-indulgently, but hope that some of you will find some enjoyment from it!

It had always been your dream to be an elementary school teacher. For as long as you could remember, you would play school with your American Girl Dolls or stuffed animals as your students. When the time came for college, you’d picked a program that would allow you to get your Master’s quickly. After student teaching and some substituting, you finally had your own fourth grade classroom.

You hadn’t been at your school long, seeing as it was only October, but you’d been there long enough to meet some of the other teachers. You got along well with your team teachers, and even made a few teacher friends you could hang out outside of school with.

It was a Wednesday and for some reason your students had more energy than normal, and it was taking a toll on you. Luckily, they had Music in a few minutes, so you decided to end the lesson early and have them start getting ready for the special. They were quiet in the hallway, giving you a quick break before dropping them off at the music room.

“Hey, fourth grade!” the music teacher, Mr. G said with enthusiasm as your class approached. You students began to file into the classroom, high-fiving or fist bumping Mr. G as they passed. “Hey Ms. Y/L/N.” Mr. G said more softly to you.

“Hi Mr. G. They’re a little more energetic than normal today.” You said, providing a well needed update on the class. Mr. G smiled, chuckling lightly at the statement.

“Nothing I can’t handle I’m sure.” There was a short pause before he continued, “Got any plans this weekend?” he asked you. This weekend was Halloween and you wanted nothing more than to spend it on your couch with a bottle of wine.

“I was just going to drink some wine and watch a movie.” You replied honestly, “Why? Have something in mind?” It wasn’t unusual for Mr. G, or you could probably call him Charlie, to ask you about your plans. A little harmless flirting was normal between the two of you seeing as you were the only two 20 something teachers in the school.

“I had about the same idea in mind. Would you maybe want to drink wine and watch a movie together?” He asked, a smirk playing on his face. As you were about to respond, one of your students came over and grabbed Charlie by the hand, tugging him into the classroom. You smiled and let him know that you would text him before letting him go to teach the class.

You: 7:00 my place?

You sent the text to Charlie, having had his number from staff meetings. The two of you liked to text during the meetings instead of actually paying attention. You didn’t expect a response right away anyway considering he was teaching your students. You took the 40 minutes your kids were at music to sit in the quiet and grade some classwork.

When you went to pick your class up, Charlie was waiting by the door, your class lined up behind him.

“7:00 sounds perfect. I’ll bring the refreshments” he said quiet enough so the class didn’t hear.

“I’ll text you my address” you said, smiling, “Alright friends, what do you say to Mr. G?” you asked, addressing your class.

“Thank you, Mr. G!” rang out in unison by your students.

“Bye guys! See you later!” Charlie waved, again high-fiving some kids on their way out. You turned around as your class walked to the end of the hall and Charlie shot you a quick wink before heading back into his classroom. Friday night couldn’t come soon enough.

*****

When Friday night finally did come, Charlie texted you around dismissal to make sure your plans were still on.

You: Definitely! But I hope you know I will be in my baggiest of sweatpants

Charlie: Glad we’re on the same page, I don’t wear real clothes outside of school, its sacrilegious

You chuckled at the text, making sure to send Charlie your address and apartment number. Your students filed out one-by-one until it was only you left in the classroom. You made sure to shut down everything and turn off the lights before making the quick trip to your car.

Once home, you threw your work clothes into your hamper and got into your designated sweatpants. Knowing that you were having company later encouraged you to give your apartment a good clean, something you hadn’t been motivated to do recently. You lived alone, but you preferred it that way. Sometimes after a long day of school it was just easier to come home and not have to talk to anyone about your day.

Soon enough, the buzzer in your apartment was ringing signaling that Charlie was downstairs waiting to be let up. You pressed the button to unlock the main door and waited by your front door for his knock. When it came, you opened the door to see Charlie carrying a large pizza, a bottle of wine, and bag of Halloween candy.

“You came prepared Gillespie” you said, taking some of the items from his hands. He kicked his shoes off by the door before following you into the small living room. You set the items down on the coffee table before getting comfortable on the couch, Charlie following suit next to you.

“I told you I’d bring the refreshments, didn’t I?” He asked, pulling a corner of your blanket over his legs. You laughed, grabbing the remote and turning the tv on. Once the Netflix screen showed, you passed the remote to Charlie who gave you a confused look.

“I can’t decide on movies for the life of me, so this one’s on you” you said, opening the pizza box and grabbing a slice. You ate and watched as Charlie flipped through the movies, settling on a horror film. “Should have guessed you’d try to kill me tonight” you laughed.

“Hey, when you put me in charge of the movie, you can’t complain about what I pick” Charlie laughed, opening the bottle of wine.

“Oh! Let me get us some glasses,” you said, starting to remove the blanket from your lap. Charlie’s hand stopped you from getting any further.

“I’m fine with drinking out of the bottle if you are…” he suggested. You shrugged, not really caring about sharing the bottle with him. The two of you settled into the couch, eating pizza and sharing the bottle of wine. You definitely jumped at some parts in the movie and Charlie laughed at you each time.

About halfway through the movie, the both of you had finished eating and were now resting comfortably on the couch. However, the movie only began to get scarier as a really gory part showed on the screen. You jolted with surprise and shoved your face into Charlie’s neck, hand gripping the shirt material on his chest. 

“You can’t really be scared of this!” Charlie laughed.

“Of course, I’m scared!” you replied, voice muffled by his skin. Charlie only chuckled and wrapped his arms around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him.

“Don’t go in there!” you shouted a few moments later to the girl in the movie.

“Of course, she’s going to go in there!” Charlie retorted, “it’d be no fun if she didn’t”

“Who said any of this was fun” you replied, getting ready to hide your face against Charlie again, “I can’t watch.” Again, Charlie pulled you closer, protecting you from the demons on the screen.

As the movie ended, you let out a sigh of relief. You quickly stood and made your way over to your fridge, pulling out another bottle of wine. 

“After that movie, I need more of this, and a new movie to forget that one”

“I’m down for another movie. But you’re choosing it this time” Charlie said, grabbing the bottle from you and taking a sip. As you scrolled through the choices, you landed on one that had made you cry the first time you watched it.

“Okay, Gillespie.” You said, selecting the movie and hitting play, “Time to see you cry”

“Oh, I don’t cry” Charlie said, a smirk on his face. You made a “let’s see about that” face and the two of you settled in to watch the movie.

As the sad part began to get more intense, you stole a glance over at Charlie. You could see tears slowly cascading down his cheeks. 

“I thought you said you didn’t cry” you joked, pushing on his shoulder with your own. Taken aback by the fact that you’d noticed him, Charlie quickly began to wipe the tears from his face.

“I’m not crying, my eyes are sweating.” He replied.

“Sure, tough guy. Don’t worry about it, crying is manly” you said, leaning into his side. He chuckled at you before pulling you closer to finish the movie.

*****

Two movies and two bottles of wine later, you stood to throw out the empty pizza box and candy wrappers.

“Shit, I didn’t realize how late it was. I should get going” Charlie said, looking at the time on his phone.

“You’ve been drinking, Charlie, probably not the best idea to drive right now” you said, holding up the two empty wine bottles. Charlie gave you a knowing look.

“Let me see if my roommate is still awake, maybe he can come grab me” But before you could even let Charlie unlock his phone to text his roommate, you blurted out a proposition.

“Or you could just spend the night here” You stared at Charlie, shocked the sentence even left your mouth. It was probably the alcohol that helped. Charlie looked at you, making sure he heard correctly.

“I mean, if you’re cool with me crashing on your couch…” he spoke slowly.

“Oh no, you can’t sleep on that. It may be good for sitting but if you sleep on it, you’ll wake up with a broken back. My bed is big enough, we can share…. If you’re okay with that” you quickly added. Charlie mumbled a quiet ‘yeah’ before helping you clean up the rest of the mess. As you made your way into your room, you turned on your bathroom light. “I have an extra toothbrush you can use,” you said, handing Charlie the blue toothbrush.

The two of you stood side by side in the bathroom, looking at each other in the mirror while brushing your teeth. As Charlie finished, he made his way back into your room while you took a moment to wash your face. When you walked back into your room, Charlie was sitting on the edge of your bed scrolling through his phone.

“You didn’t have to wait for me to get in bed” you laughed. Charlie sheepishly looked up at you, locking his phone and putting in on the end table.

“Wasn’t sure what side of the bed you normally slept on” he replied. You went over to your side of the bed and got under the covers. Charlie followed suit on the opposite side of the bed. You clicked off your side lamp and turned to face Charlie.

“Sorry in advance if I kick you in my sleep” you said.

“If you kick me, we’re going to have a problem” Charlie laughed. It wasn’t long before the two of you dozed off comfortably facing each other.

*****

You woke up the next morning to your head resting on Charlie’s chest and his arms wrapped tightly around you. You laughed at the sleeping boy, noticing that he was no longer wearing a shirt. You tried to get out of bed without waking him, failing as his arm only wrapped tighter around you and a low groan came from the boy.

“Where’re you going?” he asked, voice low and eyes still closed.

“I was going to go make us some breakfast” you said. Charlie turned so his body was now facing yours, eyes still closed, and arms remaining around you.

“Five more minutes” he grumbled. “If you leave, I’ll be cold” he whined. You could only laugh.

“If I don’t get up, then you won’t have anything to eat in five minutes”

“I’ll buy us breakfast if you promise not to move” he said, voice low and soft. You replied with a quiet ‘okay’ and began to get comfortable.

“One thing though” you said, Charlie hummed in response, “When did you take your shirt off?”

“’mm like 2? Not sure, does it matter?” he asked. You mumbled a small ‘no’ not wanting to admit that you liked the feel of his warm skin against yours. You snuggled into him, hands reaching around and lightly dragging up and down his back. When you thought he’d fallen asleep, you let your hands stop, but when Charlie’s hand reached around to grab yours, mimicking your earlier motion, you continued.

You hadn’t realized that you’d fallen asleep, but you woke up in the same position, only this time Charlie’s fingers were lightly grazing up and down your back.

“Mornin’” he hummed, “Didn’t think you’d fall back asleep, did ya?” he teased. You lifted your eyes to meet his, taking in his bed head as well.

“Well, if you’d have let me get up the first time, I could have had breakfast ready for you” you mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.

“Breakfast is ten minutes away” Charlie said, brushing your hair away from your face. You looked up at him, a little shocked he’d woken up and ordered breakfast. Your eyes met his and you watched as his fell to your lips. Your breath hitched and before you knew it, Charlie’s soft lips were on yours. 

It was gentle and quick, too quick if you were honest. But having kissed him once already now, you worked up the courage to kiss him again, this time taking the lead. You moved so that you were straddling him, his hands quickly finding a home on your hips, rubbing small circles on the skin under your shirt.

A moment later, you found yourself lying on your back, Charlie hovering over you. He only pulled away when his phone buzzed from next to you. He quickly checked his phone, looked at you, and placed a quick kiss on your cheek before getting up and pulling his sweatshirt on. Just as quickly as Charlie had gotten on top of you, he was off and out the door. 

Sliding out of bed, you threw on your sweatshirt and padded out to the kitchen. The front door opened and Charlie came in carrying two bags of food.

“What the hell did you order, Char?” you asked, grabbing a bag and beginning to open it. All kinds of breakfast foods laid out in front of you. Two arms landed their way on either side of you, locking you between him and the counter.

“Char?” he asked, voice low in your ear. Your face was warm as you turned around in the small space you had, noticing the smirk on the boy’s face. You weren’t sure how to respond, the nickname just kind of slipped out. But before you could respond, Charlie’s hand gently held your chin and his lips met yours once again. “Don’t worry” he said against your lips, “I like it”

He quickly lifted you onto the counter, slipping in between your legs and placing another kiss against your lips. The two of you stayed like that for a bit, tasting each of the foods that Charlie had ordered.

*****

As the two of you cleaned up the kitchen a little while later you asked, “So, am I going to have to compete for your attention at school?” Charlie gave you a confused look, not sure what you meant by that statement. “Considering how all the fourth and fifth grade girls have the biggest crushes on you?” you asked, a smile playing at your lips.

Charlie chuckled, coming over to rest his hands on your hips, forehead resting against your own. “You’re the only one who gets this kind of attention” he quietly said before placing a kiss on your lips. You smiled, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in for more.

[thanksjro]

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

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

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

Haha, I doubt it.

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

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

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

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

For loving his child.

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

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

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

No. Not at all, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if women are property to be owned.

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

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which made me groan aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

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

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

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

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

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

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy doesn’t count.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For about 20 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We still have another hour of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

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

Repeatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

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

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

In tow.

In tow-

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

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

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

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

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

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

What a mess.

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COMING SOON:

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

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

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

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