#if you're interest which line it is its in the introduction
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venelona-turtle-den · 1 year ago
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Hi there! I was looking at some of the files for Ghost Leonardo (trying to learn more to potentially make my own ghost!) and I noticed that the readme file warns you “some things can’t be completely erased”…I’m intensely curious what isn’t reset! I don’t want to reset my peepaw, but finding that in the files made me very curious.
Oh, be forewarned that Leon is not a great ghost for reference lol Since he's my first ghost, he's littered with sloppy code and plethora of background mistakes
If you're interested in making a ghost please check @ukagakadreamteam, the ukagaka dream team wiki, or the discord server where people will tell you how one does things properly and not like I did™
As for the question... It's just ominous for the sake of drama and immersion XD I think that's my Undertale roots showing. The concept of a reset leaving behind traces of memories...
There is ONE line of dialogue that changes, I believe if you reinstall him, but I'm not sure that was programmed properly so don't mind that
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genderkoolaid · 11 months ago
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yeah, but you do mean 'loveless' like 'romanceless' right? Just cause you're not interested in a romantic partnership, and you're never attracted to anyone romantically, that doesn't mean you can't love your family and your friends. Am I understanding wrong? I feel like it's a widely accepted concept that 'love' isn't just romantic, it's about caring about someone, no matter if they're your family or platonic friend or your pet.
No, "loveless" means love-less. Another anon also asked me to explain as well so:
"Lovelessness" in the aro context comes from the essay I Am Not Voldemort by K.A Cook. The essay confronts normative ideas on love, its inherent positivity and what it means to not love. From the introduction, which brings up the question of non-romantic love:
This June, I saw an increasing number of positivity and support posts for the aromantic and a-spec communities discussing the amatonormativity of “everyone falls in love”. I agree: the idea that romantic love is something everyone experiences, and is therefore a marker of human worth, needs deconstruction. Unfortunately, a majority of these posts are replacing the shackles of amatonormativity with restrictive lines like “everyone loves, just not always romantically”, referencing the importance of loving friends, QPPs, family members and pets. Sometimes it moves away from people to encompass love for hobbies, experiences, occupations and ourselves. The what and how tends to vary from post to post, but the idea that we do and must love someone or something, and this love redeems us as human and renders us undeserving of hatred, is being pushed to the point where I don’t feel safe or welcome in my own aromantic community. Even in the posts meant to be challenging the more obvious amatonormativity, it is presumed that aros must, in some way, love. I’ve spent weeks watching my a-spec and aro communities throw neurodiverse and survivor aros under the bus in order to do what the aromantic community oft accuses alloromantic aces of doing: using their ability to love as a defence of their humanity. Because I love, they say, I also don’t deserve to be a target of hatred, aggression and abuse. But what if I don’t love? What if love itself has been the mechanism of the hatred and violence I have endured? Why am I, an aro, neurodiverse survivor of abuse and bullying, still acceptable collateral damage?
The author criticizes the idea of "true love" that is incapable of harm. Ze questions why we construct love in that way, and how it ignores and simplifies the experiences of victims of abuse ("It’s comforting to think that a love that wounds isn’t real love, but it denies the complexity of experience and feeling had by survivors. It denies the complexity of experience and feeling that makes it harder for us to identify abuse and escape its claws. It denies the validity of survivors who look at love and feel an honest doubt about its worth, as a word or a concept, in our own interactions and experiences.") Ze talks about being forced to say "I love you" to transphobic, abusive parents whose feelings of love was the justification for their abuse.
The core of what "loveless" as an concept is about is summed up in this quote:
There is no substantial difference between saying “I’m human because I fall in love”, “I’m human because I love my friends” and “I’m human because I love calligraphy”. All three statements make human worth contingent on certain behaviours, feelings and experiences. Expanding the definition of what kinds of love make us human does nothing but save some aros from abuse and antagonism … while telling survivor and neurodiverse aros, who are more likely to have complex relationships to love as a concept or are unable to perform it in ways recognised by others, that we’re still not worthy.
Lovelessness is against any kind of statement which quantifies humanity (and implicitly, human worth) in the ability to feel or act or experience certain things. Humans are human by virtue of being human, and nothing else. And, it is socially constructed! "Love" has no natural definition! Some people are not comfortable using "love" to describe positive feelings and relationships, and some people do not feel those positive feelings in general. And those people deserve the right to define their own experiences and their own relationship to the social construct of love.
In essence, lovelessness is both a personal as well as (in my opinion) a political identity, born from aro and mad experiences that challenges not just amatonormativity but all ideas that associate personhood and worth with the ability to feel certain things.
& as a note, there is also the term "lovequeer" which describes using the term "love" in ways which contradict mainstream understandings of what it means to love, and which kinds of love are considered worthwhile.
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thewadapan · 1 month ago
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So why did Transformers One bomb?
Look, I'm just going to say it right off the bat: no, Transformers One is not the best Transformers movie of all time. I am (gritting my teeth) very happy for every single Transformers fan except me, who all seem to have liked it, and most of whom seem to have loved it. I agree that, as a production, it meets some baseline level of technical competence. It's a perfectly fine movie.
It's also the worst-performing Transformers movie Paramount has ever made.
Hopefully, now that its theatrical run has unceremoniously ended, people aren't going to try to rip me to shreds for theoretically threatening this multi-million-dollar film's box office revenue some miniscule amount by sharing a few teensy weensy complaints with my fifty followers.
Because I do just have a few little nitpicks, which I've tried my best to communicate, over the next 17,000 words of this post.
If you're not a Transformers fan, sorry, this essay is mostly written with the assumption that you've seen Transformers One. However, it might still be of some interest as a window into the current state of the franchise. I've written a basic plot summary of the movie to bring you up to speed, in that case. Because Transformers One purports to be the perfect introduction to the story, no homework needed, I've also done you the courtesy of elucidating background context as needed—think of this less as a review, and more as a history lesson, or maybe a "lore explained" YouTube video. After all, that's pretty much all that Transformers One is.
(And if farcically long posts aren't really your thing, you might prefer to listen to the special episode of Our Worlds are in Danger where my pals and I chatted about the film. Many of the hottest takes and silliest bits in this essay are shamelessly stolen from Jo and Umar.)
We've been waiting for Transformers One for a very long time. It's the first animated Transformers film to get a theatrical release since The Transformers: The Movie came out in 1986. It first entered development around a decade ago. Many fandom members I know online got to see it as far back as June. Its US premiere was in September; those of us in the UK had to wait a full extra month before seeing it, for no clear reason. This is a film which purports to show, in broad strokes, for the first time on the big screen, the origin of the Transformers: where they come from, who they are, and why they're fighting.
By the end of its runtime, Transformers One does not actually answer these questions. Don't get me wrong, it takes great pains trying to answer a lot of different, related questions—just ones which nobody was really asking in the first place: What does the word "Autobots" mean, if not "automobile robots"? What does the word "Decepticons" mean, if they're not actually deceitful? Why is he called "Optimus Prime"? Why is he called "Megatron"? If they were friends, why did they fall out? Why does Starscream sound Like That? Where does Energon come from? If "Prime" is a title, what were the other Primes like? How do Transformers transform?
Writer Eric Pearson, coming onto the project as an outsider to Transformers, describes having to go to Hasbro to ask these kinds of questions:
they had a script that outlined the story that they wanted to tell. I knew Optimus Prime and Megatron and I knew Bumblebee as well, or B. I had to ask about some of the other deeper ones, the mythology, “what exactly is the Matrix of Leadership?” Stuff like that.
See, Hasbro does in fact have the answers written down somewhere. The story as I understand it goes something like this. During the wild west of the '80s and '90s, Transformers "canon" was largely a by-the-seat-of-your-pants consensus-based affair between the freelance writers and copywriters the toy company would bring on to advertise their toys. That changed around the turn of the millennium, when late later-CEO Brian Goldner saw how Hasbro's licensed IP lines (such as Star Wars) were more financially successful and realised they could make more money by aggressively promoting their own in-house IP, which they didn't have to pay licensing fees for. (For the curious, a similar thought process at rival toy company Lego was what led to their creation of BIONICLE.)
The guy basically singlehandedly managing the Transformers brand at the time, Aaron Archer, eventually set to reconciling all the self-contradictory lore surrounding Transformers, an endeavour which dovetailed into the creation of the HasLab internal think-tank (best known for Battleship, the 2012 store-brand Michael Bay knockoff which was a failure critically and commercially but not in my heart) and ultimately the creation of the so-called "Binder of Revelation", an internal story bible which cost over $250,000 to produce and has strongly influenced nigh on every piece of Transformers media released since, but which we hadn't actually seen until it got leaked a week ago. As it turns out, the document itself (compiled mostly by marketers and toy designers) is patently useless to any writer: it's a typo-ridden internally-inconsistent wishy-washy mess that mostly describes the characters in terms of a made-up form of Transformers astrology that has otherwise never seen the light of day.
So although the Binder is the baseline story bible for most modern Transformers media, its influence isn't direct per se; it's more accurate to describe it as being an elaborate game of telephone between high-profile cartoons, comics, and other internal documents, with the Binder itself apparently just sitting in a drawer somewhere at Hasbro; Eric Pearson says that he never received a "binder", with the "script" he mentions either being the earlier draft from Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (the guys who originally pitched the story), or some other unseen internal document. Director Josh Cooley, however, definitely seems to have been physically handed the Binder or its mass-market adaptation:
I knew that there was a lot of origin to be told, and when I first started, [Hasbro] gave me the Transformers Bible. I could not believe how big it was. I was like, "This is way more than I ever anticipated."
When trailers first dropped for Transformers One, a lot of my friends who are savvy were immediately like: "Oh, this is a weirdly faithful adaptation of the Binder of Revelation, huh."
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I. The One True Origin of the Transformers
Half of the people reading this are Transformers fans, and half of you literally could not give less of a shit about Transformers, so if you're in the 'former group (so to speak), you'll just have to bear with me while I bring the rest of us up to speed.
Before the Transformers' civil war begins, Cybertron is being oppressed by the Quintessons. The Quintessons are a race of five-faced aliens (as in, not Transformers), who execute everyone they come across, first introduced in The Transformers: The Movie, presiding over a kangaroo court on a castaway world. In the followup cartoon five-parter "Five Faces of Darkness", writer Flint Dille established that, gasp, they were actually the original creators of the Transformers! But basically nobody else at the time was particularly compelled by this idea, it seems, with most fans preferring the more mythological origin story conceived by Bri'ish writer Simon Furman for the Marvel comics. I think people kind of just didn't like to think of the Transformers as being robots—mass-produced, a fabrication, programmed—as opposed to an alien race of thinking, feeling beings like us. But because the cartoon was important to many kids, a lot of early-2000s media tried to reconcile the cartoon and comic origin stories by stating that the Quintessons didn't actually create the Transformers; rather, they simply colonised the planet early in its history and pretended to be the Transformers' creators, until the truth came out and they got kicked offworld. This is how the Binder of Revelation ultimately paid lip service to the Quintessons. In Transformers One, the Quintessons are just sort of here, they're these evil aliens secretly skimming Energon from its miners, they don't speak English (or whichever language the film was dubbed into in your market region), they're just these nasty societal parasites.
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Energon is Transformers fuel. In the original cartoon, it was these glowing pink cubes the Decepticons were always trying to produce using harebrained Saturday-morning-cartoon energy-stealing devices. There was a Cold War going on, America had just been through an "energy crisis", maybe you're old enough to remember any of that. Transformers are these big, complicated machines, so I guess the idea is they need this hyper-compressed superfuel to run off, and their homeworld has run out. By the time of the Binder of Revelation, the concept had been telephoned to the point where Energon is like the lifeblood of Primus or some shit.
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Primus is the Transformers God—but not the kind of God you have "faith" in, rather this actual guy whose existence is objectively known in various ways. He transforms into a planet, that's kind of cool, right? Where does Primus come from? Look, it doesn't matter, he's like, the God of Creation, he was there at the start of time. He created all of the Transformers. All the other species in the galaxy, though, they evolved naturally thanks to "science". Actually wait, didn't that Quintus Prime guy go around the universe seeding all the planets with different kinds of Cybertronian life? That's why they're called Quintessons. See, now you know. Who's Quintus Prime?
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Okay, so the Thirteen Original Transformers, or the Primes, are the thirteen original Transformers created by Primus. Most of them correspond to different kinds of Transformer: Nexus Prime is the god of Transformers who can combine, Onyx Prime is the god of Transformers who turn into animals, Micronus Prime is the god of Transformers who are small, and Solus Prime is the god of Transformers who are women. You might remember the Primes from Revenge of the Fallen, although there were only seven of them there for whatever reason.
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Honestly, The Fallen was the only one who mattered for a long time. The whole reason there's thirteen of them is because thirteen is kind of an unlucky number, right? Twelve would've been fine. But throw in a thirteenth guy, and he betrays everyone, he's this fucked up evil guy. In the Binder of Revelation, though, the Thirteenth Prime is his own special guy shrouded in mystery, because they kind of liked the idea that Optimus Prime would secretly turn out to have been the Thirteenth Prime all along, and he just forgot or something, because that means he has the divine right of Primes. In IDW's 2010s comic-book reboot, the Thirteenth Prime was called "The Arisen"—in reference to that one line in The Transformers: The Movie, "Arise, Rodimus Prime!" (this margin is too narrow to explain who Rodimus Prime is). Towards the end of his run, writer John Barber did some actually interesting stuff with the concept, playing with the ambiguity over whether-or-not Optimus Prime was actually the chosen one.
All of Optimus Prime's immediate predecessors as Autobot leaders, Sentinel Prime, Zeta Prime, the lineage seen in "Five Faces of Darkness"... they're all false Primes. They're Primes in name only. In fact, IDW had a whole procession of these cartoonishly evil dictators thanks to a few continuity errors leading to the addition of a couple of extra narratively-redundant fuckers. Transformers One tries to simplify it slightly by just saying that Zeta Prime was one of the Primes for real—occupying that thirteenth "free space"—and it was just Sentinel Prime who was only a normal Transformer pretending to be a Prime, then Optimus Prime who's a real boy.
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But if he's not a Prime from the start, Optimus Prime needs another name in the meantime. In the '80s cartoon episode "War Dawn", before he was called Optimus Prime, he was called "Orion Pax". Have you noticed that Optimus Prime is kind of an odd-one-out amongst all the straightup-English-word names like "Bumblebee" and "Ratchet" and "Jazz"? That's because his name was one of a tiny handful from very early in the franchise's development, before writer Bob Budiansky came onboard and came up with identities for the vast majority of the toys. Practically everyone Bob Budiansky named is called like, "Bolts" or some shit, long before the characters even know of Earth, which has always just been a contrivance of the setting you're not supposed to think about.
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Presumably to create a parallel with Orion Pax's transformation into Optimus Prime, someone at Hasbro in the 2010s came up with a new name for the bot who would become Megatron: "D-16". In real-world terms, this was nothing more than a dorky reference to the Megatron toy's original Japanese release being number 16 in the line ("D" stands for "Destron", which is what they call Decepticons in Japan). But in-universe, the name "D-16" was drawn from the sector of the mine where he worked. I don't get the impression it was originally intended to be part of a broader pattern.
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Which is why I'm baffled as to what the hell the reasoning was behind Bumblebee's pre-Earth name, "B-127". There's this bizarre situation in the Bumblebee film, where the name "B-127" first cropped up, where literally every other bot gets a normal cool name with personality like "Cliffjumper" or "Dropkick" except for Bumblebee, who is stuck with this clunky sci-fi name until he makes friends with a human teenager on Earth and she gives him the name Bumblebee. I guess I don't find it confusing that the writers would (correctly) realise it's a bit weird for Bumblebee to be called Bumblebee on an alien planet where bumblebees don't exist. What I find confusing is that they didn't extend that logic to any other character.
So despite everything else in the franchise's direction pointing away from "robot" and towards "alien", Transformers One ends up with this ridiculous situation where two of the most important guys are, for practically the whole movie, simply referred to as "Dee" and "Bee", I guess because the writers correctly realised the numbers sound fucking stupid.
And if you squint, "Elita-1" sorta fits this naming scheme. But the great irony of it is that the very same cartoon episode which coined "Orion Pax" simultaneously established that Elita-1 also used to go by a different name: "Ariel"! Like the Little Mermaid. Y'know, because an "aerial" is a type of electrical component- oh, forget it.
By the time the script made it into Eric Pearson's hands, it's obvious that he simply was not thinking about it that deeply. He describes the genesis of a scene where Bumblebee introduces his imaginary friends, "A-atron, EP 5-0-8, and Steve." A-atron was impov'd by Keegan-Michael Key as a reference to one of his own skits on Key & Peele. Steve ("He's foreign.") was literally just because Pearson thought it would be funny. It's true that Steve is an inherently funny name, and I guess if you're struggling to come up with jokes of your own, it can be handy to fall back on something which is inherently funny.
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And again, our silly answers to these silly questions beget yet more questions. If he started out as "D-16", then where did the name "Megatron" come from? And if all the Primes have epic made-up fantasy names, then surely that one guy can't just be called "The Fallen", right? That's not a name, that's an epithet. Unfortunately, someone at Hasbro had the bright idea to answer both these questions at once: The Fallen's real name was "Megatronus". Later, for consistency, they threw on the title, and we get "Megatronus Prime", which sounds like what a thirteen-year-old on deviantART in 2014 would call their Steven Universe fusion of Megatron and Optimus Prime. So you see, Megatron actually named himself after Megatronus Prime, famously the most evil of the Primes. In Transformers One, this is changed slightly so Megatronus is merely the strongest of the Primes, as part of its overall effort to make Megatron not look completely insane.
Which, it must be said, is a tall order. Better stories have tried and failed. Back in 2007, Scottish writer Eric Holmes came up with Megatron Origin, a perfectly-fine comic miniseries which drew heavily from the miners' strikes that took place in the UK from 1984-1985, coinciding with the inception of the Transformers franchise. In that comic, Megatron is a lowly miner who, through a series of chance events, winds up at the head of a dangerous political revolutionary movement.
For some reason—I guess because nobody had ever tried to make Megatron anything other than a bloodthirsty cackling madman before—this take on Megatron as a guy who rose up against a corrupt system became the defining interpretation of the character, copy/pasted pretty much wholesale into the Binder of Revelation. Orion Pax also opposes the system, and bonds with Megatron over it, but they disagree on how to fix it: Pax believes in peaceful reform, Megatron just loves to kill. In Transformers One, the problem everyone has with Megatron is basically "whoa, this guy's a little TOO angry!" and there's a point towards the end of the film where Megatron suddenly starts jonesing to kill literally anyone who stands in his way, because he's irrationally angry.
The core problem here—and it's kind of the Magneto problem, the Killmonger problem, whatever better-known example you care to insert here—is that these guys all fundamentally exist just to be a big villain who loves to kill people and who ultimately gets defeated, but the kids who grew up on this stuff in the '80s are now adults who are no longer satisfied with cardboard cutout villains. People like a complex villain, they like a villain who has a point. They like to root for both sides. And in fact, it's easier to sell more toys to people who are rooting for both sides, if your villain is just another kind of hero. But you don't really need to take the same effort with the good guys: they're good by design, righteous by nature. They don't need to stand for something, they just need to stand against the guy whose whole thing is that he loves to kill people.
But again, we're starting from a place where the evil faction—who half the planet will ultimately align themselves with—are literally called "Decepticons". It's a name you'd only ever call yourself ironically, maybe reclaiming it from your enemies. In this film, there's some tortured logic that implies they're called Decepticons because they were deceived by Sentinel Prime. Like if you met a gang of guys who call themselves "The Robbers", but it turns out to be because they got robbed one time, and they actually have zero intention of stealing from anyone.
The Autobots are easier, of course. "Auto" is a prefix that just means, like, the self, or whatever. And the most agreeably American ideal of all is selfishness the power of the individual, the freedom to seize one's own destiny. Prime's original '80s motto, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," is bastardised in Transformers One into the slightly less rolls-out-off-the-tongue "Freedom and autonomy are the rights of all sentient beings," because (I can only assume) they forgot to work the word "autonomy" earlier into the script. If they ever greenlit Transformers Three, I suppose the motto would have ended up as something like "Freedom, autonomy, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope are the rights of all sentient beings." Even though bodily autonomy is one of the most salient motifs present in the film—all but referred to by name—I suppose the filmmakers were worried that you might think, when Prime says "freedom", that he actually means something completely different. So now you see! "Autobots" is actually the descriptive name of a political movement which believes in obviously good things. Like "Moms for Liberty".
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Okay, so the cannier among you have probably spotted the mean rhetorical trick I'm pulling with this encyclopedia-entry-ass introduction. By sarcastically relitigating all the storytelling choices I dislike from the last 20 years of Transformers lore, I can build up a negative association with Transformers One without even reviewing the movie itself! On a subtextual level, I'm deliberately misattributing these bad ideas to the filmmakers, conveniently ignoring the mountains of evidence to suggest that they were just trying to make the best of whatever Hasbro handed them from on high. If anything—you might think—the filmmakers deserve even more credit, for spinning this shite into something even remotely good on the big screen.
Like, you'd be wrong, but I can see why you might think that.
II. The Spider-Verse of Transformers
Okay, I can see that I've spat in your soup. I'm sorry. There are lots of good bits in Transformers One. I can even think of one or two of them off the top of my head, without really racking my brains.
Maybe halfway through the film, there is one specific moment where the story suddenly promises to get good. You can pinpoint it down to the word, down to the frame even. Our heroes have just discovered that their planet's leader, Sentinel Prime, is a complete fraud who's been secretly exploiting them ever since they were born—and worse, castrated them by removing their transformation cogs. They are all very cross about this. Orion Pax expresses that he wants to come up with a plan to expose Sentinel Prime. Megatron is too angry to listen. Orion Pax asks, "Don't you want to stop him?" And Megatron replies, "No, I want to KILL him!" And there's like, a little tint of red creeping into the glow of his eyes.
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Whoa. Chills. Up to this point in the film, Megatron has been kind of surly at times, but he's otherwise a generic kids' movie protagonist. He's often chipper. He makes quips. He has this banter with Orion Pax where he's always complaining. It's literally that one "Optimist Prime"/"Negatron" comic, committed to film. Like I'm not even being facetious, one of the film's few obligatory "emotional moments" has Elita-1 sit Orion Pax down and say, "You know what I love about you? You always see the bright side. Like you're some kind of OPTIMIST or something." And then later completely unrelatedly God gives him the mandate of heaven and says "ARISE, OPTIMUS PRIME!" Y'see, as originally conceived, "Optimus" is the word "Optimum" if it was a name, which is why people sometimes localise his name as "Best #1". But it's genuinely kind of cute to reverse-engineer the etymology as coming from "optimist", I guess. Like, it's stupid, but it's cute.
Argh, I got distracted with naming minutia again! Entirely my bad. That's the last time, I promise. Where was I? Right, we'd just found out that Megatron is kind of scary. Brian Tyree Henry's line delivery as he growls "KILL" is his crowning achievement in this film.
Where Optimus Prime's character arc in this movie sees him change from a funny, rebellious spirit to a complete personality vacuum, Megatron's character arc is kind of the opposite. When we're first introduced to him, it's weirdly hard to get a handle on who he is. He's a fanboy for Megatronus, the strongest and most morally-unremarkable of the Primes. He looks up to Sentinel Prime. He likes sports. He doesn't like breaking the rules. In fact, we get the sense that, were it not for his friendship with Orion Pax, he would be literally indistinguishable from the legion of silent crowd-filling background characters he works with. But the moment he starts to become Megatron, it's like everything starts to click. Gears catch, where once they ground and idled. There is something in this guy that was made to fight, made to kill, made to rule. It's sick.
And the underlying tension in his friendship with Optimus suddenly snaps into focus. Megatron is mad at Sentinel Prime, but Sentinel Prime isn't there, he's somewhere else, far below... and he can't help but turn that anger on the next closest thing to an authority figure he has in his life, which is his peer-pressuring bestie, Orion Pax. There is a part of Megatron that wishes he'd never learned the truth, and he blames Orion Pax for his cursed knowledge, for constantly leading them into predicaments on his stupid flights of fancy. Now that he knows, he can't go back to how he was. He can't stop thinking about it.
I'll be honest, it rules. Obviously it rules. It's complicated and toxic and darker than this movie was marketed to be. In interview, Josh Cooley describes the draft of the script he was presented with when he joined the project as having been far more jokey, light-hearted, glib—and it seems we can credit him for saying "Look, this ain't right, the minute the credits roll these guys are going to be at civil war for millions of years."
So, they started talking about it in — what did you say, 2015? I came on board in 2020, and when I came on board there was the first draft of the script. So I don't think they'd been working on it that entire time, but they'd been thinking about it, for sure. And the script that I read was a little more comical? But it was clear that that wasn't the right tone for this film specifically, because we know there's gonna be a war, civil war on Cybertron, you can't have everybody making jokes and then all of a sudden there's a war. So, um, the stakes were really important for this film. And because our characters at the beginning are a little naive, and just on the younger side, not as experienced, it allowed more freedom for them to be a little looser and have fun really getting to know these characters. But once they realize something's going on and things are getting real, it needs to get real.
Cooley also describes his "in" on the film as being the brotherly relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron (they're not literally brothers in this film, though they have been in the past), which perhaps explains why Megatron and Optimus Prime get to be characters, instead of just like, guys who are there.
That was always the goal from the beginning and what got me on board. It was this relationship between these two characters that was very human and brotherly. I thought about my relationship with my brother and how I could bring that in. It’s not like we’re enemies, but we grew up together and then went down our different paths, but we’re still brotherly. I became a writer-director and live in a fantasy land, and he became a homicide detective who deals with reality, so we’re two very different mindsets. I have always been fascinated by the idea of two people who come from the same place but end up in different ones. From the very beginning, I was like, ‘That’s something I can relate to.’
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Anyway, things I liked, what else. There's that joke at the very start, after the excruciating lore powerpoint, where Orion Pax does a fake-out like he's going to transform, the music briefly swells, and then it just cuts to him legging it down the corridor. In a similar vein, I liked the idea behind the Iacon 5000, where Orion Pax has them run in the race. I felt like the execution of the race left a bit to be desired—the only other participant who matters is Darkwing—but it's still honestly the best big action setpiece in the film. There's also that bit at the end where Megatron and Optimus Prime are both changing into their final forms simultaneously, and it's basically a Homestuck Flash (what would that be, "[S] OPTIMUS PRIME. ARISE."?), so obviously I liked that. Oh, and I really liked the environment design where the planet's landscape is constantly transforming, that's brand-new, someone had an Idea there, and it creates visual interest during the initial Energon-mining scene... even if I wished it had actually paid off in a more meaningful way than "the planet's crust opens as Prime falls to get the Matrix"—like, someone really should've gotten eaten by the planet, that's a cracking Disney death scene and they left it on the table! I also liked getting to see my blorbo, Vector Prime, on the big screen.
I think, as a Transformers fan who's had to sit through a lot of really quite sexist, racist, and plain bad films, you're well within your rights to come out of this one ready to give it a fucking Oscar. You should be ecstatic! It has none of those pesky humans clogging up the frame. It has plenty of robot action. It has jokes which- well I struggle to call many of them "funny", but they're at least trying to be funny in a different way to Michael Bay's films. The film is obviously a massive love letter to... honestly every part of Transformers except the live-action movies. It is an incredibly faithful and earnest adaptation of all the lore and iconography that has randomly accumulated the way it has over the last forty years of bullshit.
My main point of contention, then, is with the overriding sentiment I'm seeing from pretty much everyone else in the fandom: that this is not just the best Transformers movie, but that it's a great animated movie period, that it does for Transformers what Into the Spider-Verse did for Spider-Man, what The Last Wish did for Puss in Boots, and what Mutant Mayhem did for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That, in effect, this film will make you "get it". That it's better-looking, better-written, and more meaningful than a silly toy commercial has any right to be.
I think you can definitely see some loose influence from Spider-Verse in the overall look of the film—particularly in its color grading, and in the design of its main setting, the underground city of Iacon, where the upside-down skyscrapers hanging from the ceiling evoke the iconic "falling upwards" shot from Spider-Verse. Like The Last Wish, it's an animated franchise film that spent much longer than you'd think in development, only for the release of Into the Spider-Verse to have an immediate impact on its visual style... without actually affecting the basic story to the same extent. Both Transformers One and The Last Wish, in many ways, feel like stories concocted using an older formula; in particular, Transformers One bears startling similarities to a similar toy-franchise-prequel, BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, which was released twenty years ago! By contrast, Mutant Mayhem—which had a much shorter development period—is a direct reaction to Spider-Verse in both aesthetic and narrative, and it has a much more distinctive creative direction as a result.
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If you look at how all these titles have performed in cinemas, I think you can make a pretty strong case that audiences are perfectly willing to go out and see this kind of flick. A glance at Wikipedia tells me that Mutant Mayhem, The Bad Guys, and The Last Wish grossed double, triple, and quadruple their budgets respectively. In terms of the pre-existing cultural cachet they were banking on, we're talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a children's book series I'd never heard of, and fucking Puss in Boots. You cannot tell me that Transformers, as a brand, is on the same level as any of these properties. Meanwhile, Transformers One hardly broke even, while The Wild Robot—another DreamWorks film based on a children's book I've never heard of, which it ended up competing with in theatres—grosses three times its budget. My friends who've seen The Wild Robot say it made them cry.
Face it: Transformers One has not lit the world on fire. I've seen a lot of people cope with this by suggesting that it's to do with the film's staggered release, or even by claiming that the film's marketing was somehow misleading. I'll be honest, upon seeing it, it did not strike me as being at all dissimilar to the trailers. You can maybe say that the trailers undersold the depth of Orion Pax's and Megatron's relationship—which is its best aspect—but honestly, I think if they'd taken a lot of those scenes out of context and put them in early teasers, audiences would've laughed it out of theatres. Like, c'mon, it's toy robots, stop pretending it's Shakespeare. And otherwise, what you see is what you get; it's exactly what it says on the tin.
I wonder how many Transformers fans, on some level, have noticed that even when we're supposedly "eating good", and watching "peak cinema", our films just aren't as good as everyone else's. They're something you'll enjoy if you're already highly predisposed to enjoy them. But otherwise, they're not turning heads. They're not as funny, or as heartfelt, or as complex, or as exciting, or as charming, or as memorable, or as beautiful as these other films. Unlike with Spider-Verse, there's no word-of-mouth amongst normal people to say that this is a film worth seeing.
What I perceive in studios hoping to recreate the flash-in-the-pan success of Spider-Verse is a misunderstanding of what made people go crazy for that movie in the first place. Yes, it changed our conception of what an 3D-animated film could look like. Yes, the multiverse is very cool and all that. Yes, it had a huge IP attached to it. But on a more fundamental level, that movie has a fantastic story underpinning it. The script is razor-sharp. The story is beautifully complex. The vision of New York City it presents is a living, breathing place, populated by real people. It has the kind of craft to it that can only come from truly obsessive creators cultivating an absolutely miserable professional environment for a legion of passionate animators.
In interview, Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura actually spoke surprisingly candidly about his view on crunch:
I probably shouldn't answer this question, because I'm not exactly PC on my answer. I think the nature of filmmaking is, we're really lucky to work in a business that's about passion. Passion doesn't fit really well into a timeline, so inevitably you come to a crunch time. It's just true in the live action, it's true in every movie, and authors always tell me that about when they're writing their books — it's the same thing happens to them! There's something about the creative process that's not — it's unruly. So, I think if you're enjoying it, you need to recognize that. Like, you know, I don't wanna abuse anybody, and y'know — if you get into that period where people have to really work too hard, you gotta help them in that situation, then. 'Cause it's gonna come. It does on every movie. I've never seen it not come, no matter how well you plan, et cetera. 'Cause it's not a science what we're doing at all, and there's all these discoveries that happen near the end, which makes you go "oh, let's do some more, come on!". We discovered that on this movie, where we're calling ILM going "we've got a few ideas, you know, do you have enough man-hours?". [...] Like, you gotta be conscious of it — in live-action, for instance, there are some studios that are so cheap that when you're on — sort of medium location-distance and you're shooting 'til midnight, they don't pay for a hotel room. It's like, well, no-no-no, you pay for a hotel room. You protect the people.
According to everyone who worked on Transformers One, everyone who worked on Transformers One was very passionate about it. But there are parts of this film where I think you can say, pretty objectively, that it's falling short of its intended effect. So I guess maybe they weren't that passionate. I'm not saying that to be mean! It's just... isn't that better than the alternative—that this was the best they could do?
III. I did not care for The Godfather
At one point in the film, the gang's magic map leads them to a scary cave, which looks like this:
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Bumblebee fills the dead air by saying, "A cave, with teeth. Nothing scary about that!" The joke here is that this is a cave that looks like a mouth. But as depicted, it's a cave that looks like a mouth that doesn't look like a cave! I get that this is an alien planet, but stalactites don't grow that way on Earth, so when you see the cave onscreen, your gut reaction isn't "oh my, what a frightening cave!". No, this is a cave that makes you say, "that's not a cave, that's some kind of alien monster".
(It's not like "cave turns out to be a monster" would in any way be a fresh twist. In BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, there's a bit where a character swims into a scary cave, and it turns out to be the mouth of a massive sea serpent. In The Empire Strikes Back, the Millennium Falcon briefly hides in an asteroid tunnel which turns out to be a giant space worm. So I'm definitely not saying Transformers One would've been a better film if it had used this stock trope.)
Then once the heroes go inside, we're whisked off to an entirely different set of concept artwork, for this lush organic underground paradise. There's no danger there. The cave itself is reduced to a strange little footnote. Maybe it's only in the story because a concept artist drew it before they'd worked out the finer points of the narrative, and Keegan-Michael Key just ended up ad-libbing the "teeth!" line when he was told to vamp for a few seconds. Or maybe the teeth gag was fully written into the script from the start, and the environment artists just interpreted it way too literally.
Like, I'm sorry, I don't mean to start off on the wrong foot here by harping on about the cave thing—it's not a perfect example anyway—but to me it's a microcosm for my frustration towards what I perceive to be a lack of creative vision in this film. So much of the film feels like it's not there to be entertaining, or meaningful, or narratively load-bearing... it's just obligatory, something they threw in for the sake of having anything at all. It's colors and sounds. When you see the spiky shape onscreen, you think, "ooh, this film was pretty bouba earlier, but now it's more kiki!" They get the comedian to improvise a few one-liners while the characters walk from place to place. And it's like, yes, this is a film for children. Of course the heroes have an adventure map with a big red X on it. In many respects this is a glorified episode of Pocoyo, or the modern equivalent, which I guess is "Baby Shark | Animal Songs For Children".
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Nowhere is this sense of "we are obliged to put this in the movie" felt more strongly than in its supporting cast. When you look closely, you notice that Bumblebee and Elita-1—placed prominently in the film's marketing and being technically present for much of its runtime—don't actually do anything of narrative significance. They don't make choices that impact the story; they're just there, and it would not take much rewriting to excise them entirely, so it's just Orion Pax and Megatron on their little adventure. In fact, I'll just come out and say it: I think Transformers One would have been a better movie if Bumblebee and Elita-1 were not in it.
It helps that, from a Doylist perspective, the motivations for their inclusion are perfectly transparent. Firstly, think of the merchandise! Secondly, in Bumblebee's case, it's fucking Bumblebee, he's the whole reason half the kids will be watching, you can't not have him in there. Whenever Bumblebee's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, "where's Bumblebee?" Also, I think the creative team felt that they could use Bumblebee tactically to balance some of the darkness in the story.
In the G1 cartoon, Bumblebee just has the default Autobot personality—good-natured, a little sarcastic—with the dial turned a little more towards friendliness. There's this iconic anecdote from the production that cartoon, where writer David Wise found himself in exactly the same situation Transformers writers are finding themselves in forty years later: he was told to write a story about something called "Vector Sigma", and he had no fucking clue what Vector Sigma was supposed to be. So he asked story editor Bryce Malek, who also had no fucking idea. Malek in turn asked Hasbro, and was told that Vector Sigma was "the computer that gave all the Transformers personalities". Upon hearing this, Malek said, "Well, it didn't do a very good job, did it!" Vector Sigma, in case you missed it, does actually appear in Transformers One, as the polygonal shape that transitions into the Matrix of Leadership in the opening powerpoint; I guess they're one and the same now. Some things never change: in Michael Bay's Transformers movies, there is again just a single default personality that every single Autobot shares, a braggadacious action-hero facade over genuine bloodthirst. Who can forget that iconic moment in Revenge of the Fallen where Bumblebee rips out Ravage's spine in grisly slow-mo?
Aside from the fact that he's small and yellow, Bumblebee in Transformers One bears very little resemblance to any incarnation of the character kids might be accustomed to. Instead, he occupies a stock comic-relief archetype, he's a zany guy who goes "Well, that just happened!" If anything, his one joke in the third act—wanton murder—reads like it could maybe be a reference to his many Mortal Kombat fatalities in Bay's films. Beginning in 2007's Transformers Animated, Bumblebee has sometimes possessed deployable "stingers" that flip out from his hands, as a fun action feature for toys. Clearly someone on Transformers One saw this and thought it was the funniest fucking thing that Bumblebee has "knife hands", because the character spends the third act of the movie just shouting "knife hands!" and cutting people in half like a medieval terror.
(In the UK, Bumblebee's lines were re-recorded at the last minute so he says "sword hands" instead. This is because in the UK, we generally aren't able to kill each other using guns, so it's knives that are the big armed-violence boogeyman. Everyone's always talking about how all the kids have knives. And look, I'm not someone to indulge in moral panic, but genuinely, when I look at Bumblebee chasing around people with knives, saying, "I'm gonna cut these guys, watch!", I'm like... what the fuck were they thinking when they wrote that?)
Frankly, whatever is going on with Bumblebee is just an entirely different movie to everything else that's happening. When Bee shanks his twelfth nameless lackey in a row, the movie's like, awww, you're sweet! But when Megatron tries to kill the one (1) evil dictator who's just fucking branded him, who's still lying to his face while his people continue to die to the guy's fuckin' honor guard, Optimus Prime is like, HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?
Bumblebee is solely here to be funny, but there's a point in the film where it needs to become a war story, and the best they can think to do with Bumblebee is to have him kill people but in like, a funny way.
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As for Elita-1... look, to put it very bluntly, she is in this movie to be a woman. Transformers has had a long, long forty-year history of boys'-club exclusionism, if not outright misogyny, and each new series usually has a token female character, as a kind of fig-leaf for the fact that really, the only fucking thing Hasbro cares about is that the boys are buying the toys. Beginning in the 1986 movie, it was Arcee who got to be "the pink one" for many years of fiction—but not toys, y'see, when parents want to buy something for their beloved young lad, they don't buy "the pink one", no sir. In the 2010s, wow-cool-OC Windblade took over for a stint as leading lady, decked out in a commercially-non-threatening red color scheme. Recently, though, it's been Elita-1—Optimus Prime's girlfriend from the original '80s cartoon—who's been the go-to female character, and she's increasingly allowed to be pink.
There is a lot of love for these characters amongst creatives and fans alike, and especially in the last decade, female Transformers have been both more numerous and better-written than ever. Unfortunately Transformers One, which depicts Elita-1 as an arms-crossing career-obsessed buzzkill, whose arc sees her learn her place in deference to a less-competent man... well let's just say it struck me as a significant step back in this regard.
There's this great interview with Scarlett Johansson, voice of Elita-1, where she's trying to describe what makes her character interesting, and it's like she's drawing blood from a stone. She's like, "yeah, so Elita-1, I would say, she's on her own journey, because at the start of the film it's sort of like she's working at a big company, you know, and she wants to get a promotion, but then later on she learns that she can't, y'know, get a promotion". Look, it's not that Scarlett Johansson does a bad job—in fact, considering the material she's working with, she practically carries Elita-1 entirely on the back of her performance—it's just that I can't shake the impression that the filmmakers would rather pay Scarlett Johansson god knows how many thousands of dollars than try to think of a second actress that they know of.
As I've already complained, Transformers One has a pretty thin cast, but it effectively only has two other female characters who do anything. Airachnid is a secondary antagonist, Sentinel Prime's spymaster/enforcer, and it's clear that some concept artist really fucking popped off when designing her. She has eyes in the back of her head, and it's ten times creepier than that makes it sound. Her spiderlegs also create some visual interest during fight scenes. As a character, Airachnid has zero internality and is not interesting, but she is cool, so you'll get no complaints from me there.
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The film's other other female character is Chromia, who wins the Iacon 5000 race at the last moment. She really comes out of nowhere to clinch it. It's funny, because the leaderboards show this one guy, Mirage, hovering near the top of the rankings for almost the whole sequence. And Chromia's character model really looks suspiciously like Mirage's. In fact, there's a different character who stands around in the background a couple of times who looks much more like Chromia. Funnily enough, that background character is even called Chromia in concept art! So if you connect the dots, it really seems that the "Chromia" who is the best racer on Cybertron was originally meant to be Mirage, a guy, until they switched the character's gender at the very last minute, and didn't bother changing the leaderboards to match.
There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that Mirage was the dark horse of Rise of the Beasts, and for some reason they felt like his depiction in Transformers One would've gotten in the way of their plans for the character somehow. It's plausible, I guess. The second, infinitely funnier option, is that at some point someone working on the movie realised that they only put two women in the film, scrambled to look through the feature to find a suitable character to gender-swap, only to discover to their horror that they'd forgotten to put in any characters whatsoever. Fuck it, the racer guy! He can be a girl. Diversity win, the fastest class traitor on Cybertron... is a woman!
In case you were wondering about the Transformers One toyline leaderboards, by my count, Orion Pax has ten new transforming toys currently announced or in stores, Bumblebee and Megatron have six each, Sentinel Prime has four, Alpha Trion has two, Elita-1 has two, Airachnid has one, Starscream has one, Wheeljack has one, and the Quintesson High Commander has one. In fact, one of Elita-1's toys—the collector-oriented high-quality Studio Series release—isn't scheduled for release until some undetermined point later next year, and she was entirely absent from leaked lists of upcoming releases, which to me smacks of "we realised last-minute that it would look really really bad if we didn't bother to release a good toy of the one woman in the film". Oh, and obviously, Chromia has no toys—but there is an "Iacon Race" three-pack consisting of Megatron, Orion Pax... and Mirage. Go figure.
The thing is, all of the stuff I'm grousing about here is pretty much standard fare for kids' films targeted more at boys. Hell, even The Lego Movie—which is basically the gold standard of toy commercials—gave supporting protagonist Wyldstyle a pretty similar arc to the one Elita-1 gets here, which was probably the weakest element of that film. Evidently conscious of this, Lord & Miller redeemed themselves by devoting the entirety of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part to deconstructing common narratives surrounding gender roles. I guess I just wish the young girls who presumably comprise some portion of Transformers One theatergoers could actually get anything out of Elita-1 as a character. Ah, what do I know, maybe it's still considered countercultural simply to depict a woman punching people.
Still, to give credit where it's due: Transformers One doesn't remotely touch the gender-essentialism prevalent in the Binder of Revelation, treating female Transformers no differently to their male counterparts in lore terms. Solus Prime is, it seems, just a Prime who happened to be a woman, rather than the mythological Eve after whom all women are patterned. There's a scene where our heroes are gifted the Transformation Cogs of the fallen Primes, and the Primes named thankfully bear no particular relation to the characters; in other words, Elita-1 isn't given Solus Prime's cog. As Alpha Trion puts it: "What defines a Transformer is not the cog in his chest, but the spark that resides in their core." Dude really remembered nonbinary people exist halfway through that sentence huh.
(Actually, the bigger mistake would've been with Megatron: if he was given Megatronus Prime's cog from the start, then this would've created the unfortunate implication that his descent into evil was only the result of Megatronus Prime's fucked up and evil cog, rather than a choice Megatron made of his own free will. The film instead has it the other way around: Megatron's radicalisation into a "might makes right" philosophy is what causes him to covet Megatronus Prime's transformation cog, to steal that power from Sentinel Prime, who stole the cogs of both Megatronus and Megatron in the first place. That's cool! This does create a bit of unfortunate narrative dissonance with Alpha Trion's words, alas, as it does seem like Megatronus Prime's cog really is more powerful than the others, because it gives both Sentinel Prime and Megatron a powerup.)
There's just something that I find so dreadfully mercenary about this movie's cast—honestly, everyone except Orion Pax, Megatron, and maybe Sentinel Prime. Take Darkwing, for example. Bro was clearly designed from the ground up to fill this stock character role of "bully who pushes our guys around and later gets his comeuppance". For a more interesting take on that exact same archetype, look no further than Todd Sureblade from Nimona, a bigoted knight who gets a whole damn character arc in the background, which directly complements that film's main themes.
Again, I'm not playing some kind of guessing game here, the authorial evidence is right there: Darkwing didn't even have a name until Hasbro designer Mark Maher was shown a picture of the character and asked, "If this was a Decepticon flyer, who would it be?" This is actually par for the course with ILM; most of their concept art is labelled with very basic descriptions, with the exact trademarks being picked in conjunction with Hasbro at a later point. Darkwing just stands out in Transformers One because he's the only recurring speaking character who's an OC in all but name (unless you count Bumblebee), he's the one guy who's been invented from scratch with total creative freedom, and he's boring as sin. It's like the filmmakers just couldn't conceive of a children's movie without that stock character—and they clearly had no idea what to do with him once they'd invented him, because he disappears entirely from the film at the start of the third act, when Orion Pax throws him into an arcade cabinet, which they have in the mines on Cybertron for some reason.
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In a film with as painfully few named speaking characters as Transformers One, there's really no excuse for having this kind of one-dimensionality in their portrayals. Genuinely, I ask—who are Orion Pax and Megatron fighting to liberate? Jazz, one of the biggest personalities from the original G1 cartoon, who gets all of two boilerplate lines here? Cooley seems to think so:
As you’re designing them the background characters are almost like Lego pieces where you put different heads on different bodies just to fill in a crowd. But some of them would be brought forward and be painted specific colors so that it represents a character that I didn’t know was such a big deal. But there was stuff—like Jazz, for example, has a pretty big role. It was important to have a relationship with a character that we know gets to be saved.
To me, the idea that casual cinemagoers would be invested in any of the Transformers as characters is laughable. Michael Bay's characters are famous for being hateful non-entities. In terms of the films, Jazz is best remembered for dying at the end of the first one, seventeen years ago; he looks completely different here. The one breakout character in recent years—Mirage, as played by Pete Davidson in Rise of the Beasts—was, as I've already mentioned, written out so that the movie could reach its girl quota... not that he would've had any lines anyway.
And I just don't buy the idea that the complete dearth of compelling characterisation in this film is just an unfortunate side-effect of its clipped one-hour-thirty runtime—that, given even half an hour longer, the film would suddenly be crowded with rich portrayals of all your Transformers faves. Bumblebee and Elita-1, ostensibly two of the most important characters in the film, are not in this movie because the movie is interested in telling their stories. They are in this movie for the sake of being in this movie. It insists upon itself.
IV. No politics means no politics
In fact, putting aside merchandising considerations, Elita-1 and Bumblebee serve one very specific purpose in narrative terms. The trait Optimus Prime and Megatron have always had in common is that they are both leaders—and what is a leader, without anyone to lead? Without Bumblebee and Elita-1, you'd have this farcical situation where the only person Optimus Prime ever gets to boss around is Megatron, until the very end of the movie when God makes him king of all Cybertron. The High Guard, Starscream's gang of exiles, serve a similar narrative purpose for Megatron; they're a ready-made army who've just been sitting around waiting for him to show up and take charge.
Towards the end, the movie does actually take care to show both Orion Pax and Megatron rallying groups of Cybertronians: in Pax's case, he reveals the truth to his legion of interchangable miner friends, while Megatron riles up the High Guard mob. Again, there's a bit of that narrative sleight-of-hand, a bit of a thematic cop-out, where the question of "how do Optimus Prime and Megatron come to be leaders of their factions?" is answered only in the most literal possible interpretation. Yes, we technically see the exact chain of events that lead to this point—but both characters are portrayed as born leaders. We don't see them grow into the role, except physically. The moment Megatron decides he wants to rule, he's able to take charge. Likewise, Optimus Prime just gets divinely appointed by God. At a key point, Megatron loudly declares "I will never trust a so-called leader ever again", and the movie plays a fucking scare chord like this is supposed to be ominous. Like, oh no! Optimus Prime is a leader! And they're friends! Whatever will Megatron do when he finds out his friend, Optimus Prime, is a leader?
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I don't think the movie has given any real thought to what a leader actually is. It seems to take a stance that power cannot be taken, i.e. through violent action, as Sentinel Prime and Megatron do. That one scene with Elita-1 suggests the most important trait for a leader to have, above and beyond any particular competency, is simply hope and optimism. What I just can't wrap my head around is the fact that the counterpoint the movie presents to Megatron, in the form of Orion Pax becoming Optimus Prime, does not support a belief in collective action or basic democracy—rather, it's a boring sword-in-the-stone divine-right-of-kings fantasy.
Except I do have a theory for why the film is like this. Let's look again at that interview with Eric Pearson, who came onboard in the "late middle" of production:
One of the first things that I did was a big pass on Sentinel Prime. I just felt like he was too obviously telegraphing his wickedness in previous versions, and I felt like, “No, he’s a carnival barker.” He’s got to be a big salesman. He’s a bullshitter, honestly is what he is.
(Honestly, if this is Sentinel after a "big pass" to make his villainy more of a twist, I shudder to think what the earlier drafts were like.)
Now, let's see how WIRED introduces their interview with Josh Cooley, titled "Transformers One Isn't as Silly as It Looks":
He liked the script, which traces how Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) went from friends to enemies. But as the world went into lockdown as Covid-19 spread, Cooley found his story changing, if only slightly. Trump was still in office when Cooley started working on the film, and he was having meetings with the producers and they’d “start these meetings off on Zoom just going, like, ‘Holy crap what is going on in this world?’” he says. Ultimately, the infighting they were seeing between Democrats and Republicans in the same family became an undercurrent in the film’s friends-to-enemies storyline, “because that’s what Transformers is.”
So it's like, oh, this is a 2016 election thing. This is just that one election that broke everyone's brains. Of course this movie about a made-up political struggle on an alien planet being developed from 2015-2020 wouldn't be like, hey, you know what might fix our society's problems, is if we had an election. Of course the main villain is a "big salesman" "bullshitter" who says things like "The truth is what I make it!". Wow, guys, your film is so-o-o politically-conscious, and very pretty.
The fantasy is more or less that Donald Trump's army of reactionaries is marching on Washington to seize power through violent means, and on the way he drops Joe Biden into the Grand Canyon, but just before Joe hits the ground a giant fucking bald eagle swoops in to catch him and squawks, "God finds you worthy! Arise, President Biden!"
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In our escapist little morality play, our best friend slash allegorical dad gets made king of the planet, and we all get jobs in the government. As in, one of the funniest lines in the movie is straightup Bumblebee exulting, "This is the greatest day of my life. I get to work for the government!" When Prime met Bumblebee—an hour ago—the dude was talking to imaginary friends, and honestly the only fucking skill he's demonstrated since then is cold-blooded murder. We have this dissonance in the storytelling, where it's mostly a story about four friends going on an adventure (are they even friends? Most of them hate each other!), but it's also a founding-fathers political origin story, which means there comes a point where our hero just suddenly starts bossing his friends around in a deep voice, and they're like, "Yes, sir!" It creates this unhinged situation where the "good" faction on Cybertron is ruled by the biblical chosen one and his nepotism buddies.
Per that quote from WIRED (or are they just putting words in Cooley's mouth? I can't help but notice they don't give an exact quote!), the film is ultimately sympathetic to the bad guys (the Republicans, I guess). It deliberately suggests that there is really nothing that should divide the Autobots and the Decepticons: their political goals, it claims, are identical, and they only disagree on the means by which to achieve them. The Decepticons, who are angry and hateful, have simply been misled by a power-hungry liar with charisma—first Sentinel, then Megatron—and so the tragedy is that they are artificially pushed into conflict with their fellow men, when really they should be uniting to stand against their common enemy, the foreigner illuminati trying to steal Cybertron's wealth.
Now, I know I've just handed you a get-out-of-jail-free card. My political allegory here is chock full of holes. What, are Sentinel Prime and Megatron both Donald Trump? Get a grip. Obviously any real-world commentary in Transformers One was only intended in the loosest sense imaginable: things like, "people should be free to change into whatever they want!" I'm being unfair, I'm reading too much into it, this is a cartoon movie for children, and if I want politics, I should start reading some fucking books. Also, come to mention it, my whole argument about that cave earlier really didn't hold water, and- I know, alright? I know.
V. Place / Place, Cybertron
I'm not mad at this toy commercial because its politics don't quite align with mine. I'm not mad at it for having a boring-ass supporting cast. I'm not mad at it for reheating a bunch of half-baked lore I didn't care for from the early 2010s. I've actually spent a lot of time mad about Transformers media that I've thought was bad. There's Transformers: Armada, where the English translators are fully asleep at the wheel and render even the most basic cartoon plots incomprehensible though constant mistranslations. There's Transformers: Micromasters, where two white guys wrote a downtrodden race of tiny Cybertronians who greet each other like "Wattup, my micro!". There's the recent series of Transformers: EarthSpark, where there's an episode that I can only describe as "the Wonka Experience but it's an episode of a children's cartoon", with a plotline that mostly revolves around our child heroes straightup robbing a Onceler-looking businessman of his most valuable possession. There's Transformers: Age of Extinction, with that one scene, and also the rest of that movie. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most Transformers fiction is some combination of bad, offensive, and offensively bad.
So even though I've just spent thousands of words whinging and moaning about how I didn't like Transformers One, the truth is that I had a perfectly nice time at the cinema. I got to go see it with five of my pals who love Transformers just as much as I do, and we had a blast. It is easily in the top 50% of all Transformers fiction.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I guess I've always given a lot of thought to what Transformers looks like from the outside. Maybe it's that I'm compelled to spend so much time and money on it, that it somehow compels me to vomit up these kinds of essays, and all I want is to be able to make it make sense to anyone in my life. It would be so, so nice if I could just sit down in the cinema with a friend or family member for a couple of hours, and at the end of it, they'd be able to walk out and say, "Okay, I guess I see what you get out of it." Rise of the Beasts was kind of that movie for me, but Rise of the Beasts is also the seventh instalment in a blockbuster franchise. It kind of takes for granted everything about Transformers.
It doesn't answer, "what the fuck is a Transformer anyway?"
For many years now, fans have noticed a marked aversion to using the word "transform" as a verb, or even as a noun. Optimus Prime no longer says, "Autobots, transform and roll out!", he just says, "Roll out!". Transformers no longer transform, they "convert". In fact, Transformers are no longer Transformers at all: they are "Transformers bots", the italics here serving to distinguish a registered trademark. This is because the worms in suits at Hasbro are worried that, if they continue to use the word "transform" by its dictionary definition—that is, to change—then rival toy companies will be able to make the case that anything that transforms can legally be described as a Transformer. It will become a generic trademark, like Velcro, or Band-Aid, or Dumpster.
Yet in Transformers One, "Transformers" is not just the noun by which the characters are referred to—rather, it's used in a descriptive sense to specifically mean "Cybertronians who can transform"! Characters are constantly talking about whether they can or can't transform. Prime gets to say his catchphrase in full. It's a miracle. Not only that, characters even get to say the word "kill" instead of "defeat" or "destroy".
Transformers One has a level of unrestricted creative freedom not seen since the 1986 animated film. This is a film unconstrained by location shooting, or licensing deals, or uncooperative actors; through the magic of CGI, for every single frame of its one-hour-thirty runtime, the filmmakers can put literally whatever they want on the screen. They were given the assignment, "Make an animated prequel set on Cybertron telling the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron", handed an estimated $147 million and a blank page, and told to go nuts. Like those born with transformation cogs, Transformers One had the power to become anything it wanted to be.
The 1986 animated film took that carte blanche to do whatever the fuck it wanted, and basically singlehandedly defined the direction of the franchise ever since. On a lore level, in terms of tone, I would say that Transformers owes practically everything to The Transformers: The Movie. Cartoons, comics, films, and video games have adapted every single one of its scenes countless times over. I'm not necessarily saying that it's a good film, or even that it's a particularly original film—much of it is ripped off from Star Wars—just that it took the franchise somewhere it hadn't gone before. It was looking to the future. As in, literally, it was set in 2005, at the time two decades into the future.
What gets me down about Transformers One is that—like most major franchise media released since The Force Awakens—all it can do is think about the past. Swathes of it are devoted to painstakingly recreating or setting up the various bits of iconography which have arbitrarily come to define the franchise. Even when it appears to be taking things in a new direction, it's not long before it course-corrects back into familiar territory: Steve Buscemi invents a surprisingly fresh take on Starscream's voice, and then Megatron half-strangles him to death, saddling him with a post-produced rasp to emulate Chris Latta's iconic performance from forty years ago.
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The very title of the film, Transformers One, is an allusion to the line, "Till all are one," which originates in The Transformers: The Movie. In an early script for that '80s feature, it was actually "Till all life sparks are one", referring to a literal metaphysical process in that draft whereby one Transformer's life force could be passed on to another, presumably with the belief that they would all eventually be merged into a single afterlife. In the finalized story, it's just this kind of mystical phrase vaguely evoking concepts of togetherness and unity.
Transformers One brushes up against the phrase a couple of times. Alpha Trion almost says it at one point, when passing on his dead siblings' transformation cogs: "They were one. You are one. All are one!" Whatever that means. Later, Orion Pax starts a chant amongst the miners: "Together as one!" And finally, at the very end of the movie, during his obligatory film-ending monologue, Optimus Prime again goes: "And now, we stand here together... as one." (Half of Cybertron has just been banished to the surface forever.) "[...] Here, all are truly... Autobots." (Again, half of Cybertron- Optimus, what the fuck are you talking about?) Regardless, this is inexplicably the one instance where the movie doesn't twist itself up into knots trying to nail the exact phrasing.
Actually, there is one other sideways reference like this I can think of. Early in the film, Orion Pax is chatting up Elita, and he remarks, "Feel like I have enough power in my to drill down and touch Primus himself." To which Elita replies, "You don't have the touch or the power." This is kind of a nonsensical retort unless you know that in the 1986 movie, one of the most iconic songs on the soundtrack was "The Touch" by Stan Bush, which had the chorus line: "You got the touch! You got the power!" It's a banger. Anyway, remember when I said Darkwing gets chucked through an arcade cabinet? Well, here's Cooley revealing why that arcade cabinet is in the film:
I actually wrote [that exchange between Orion Pax and Elita] because I love that song. [...] And we had this one version where D-16 and Orion were playing a video game, like a stand-up old arcade game—it was inspired to look like that, but a Cybertonian version of that. They’re playing that together like friends and the song, like the 8-bit song that’s playing is ["The Touch"]. But that scene got nixed. And so I wanted to work it in there somewhere. And I just felt like a natural place for it. But that was one where I’m like, "I just love that song and those lyrics and that’s Transformers to me so I want to get that in there."
(I've had to amend that quote to fill in the blanks where the article has redacted "spoilers" for the movie. Spoiler culture is an absolute pox, I swear. Can't have the audiences knowing about one (1) mid joke in advance—the movie barely has enough jokes to fill a "Transformers One Funny Moments" compilation as it is!)
This actually isn't the first time Hasbro has "nixed" a reference to "The Touch" in major Transformers media. In the Transformers: Cyberverse episode "The Alliance", a character references "The Touch" right before a training montage which is clearly supposed to have the track playing, except instead it's been replaced by a generic rock instrumental, presumably because they couldn't afford the license. And in Daniel Warren Johnson's Eisner-award-winning bestselling comic run, there's one panel where he clearly wanted to include the song's lyrics as a sound effect, but wasn't allowed, so the final sound effect famously reads "YOU KNOW THE SONG". But that's a random episode of a bargain-bin cartoon, and an indie-darling comic series—not a $147 million blockbuster. You really have to wonder if it came down to money, or if it was something else. God knows Transformers One would not actually be improved for having a chiptune remix of "The Touch" in it, anyway.
The most egregious misplaced bit of fanwank in the film isn't even in dialogue. In the 1986 film, there's this one iconic moment when Optimus Prime arrives at the besieged Autobot City, drives through a crowd of Decepticons in truck mode, then fires some afterburners, launching his cab up into the air, where he transforms mid-leap, drawing his blaster to shoot a couple of Decepticons before hitting the ground. It's a fantastic bit of original animation. It's the Akira slide of Transformers. And, surprise surprise, it crops up in Transformers One. In the climactic final fight, Orion Pax shows up to save Megatron, and he does the thing.
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But the problem is... he's not in truck mode! The film just cuts to him standing there in the middle of some anonymous mooks, then he does a standing jump into the air, the movie momentarily goes into extreme slow-mo like he's doing a fucking quick-time event, then he shoots a couple of guys and drops to the ground. There's no momentum. It exists purely to create that simulacrum, to take the single most iconic frame from that bit of 1986 animation, and stretch that one frame into infinity. The context is discarded, irrelevant. All that matters is that brief moment of recognition: "I know what that iiis!" God knows Transformers One has precious little in the way of impactful fight animation of its own; the choreography is stiff and uninspired, while the shots themselves are nauseatingly cluttered. Often, the best it can do is pilfer from older, better stories.
"Did you clap at any of the new moments and memorable characters?" "Were there any?"
Look, I get it. Transformers One is a prequel. By definition, it can't change the future. It has to play with the characters that are already in the toybox. But I do think it had this really special opportunity: to show theatregoers where the Transformers come from. To show us Cybertron not as a distant star or a barren scrapyard, but as a living, thriving alien world, unlike Earth, something special and worth protecting in its own right. Something new and memorable. In Rise of the Beasts—probably the best Transformers movie by default—when Optimus Prime is at his lowest, he wants nothing more to return home... but home is something we've only ever seen as a cold dystopia, ruled by Decepticons. The version of Transformers One I had hoped to see was one that would have imbued Optimus' homesickness with greater meaning. I wanted to feel his loss, and to hope that one day the war will end, and Cybertron can be restored.
I think Transformers One sincerely tries to achieve this effect. The concept artists have clearly put a great deal of time and thought into Cybertron as an environment. When the artbook comes out, I'm keen to see how much stuff didn't make it into the finished film. You have to assume most of it got cut, because there's next to nothing left!
At the end of the film, battle lines are drawn, the civil war is about to start... but strangely, the movie's setting does not convey the sense that anything beautiful is being lost. Nobody is unwillingly turned to violence, innocence-lost; they're all too eager to get to killing, friggin' Bumblebee is gleeful about it. There's no beautiful, iconic landmark, which gets tragically destroyed, like in some kind of Transformers 9/11—"What have we done! Where will this war take us!". There's no part of Cybertron's natural ecological environment to be ruined by the war, because the surface world is already turbofucked by the Quintessons to begin with. No, rather, we have the total opposite: Optimus Prime finding the Matrix (which was just, like, hanging out in the core of Cybertron or whatever) actually restores Energon to the planet, removing the unnatural scarcity which was the entire impetus behind the film's dystopia. He made Cybertron great again. So again, Transformers One fails to answer one of the most fundamental questions one might expect of a Transformers prequel: "When did things on Cybertron get so bad?" The movie ends with the planet in better shape to how it started!
The big original idea that Transformers One has is that Cybertron, the planet itself, should be in a constant state of transformation. I've already talked about the beautiful shapeshifting landscapes, but it's also the moving buildings, the complicated mechanisms, the roads and rails that magically lay themselves between the vehicles and their destinations. I've already mentioned how odd I find it that none of these environmental transformations have any significance to the story; the closest it comes to some sort of payoff is when Orion Pax falls into the hole that makes you king.
What I find most perplexing are the deer. When the gang makes it to the surface, the idea is to show the natural beauty of the surface, which the cogless have been denied their whole lives. The mountains glisten as they move. Nebulae glow in the night sky. The surface is blanketed in organic (?) plantlife, like a watering can forgotten in a garden. And, most strikingly, there are deer: mechanical animals, just like those found on Earth, being hunted for sport by the evil Quintessons. When the cruisers near, their glowing horns turn red with alarm, and they prance around in fear.
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I'm reminded of a brief gag from the third season of Transformers: Cyberverse—one of very few shows to have devoted any serious effort to Cybertronian worldbuilding—in the episode "Thunderhowl". Bumblebee and Chromia stumble across a "singlehorn" (read: unicorn), and when it senses danger, it neighs, transforms into a rocket, and blasts out of frame. And apart from being really cute and funny, it's like, oh, of course that's what animals are like on Cybertron! Everything on this planet transforms. Why not the animals?
For whatever reason, the deer in Transformers One are like the one thing that don't transform. Why the hell not? If Cyberverse could find the budget for its split-second sight gag, surely this blockbuster could, I don't know, have them turn into dirt bikes with antler-handlebars. That would've been something, right? If not, then at least could we maybe see some other animals on Cybertron, to really get across that alien biodiversity? Of course not. See, the deer exist to communicate one very specific story beat: a single moment of trepidation, where the heroes know there's danger nearby, but they don't know what. And all you need for that is a single kind of prey animal, with some kind of warning light to let you know, hey, there's danger! Once this purpose is fulfilled, the deer have no further significance to the story.
We need only look to BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui to see this exact same beat play out with a modicum of competence and creative flair. Also in the second act—in fact, at practically the exact same timestamp—our heroes, the Toa, have a run-in with the bad guys, and they're nearly captured... but then there's this sudden rumble of danger approaching, we don't know what. It turns out to be a herd of giant Kikanalo! They send the bad guys packing, except they nearly trample our heroes too! But then, Toa Nokama's mask begins to glow, and she discovers that her mask grants her the ability to talk to animals. They learn some vital information from the Kikanalo, and are able to ride the creatures for the next stage of their adventure. Finally, when they can go no further, the Kikanalo cave in the passage behind the heroes to ensure they won't be pursued. Holy shit, that's like, five different story beats with just that one type of creature!
It's not just that Transformers One struggles with that kind of basic narrative flow, where a single element serves multiple purposes. It's that often, it wastes precious time creating redundant setups to achieve the same effect twice.
For example, Megatronus Prime's face happens to look exactly like (what we know will be) the Decepticon insignia. At the beginning of the movie, Orion Pax mollifies Megatron by giving him a rare decal of Megatronus Prime's face. Traditionally, Megatron wears his insignia in the middle of his chest—but in this film, nearly every character has a big hole in the middle of their chest, where their missing transformation cog should go. So Megatron sticks the decal on his shoulder instead.
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Later, he gets a cog, and the hole in his chest is filled. When Sentinel Prime captures Megatron, he notices the Megatronus sticker, and rips it off. Then, he re-applies it on Megatron's chest—purely so it's in the "right" place for the iconography. And then, he uses his gun to crudely brand Megatron with a tracing of Megatronus' face, inadvertently creating the Decepticon symbol. Finally, in a post-credits scene, Megatron has fashioned a proper Decepticon brand with which to brand himself and his followers. So in effect, there are four separate moments where Megatron gets the symbol! Orion sticking it on his shoulder, Sentinel moving it to his chest, Sentinel mutilating him, and finally Megatron branding himself. You can make an argument that the symbol starts out meaning one thing, but ends up meaning another thing, which has a kind of tragic significance—but I think you would struggle to distinguish subtle shades of meaning from all four of these brandings. Considering the movie only has an hour and a half to work with, I find this lack of narrative economy to be honestly embarrassing.
(My friend Jo also points out what a misstep it is to just have Megatronus Prime's face perfectly resemble the Decepticon symbol from the start. Had it been a looser, more stylised—that is to say, original—design, the moment where Sentinel Prime roughly carves it into Megatron's chest could be a shocking reveal, as the basic outlines are abstracted and simplified. Gasp, that's the origin of the Decepticon symbol! Instead, from the very moment that sticker first shows up, it's like... oh, well, there it is I guess.)
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In a similar vein, both Optimus Prime and Megatron undergo two different transformations at different points in the movie: first, when Alpha Trion gives them transformation cogs, and second, when respectively they obtain the Matrix of Leadership/Megatronus' cog. The gun that sprouts from Megatron's arm in his intermediary form bears a much closer to resemblance to his iconic "fusion cannon" than the triple-barrelled cannon he ends up with in his final form. Again, in such a short film, can we really say whatever subtlety this brings to Megatron's arc is worth all this fanfare? Now, Redditors ask: "What is the EXACT moment D-16 became Megatron?"
In fact, probably the only point of criticism I've seen levied at Transformer One from within the Transformers fandom at large is that Megatron's arc is maybe a little "rushed". He starts out being best bros forever with Orion Pax, and by the end of the film, he's ready to drop the guy into a bottomless pit. The film takes a lot of time to justify his anger at Sentinel Prime, but the deterioration of his friendship with Orion goes much more unspoken, and is framed more as a point of irrationality: psychologically, Megatron comes to conflate his bossy friend with his oppressive ruler. I liked this, personally. I liked that it's as if a switch gets flipped in Megatron's head. But you do just kind of have to buy into it. The film itself does not put in the work to really sell you on the friendship souring, because again, it's too busy fucking around with two (2) magical girl transformation sequences for each of them.
Everything in the film is like this. They go into the cave and meet Alpha Trion, then leave the cave so they can watch a FMV cutscene with Sentinel Prime and the Quintessons, who've coincidentally arrived at that exact moment, basically just to rehash what they've just been told... and then they go back into the cave so Alpha Trion can resume his infodump, and then they end up clashing with Sentinel Prime's forces once that's done. At the beginning of the movie, they're at the very bottom in the mines, then they get banished to an even lower level, then they banish themselves all the way up to the surface, then they return to Iacon, and then Megatron gets banished to the surface again so he can be mesmerized by the beauty of the world and/or get gunched by Quintessons depending on what the film wanted me to take away from this. Compare to Minecraft but I survive in PARKOUR CIVILIZATION [FULL MOVIE], where the theme of class struggle is pretty efficiently depicted in the vertically-stratified setting.
I just find it so wasteful. Outside of the one scene where they're introduced, the Quintessons—ostensibly the true architects of Cybertron's oppressive status quo—may as well not exist. If not for Orion Pax addressing his closing remarks to the Quintessons, almost as an afterthought, I'd assume the film wants us to forget about them entirely, as it knows full well that its paltry runtime does not give it time for a second action-climax against the aliens. Even as sequel bait, it feels halfhearted at best; Josh Cooley is clearly already bored of Transformers, and seems unlikely to come back for another round unless the money is really really good (which *glances at the box office* it's not). So what the fuck are the Quintessons here for? Was the idea that Sentinel might just have pulled off his coup singlehandedly really so hard to stomach? Could the conspiracy not have been simplified to just involve Sentinel and his Transformer cronies? Hang on, are all the Transformers seen at the start of the film in on it, or just some of them? How's it decided who keeps their cogs and who doesn't?
VI. Into nothing
Why does this movie, where the main selling point is ostensibly that we're getting to see Transformers civilization for the first time, mostly focus on all these guys who can't fucking transform? Surely the entire thing that makes the setting fun is the Zootopia angle of, look, they're all different animals! Or the Elemental angle of, look, they're all different elements! Or the Emoji Movie angle of, look, they're all different emoji! Or the Cars angle of, look, they're all different cars! This is a Transformers film which features several significant sequences involving these cool trains, and there is absolutely zero indication that these trains are themselves Transformers. This is a Transformers film which extensively focuses on miners, and none of them transform into mining vehicles; they're holding, friggin', space jackhammers. Even the premise of "isn't it sad that these ones can't transform" is kind of undercut by the fact that all the miners get to wear fucking jetpacks, which is a frankly much cooler and more effective method of locomotion than driving.
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I'm just sick of Transformers stories having zero interest in the basic premise of Transformers, which is to say, they transform into something. I also think this is the biggest dissonance between casual audiences, who think "oh yeah, Optimus Prime, that guy who turns into a truck", and Transformers fans, who think, "oh yeah, Optimus Prime, the messiah or something". Normal people love to know what the Transformers turn into. They ask, "Wait, is there a Transformer that turns into [insert silly vehicle here]?" Of course people are interested in that angle! Vehicles are such a huge part of our daily lives—honestly, for those of us living in cities, more so than animals, the classical elements, or emoji—but the closest Transformers One comes to engaging with this lens is that aforementioned Iacon 5000 race sequence. By and large, it presents a world which is made for standing up and walking around. And personally I do think that's an insane approach to take?
Is the excuse that cars can't emote? Nonsense. If you've ever seen a traffic jam, you'll know that cars can sure as hell emote. Pixar, where Josh Cooley cut his teeth, famously spent a lot of time working out how to put a facial expression on a car. No, the problem dates back to the very start of the franchise.
In the 1980s, two main people were responsible for writing the comic stories: American writer Bob Budiansky, and British writer Simon Furman. Budiansky approached the premise of the franchise from an external, human perspective, writing about culture clash, and taking delight in the Transformers' mechanical alien nature as "robots in disguise". Meanwhile, Furman wrote the Transformers as giant people: he focused on their own internal conflicts and motivations, and the grand history of their war. Pretty much every Transformers story ever told can be boiled down to one of these schools of thought: Budianskyist, or Furmanist.
Budiansky quit the comic after fifty issues, allowing Furman to take the reigns as sole writer, and Furman basically got the final word on what the Transformers are. They did not evolve from naturally-occurring gears, levers and pulleys. They were not designed by a supercomputer, or built by an alien race. They are the chosen sons of God. The Thirteen are, of course, an invention of Furman's. And Transformers One is perhaps the most Furmanist story ever told. It's the culmination of years and years of lore building up, ossifying into something you can no longer describe as the history of a universe—no, this is a mythology. It's the most perfect form of brand alignment imaginable: this is not an origin story, this is the origin story. It's been the origin story for a better part of the decade—and now that everyone's seen it in theatres, it will be the origin story forever.
It's not just the fiction, either, by the way. These days, if you go into the store to buy a Transformers toy, chances are it'll turn into some misshapen made-up futuristic concept car with unpainted windows and wheels that don't even roll—and that's terrible.
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There's truly a lot to hate about Michael Bay's Transformers films, but with each new entry that's released following his departure from the franchise, I feel like I only find myself appreciating them more. In the 2007 Transformers movie, we see the Transformers crash-landing on Earth in their "protoforms", and their movements are animated like they're shy, like they're naked until they scan an Earth vehicle and adopt a disguise. The visual impact of Megatron, meanwhile, is that he doesn't adopt a disguise in that movie: he's a horrible metal skeleton that turns into a jet made of knives. It's weird and alien and it rules.
In the 1980s Transformers cartoon, and in the last-minute Cybertron-set prologue added to Bumblebee, and now in Transformers One, the Transformers look basically the same on Cybertron as they eventually do upon their arrival to Earth. Optimus Prime turns, unmistakably, into a truck. He has windows on his chest, and smokestacks on his arms. He doesn't have these features because he disguises himself as an Earth truck. He has those details because that's just what Optimus Prime looks like. They're his "essential brand elements", or "trademark details", which "identify the must-have elements in character design to be carried across all creative expressions". Prime may take any form he wishes, so long as it looks exactly like himself. A mask of my own face—I'd wear that.
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What I find fucked up about the reception towards Transformers One is that a lot of people seemed very invested in its success—and not its popular success, certainly not its artistic success, but rather its commercial success. They wanted this to be the first film to make one bumblebillion dollars. They wanted Hasbro to line its fucking pockets and make movies like this forever. So if you express any kind of negativity towards this film online, which might theoretically affect some other person's decision of whether or not to go and see it, which might theoretically affect the profit it makes at the cinema, which might theoretically affect the future of the franchise in some unknown way, then you're some sort of fandom traitor who oughta be executed.
If you're so worried about the future of the franchise, the fandom really isn't where you should be looking. Like, c'mon, the Transformers fandom has been good as gold, we buy so many toys. Meanwhile, Hasbro just got finished laying off around 100 employees with no warning to make their books look a bit better. Transformers designer John Warden—who'd worked at Hasbro for 25 years, is widely credited with inventing the modern paradigm of Transformers toylines, and ultimately became the creative director of both Transformers and G.I. Joe—was on assignment to a convention in the UK with the rest of the Transformers team when he heard the news. Suffice to say, he did not end up making a public appearance at the convention. With his work's health insurance snatched away without notice, he's had to resort to crowdfunding to pay his family's medical bills. As a well-known figure in the toy industry, he will presumably find a new job and land on his feet, but the same cannot be said for all 99 of the remaining employees we're told have been unceremoniously dumped.
The Binder of Revelation, which has been something of a holy grail of behind-the-scenes material for over a decade, has finally been leaked—presumably by one of these guys, presumably out of spite.
Now, I'm not going to pretend to have been paying particularly close attention to Hasbro's financials, but from where I'm sitting, it sure seems that ever since the sudden death of then-CEO Brian Goldner in 2021—credited for saving the company in 2000, and overseeing the explosive growth of its intellectual property ever since then—his replacement, Chris P. Cocks (or "Crispy Cocks", as we're all now calling him), has been dead set on gutting the company for all it's worth. The Power Rangers franchise, which the company acquired for $522 million in 2018, is dead in the water, with huge quantities of physical assets being flogged at auction for quick cash. In 2019, they acquired the entertainment company eOne for $4.0 billion, and now they're selling off the whole shebang (except the cash-printing Peppa Pig franchise) for just $500 million. I guess maybe they just fucked it big style?
Because now, Crispy Cocks has proudly announced that Hasbro is going to stop financing movies altogether.
I'm sure that in the wake of this announcement, many of those aforementioned fandom pundits will be drawing a correlation between this announcement, and the box-office figures for Transformers One, and the fact that you personally failed to convince your Mom to go see it with you or whatever. "Ah, you see! They didn't make enough of their money back, and now they're consolidating. Simple economic cause and effect. Market forces." And look, I'm not going to sit here and claim these things are wholly unrelated. Of course they're very related. But I am going to make the case that, in truth, nobody at Hasbro really cared how Transformers One did. Unless it turned out to be some pie-in-the-sky runaway hit, I don't think the future of the Transformers film franchise would've been particularly different if only the film had done better.
With Paramount, Hasbro has been making these movies and having them underperform ever since 2017's The Last Knight—which apparently lost Paramount $100 million—and that's because at the end of the day, what they're most interested in isn't making movies. It's making toy commercials. And on that level, the Transformers films have clearly been a success so far.
Now, Crispy Cocks' skinsuit fashions itself as a gamer, so he can personify Hasbro's hardcore pivot towards digital and tabletop gaming. While we await the release of the assuredly-dogshit, assuredly-hell-to-have-worked-on, assuredly-never-coming-out Transformers: Reactivate, the brand has been whored out to a procession of mobile games you've never heard of, glorified gambling machines designed to hack the monkey part of your brain with bright colors and Things You Recognize. The exact content of these games is irrelevant; all that matters is the announcement, on every single pop culture news outlet simultaneously (naturally—they're all owned by the same company, talk about Monopoly), of New Collaboration Between Transformers And Goon Warriors Free To Download Now. Your daily, weekly, bi-annual reminder to think about that thing you can buy.
That's all any of this stuff is.
All these words spilled about what a good movie Transformers One is, and how bad it is, and why the marketing failed it, and what the next one might be like, and- none of it mattered! It does not matter. From the beginning, this movie was always going to be too preoccupied with its own mercenary interests to be something anyone would ever be able to seriously talk about as a work of art, even corporate art. The actual content of the movie is irrelevant; I've spent very little of this review talking about it, because there's nothing there to talk about. It is the mere fact of the movie's existence that serves its purpose. Like the Optimus Prime Fortnite skin, it's enough for it to occupy our attention.
Maybe that's why they staggered the film's release date: because some marketing exec watched the rough cut and realised, if everyone saw it at once, we'd be done talking about it within a fortnight. And in ten years' time, after it has been paraded around whichever streaming services survive 'til then, and nearly every last cent of revenue has been squeezed out of it, the kids will be able to watch it on YouTube with ad breaks, and decide what they want for Christmas.
To the Transformers fans reading this, I am begging you, unless you happen to own shares in Hasbro for some fucking reason, to disabuse yourself of the feeling that you owe any kind of loyalty to a toy franchise. It shouldn't matter to you one jot how Transformers One did in theatres. The people who actually make the product you care about, the friendly faces paraded before you on livestreams and press tours, don't see this money anyway—they too are merely assets, who can be fired and replaced with cheaper, inferior equivalents.
I'm sure many of you will have, from the very start, seen this review for the foolish endeavour it is. I've wasted all this time criticising Transformers One for its lack of artistic vision, when the truth is, Transformers One is playing an entirely different game. Like the Disney Channel running "Fishy Facts!" segments to subliminally get kids interested in fish a full year and a half before the release of Finding Nemo, this is not a product—it's an ad for a product.
...
Okay I'll be honest, I don't entirely love where this review has ended up. It ends on kind of a "bummer note", I guess you could say. Flashing back to sections I. and II., I feel like things started out so fun. We had that whole bit at the start where I was telling you about the Transformers, remember that? We learned so much together. And there were even a few moments where I was able to express some kind of sincere joy and appreciation over this thing that I supposedly adore so much. Sure, I did a lot of complaining, but it was fun complaining, right? It had like, a sarcastic edge to it, sort of.
What happened? Why am I suddenly talking like I want to cut someone's head off? As I grow more bitter, I type this essay with increasing difficulty. The massive gun that's sprouted from my forearm keeps colliding with my monitor.
Hasbro descends from on high to reward @TFHypeGuy, a grown-ass adult who has spent untold unpaid hours fearlessly replying to every single viral tweet to tell people to go see the film, somehow netting himself 80,000 followers in the process, with a crate of toys, which was probably his end goal from the start. He and I duel. We trade blow after blow. Finally, he clobbers me with a Walmart-exclusive light-up Ultimate Energon Optimus Prime figure. "It didn't have to end this way," he says. Then he banishes me to the surface world to think on my sins.
VII. The Wrong Trousers 👖 | Train Chase Scene 🚂 | Wallace & Gromit
When Eric Pearson came onto the project,
It was late middle of the game. They had a script that had the outline of the story, which is still very much the structural bones of the story now. But what I found interesting about animation is there are certain things that were far along in the process. The train escape to the surface was very far along, so that was just kind of locked. Maybe you could change a line here or there. Meanwhile, the opening, the whole first 10 minutes, was all storyboards and sketches, which changed a bunch of times.
And I do think that's a really difficult position for a scriptwriter to be in. Sure, the parts of the screenplay I feel able to attribute to Pearson, I wasn't particularly impressed by. But I think this anecdote goes to show how unnatural the constraints can be on a story like this. When you think of like, a scene that's key to Transformers One, you're probably imagining something like the Megatron/Optimus fight, or the scene in the mine—not the train scene, which is basically a bit of arbitrary connective tissue bridging the two main locations in the film.
Josh Cooley, the film's director, the face of the film on the press circuit from a creative standpoint, came onboard after five years of previous development work was already done. Writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, who originally pitched the film and presumably wrote the early drafts of the story, might have already left the project by that point. Aaron Archer and Rik Alvarez, the creative forces behind the Binder of Revelation, left Hasbro years before the film was even pitched. It's no wonder to me that the final result feels incoherent, disjointed, and oddly stilted. It's certainly no wonder that nobody at Hasbro today really seems to care about the film; it's not their baby. If any of the people credited with bringing the project to completion had been given full creative freedom to make whatever Transformers movie they wanted, it would've looked completely different.
Luckily, there are still plenty of areas of the franchise where creators have just been allowed to go ham. Over in Japan, TRIGGER has taken a modest budget for a music-video and produced one of the most visually-striking bits of animation in the franchise, a true love-letter to all the weird parts of its forty-year history. And in America, comic creator Daniel Warren Johnson is halfway through his Eisner-winning new run on the title, which is the kind of thing I would basically recommend to anyone without caveats as being a phenomenal story, period. If that comic can be said to be an advert for anything, it's for Skybound's other, nowhere-near-as-good comic series, or for the unofficial unlicensed copyright-infringing Magic Square Optimus Prime toy Daniel Warren Johnson apparently used as reference the whole time.
I dunno, maybe Hasbro stepping back from financing these films is a good thing, in the long run. Maybe we can do without Transformers movies for a while. And however many years down the line, maybe Paramount or some other studio will put together a new team of talent, and they'll get to do whatever it is they want. And maybe the movie they make will be the one that knocks everyone's socks off.
Truly, I don't know where the road leads from here. It hasn't been built yet. It could turn out to go anywhere.
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If you made it this far, I hope some of what I've said has been entertaining or interesting. Thanks for reading!
Time to for me to come clean. There is one other reason why I've waited so long to release this review... and that's because I have a special announcement to make. Last month I set myself a little challenge: to write something that's at least as long as this review, but which isn't another negative-nancy tirade. It's a story.
The working title is "Ice Road Transformers". It's like an episode of that one reality TV show about Canadians driving trucks across frozen lakes—except the truck is Optimus Prime.
Early reviews say it's good! It'll be going through several rounds of revisions, to turn it into a well-oiled machine, hopefully in time for a seasonally-appropriate wide release in February. I'm very excited for you to be able to read it. You can follow me here or on Bluesky to be the first to find out when it's ready!
I'd like to thank my friends Jo and Umar for their work interviewing Cooley and di Bonaventura during the film's press circuit, along with Viv, Callum, and Omar for allowing me to enjoy this film much more than I otherwise might have. I wouldn't have been able to express many of my feelings about this movie nearly so cogently if not for the conversations I had with them. Additional thanks go to Chris McFeely, as his Transformers: The Basics videos (linked throughout this essay) refreshed my memory on a lot of the Aligned stuff, sparing me from having to read The Covenant of Primus again.
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flowersforchoso · 11 months ago
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—Bi-han courting you ᥫ᭡
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it's hard to imagine this blizzard of a man ever falling for someone, but he does, and he falls pretty hard when it happens although it's like, an extremely rare occurrence.
it's the classic love-at-first-sight scenario. you're at the restaurant, conversing with madame bo from a distance, when you catch his attention. he likes what he sees, and like the typical man, he discreetly stares until you're out of sight
he doesn't think much about you afterwards, but the seed of attraction has already been planted and soon grows.
somehow, coincidentally, he meets you again at the same place (fate perhaps?) but this time, it's different—you're both face-to-face and introductions ensue.
since the lin kuei trio occasionally unwind at the establishment after a mission, and you're a healer who madame bo often consults, it's no surprise your paths cross
bi-han is laser focused on you as the said woman introduces you to the group, observing you like a specimen: your physicality, mannerisms, demeanour, and finds himself magnetized by your graceful aura
but he doesn't speak to you at all while pleasantries are exchanged, making him the odd one out. however, his assessment of you is positive indicating a romantic interest.
despite the brief interaction, you leave a lasting impression on him and have begun to take up permanent residence in his mind.
but it doesn't end there; he sees you quite often due to your affiliation with the old woman, and each time he does, his heart skips a beat; he's emotionally incapacitated, rendered powerless (proximity to him is the only way anything can happen tbh)
he represses this newfound emotion until he's unable to resist, ultimately surrendering to it. and believe it or not, he makes the first move. surprisingly
i know the consensus is that he's pretty much inexperienced in romantic relationships and hence wouldn't approach, but for a man of his calibre, there's no way he hasn't been in a committed relationship, even if short-lived. moreover, he goes after what he wants, romantic matters are no different; the only issue is it'll take him forever to get to it.
he has to first wrestle with himself over his feelings towards you. and once he overcomes this internal struggle, it'll take your sustained absence to propel him to finally pursue you out of fear that you might slip away from his grasp.
while he won't directly approach you, he communicates his interest via subordinates, which leads to unexpected appearances—a blue-clad ninja at your doorstep bearing gifts
you're very confused, but they explain they've been sent by their grandmaster. it is then you come to the realization that the standoffish, intimidating man you encountered at the restaurant has taken a liking to you! but wait- how does he know where you live? (he's gathered bits of information about you)
in his quest to conquer your heart and claim it as his, he first aims to impress. expect to be bombarded by gifts or flowers every fortnight. he also does this for ego reasons, to flaunt his status before eventually requesting a date—through a mouthpiece, of course.
the occasion is quite awkward, overly formal, with you doing most of the talking because he wants to know all about you like the back of his hand
if you attempt to redirect focus on him to satisfy any curiosity you may have, he basically shuts it down by saying something along the lines of, "i lead a formidable warrior clan, that is sufficient enough." you can't tell if he's just reserved or severely lacking in social skills, but if you peer hard enough, the lines are blurred.
he is actually very mindful of his words and respectful towards you. he is aware of how blunt and abrasive he can come across and doesn't want to scare you away; that would undo all his efforts and bring them to naught, and he isn't going to self-sabotage, not after coming this far
he's gentlemanly, and its obvious from his body language and actions he's infatuated with you. but being a conversationalist and showing affection aren't his strong suits, so this is where you come in. the ball is in your court to steer the budding relationship forward otherwise it'll stagnate
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eye-may · 28 days ago
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A Post Where I Clumsily Trundle Through An Incoherent Web Of Thoughts On The Discrepancies Between OLC (Wayne Sleep) Mistoffelees and OBC (Timothy Scott) Mistoffelees, Specifically Regarding Their Vocal Tracks
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I sit in a ✨rapt contemplation✨ of how much I do and don't think Mistoffelees should sing, based on the interpretation of the character I have scrunged together after two months' worth of obsessing over the subject, trying to make sense of the expansive history, and all the variations, of CATS. It doesn't help that, as far as I can tell, the most enigmatic (read: inconsistent as fuck, affectionately) fixture on the franchise is its own Conjuring Cat.
Read below the cut if you're at all interested in me trying to transliterate my thoughts! I promise you it will be confusing. ❤️
The gentle, vaguely mysterious way Mistoffelees sings "Have you been an alumnus of heaven or hell?" in the OLC recording is actually so beautiful and so personal to me. I could rationalize ad infinitum why it just makes sense for the inexplicably magical cat to have this line, but suffice to say: it just works. And of all the London-based productions in which I've heard this specific arrangement, my favorite delivery of that line still belongs to Sleep. His airy, almost pensive (?) inflection stands out so much from the rest of the cast, in a way that I think really befits the character.
Then he goes on to sing Jenny's number, again, with such conspicuous gentleness and sweetness. Everything he sings sounds almost like a lullaby, a trapping that works well for a song about a cat that lazes about and sleeps all day. it's a stark contrast to Munkustrap's operatic, romantic grandiosity. to say nothing of the fact that the Mr. Mistoffelees instrumental motif is what LEADS UP to the first line of that song; in my opinion, that's a vestigial indication of the original intention to have Mistoffelees narrate this part of the show.
When it's time for Old Deutoronomy to arrive, Mistoffelees opens up the lyrical announcement, again, with a voice that is soporific, melodic, gentle, sweet. He sounds youthful and unassuming, and yet is clearly a member of the tribe who is knowledgeable of its hierarchy and its history, and one who is so intimately trusted that its leadership bequeaths him the responsibility of making introductions, of musically guiding all and sundry through various beats and developments. I've heard others refer to this version of Mistoffelees as something of an 'assistant' to Munkustrap (shout out to this post, which singularly kept me from going insane while I tried to write this), a righthand cat as it were. I think later on, the closest we have to such an entity is Alonzo, the Secondary Protector; but this, in my opinion, is an incomparable archetype. Wayne Sleep's Mistoffelees is (I think) the most physically diminunitive version of the character there has ever been in a professional production. (Maybe except for Dane Wagner, whose actual height I cannot find anywhere on the internet, so jury's out). He doesn't cut the figure, per se, of a trusty backup during a violent altercation. Rather, his position on the community ladder is attributed to his acuity, which he conveys in his lilting, unaffected explanations. There's not exactly a pretense of showmanship, and Mistoffelees doesn't seem to come off esteemed as an entertainer. Rather, he's a member of the tribe who, although he's small and sweet-sounding...proverbially missable in a crowd...there's something about him that gives the rest of the tribe the impression that he's worth listening to. As much as, even, the tall and dignified Munkustrap, or the barely-hinged Rum Tum Tugger.
This Mistoffelees, despite all that, is not above casual comingling. He's not sanctimonious or high-flown...at least not if his adorably repulsed line delivery during Tugger's number is anything to go on.
I feel like when the roles were changed for Broadway (something something contracts something something principals), and Mistoffelees's narration was shuffled to the Mungoteazer number, the beat of Mistoffelees mistakenly attempting to lead the song and then getting chastised by Munkustrap was a cheeky nod to the original arrangement. In a metacontextual way, we DO expect Mistoffelees to sing Jenny's song. Even if you're not familiar with the OLC version, his motif still cues him in for it. Subsequently, it became his motif teasing his cue...only for him (and the audience) to realize that he was mistaken.
Obviously I have no way of knowing if that beat was, in fact, acted out in the original Broadway production with Timothy Scott (I suspect that it was not, and that Valentin Baraian was the trailblazer in the original Vienna run, and Lindsay Chambers's seemingly de-aged Mistoffelees in the early 90s further cemented the Woobie-fied awkward version of the character) but either way, this makes it so that the audience is acquainted with Munkustrap as a revered narrator, thitherto without much of an impression either way of how Mistoffelees is regarded by the rest of the cats.
In taking on the Puppet Show sequence, Mistoffelees's air of leadership and wisdom is abated, and filled in with an image of an eccentric showman. This isn't the least bolstered by Timothy Scott's cryptoid make-up, and his express desire to play Mistoffelees as bombastic and fascinating, rather than cute. His animation of piles of trash into dirigible puppets is the most ostentatious foreshadowing of his magic that there has ever been in any replica version; therefore, rather than the audience feeling as though Mistoffelees should be listened to, and that he's an unassuming and affable guide...they're given the impression that they should be mystified. Scott's Mistoffelees is replete with showmanship and grandiosity, in a more literal and traditional sense than Munkustrap or Tugger. He introduces himself before Tugger ever gets a chance to, resoundingly clapping himself on the back for his aptitude as a magician (the greatest magicians have something to learn...etc). In my opinion, this doesn't come off as egoism so much as it does a collateral feature of trained stage presence. He has bits. He's a professional.
Too much of a professional, even, to tease Tugger during the latter's number. I suppose the "bore" line is sung by Munkustrap and Alonzo at least, like it usually is in Broadway-based adaptions. In some productions, I think, Mistoffelees joins them for the delivery to form a trio. But, again, no way for me to know whether that's the case with Scott. I assume that he isn't just because it seems like his version of Mistoffelees is a touch too turgid to be bothered with Tugger at all.
The way he BANGS out Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer in the OBC recording...his voice and inflection so dynamic, using his magic to bolster his showmanship, to entertain, to be a storyteller...it feels very proper for the self-proclaimed magician to present his abilities with such aplomb. (He sings with equally stratospheric energy during Invitation, which Wayne Sleep did not sing in the OL version...and I almost feel like it's too high-energy and playful a tune for the 'gentle guiding' version of the character). He has none of Wayne Sleep's timidity. He is no longer gentle. He's hyper, florid, dynamic, and loud, singing in an unhesitating, playful baritone that takes on a growl during his most dramatic deliveries. Wayne Sleep's and Timothy Scott's versions of Mistoffelees seem almost incomparable.
I think about the characterization of Mistoffelees as vague and aloof, and, you would think there was nobody shyer. I could see that, yes, with Wayne Sleep's Mistoffelees; while he's seemingly comfortable with being the center of attention amid his group of friends, and while he's all too happy to come in clutch very flashily during the eleventh hour, he still gives the impression of softness that one could construe as timidity. He's able and willing to assist Munkustrap, to elucidate in front of a group, to be heard and seen, but it's not too difficult to imagine him reverting to a state of unassuming quietness in any other contexts. It may just be me, but I feel that two "Presto!"'s during his number are almost formative, or at least uncharacteristic and something you'd only hear in such an extenuating context. It's like watching the peaceful, wise mentor abruptly kick ass when the hour is nigh. Is Wayne Sleep...Trojan Horse Mistoffelees...?
Anyway. Timothy Scottfelees, on the other hand, is more difficult to brand as a supposedly avoidant and coy character. He can be aloof, maybe, if the magnitude of his specialness ends up making him truly peerless. But this is the version of the character often called the "consummate showman," and an evidently eager one at that. After dynamically spinning the Mungoteazer yarn, he then goes on to sing about himself for part of his own number, ironically delivering lyrics that are antithetical to the idea of their own subject conveying them. (This is partly why it's fucking stupid that Mistoffelees sings his entire ass own song in the 2019 movie but that's neither here nor there).
But I get it, again, with the contracts and the him needing to sing two songs to have a principal contract blah blah blah blah. I guess the director didn't want him to sing Gumbie Cat and Mungoteazer. I wonder why, if they had him perform the latter to get around casting two additional actors for the mischief twins (and instead had the psychic twins dress up as garbage), that they couldn't simply have him sing Old Deutoronomy like the OLC Mistoffelees did. Instead they initiated the tradition of having Tugger and Munkustrap duet it, when Tugger didn't need that extra singing credit to fit the criteria for a principal contract because he already sings his own number and also Mistoffelees's number. I know it makes sense for Tugger and Munk to be singing it if you subscribe, as seemingly most do, to the interpretation that the two of them are Deutoronomy's sons. But I don't think Mistoffelees's original part precludes that implication. I think it would be neat, even, for the three of them so sing it.
Tangentially, I cannot figure out why John Chester (OLC George) is credited in the studio recording for Old Deutoronomy. When I listen to it, it just sounds like Mistoffelees and Munkustrap alternating, and then the ensemble, and then Brian Blessed (Deut) singing his part. Maybe George is the one to escort him? (Weird that he would be given a track credit for that). Or maybe his voice sounds remarkably similar to either Sleep's or Shankley's and I'm just not able to discern when he is, in fact, singing.
I got all into these mental gymnastics because lately I've been bouncing between the two eras, trying to make sense of the directorial adjustments, and also trying to decide the implications for Mistoffelees's character and which tracks I prefer for him. Incidentally, it's wild to me how inconsistent and evolved the Mistoffelees character is in the grand scheme of CATS. He has a plethora of roles, personalities, and tracking variations the extent to which no other character compares. All of the cats have been interpreted and played differently, of course, depending on the company and the direction. But it seems to me like Mistoffelees is far and away the most varied.
All right. So these are my (barely) conclusive thoughts, formatted handily to mimic the inane back-and-forth constantly beleaguring my internal monologue. Buckle up for some unsolicited, worthless opinions!
Should Mistoffelees sing "The Pied Piper's Assistant," (Broadway), or "Have you been an alumnus of Heaven and Hell"? - The latter! No matter the character's vibe! The inexplicably magical and visually demon-coded character should have this line. It just ✨makes sense.✨
Gumbie Cat - I have grown rather fond, after listening to Wayne Sleep's version, of the idea that Mistoffelees sings this number. That is, however, in no small part due to how well Sleep's lullaby-ish voice works for the tune --- better than, I think, the deeper and more powerful registers you typically hear from Munkustraps. That being said, Mistoffelees singing this demystified him pretty quickly, and arguably ages him up just because you're given the impression that he's privy to, and comfortable with, the tribe's alumni, and furthermore is in a position to express his opinions this way. So all that being said, while I enjoy Wayne Sleep singing Gumbie, in the alternative blip of spacetime where I direct CATS, I'd go the typical route of having Munk sing it.
I think it may be interesting, though, to see a version where Munkustrap and Mistoffelees duet it; and this could be done in a way similar to the Munk/Misto combination for OLC Old Deutoronomy, but in a way where you don't get the impression that Mistoffelees is a peer to Munkustrap. The Broadway Revival seemed to restore bits of the OLC's impressing upon the idea that Mistoffelees is something of an Assistant Director to Munkustrap, just not by singing. (It's stuff like helping her out of her coat, pushing the mop off the stage, moving things around, etc). I really like the idea of Mistoffelees being an adolescent hopeful, sort of shadowing Munkustrap, bottomlessly eager to be helpful, and perhaps even being set up to lead the tribe one day.
All that, granted...I also do like the beat of him getting embarrassed. I could do without it, but I like how it contributes to the interpretation of the character as young and sometimes awkward. God I don't know. o(-<
"The Rum Tum Tugger is a TERRIBLE BORE!" - Mistoffelees should absolutely be the one to have this line. Primarily because it adds that extra vitriolic and playful layer to the supposed relationship between the two characters. And it is also, I think, funny to suggest that Mistoffelees, of all cats, is the one who is not impressed by such prurient behavior, because we see later that he's objectively more impressive and worthy of adulation. (Tugger would agree with me). I honestly think that part of the reason Terrence Mann had so little to contribute to the expansive "Tuggoffelees" discourse is because Mistoffelees wasn't the one to deliver this line in the OBC version. And, secondarily, I prefer a Mistoffelees that isn't peerless, and isn't immune to kiddish ribbing. I have my opinions about how this line should be delivered but that's frankly a whole other post.
Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer - I think we need the OBC version of this somewhere in the CATS ether, but modified. I agree with this post that is does create an issue where the foreshadowing of his magic is too conspicuous, to the point that it knocks the grandiosity of his Hero Moment down a notch when it's time for his big number. I war with this, however, because I love the idea of Mistoffelees using his magic to be an entertainer and a storyteller. I'd love to figure out some kind of synergistic version where Mistoffelees presents the legend of Mungoteazer in song, incorporating his magic, in a way that doesn't preclude the actual existence/presence of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. I saw a post floating around recently proffering the possibility of the three of them singing it as a trio...I'm a huge supporter of that idea.
Given currently extant versions of the song, I'd forego the puppet show and have the titular characters sing it, in keeping with the tradition.
So now I'm going right ahead and taking away Mistoffelees's expositions after all that. 😩 Let's continue.
Invitation - He should sing it. I don't feel super strongly about this one, but I simply like it better when Mistoffelees sings it versus Munkustrap. Even when we have the quieter, more kiddish versions of Mistoffelees, it doesn't disrupt those elements of his character. It feels like an exciting moment for an inchoate showman. It also seems to give him a "reason" to burst onto the stage amidst an orchestral explosion and pull Victoria into a step.
Old Deutoronomy - Mistoffelees can and should sing at least that first part that Wayne Sleep sings, and maybe the first chorus with both Munkustrap and Tugger. I have the impression already that the three of them form a trifecta of Jellicles who are specially favored by Old Deutoronomy. However...I also think Mistoffelees (rather than Skimble) should be the one to escort Deutoronomy to the stage...so I'd have him sing the first bit, then get signaled by Munkustrap to leave, and then the rest of the song is left to Tugger and Munk, and then of course the ensemble. Perhaps continuing to forego the verse about flatulence.
And then, finally:
Mr. Mistoffelees - Tugger should be the one singing the entire song, full stop. I feel very strongly about this because I want there to be as much emphasis as possible on the astronomical estimation Tugger, in spite of his apparent egoism, has of Mistoffelees. It's also silly, to me, when a character sings about himself being quiet and shy. I do need him, however, to say "Presto!" which, as far as I can tell, he pretty much always does. Timothy Scott is something of an outlier unless we're talking about the Mutestoffeli.
I end this diatribe...not much more resolute than when I began. Obviously this hemming and hawing did not even really touch the Mute Mistoffelees phenomenon and all my feelings about that. I guess all I'll say in conclusion is that I love all versions of Mistoffelees, and I love that his evolutions, interpretations, eras, and iterations are so different and so dynamic. I love that so many amazing performers have been able to have so much fun and creative freedom with the character over the years.
I just want yall to know that up to this very moment I keep looking shit up and re-reading posts and wiki pages and I'm only getting infinitely more confused about which Mistoffeli did what thing which way at whatever time, so I'm going to give my brain a break before it liquifies. <3
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Suites & Sweets
freshman year at Jujutsu University Tokyo seems like it will be uneventful. and, well, that's true... until you meet the boys in the suite across the hall, and one in particular piques your interest.
satoru gojo x reader | jjk college au | no curse au | fem! reader | fluff, angst, & slow burn | SMAU & writing <3
introduction | previous | next PSA: *look HERE to see their private instagrams!*
₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.ෆ˟̑̑˟̑ෆ.₊̣̇.
ˋ°•*⁀➷˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 16. 𝓢𝓗𝓞 𝓓𝓞𝓦𝓝! ⍣ ೋ⋆.ೃ࿔*:・ ... wc: 5.5k
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After you knock on the fraternity’s rickety front door, the crisp evening air sends a chill over your skin. Your phone buzzes in your pocket - a message from Toji confirming that he saw you arrive. You and your seven friends huddle under the harsh glow of a nearby streetlamp as its cold light flickers in the growing dusk. The bite of the night’s chill creeps up your arms, the scent of crisp autumn leaves and distant cigarette smoke filling your senses. Without warning, the light next to the door flicks on, bathing the entrance in a warm yellow hue, and the door creaks open. There, framed by the doorway, stands Fushiguro.
"Hey, guys. Come on in," he smiles, beer in one hand, the other pushing the door wider to let you and your friends in. You, being the last of your friends to enter, lag behind to greet your friend.
"Hi, Toji!" you exclaim after he closes the door behind you. You leap at him, wrapping your arms around his torso with such enthusiasm that you almost knock the air out of him. The way you embrace Toji was so full of energy that he barely has time to register. Finding your way of saying hello cute, a snicker escapes the back of his throat while he returns the gesture and squeezes you affectionately.
After a minute, Toji backs away from your embrace and smiles down at you. His eyes, a beautiful, deep jade, soak up your mini dress before finally responding, "Hey, ma. Lookin' good, as always. Gimme a spin." He stretches his arm out to you with a chaste wink, playfully gesturing for you to follow his request.
You take his hand as you comply, twirling swiftly on your heels. Your face grows warm and you giggle, "Thank you! So do you!"
"Want a drink?" he offers with a familiar teasing tone, to which you nod eagerly. "I'll grab you the same one as last time? Your friends are welcome to whatever they want, too."
"That's perfect. Thanks!" you beam, and as Toji walks toward the kitchen, you join Utahime on the plush bean bag in the same living room as last week's afterparty. Utahime, ever the affectionate one, wraps her arms around you, hugs you from behind, and nuzzles into you like a koala.
"I was told you all are welcome to whatever, so don't be shy. There's canned beer in the fridge, much better than keg beer," you offer to your friends.
"Don't mind if I do," Shoko murmurs, standing up and heading straight for the direction of the kitchen. Suguru follows her after asking what everyone's choice drink is.
Toji returns and walks over with your drink, handing it to you. It's unopened, making you happy, because even as much as you trust Toji, you're unsure of drinking from a pre-opened can at a fraternity. Regardless, after he hands it to you he sits on the leather chair beside you and Utahime. His casual posture contrasts the subtle tension that is in the air.
"Have you all met Kong?" Toji casually breaks the silence, gesturing to the man you are just realizing stands beside Toji.
Utahime releases her grip on you at a shockingly fast pace and bounces to her feet. "Yeah! Shiu, how are you?"
"Great, now that you're here," he flirts, his suaveness making Utahime turn bright red.
"Oh wow, that's a classic line," Yu remarks from across the room. A small laugh escapes him, "Pretty smooth."
Shiu pauses, his expression uncertain. "Thanks?"
"It was great, don't worry-" encourages Utahime.
"Wait, is his name Kong or Shiu?" Satoru interrupts from his seat beside Yu. For some reason, he is still wearing sunglasses even with it being dark out and him being indoors.
"Both," the man in question responds. He leans back slightly against the wall behind him, body language translating to unbothered. "First name Shiu, last name Kong. These guys call me King Kong. They think it's funny, or something. But you guys can call me whatever. I've stopped caring."
You lips curve up into a smile at Shiu, the ease of the conversation lightening your nerves that arise with every social situation. Toji's voice suddenly cuts through the atmosphere as he says your name, the deep tone catching your attention. "Yeah?"
"I got someone who wants to meet you. Come with me," he rises from his chair to lead you to another part of the house.
"Who? Why just me?" You stand and hurry to follow behind him and match his pace. A flicker of unease ricochets down your spine at your confusion.
"Special request," he intentionally leaves you on edge, wondering who you are being introduced to. Toji's hand finds yours to help guide you to wherever he is taking you to.
"Why does he want to meet me?" you ask. You struggle to maintain an even tone and keep your cool front.
"I dunno," Toji shrugs nonchalantly, glancing over his shoulder at you with a confident half-smile. "Guess you intrigue him."
"Well, that's comforting," the half-joke escapes you before you can think it over, and it makes the man leading you to your destination (or your demise?) chuckles" "What?"
"Nothin'. He's in here." Toji stops at a random door in a long hallway, away from the rest of the pre-gaming crowd.
"Am I about to be murdered?" you whisper. Your eyes are wide as you stare at the man and his scarred lip.
"No, ma. Don't worry s'much. C'mon," he squeezes your hand reassuringly, then enters a dimly let room, pushing the open door and granting you a better view into the space. Your eyes widen as you glimpse at the intimidating figure inside. The tall man fills a flask of whiskey, and his presence looms over the room like a shadow, lurking in every corner. "Hey, boss."
"Hey," he says without bothering to looking up from his task, voice low and steady like whatever he is doing is second nature. "This her?"
"Yeah," he confirms with a glance toward you. You look at him with a slight furrow in your brow and his lips offer a small smile, theb he introduces you to the president.
At long last, the fraternity's president turns to face you. You are struck by the sight before you - tattoos snake across his exposed skin, marking him with an unmistakable edge. The sharp angles of his face are softened by wild, pink hair that is somehow perfectly tousled. Yet, it is his eyes that demand the most of your attention: deep crimson ones locking with your own, pulling you in with a magnetic force that both intrigues you and frightens you.
"So you're the one I keep hearing about," the president says with a smirk that radiates mischief and a dangerous sort of charm, making you a complicated combination of flattered and wary. The effect he has is magnetic, but unsettles you all the same. "Toji's girl?" he extends a hand toward you, challenging you to shake. "I can't say I'm disappointed. I'm Sukuna. Pleasure to meet you."
As you take his hand, the tattoos on his knuckles shift his grip tightens around yours - not painfully, but firm enough to remind you of his power. His eyes pull you even more into their glow of dangerous fire as his gaze burns into you. It's as if his dangerous allure is wrapped in a subtle layer of charm. Something about his gaze - clearly dangerous, yet strangely reassuring - wraps around you in a cloak of tension that you are unsure is in your head or real.
"Um, yeah... nice to meet you! I didn't realize I was so interesting," you reply, trying to hide your current apprehension as your voice catches up with the marathon your mind is currently racing.
With a knowing wink and a subtle tilt of his head toward Toji, Sukuna grins and responds, "You have no idea."
"Don't scare her off, Sukuna," Toji rolls his eyes. "She's too good for your usual crowd."
"What's the fun in that?" Sukuna grunts in amusement. He takes a slow, deliberate breath as if resetting himself and leans back against the table behind him. "Y'know I'm just playin', right?" he asks, and you nod "Anyway, Toji's protective of you. It's interesting. And I make it a habit to know everyone worth knowing. So welcome to Sigma Pi, sweetheart."
"Oh, yeah," you chuckle lightly, trying to keep a casual tone to hide your nerves. "He's really like a brother to me. But thank you for the warm welcome!"
Sukuna raises an eyebrow at your response, then crosses his arms as he speaks. "Heard from a little birdy you don't like the Zen'in's prized boy much?"
Your stomach tightens at the mention of him, the alcohol in your hand tempting you. "Oh- um, no. He's not my favorite. Kinda tormented me throughout high school, and he made it difficult to avoid him," you say. "But I'm not too worried about him anymore."
"Good. That parasite has more ego than brains," Sukuna grumbles, swirling the contents of his flask before taking a long sip. With a scowl - not at the taste of the expensive whiskey, but at the thought of the conversation's new topic - he continues, "Spoiled little daddy's boy is worse than a cockroach. At least they're useful in some ecosystems."
You nod slightly as the weight of his words linger. However, your curiosity is piqued, and you cannot help yourself from questioning, "Yeah... what did he do to you?"
Sukuna's face hardens for a moment, eyes narrowing as he glares at the floor with a cold intensity. "Fucking rat bothered my little brother. Pisses me off," he says, voice low, like a rumble under the earth's crust. The flicker of anger quickly dissipates as he takes another sip from his flask. You figure that is the most information you'll get out of him.
Regardless, before you can get a word in, he continues, "Tell you what: If Zen'in bothers you, I'll make sure he regrets it. Consider it a personal favor." He abruptly kicks off of the table he leaned against, towering over you for a moment as he pats your shoulder with a surprising gentleness. "I have shit to do now, so gotta go. Enjoy the party, darling."
After he exits, you look to Toji in confusion. “He’s not kidding, y’know,” Toji says quietly, speaking just to you. You feel the weight of his words as each one leaves his mouth. “Sukuna hates that guy. Naoya stepped on the wrong toes freshman year to try and piss me off, and it’s been downhill for him ever since.”
You take a slow sip of your seltzer, letting the carbonation fizzle out on your tongue. “What happened?”
“Bitch Boy thought he could act like a Zen’in with Sukuna’s people." Toji's tone is an odd mixture of disdain and amusement. "Tried to throw his weight around - didn’t go so well. Sukuna doesn’t tolerate cocky rich kids acting like they own the world. Almost ended in a fistfight.”
You raise an eyebrow, surprised. “Almost?”
“Yeah, almost,” Toji replies, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Sukuna’s smarter than that. He’s not gonna get his hands dirty unless it’s worth it. But trust me, he’s been waiting for the right moment.”
"Why is he vowing to protect me? What did I do?" your anxiousness rises to the surface, confused about what just happened and lost as to what it means.
"Don't worry 'bout it, doll. Sukuna does his own thing. He's my best friend, and he confuses me daily," Toji laughs, but you can tell there's something he is holding back. What is it he's not telling you?
Before you can think too much about it, you are silently returned to your friends. Toji lingers with your group, posture relaxed as he stands beside you and leans against the wall. You stand beside him and copy his pose while glancing at your friends scattered about the lounge room. You raise a questioning eyebrow as you notice your replacement, Shiu having taken your spot on the bean bag. She returns your look with her own knowing one - screaming excitement at the boy she is wrapped around.
Mei's eyes twinkle at you with curiosity. She leans forward toward you, desperate for information she is about to dig out of you. "So what was that all about?"
"Just meeting the president, y'know," you wave off her question in an attempt to sound casual. Your friends, however, know you better than that.
Or, maybe, your friends, except for Yu.
"Of the United States? Or...?" Yu stares at you with wide eyes, entirely confused. It's cute how innocent he is; he never fails to make you smile.
Suguru, sitting beside him, groans in frustration. He grabs a pillow from behind him and smacks it against Yu's head, earning a chuckle from Shiu. "Of the frat, dumbass," he mutters.
Your friends are clearly waiting for you to share details of wherever Toji just took you to. Hesitant and looking for another subject to take their attention, your eyes flicker amongst your friends. "Where did Satoru go?" you seize an opportunity to potentially distract them, although you know you are just putting off the conversation.
"Getting me another beer," Shoko answers as she crosses her legs beneath her as she leans back comfortably, always so effortlessly confident.
"Ah, your little minion?" Toji teases, a mischievous grin pulling at his lips.
"Nah, he's more like your girl's minion," Suguru answers, which earns a round of laughter from everyone.
"Guys," you whine, your face flushing. "Stop it! Why does everyone keep calling me Toji's girl?"
"I guess I claimed you," he laughs with a sly grin. "What was that you said about me being like a brother? Did ya mean step-brother?"
The room erupts with laughter, and in a sudden burst embarrassment, you sharply elbow him in the side. "Oh, fuck you."
"Uh-huh, that wouldn't be very sisterly of you," the boy smirks, finding the entire situation amusing. He is clearly loving getting a reaction out of you, though the look in his eyes is fondness directed to you.
"You know what I mean! You've said it too! Seriously, I'm not sure where everyone gets these ideas," exasperated, you raise a palm to your forehead, shaking your head at their jests. You're unsure as why you even bother defending yourself when you know it will make them tease you more. "I don't even know why I try."
"I know, ma," Toji squeezes your shoulder, his expression softening slightly as he smiles down at you. "You know I'm just messing with you.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," you sigh.
Sensing your genuine frustration, Utahime shifts the topic back to the Sukuna conversation. "What's he like?" she asks.
You pause for a second to gather your thoughts. "Definitely... memorable. Intimidating, for sure," you smile at the thought of his unnerving charm. "He definitely has a... presence. Like everyone knows when he walks into a room."
The conversation drifts for a moment before you continue to elaborate, "But he was just asking about Naoya. He seems pretty invested in that whole... situation."
"I'm back! Did you all miss me?" Satoru's voice interrupts, appearing beside you with a couple beers in his hand. He tosses one across the room to Shoko, who catches it effortlessly, immediately reprimands him for his actions that shook the can up.
"You trying to make me kill you?" she asks as she opens it regardless of it's fizziness with a passive-aggressive roll of her eyes.
"Nah, I would only do that to Utahime," he pokes. Utahime is too busy making out with Shiu to respond, but she lifts her middle finger in his direction, making everyone laugh.
Satoru cracks open the other beer for himself. and leans on you, resting an elbow on your shoulder. "Sorry for the hold up, I know you all were waiting for my return," he says ever-so-seriously.
"Oh, for sure," you prod.
"Don't sound so disappointed," he teases back, his voice light and carefree. "I saw you were getting all the attention without me to steal it from you. You're welcome for the fifteen minutes of fame, by the way."
Suguru, laughing, nudges Toji beside him. "Guess she didn't mind the attention. Pretty sure it's mostly from your 'minion' over there, though."
"Minion? I'm no minion!" Satoru whines, going on a tangent about how he is an independent man. "I am free-spirited, and I make my own choices. I don't follow anyone's orders!"
You raise an eyebrow, clearly not buying his ruse. "Yeah, because you totally didn't go get beer because Shoko threatened you and you're lowkey scared of her."
He points at you, mock-serious. "Exactly! You get it. I choose to help her. It's not a job, it's a lifestyle. I am just a philanthropic, giving person."
Shoko looks up at him with a smirk. "Yeah, well, your 'lifestyle' shakes up every can of beer in the process."
"Oh, please. I'm just making sure it's extra fizzy for you," he winks and raises his can in a toast to her.
The group laughs, and the lighthearted teasing continues as Satoru takes another exaggerated swig from his beer.
It's going to be an entertaining night for sure.
-----
The air in the frat’s basement is thick from the sounds of music blaring from the speakers and the hum of chattering voices. The basement has been transformed into a chaotic party zone: neon lights pulse in time with the beat, flashing shades of green, red, blue, yellow, and every other color you can imagine. Forgotten red solo cups litter the tables and floor, the ground sticky and clinging to your shoes. The scent of cheap beer mingles with a faint trace of something stronger. College students spill out into every available space, laughing and moving to the rhythm as someone shouts over the music, trying to rally the crowd for another round of beer pong.
Sukuna stands near the entrance, scanning the scene with an intimidating gaze, looking entirely unfazed by the madness around him. He’s chatting with a few brothers manning the door, ensuring everything is going smoothly.
Toji, who's posture effortlessly cool, is leaning against one of the basement’s concrete pillars, his eyes hidden behind his pointless dark shades, despite the dim lighting. Shiu and another fraternity brother stand beside him, chatting about random things as they people-watch. his arms are crossed as he surveys the room. His ever-watchful gaze, however, seems to soften whenever it lands on you, a subtle, almost imperceptible softness behind the usual cool facade.
Mei is nearby, already indulging in a drink and laughing with Kento. Her voice rings out above the music, easily heard thanks to her loud, infectious laughter. As expected from her extroverted personality, she has already made a few new friends and seems to be thoroughly enjoying herself, currently pulling Suguru into a spontaneous, uncharacteristically animated dance that’s more playful than serious. Yu, of course, is in his element, somehow managing to avoid getting caught up in anything too intense, but having fun regardless. He’s chatting with a classmate he's never talked to before tonight near the punch bowl, a slight flush on his cheeks from whatever jungle juice concoction is in the cup he’s holding.
The bass from the music thuds in your chest as the crowd of students swirl around, their conversations rising and falling in chaotic harmony. You, however, feel oddly detached from the rowdy noise, your attention more focused on the space next to you - Satoru.
As you take a sip of your drink, he leans closer, and his usual carefree expression softens in the low light. "You alright?" he asks, voice barely audible over the pounding bass.
"Yeah, don't worry," you try your best to give him a happy, convincing smile, but from the quirk of his brow, you can tell he doesn't believe you. After a sip from your drink, you continue, "I just.. I guess I just have a weird feeling."
Satoru eyes you for a moment, an almost unreadable expression on his face. The playful demeanor he usually carries melts away as a more thoughtful side of him replaces it. "What kinda weird feeling?" he presses. His head tilts in curiosity as he watches you.
You shrug, unsure of how to respond. You glance around the basement, at the sea of bodies, the noise, and the flashing lights. "I dunno. I feel like something's about to happen. Everything's been going too smoothly for me, y'know? Like... the calm before the storm, or something."
Satoru watches you for a moment, his gaze intense despite the lighthearted vibe of the party you are at. His lips press into a thin line, pensiveness obvious in his brow. His eyes flick to the crowd as you watch him process your words, then return to your face. "Huh," he leans back against the black cinderblock wall behind him, mulling over your words. "It's weird how humans work. When everything seems perfect, and your gut tells you it's gonna go sideways."
You nod, relieved by the comfort of his understanding. "I can feel that," Satoru says after a beat, his tone suddenly more serious. "But hey," he adds, flashing his signature grin that you've grown to admire. "If something's gonna happen, we can handle it. Together, hm?" he bumps his shoulder against yours, an subtle effort to reassure you. "If anything, you'll be the one saving me."
You smile, shaking your head, tension in your chest easing incrementally. "Yeah, right. Because I'm known for being the hero," you roll your eyes and give him an incredulous look.
His grin widens, the familiar cocky edge to his voice returning in full force. "Don't underestimate yourself. You save me from my own stupidity every time you look at me like that" he winks, but there's something about the way he says it - soft, yet teasing - that makes you feel more grounded.
Your heart skips a beat as you study his face, and for the moment, the party fades away into the background. The noise around you is deafening, but with him next to you, and all of his attention on you, it feels like you are in your own little world: just you and Satoru. The weight of the chaotic energy that previously overwhelmed you now feels less oppressive. "You are impossible, Satoru Gojo," you murmur, but there is no real bite to your words.
"Impossible? Nah," Satoru grins widely. "Too charming for my own good? Potentially. But hey, if it makes you feel better, I can keep letting you think you're the one saving me. Keep the little illusion alive for ya."
"Wow, thanks, man. I really believed it for a second there," you say stoically.
Satoru playfully bumps his shoulder into your own again, enjoying the back-and-forth between the two of you. Suddenly, he leans closer, having to bend to reach your ear. As he speaks, Satoru's voice droops lower, just loud enough to hear over the music when he says, "I mean it, though. You have no idea how much you ground me."
You swallow, surprised at the sincerity that keeps slipping through his typically unserious exterior. No jokes, no smart-aleck comments - just honesty.
"I'm just trying to match your vibe. You make it hard to stay serious for too long," you respond, your voice a bit more timid, making Satoru chuckle.
His hand moves to rest against the wall behind you as he leans his body against it, shifting closer and crossing his legs. Your entire body is facing his, his towering stature smirking down at you. "That's kinda my thing. But I can let you win this one time, I guess. Just remember," he bends down even closer, eyes sparkling mischievously, "that you're the one keeping us in check." His words hand in the air, the playful tone exciting you, but his proximity to you making you nervous for some reason.
You shake your head, laughing at how easy it is to fall in rhythm with him. "Mhm. I'm not buying it anymore. You, letting someone else take control? Impossible," you poke his chest, trying to stay lighthearted despire the strange weight in your chest you feel from his words.
He taps your shoulder gently with his beer can, a move both casual and endearing. "You should believe me," he says with a shrug, voice full of unshakable confidence. "Let me put it this way: I'm good at pretending, but you're good at seeing through it. That's what makes you different. It makes me want to be better, more like you. You ground me, and therefore, you ground us. So yes, take the reins, angel."
The words are simple, but they resonate within your mind, and you find yourself lost in their meaning. "Well," you breathe out, "guess we'll keep making each other better, huh?"
Satoru stares at you, his smile returning with something more real behind it. "Together," he softly agrees and nudges you once more.
"Together," you smile. "Now what was that about you pretending?"
"Oh, you know, just gotta keep up the classic Gojo facade," he smiles, but a hint of apprehension is behind it.
"For who?" you ask the question he has asked himself his entire life up to this point.
"For anyone who needs to see the Gojo they expect," he says, a playful edge in his voice. He chuckles softly to himself, then flicks to his wrist as if to dismiss the thought. "People have their assumptions. Expectations, even. My family is historically a... well known one. A lot is expected from me on that end, but also from the world in general. I have a name to live up to. A legacy. And you know me - I like to keep 'em guessing. Piss 'em off for fun."
You study the man in front of you, absorbing his words. Taking the final sip of your drink, you respond, "So, it's all an act then?" It's a genuine question - you're trying to understand where his true self ends and the public persona begins.
You feel a deeper connection forming with the man you speak to, and you wonder if he's ever spoken about this with anyone else. You know he has Suguru, Yu, and Kento, but you are unsure how deep their conversations dive. What if he has been fostering all of these thoughts for decades now with no one to express them too? Just that thought makes you sad; not in a pitiful way, but in an understanding way. How it feels to be alone, to feel hopeless - these are not new feelings for you.
His expression softens as he watches you think. "Not an act," he mutters, almost to himself. "More like... a shield. A way to keep people at a distance. It's easier that way." He looks back at you with a serious gaze. "It's hard to let people in. To let them see everything. So, I keep it light. Keeps it fun, and keeps the pressure off."
"Is that why you wear those glasses all the time, even in dark basements in the middle of the night?" you dig.
"Yeah, I guess. They do say eyes are the window to the soul," he affirms. Satoru takes a deep breath, exhaling through his mouth and continues, "Sometimes, if I'm being honest, I feel like a fraud. I don't deserve my family's legacy, and honestly, I don't want it. But I have no choice, really."
You sense the vulnerability in his words, the quiet admission that's not often seen from him. "You don't always have to keep up the front with me, you know," you say softly, your voice sincere as ever. "You don't have to pretend."
He looks at you for a long moment. "Maybe not, but old habits die hard, I guess." He shrugs, as if the topic itself is too complicated to dive into, but the warmth in his eyes betrays the nonchalant front.
Not knowing how to respond, a brief silence stretches between you two, but it's not an uncomfortable one. If anything, it feels like a quiet understanding has settled, deeper than the usual playful banter that has defined your relationship.
"You know," he adds, smile returning full force. "You're the only one who I can drop the act around and actually mean it. The more I think about it, I've never really had to pretend around you."
The smile on your face is impossible to hide. "I'll take that as a compliment," you tease, and tap his nose in an affectionate gesture. The motion feels softer, more intimate, than any interaction before.
"Take it however you want," he grins, "just know I mean every word."
Suguru suddenly appears beside you. "Sorry to ruin the moment, guys, but Shoko requires you both for a pong tournament." His smile is mockingly apologetic, clearly enjoying his mild disruption. You look across the room to see Shoko staring at you, smiling and giving you a thumbs up.
And with that, the bubble protecting you and Satoru from the rest of the world is popped, and reality is shoved in your face at full force.
Satoru, however, is unbothered like always. His grin shifts into something more playful as he raises his hand in mock surrender. "Guess we're being summoned, eh?" he chuckles. Yet when he glances at you, you see a flicker of something deeper, something unspoken, behind his eyes. And you know that the conversation that abruptly came to its end will stay with him for a while.
Trying to shake off the lingering heaviness, you take a breath to steady yourself. "Guess so," you say, voice uncharacteristically pensive as the meanings behind Satoru's words reverberate in your mind. You almost feel unsteady on your feet, as if the gravity of the conversation and its undercurrents have left you with an odd sense of imbalance.
Satoru giggles, a sound that is more music to your ears than anything the shitty DJs could ever play. Straightening his posture and pushing away from the wall in one fluid motion, his hand brushes against yours in a fleeting, but purposeful, touch, before he bounces toward Suguru playfully.
Shaking your head, you follow them toward the ping-pong table, the sudden noise and energy of the party swallowing you up again. The music grows louder, the chatter around you intensifies, and flashing lights seem more vivid than ever now that you've had a taste of Satoru's inner mind. Even in a room full of people, you feel like there’s a quiet understanding between you two, something that hasn’t been said aloud but doesn’t need to be; it is undeniably there. It’s in the way he looks at you, in the softness that he allows himself around you. It’s a connection, one that feels real amidst all the chaos and is enlightened through subtle, fragile intimacy.
Fuck. You like him. A lot.
-----
The party is chaos indeed: when Shoko and you beat Suguru and Satoru in the most competitive round of beer pong the world has ever seen, Shoko exuberantly stands on the folding table to announce her victory. The sight of her struggling to maintain her balance is, of course, a disaster waiting to happen. Her balance wavers, and she falls backwards in what you swear is a slow motion scene right out of one of those cheesy rom coms - Kento catches her just in time, ensuring a safe landing.
"Sho down! I repeat: Sho is down!" you exclaim dramatically to Mei Mei and Utahime, who sit behind your game, gossiping away, oblivious to the scene in front of them. They burst into laughter at the spectacle.
Clearly delighted by the turn of events, Mei grins widely, but Utahime just shakes her head, her face a picture of exasperation. "Leave it to Shoko," she huffs, but there is a clear warmth in her tone.
As if delivering a grand performence, Satoru smirks and walks around the table to stand beside you. "Nice one, Shoko. Real nice," he says, voice light with amusement.
"Fuck you, I almost died," Shoko cries out. The alcohol has definitely amplified her emotions, and now she is crying into Kento's shoulder. With wide eyes, he stiffly turns his head to you as if to silently beg for help, but you, Mei, and Utahime simply shrug and look the other way. She can be his problem for now, yours back at the suites.
But then, you feel the energy in the room shift. You don't immediately register it - the voices growing louder, as if everyone is simultaneously asking the same question. You do notice, however, the way everyone keeps glancing at the entrance. And when you glance over, you see the one thing you hoped to avoid for the rest of your life.
Naoya Zen'in.
"The fuck is he doin' here?"
Good question, Toji!
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gojo def mews and thinks it s funny as fuck and suguru just looks at him like
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k thats all thx for reading <3 proud of this one and had SM fun writing it ENJOYY
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lovelyyandereaddictionpoint · 11 months ago
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Our perfect Addition | Platonic Yandere Mei Mei and Ui Ui
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When you were recruited into Jujutsu Tech, you could not settle in. Given an ultimatum about joining or your family suffering from unknown consequences. It doesn’t give you an all too positive relationship with the school. Often having to be reminded of your life and family’s lives on the line. You're eventually placed in the first year's class under the supposed strongest Gojo Satoru. Not that it mattered to you. 
“OKAY! This is your new classmate! Introduce yourself, newbie.”
“Nice to meet you all.”
“So so (Y/n)-chan! Tell us something about yourself!”
“I didn’t want to enroll but was forced to. Otherwise, my family will be-”
He slaps a hand on your mouth and then pushes you toward the trio. 
“Awesome introduction! Welcome to the team!”
Despite your disgruntled disposition you tend to hold your own quite well. Able to come out mostly unscathed thanks to your technique. Speaking of your technique one of its functions allows attacks against you to become diamonds and minerals that you can maneuver throughout the battle. When you’re not using them to fight, you aren’t afraid to fashion them into jewelry or, after meeting Maki, weapons. Needless to say, it’s helpful when it comes to anyone you’re fighting against cursed users or curses themselves.
Which is perfect for defending your friend in the Kyoto School Exchange. Their attacks both physical and cursed are thwarted by your own until the violent interruption. Before then though the professors watched with anticipation.
“Gojo Satoru, how much for the gem maker?”
The Kyoto School Exchange is where she sees you in action. She’s heard the whispers that Gojo’s been given a treasure-making curse-user for a student. She doubts it's as weird as they speak of but someone so money-driven is bound to be curious. 
The crow that returns from the forest is clutching a nugget of gold. Mei Mei gets it appraised and true enough it is a bonafide mineral. One selected among others you carry away or leave behind from your violent battle with the intruders.
“Not for sale.”
Gojo’s warning is ignored as Mei Mei is constantly sending crows to follow. She watches how you pay for your family’s expenses and spend time with them when you’re not scheduled for a mission. She notes how big you smile when they greet you and how hard you laugh. She finds it endearing. 
So endearing she devotes more of her energy to watching you do anything and everything. Where you go with your friends, where you eat, how you sleep. If it weren’t for Gojo she’d have a more concrete copy of your schedule by now but having the general ideas of your life is a good start.
“Nee-Sama! Don’t you want me by your side?”
“ I need you to watch someone for me.”
“Only for you, Nee-Sama!”
She kicks herself for asking Gojo about you. Since then he’s been hard-pressed to keep you far from her as you go on different missions. He’s strong but he can’t control everything. Sooner than he can threaten the council, Ui Ui is assigned to accompany you as you take on a grade 2 curse. 
“Uhm hope we can work together well, Ui Ui.”
“Hmph! I’m not going to speak to you, money bag.”
He quite obviously was jealous of his sister’s interest in you. Constantly degrading you or insulting you as you both learn how to work together and handle the curse. Despite his prickly beginnings with you, he finds himself in awe of you…
“Ui Ui! Teleport me onto the debris it consumes. I don’t care which one just do it.”
“But if you do that your gems won’t be able to manage your fall!”
“Don’t worry about it! Just do it.”
From what he’s heard from his sister you were forced into this. Unable to choose this life you’re still so willing to put yourself at risk. With the way the battle had been going, you could easily abandon the mission claiming it was too advanced. But you stayed and devoted your limited gems to protecting him.
With a pout and a blush, he found himself accepting the hug you gave him in achieving your victory. He cheekily praises you on the plan you came up with, still insulting you enough to keep you from noticing.
“You’re not nearly as powerful as my beloved Nee-Sama! She would have handled this in minutes.”
“Didn’t you say she was a special-grade sorcerer?”
“Yes…and by that standard we were decent.”
“Yeah, 30 minutes is pretty good.”
“Your standards need to be raised–” “Hey!” “-I think it’s important we keep contact for when that day comes.”
“Is this you’re roundabout way to ask for my number so we can hang out?”
“Think what you want! My Nee-Sama is the only one I bother planning to meet…I’ll text you.”
He’s lucky you don’t have a technique like Mei Mei’s otherwise you’d tease him to no end about how he kicks his feet when he texts you. With a blush and a chuckle, he’ll happily let his sister come in close as they watch your snap stories or a video you took.
“They seem perfect for us Nee-sama.”
“I agree. Now all that’s left is to take them for ourselves. Now to get past the famous Gojo Satoru.”
“You could beat him. Nee-Sama!”
“Hmmm, if only.”
The Shibuya incident couldn’t come any sooner. Having been paired up with Nobara, the siblings are all too keen on your proximity to them. When you casually respond to a text Ui Ui sends at the beginning of the mission, you couldn’t possibly be aware of the gears turning in their heads.
“Ara Yuji-kun, the gem user is also training to be a special grade, correct?”
“Uh yes, they were sayin’ something about retiring.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah!”
“Don’t respond so casually at Nee-Sama!”
Mei Mei is quick to take advantage when Gojo is sent in to fight. Far too focused on his battle she can devote a crow or two to follow your progress and intervening at close calls. Her plan is only to watch you, it is an unexpected advantage that the sorcerer that’s been guarding you so closely is sealed. 
“Eh? Gojo’s been sealed? What an interesting turn of events…he still owes me.”
After surviving the run-in with Kenjaku, she has no intentions of staying in Shibuya. She needed to change her currency after all. Before she leaves, she makes a point not to leave her gem, swiping you up before you can register. 
“W-what just–”, you call out as you look at your new environment. No longer in the heat of battle, you look amazed at the lush and luxurious hotel room. High above a glowing city, this wasn’t Shibuya…it didn’t even look like Japan.
“(Y/n)!”
Ui Ui hugs you tightly, beginning to worryly obsess over your wounds. When the crow imbued with his technique landed on you mid-fight, you were on the cusp of being greatly injured. A few scars, a broken rib, and muscles that’ll make your body ache for days are what you got away with. You considered yourself better off than some of the seniors you were fighting alongside.
“I have to go back! They need me!”
You struggle against Ui Ui’s tight grip, who took advantage of your injury to hold you still, you can’t properly detach yourself. Mei Mei pays no mind to your determined snarl, not even looking in your direction as she hurriedly types on her computer.
“Gojo Satoru’s been sealed.”
“I know that!”
“Do you though? Your family was promised to be protected as long as you stay in Jujutsu Tech.”
You think for a moment. You deflated, “Gojo….”
Finished typing she comes to your side, not minding her brother as she cradles your head to her chest, “With Gojo no longer around do you think they’d bother to keep them around?”
You floundered,“I- don’t- I–” 
Ui Ui hugs you tight, bringing your attention back to him as he looks up at you. 
“We are your family now.”
“What?!”
Mei Mei’s hands held your chin turning your face towards hers. Her hair was down and she was wearing a hotel’s robe. With a bandaid on her right cheek and the deep red of her lipstick. The look on her face was unreadable, her eyes looked too gleeful in comparison to yours.
“(Y/n), your family is being housed by some friends of mine.”
“But they didn’t tell me they moved.”
She chuckled, “Of course, they haven’t I wouldn’t allow them to.”
When you looked at her suspiciously, she squeezed your cheeks.
“For their safety, of course. I care for those I invest in.”
She let her other hand pet Ui Ui’s head. He blushed intensely muffling a ‘Nee-Sama’ into your clothes. You felt your lip curl in disgust.
“So you want me for the gems I make right?”
She smiled to herself, before beginning to unbutton your school uniform. Ui Ui readjusted his hug, forcing your arms to your sides as Mei Mei undid all your buttons. 
“I might have also decided you were just as valuable as your technique.”
You scoffed, “Yeah I doubt that.”
She laughed at you. “Think what you like but I’m sure your…family would love to hear from you.”
She held a burner phone out to you. It was opened to a contact profile with a group picture of your family. Wriggling your arm out of Ui Ui you reached to snatch it away only for her to easily hold it further away from you. 
“It’d be a shame if I changed my mind about funding their protection. Stay in my care from now on.”
“What are you getting at–”
The phone began to ring. You frantically reached for it, willing to endure Ui Ui’s grip and graze the edge of the phone.
“Promise me, (Y/n).”
“I-I promise! Please!” 
With a nod, the arms holding you released, letting you stumble and wince as you answer the call. With your back to the two of them, they smiled at one another gazing at the uniform shirt that easily slipped off in your struggle for the phone. Mei Mei holds the cloth in her hands caressing the jeweled buttons, she knows you custom-made. 
“Ui Ui.”
“Yes Nee-Sama?” 
“Wash their uniform and give them the change of clothes we brought for them.”
“Of course Nee-Sama!”
She starts to make her way back to the computer, resuming her business with those on the other line. Turning her head over her shoulder she watched the way you fiddled with the plants in the hotel room while chatting excitedly on the phone. She smiled as she watched her brother eye the shirt with a deep blush.
“Oh, Ui Ui.”
“Yes, Nee-Sama?”
“Be sure to breathe in with both your nose and mouth. It’s less likely you’ll pass out that way.”
“Thank you Nee-Sama.”
Looking out at the city Mei Mei felt triumphant. She finally had her gem and with the world ending, it was the perfect time.
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mybutcheredtongue · 1 year ago
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I'll Love You 'til the Grass Around My Gravestone is Deceased
harry potter timeline Sirius Black x fem!reader
You lived out your years at Hogwarts with the company of your best friends, Lily Evans and Alice Fortescue. You fell in love with one of the infamous Marauders, Sirius Black. After school, you married and became Mrs Black, living in a home full of love and life with your faithful husband. Your happy life is cut short when Sirius is wrongfully convicted of the murder of Peter Pettigrew and several muggles, and sent straight to Azkaban without trial. The Ministry thinks you must be connected, but after several days of investigation and questioning, litres of veritaserum thrown down your throat, you're proven innocent. You have maintained his innocence ever since, knowing Sirius would never do something like that. The only person who'll hire you is Albus Dumbledore, and with his help your name is reverted to its maiden and your past is buried deep.
This story follows your life during your time as a professor at Hogwarts when Harry Potter joins the school and everything changes.
FULL of angst but has a happy ending.
No use of Y/N
This fic is mostly a collection of moments and scenes! So a lot of time skips.
p.s. title is from the song "I Love You" by Fontaines D.C. — one of my favourite bands!! would so so recommend checking them out :)
CHAPTER ONE (see full series list here)
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1991
You glance at your watch, the hand ticking slowly as it moves to show 9:03 p.m.
Finally, the large wooden door opens and a scrawny young boy pushes forward, huffing tiredly, and less than 20 odd first-year students filter into the astronomy tower.
"Evening, everyone!" You say cheerfully. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws stand awkwardly as they gaze around the room in wonderment.
You feel proud of it. The last astronomy professor had left this room a little...boring, so when you came into employment you spruced it up a little bit. Though there aren't many to write on, each wall is plastered in hand-painted constellations with their names in 5 languages written underneath. You had cast a spell on the floor to conjure up a moon, one that matched the real one's lunar phases. Today, a waxing gibbous.
Telescopes line the edges of the circular room, each pointing high into the sky. You eye your favourite for a moment, the same telescope you'd used during your own years as a student at Hogwarts.
It feels like home in this room.
"Welcome to the Astronomy Tower," you say with a smile. "Here, you'll learn all about the wonders of our universe and its planets, galaxies, stars...everything. Please, find a telescope and stand behind it. We'll start with charting some simple constellations today."
The students obediently line behind a telescope each. Your eyes immediately focus on a young boy, with jet black hair and circular glasses. You lose your train of thought for a moment, feeling as though you're looking at a ghost.
He's the very image of James Potter.
Then, he turns to look at you and his eyes strike you. Green and vibrant, full of youth and gentleness.
Lily.
You feel your breath catch in your throat, but quickly shake your head of the grief and clap you hands, smiling at the students again.
"Astronomy is one of the very few subjects that is present in both the wizarding and the muggle world. That means that there are millions of resources out there for all of you to use, whether it be from a wizarding standpoint or a muggle one! Interesting stuff," you continue. "Now, I want you all to do a small task for me. Look through your telescope — please don't change any lenses just yet — and try and see if you can spot a constellation. Then, using the first page of your book, see if you can figure out which constellation it is. Call me over when you think you have one!"
The students immediately start rooting through their bags for their Astronomy textbooks and you sigh gently, content with your introduction. First-years are always well interested and curious about everything, so Astronomy is a pretty easy subject for them to get into. After all, lots of the first year curriculum is just looking at pretty stars and constellations.
"Professor, I think I have one!" A young Gryffindor girl with bushy brown hair and an excited face says to you, throwing her hand in the air enthusiastically.
You smile, walking over to her. "What's your name, dear?"
"Hermione Granger, professor."
"And what constellation do you think you've found?"
"Aquila, professor," she beams, pointing a finger to the small, 'T' shaped constellation in her book.
You close one eye and look through her telescope, noticing it immediately.
You grin at her. "Well spotted, Miss Granger! Excellent work." You glance at her scarlet and gold tie. "5 points to Gryffindor for being the first one!"
Her face lights up proudly.
"Now, let's see if you can find any of the stars present in it. Any at all, though you may find it difficult to differentiate — "
"The star of Altair, professor!"
Your eyes widen and you chuckle in surprise. "Well, aren't you just making my job a whole lot easier for me? Well done, Miss Granger. Please chart that constellation down on some parchment and continue looking."
In the next few minutes, many students find constellations and are charting them down. One boy seems to be having a particularly difficult time.
"Neville Longbottom, isn't it?" You say as you wander up to him. He jumps at the sound of your voice, knocking his forehead against the edge of his telescope and letting out a small yelp of pain. "Oh, sorry..." You wave your wand gently and his eyebrows raise, bringing a hand to his forehead in surprise.
"Just a small healing spell. For minor, minor injuries," you tell him. "How is your charting going?"
The boy's cheeks go red and his eyes focus on the floor beneath him. "I...haven't been able to find one, professor. I — I thought I had one ages ago, but there were too many stars in it..."
"Let me have a look, Mr Longbottom," you say kindly, bringing your eye up to the lens and grinning. "Well, you most definitely have found one. One I didn't think anyone would find!"
You glance at Neville's face, and he's the picture of shock.
"Pisces, Mr Longbottom. Trust your judgement! Excellent work."
Neville grins, and you step aside, but not before he says something else.
"Uh, professor..."
"Yes?"
"How do...how do you know my name?"
You study his face and smile again. The very picture of Frank Longbottom. With Alice Fortescue's mousy hair.
"I went to school with your parents, Mr Longbottom. You're the spitting image of your father."
Next, the young boy with jet black hair and glasses calls you over. Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived.
"What one have you found, Mr Potter?"
As he looks at you, green eyes connecting with your own, you try your hardest not to see Lily staring back at you. You try your hardest not to picture your best friend, your honourary sister, a woman of true light in a world full of darkness.
Your heart has felt lonely since her absence. Since James. Since Alice. Since Frank. Since Peter.
You blink.
"Uh, Canis Major, I think?"
You swallow hard. Of course.
"Let me have a look see..." He's right of course, you don't even need to look. You can spot that constellation any night without a telescope. You know it like the back of your hand. "You're dead right, Mr Potter. Brilliant constellation, that is. Canis Major means 'the Great Dog', and it actually contains the brightest star in the night sky visible to our naked eye, Si — "
"Oh, wait, hold on..." Harry says, flicking through his book to find the page on Canis Major. He pauses, eyes skimming down the page. "Uh, Sirius, right?"
You bite your lip, feeling your heart speed up. You take a deep breath, forcing a smile. "Yes, Mr Potter. Sirius."
Your favourite star.
Your favourite person.
Your heart has been broken since his absence.
"Good work." You promptly spin on your heel, heading for your desk as you glance down at your watch. "Alright, everyone. Excellent work today! Now, I won't set anyone any written homework...but if you're truly interested and find you have a little free time, try and see if you can chart any other constellations! Night, everyone."
The students chat animatedly amongst themselves and exit down the spiral stairs, leaving you alone in the room. You sit down at your desk, sighing as you slip a key from your pocket and open one of the drawers. You pull out a small photograph, eyes wandering over the young, elated faces of James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Alice Fortescue, Frank Longbottom, and yourself.
Graduation day.
One the left, you're standing in the middle of Alice and Lily, arms around them and laughing wholeheartedly. James stands beside Lily, arms around her and Sirius beside him, who's connected with Remus, Peter, and Frank.
You smile weakly. You remember that day, all full of hope and joy. There was some sadness too, sadness to be leaving Hogwarts and ultimately leaving childhood.
Your fingers gently skim over Sirius' face, feeling your heart ache.
What you wouldn't give to go back to that day.
⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。
Dear Moony,
I hope you're well! School's started back up again. Been a bit crazy lately, sorry that I haven't written since your last letter. Someone let a troll into the dungeon. Quirrell went mad, fainted in the middle of dinner and set all the students into a panic. It was torture.
Harry's started here. It's hard to look at him sometimes. He's the image of James. It's uncanny. He has Lily's eyes, too. Sometimes I start to feel like I can talk to them through him, even though I know that's mad of me. Neville Longbottom's here too. He's just like his parents. Both in Gryffindor, you'll be happy to know.
Dumbledore's gave me strict instructions not to say a word to Harry about it all. Says it'll be too much for him. He won't be able to understand why I couldn't have raised him instead of the Dursleys. He says that Harry will only start digging around for more information on me if he finds out I'm his godmother. He'd ask about his godfather then. It's too much for a young boy to know that his godfather is in Azkaban.
I wanted to talk to him so bad, Remus. I want to tell him about his parents, show him the photos. I want him to be able to feel at home here, feel like he's got someone here. A part of his family. I know exactly what those Dursleys are like. Petunia always hated James, you know that well enough. I hate that I have to keep this secret for even longer.
I talked to young Neville though. Merlin, he has Alice's clumsiness, that's for sure. Such a sweet lad. He was more than happy to see photos of the two and hear stories about them. I feel like a little bit of the weight that's been hanging over me has been lifted. I even showed him that photo of Alice falling into the Black Lake in 5th Year. If she was of sound mind she'd surely throttle me for that.
I think I need to get out of the castle for a bit. Wanna get a coffee? It's been a while.
I've omitted a few details of the past few weeks so I have something interesting to tell you about next weekend, if you're up for it.
all my love,
You sign the letter, folding up the parchment gently and dropping it in an envelope. You grab your bland wax stamper and press a small circle of black wax over the envelope's seal. You slip it into your pocket and stand up from your bed. Beside you, your black cat, Dubh*, stirs from her sleep and meowls at you.
You give her a loving scratch behind the ears. "Just popping down to the owlery. I'll be back."
On your way down to the owlery, you pass two lanky, identical students with heads full of ginger hair. They haven't noticed you yet. They're peering around the corner at Filch, a suspicious-looking bag in one of their hands.
"Bit late for the two of you to be out, isn't it?" You whisper behind them. They wheel around immediately and their eyes widen in shock.
"Professor! We — uh, we weren't doing anything!" George blurts out.
"Don't you look just lovely tonight, Professor? There is such a...healthy glow about you," Fred remarks suavely and you raise an unamused eyebrow at him.
"I sincerely hope you don't think I'm that thick, Mr Weasley."
"Never, Professor!"
You sigh, shaking your head. "Off to bed, both of you. Quickly, before Filch can catch you. I advise you to keep your pranks within the time you're actually allowed out of bed."
Fred's shoulders slump in disappointment, his want for a good prank evident on his face. George however, is staring at you in surprise.
"No detention?"
Fred immediately smacks his hand over the back of George's head, scowling at him. "Don't give her any ideas!"
"Get going, you two."
They take it this time, quickly scampering down the hallway. You step out from it, into the same one as Filch, who's eyeing you suspiciously.
"Is someone there?"
"Only me, Mr Filch," you answer.
"I thought I heard voices."
"Just me. I was trying to remember a poem I heard recently, it's three pages long. Would you like to hear it?"
Filch's face contorts immediately. "No."
You shrug. "Suit yourself."
You walk past him and out into the cold night air, trying to suppress the smile on your face.
⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。
->-> read chapter two here!
*Dubh: pronounced 'duv'. Irish word for 'black'.
→ all types of interaction appreciated ♡
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al-the-remix · 7 months ago
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I know nothing about 911 but seeing all the bucktommy posts makes me really interested, if you don’t mind could you give a short introduction of the ship/which episode(s) to watch for them? Thanks!!
Hi! So the ship is a very new one and they don't have a lot of screen time yet, so their relationship only appears in season seven, episodes: 7x3 to 7x6 and then 7x9 and 7x10. Tommy Kinard as a side character also shows up in episodes 2x9, 2x12, 2x14 (in an off-screen capacity) and 2x16.
As for the introduction, the lore with this show runs sort of deep, but as condensed and simplified as I can give it to you: the decision to introduce bi!Buck and Tommy and his love interest was made very last minute (like as the first few episodes of season seven were coming out kind of last minute...) as the tv show switched networks from FOX to ABC and was working with a protracted season, (10 episodes in stead of 18), so this first season you see them together in has a very "let's see how well this works and if the general audience approves of it" kind of vibe.
Obviously, it worked for me! And the general reception has been good. Personally, I find their dynamic fun and genuine; the show runner was aiming for a non-heavy coming out story with a romcom twist, which I think they succeeded at. Buck (or "Evan" as Tommy calls him) is sort of the obvious favourite of the show in the audience and the writer's eyes, he's gotten a lot of development over the years, but has stagnanted recently on the romance side of things and also in his professional development, (which is partly the fault of the writers and partly just bad luck with maintaining actors). So I think a lot of fans are excited to see him "off the hamster wheel", as they say, in the love department. This opens up the possibility to explore other plot lines with him as a character in his professional life and personal life now that hes in a steady relationship.
Tommy we don't know much about yet, other than he was deeply in the closet when we first see him in the season 2 flash-back episodes. He's not initially a very warm, welcoming, and accepting person, but it's implied that a lot of that behavior was influenced by his environment and poor upbringing, and he is quick to make amends and befriend the main characters when he's shown to be in the wrong. He used to be in the army, and is a fan of cars, martial arts, and rom coms. The way he talks in the season seven episodes makes it clear that he's done a lot of self reflection since we've last seen him (and since he's come out). He's shown to be an open and honest person who does his best to show up for the people he cares for, and once Buck is in his line of sight, all that attention is turned his way.
I think with this ship what people are most excited about is the potential it demonstrates: Buck as a character is someone who's been on an aggressive misson of self discovery and understanding, he's been actively looking for a romantic partner to have a committed, mature relationship with, he's someone who's willing to give a lot of himself away to his partner and is desperately hoping to have that attention and affection mirrored back at him.
What little we know about Tommy so far makes it clear that he's mature and willing enough to be that person for Buck: if it works out and the writers allow him to be. I just really enjoy what little I've seen so far, and with the show being back to its regular 18 episodes next season and Tommy pretty much confirmed to return, I'm interested and invested and hopefully in where they may take this relationship next.
Also I feel like I need to add if you're going to engage with the fandom specifically for this ship, do it through the #bucktommy tag on tumblr, because it's a real mine field out there right now, lol.
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xiii-e · 2 months ago
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XIII▸ Well. I suppose I should introduce myself.
XIII▸ Hello, to all those I haven't met- which, will be most of you realistically. I'm Project XIII-E, otherwise refered to as Thirteen-E. Just Thirteen works too. After certain recent... events shall we say, a representative of the Union DoJ/HR insisted that I be given the oppertunity to meet with people outside of Harrison Purview while discussions regarding my status are underway, since things are dragging out somewhat.
XIII▸ So... this omninet account was created, with the assistance of Helios-8 [◂▸Hi folks o/ ] a fellow Project who understands all of this better than I do. He's volunteered to be my minder while I'm figuring all this out. For now, I suppose- more about me? What's important... I'm a trained field medic and basic mechanic, intended to opperate as a mobile assistance personnel wherever the fight is thickest. I can patch you, or your mech up from most things. I'm a Lancaster pilot; not the most common thing in the legion I know, but IPS-N knew what they were doing with the old lannies. I've made some alterations. M1 Leatherback is my pride and joy. I'm registered under the callsign Cicatrice, but my name is preferable. It's easier to say, and to spell.
XIII▸ Oh the uh- the Project thing. That might take a while to explain. I'll... I'll summarise it later. [ADDENDUM: summary_attached] That's all I can think of, from the top of my head. I'll do my best to aclimatise to any cultural differences outside of Harrison space during my time here. Please feel free to ask me questions, about myself or my stated expertise. It might be nice to make some more lasting connections, outside of deployment.
XIII▸ Signing off for now. I look forward to meeting you.
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// loading echo.exe ... //... //... // now running echo.exe
◂▸ alrightyy, Turtie's got themself introduced, now it's my turn. howdy folks: My name is Helios-8, but I accept Lio if flashclone naming conventions turn your stomach. That's what me and Turtie are, by the way. Project-produced HA sanctioned flashclones. Being able to say that openly is why I run this nifty piece of software that keeps things below the line for any HA techs who might get on our case about legal distinctions, treaties, terms of service etc. Legally, we didn't say any of this shit.
◂▸I'm on a seperate datapad, I get my own that I can tinker with since I'm defined as an employed citizen in the tech sector, whereas Turtie's... well, it's complicated. Suffice to say they're not that. I'll explain in time. Important thing is, anything they want to say that might get them in trouble, they'll run through my interface and protective software. You want to see what either of us don't want HA seeing, we'll throw it into the void under the cloak of ECHO here. Something between insurance in case this all goes tits up, and a sort of controlled exposure therapy so Turtie can learn how to speak their mind.
◂▸I think it's important they get a break from the bullshit the Projects put us through, hence why I put myself forward to be their handler between deployments. My project line wasn't anything like Unlucky Thirteen, but- ehhh, that's a story better saved for the big expo. Sorry for being cryptic about shit. It'll come to light in its own time. This was meant to be an introduction but, I think you'll find out what you need to if you get talking to us.
Or don't; we'll be treating this thing like a diary anyways, and when ECHO's feeling up to big files I'll drop some of the more interesting pieces of history I have squirreled away too >:]c But, your eyes are enough. You saw us. You know we were here, and we were real, and that we were people too.
I'll try and keep things organised: ECHO should automatically tag anything she's cloaked with echo.exe if you're looking for our back and forth, and I'll file any large files, exposes etc that may or may not actually come from me under turtleshell.dox ; for incoming chatter, just check out You've Got Mail
◂▸anyway, cheers for reading. see you round the net -Helios-8
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// ooc: hiii this is @mossydice / @mossylocks depending on where you may know me- and this blog is a bit of an experiment!! I'm pretty shy overall so how much actual rping I manage to do is Very up in the air, but at the very least this'll serve as a fun in character blog for me to exposit about my scrungly Thirteen-E; I won't get to play them for probably another year or so yet, so this is a fun way to explore their character and some of the lore specific to them that I've come up with in the mean time!! ^-^ I look forward to doing more ic writing!! If you want to talk about anything, ask any clarifying questions etc please feel absolutely free to pop into my dms \o/
IMPORTANTLY: Thirteen-E's whole deal can get a bit gritty in places, so I'll be trying to include cw's where I think they might be revelent. However this whole blog is going to play heavy into dehumanisaiton and the comodification of human bodies if the flashclone premise didn't make that obvious, so if these are topics you'd rather not read about at length in your fiction, no hard feelings!! thanks for stopping by o7
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thecrustiestpurp · 2 years ago
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Genius writing of Pavitr Prabhakar
They made an ass of a spiderman in theory yet he's my favourite out of all of them and naturally I'm thinking why.
Ignoring the aesthetic aspects like his sick design and his distinctive web slinging style. I think it's most interesting how they do this through the writing, the way they tackle his fatal flaw, his fat ego and blind optimism by creating a really sharp interval logic and communicating this within the space of 15 minutes.
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We understand that his big ego is all earnest and out of naivite rather than him putting down others. He just so happens to be the best and perfect, and therefore everything is great for him. He was given a blessing at a very young age to be a spider and he happens to be good at it of course he's going to be prideful how can it not be. And why would he not gloat, he's a perfect guy perfect grades perfect hair and he knows that makes him special. Especially considering the rest of the Spider-Verse, having a perfect one like Pavitr is unexpected so we're at least intrigued by him.
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But why do we like him despite characters with perfect lives and a big ego typically being frustrated. Using his humour the writers made his introduction it as playful as possible so we laugh at how him you know. One of the first things he says is "being Spiderman is so easy" and knowing he's been at it for 6 months it's super funny. He's also relatable, the successes he points out, skipping working out because he has a perfect body, having a girlfriend her parents don't know about, doing well in school are all things that are relatable to us especially if you're Indian, it feels like a real student who's living their best like. Also playfulness is maintained when they go to unglitch spots thing the collider scene, he treating it with even less seriousness "just another easy day of being spiderman" he says and is subsequently blown up - it's funny. We also can't get annoyed during that scene really being invasive to Miles' attempts and channelling the electricity so he's not being frustrating to us or to Miles, just a little naive. We can get humour from it but we also understand this as a flaw too because of the dramatic irony, we're hinting that he's not supposed to think this way.
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They also give him the nice internal logic making his mindset sympathetic by testing it within the movie. In the saving India scene, what's most notable is the line "I can do both" turning his idealism into tragedy when he's faced between saving his girlfriend and saving his girlfriends dad. The surrounding microelements and whatnot making the atmosphere feel dire which contributes to the tragedy. But it's that were seeing the life that he easily lives turning on its head. His mentality given definition as a this it will work out so long as I do it, a noble origin for his confidence. Though he knows he's special but he doesn't think he's any more valuable. "do both" showing no real bias towards to what directly affects him - he can empathise with his girlfriend and recognise loosing her and her dad would be devastating. He's not egotistical like thinking he's better than others, he's empathetic and values the people he saves as well as the people they value. The words "do both" colours his saving as this as being an overexertion, he's unaware of what he can't do solidifying his perspective of viewing this as easy coming from a place of naivite. Additionally he has to be the one to save people - "I can do both" - and this is why being Spider-Man is easy for him, it has to be. This all makes him more understandable and the fact this is clearly failing him and tragically makes him sympathetic. Moreover, we care about the love for his girlfriend and for his people because it was fun hearing him explain it earlier so its even more sympathetic that he's loosing what he loves. I think this also stops being a careful what you wish for where we could reproach him because of the scenery we understand him to have.
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It seems more he does everything because he's so loving, and he just so happens to be blessed and stuff. Which is super enjoyable to watch! and this burst of characterisation happens in like 20 minutes so like wowowowoowwwowoowowowowow
Anyway, this isn't the greatest most insightful analysis but I just had to ramble about my favourite boy!!
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evanox · 11 months ago
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If you joined the fandom some time after Anisa's rewrite like I did, and you've yet to come across (formerly) Nix Hydra's official youtube channel, I cannot recommend enough that you go and watch the playthrough of Anisa's first two chapters. GOD they're just SO delightful; especially if you're interested in Astraea's worldbuilding (or at least a taste of it).
The little details such as the occasional line pointing to Mournfall folk making their living through fishing, or how it's common for mischievous kids to go to the abandoned temple to mess around with magic, or how there are wards implemented by the city during the war 5 years ago to detect and prevent magical disturbances---all of that contributes to breathing so much life into our setting, rather than it just serving the simple purpose of being A Place Where Things Happen.
Not only that, but Anisa's personality shines SO much brighter in this older version. She already surprised me in the old prologue when she pounced at Sage for a hug in the tavern. I know she gives him the cold shoulder in our current version because of the whole betrayal thing, but angst aside, I still couldn't imagine our stiff and uptight Anisa offering either of her friends physical affection (she's just so exasperated with them all the time that it's hard to believe they were friends at any point), so that moment in the older prologue was very endearing to me.
(Also the banter between the three Starsworn is chef's kiss in the older version.)
Anisa pointing out how MC deserves the right to choose a mentor since they had no choice in their predicament is consistent across both prologues, but in the first (old) chapter Anisa chides Felix for not being considerate of the Mournfall townspeople who already suffered enough during the war, and it really drives in the point of how thoughtful and empathetic Anisa is. It also contributes to my point about how the little details in this version breathe life into Astraea---the impact of the war on its citizens is acknowledged; it's not just an event that drives the plot/drives the protagonists' angst.
On top of that, Anisa is very passionate about her job, a total workaholic, and a very curious cat; so much so that she was willing to go investigate the city wards despite being on vacation. For as straightlaced as she may be, she's not above a little mischief, grinning at you when you point out she's going against the orders of her Captain. All of these traits immediately endeared her to me, and they're kind of lost/diminished in the rewrite when her primary motivation for her workaholic tendencies becomes "I need to prove I'm good and pure to distance myself from my evil father's shadow."
Also, Saaros is introduced halfway through chapter 2 so it gives Anisa the chance to breathe and establish herself as a character before she has to share the spotlight w/ a masc-presenting character who'll steal most of the fandom's attention, as is every fictif female LI's curse. Additionally, the elf's introduction is more impactful than that in the rewritten chapter. In the latter, they're first seen complaining about lotions (which establishes that Saaros is someone really picky about their beauty routine), whereas in the old chapter, Saaros is taunting a vendor peddling "spiritual-cleansing" potions (the Astraean equivalent of essential oils only this one's effects are even more dubious). They spill the bottle of potion onto the ground and turn their nose up at Anisa when she asserts her position as a knight, deliver a speech about how Porrimans pretend like they play by the rules while letting charlatans run loose, and then march off. This establishes that Saaros is not someone you can easily fool, and Saaros does not think highly of Porrima or its authority and is not afraid to state their opinion about either. That hints at just how difficult Anisa's spy mission will be, and only at the end of the chapter do we find out this bold elf is Anisa's spy target, assigned to her by Archmage Escell himself.
Now, I'm not saying that Anisa being rewritten to be the LOS daughter is necessarily bad, but God what would I give just to see Dev's vision for Anisa before Lulu came along because it seems SO interesting. Perhaps not as intense as having the main villain as your dad (tbh they kinda ruined it by revealing it from like... the first or second chapter, but that's neither here nor there), but given that Sage and Felix's routes are already packed with angst and secrecy, Anisa's would come as a fresh breath of air---while you have to play therapist for the two male LIs to help them unpack all that baggage, you get to be on equal footing with Anisa and play detectives/spies with her.
It's got the same vibe as what the Arcana team was going for with Portia, only this one's done SO much better. I could never quite put my finger on why I just wasn't feeling Portia's route, but I guess that might have to do with how disconnected she is from everything established by the other routes. Asra, Julian, and Nadia are former friends who plotted together to take down the self-absorbed and useless Count Lucio, and Muriel is Asra's friend whose life was entirely jeopardized by Lucio's tribe first and then Lucio himself second. Portia is Julian's sister who arrived in Vesuvia not too long ago and she's not really friends with any of these characters (besides maybe the romance she gets with Nadia in Julian's route), nor is she really affected by Lucio so the route gives her an entirely different villain to defeat. In a way, it has become its own story without space to grow as a story should because of the chapter limit. The other routes get away with the chapter limitation because they all complement each other--telling the same story from different perspectives.
That's not really the cause for Anisa because she is at the heart of the conflict as one of the three last surviving Starsworn, suffered in the war as they did and is very empathetic towards the people affected by it. Her lower social status makes it harder for her to climb up the ranks until Escell himself offers to sponsor her if she'll spy on Saaros for him. So, even without the LOS relationship, Anisa is very well-entangled in the plot to make her route relevant and engaging.
It's a shame there are only 2 chapters out and you can only see the choices that the person recording chose, but also it seems like this was recorded at a time when the chapter wasn't even completed because honey what is THIS
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evelhak · 5 months ago
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I’m curious about a few: Propinquity, Anem and Bitchberg (a great name, lol)
Well, you've already read about Bitchberg by now from the previous ask. :D
Lol, I actually winced a little when I saw you asked about "Propinquity" since it's the current working title of my Akashi centric fic, and I know you don't find him that interesting. It's still just a bunch of "notes" (=bits of monologue and dialogue that come to me and I have to write down so I won't forget). I haven't actively started this fic yet, since I can't really write multiple projects at the same time. I will probably have to finish another shorter fic after The Luminous Things, before I get to this one.
I know the opening lines, though:
Winning is like breathing. Sometimes I wake up, gasping for air, but my lungs seem to have fallen into a partial state of paralysis.
Or something fairly close to that. The idea has been in my head for a long time, because I really enjoy digging up ignored dimensions that kind of naturally follow from whatever is going on in canon.
There is of course one thing in this fic that could interest you: The main love interest is an OC. :) You know some things about Azumi already. Here's a snippet that will probably serve as her introduction in the fic:
I absolutely pretended to be the empress of this micro-utopia, growing up. Not because it was mine to conquer, or control. Because it was mine to know. To pick apart. Explore, taste, and merge with. A little pocket of wonder in this huge city, a bubble with its own rules. That's what I came to realise pretty soon, anyway. About the world. How different, how illogical and ultimately unsatisfying it was, compared to my shrine, my home, my own ecosystem, my island of undisturbed ground. It frustrates me that the rest of the world doesn't know how to do it. Live and let live. Give and take. Circle of life. A system that works. Because I was born into it. An heir to it. Happiness.
Micro-utopias are a huge element in my whole fic series as it progresses, and there are several kinds of them, Azumi's home life being its own example. Utopia is generally something I'm really interested to write about, especially because a lot of people claim you can't write interesting utopia without making it dystopia in the end, and I very much disagree with that, as people are always imperfect, so you don't need to add any intentionally awful circumstances for a story to have conflict, if you're writing believable people. For me, the key to what makes the most out of utopia is to centre it around whose utopia it is and why. This got slightly off topic, these are just themes I really like exploring and since my fics are my playground, I definitely use them for exploration of things I might want to write later in a more polished form in my original fiction.
The working title "Propinquity" came while I was writing a chapter in The Luminous Things where Kagami ends up lost in Kyoto (it's complicated) and spends the night in Azumi's place, where he has many enlightening conversations with Akashi. (Azumi and Akashi are already together in my main fic timeline, their own fic will cover how they got together, among other things.)
Here's a snippet from the chapter also titled "Propinquity", which I haven't yet posted anywhere, so things might still change a little, but for now, Akashi muses something like this in it:
"[Propinquity] is the central theme of this shrine. Things develop, and change, and prosper in propinquity. It rings true, doesn’t it? Right things, wrong things… so it really matters what you surround yourself with. It’s not enough to know and think. You have to see, and taste, and touch… A plant wouldn’t grow from the understanding that it needs water, if it never got it. It would still die from poison, no matter how informed it was. Azumi knew all of this, so bone deep. That’s why she was disappointed with the world. That’s why she retreated back to her paradise. I think that’s what caught my attention at first. How she had a physical place to go to when she needed to get away."
I probably would not have developed any need to write a story about Akashi's love life on my own. (Well, it's not all there is to it, but it is a how-they-get-together type of story). It was the influence of my ex, who's a big Akashi fan, and as I have probably said before, Azumi was originally her OC that we worked on together a lot. Eventually I grew attached to Akashi and Azumi together, and now I have my own version of the story.
I don't think I actually read any Akashi x OC fics myself, but my ex read them and complained about them, usually, and I picked up on two pretty common patterns, which I didn't want to do: I didn't want the OC to be 1) poor, or 2) have a similar family dynamic and childhood trauma as Akashi. This is because I wasn't interested in dealing with the power imbalance that tends to come with very different socioeconomic standing, and I also didn't want to write a relationship where people get stuck in validating each other's trauma, and it takes them a long time to grow beyond that phase because their relationship is centred around how similar their experiences are. I wanted to hit that sweet spot which I like the most, a relationship that centres around growth, having enough common ground, and being inspired by things about the other that you've never experienced before, or even believed really exists in the world. The kind of relationship that makes you feel that you want to fill your own gaps, and a key factor in that is the proximity, or, propinquity to a person you can rely on, because they don't have the same weaknesses as you. I just really love writing about people who are good influences to each other.
A lot of this fic will also be about dissociation and trauma. Yay.
Anem, then, is another original novel I've started multiple times without being completely satisfied. The premise is pretty classic religious cult + good girl/bad girl dynamic, or at least would seem like that in the beginning.
Here's how I seem to have described it on my website at some point:
Dina is a good girl. She picks up flowers every morning, to put on the altar of her family’s home. She’s chaste, she’s beautiful. She fears God. Semira is a “Wild One”, she rarely goes to church, she speaks out of turn. She could be beautiful, if her hair wasn’t so short. Dina doesn’t think it’s her job to save Semira. After all, if the Fathers don’t know how to help the girl, how could she? But Dina keeps ending up spending time with Semira anyway, and the more she does, the stronger the big black swirling something grows in her stomach. There’s clearly something very wrong about Semira. And there’s something wrong about the woods surrounding their isolated village. Dina knows she’s supposed to stay away, but Semira keeps going into the woods.
It has a lot bigger world and anything but clear-cut themes and dynamics, even though it may seem like that in the beginning... and it's one of those early projects that are sort of everything, because you're not good at narrowing it down yet. It's like a dystopian supernatural medieval fantasy horror philosophical cult story I wrote just to barf out everything I was thinking in my early years of studying theology. It's certainly a cult story, but is the cult the big bad or the world around it? It's certainly a queer story, but is it a love story or a hate story? It's certainly trying to say something, but what? No one knows, not even me. It's a big mess.
I'm also starting to feel like I'm dealing with every element and theme I have in this story, in some other story too, and coincidentally someone from my writing group actually just got a book published this year that has a strikingly similar setting and themes, (we both wrote them without knowing about each other) and even though it shouldn't, it does kind of add to my confusion to what to do with this story. I do still want to write it at some point, but it's a big question mark that sort of just pops up from below the surface every time I'm not actively thinking or writing about another project.
Some angsty pictures of Dina, also drawn in my early university years (Oh Lord how obvious my Arina Tanemura influences still were in the way I draw):
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Yeah... at least they are accurately dramatic to the story.
Thanks for the ask. I hope there was something entertaining. <3
For anyone curious, here's the WIP list.
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otherentrance · 6 months ago
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um. an analysis of martha & ten in s3e1 of doctor who or whatever
now when it comes to the tenth doctor's companions you only really hear about rose and donna. and that's great, that makes a lot of sense, i get it. but that meant i really had nothing to go off of with the introduction of martha jones in series 3 & setting aside the fact that i immediately loved her, it really struck me just how calculated the doctor was in that first episode in regard to letting her on
i think its fascinating actually, because in "The Runaway Bride" (the christmas special between series 2 & 3) the doctor had just lost rose. like it went: "Rose Tyler, i love you" *30 seconds later, Donna has entered the chat* "Who the hell are you?" so it makes sense that he's super out of it that whole special
a new end of world crisis is thrown on him, a new person is thrown in his life, & its all happening before he's had time to process the end of "Doomsday". by the end of the special i didnt get why donna didnt go with him, but i get it now
it was all just so much so fast. unfortunately, i dont think we know how much time has passed between The Runaway Bride & Smith and Jones, but he's apparently had enough time to settle two things:
despite his protests, there's no avoiding what donna made him promise. "find someone", "i dont need anyone", "yes you do. because sometimes i think you need someone to stop you.", "yeah"
the fashion in which he wants to go about finding said someone
ok
in that first scene martha and the doctor have together, where the doctor is pretending to be a patient, right off the bat he's got this cheery neutrality to all the doctors-in-training crowding his bed. martha just happens to be the one called up to diagnose him, and he seems to like the way she reacts to finding out he's got two hearts
its interesting, she just takes it calmly, no freaking out or even mentioning it. this is a pattern with martha, she just accepts whatever situation shes in and rolls with it. and the doctor's got this look on his face when he looks at her in that first scene, neutral smile, raised eyebrows, he's curious he's probing the waters he's trying to figure her out
right off the bat, the doctor is curious as to what sort of person martha is. & i dont have the background of how he met rose (because im not watching doctor who in order) but im assuming, based on how it ended, that everything about her sort of happened to him. like she just burst into his life, blinding, and they crashed into each other
so it makes sense, indeed its incredibly human of him, to take the exact opposite approach with a new companion. he doesnt want to fall apart like he did for rose, so he's going in all experimental and curious neutrality and its fascinating because he's not even emotionally distant!
right, ten's emotions are something that gets talked about a lot, about how buried they are. its funny, ten is telling martha who he is instead of showing. (because if you're upfront with the things that hurt you then its all out in the open and you can put distance between yourself and the significance of your own experiences)
im getting ahead of myself. second scene they have together
ten comments on how smart martha is with the whole "if the air was gonna get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didnt!" thing. this objective observational approach to bizarre situations seems to be the first thing that draws martha and ten together. shes smart, and clear-headed, and curious. like he is
and then! and then and then!! "fancy going out [-side, on the moon, where there's no oxygen]?" "okay." "we might die." "we might not." "...good, come on."
good. good. like a teacher asking a question and getting the answer they want. the line is delivered slowly (which is saying something because jesus christ david tennant talks fast) and deliberately. if the question is "will you risk your life in the name of figuring out what's going on?" then the answer is "yes, not only will i risk my life but i choose to put my faith in the chance that i live."
curiously, i think it's this gift for hope martha has that ten is drawn to. i think he's been flying by the skin of his teeth, running on hope and running out of it, and martha is an optimist. a curious, smart, observant, optimist. god i love her already
(at the end of that interaction ten specifically points to the other woman with martha and says "not her, she'll hold us up". he's chosen his subject, and disregarded the other potential opportunities. its so calculated)
scene three, that balcony scene.
turns out they can breathe on that balcony, wahoo. martha remembers that party with her family and starts getting choked up. "you okay?" "yeah" "you sure?" "yeah" "you wanna go back in?" "no way, we could die any minute but all the same its beautiful"
ten sees her getting emotional and, briskly, asks if shes okay. she insists she is twice in a row and shoves down her emotions in favor of admiring the view. and who is this reminding me of?
okay so thats the fourth thing of note then. she's calm, smart, hopeful, and ignores her own emotions in crisis. and she finds joy in that view too! its beautiful! standing in the earth light.
she finally asks him whats happened, and he turns the question back on her. here we go, fifth thing. "extraterrestrial. idk a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days?" she pays attention. complete opposite of donna, she's caught up on the alien events going on and she believes them
moving right along: ten makes the decision to open up to martha, and tell her his real name. "what, people call you The Doctor?" "yeah" "well im not, as far as im concerned you've got to earn that title" "well i better make a start then"
i love this interaction. he's telling her his name and instead of ogling at the weirdness she says "earn it." like its a challenge. my current hypotheses, having not seen the rest of season 3, is that this is a unique quirk of their dynamic. martha wont just take his bullshit, or ogle at his space-alien-ness, or let him take charge just to follow after going "what the hell??". she'll catch right up with him and help figure out the mystery as well
ok scene 4
"if they're [jabloon, monster of the week] police are we under arrest? are we trespassing on the moon or something?" "no, but i like that! good thinking."
again, she's sharp. creative. and then the reveal that the doctor's non-human! oh youre kidding me, dont be ridiculous, stop looking at me like that. 13 seconds. "oh you're kidding me, you're not non-human" to "well shit, guess he is" in 13 seconds! she's marvelous! she just takes it!
fifth scene, the whole The Doctor is trying to figure out the situation and the companion is hanging back asking questions and trying to get their head around the whole space alien thing while he spits information a mile a minute. its crazy, she keeps up! like not just with how freaking fast ten talks, with what he's saying!
im a broken record, she just believes it all its wild. she recognizes the situation as a problem, accepting each piece of information as valuable and true, and works to solve it i love you martha jones
ok i cant sit here going scene by scene lets jump to the end shall we
scene i lost count. the tardis is parked in some back alley after a fiasco of that family party for marthas brother
the initial test is over, and martha's passed. the doctor wants to take a chance on her
"i just thought, since you saved my life and ive got a brand-new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing, you might fancy a trip?"
evidently martha cant say no to that so we, lovely viewers, are treated to a classic "its bigger on the inside!" scene. and ten's got that look on his face again! carefully cataloging her reaction, sizing her up.
coming full circle, martha asks about the doctors previous companions (again), and its fascinating comparing this scene with the opening of "The Runaway Bride"
where donna stumbled across rose's jacket, assumed ten had kidnapped her, and confronted him about it, thus throwing the hurt of loosing rose right back in his face, ten puts it all out in the open for martha right off the bat
im the doctor, ive got a brand new sonic screwdriver, the tardis is bigger on the inside, and the last one was rose. welcome aboard
even while throwing it all out in the open, ten quickly says "anyway" like he doesnt want to talk about it. when martha asks where she is (like donna did) ten assures her that rose is safe and fine. directly doing the opposite of how donna approached the subject
and still ten insists that martha isnt going to be "the new companion". that shes here for one trip, then back home. he knows donna was right, he needs someone, he promised her. he knows but he doesnt want it, yet. hes telling martha the situation while still walling off his actual feelings about it
which explains why ten reacts so badly to martha teasing him about that kiss from earlier. when she opens up the situation like he's flirting he shuts her down fast. but when she turns it into a joke, and says she's not interested we get "good." again
its a really clear pattern, the way ten assesses her this episode. he notices her cool headedness and observation and pokes a bit more. he shuts her off when she approaches territory he doesnt want her to. he responds with "good" when she responds with what he wants
he's drawn to her because they share a lot of key traits (accepting bizarre situations, intellect, high emotional regulation) & because she shows a few key traits that distinctly compliment his own (her hope, curiosity, and stubbornness). she doesnt marvel at him like other companions did (and will), and doesnt put up with his bullshit either. she makes fun of him for being "pompous" in a way other humans just worshipped him. she relates, accepts, understands, and humbles him in very distinct, important ways
anyway "Smith and Jones" was a solid episode & you guys dont talk about martha enough, shes amazing
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bibibbon · 1 year ago
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Characters with wasted potential: shinso Hitoshi
(rant)
I love the idea and structure of Hitoshi's character but horikoshi just decided to execute it in one of the worst ways possible. So Hitoshi's introduction starts with him in the sports festival and how we see him slowly climb through the ranks and get introduced to his character and the problems he has with 1A. I don't mind his interaction with ojiro as I think that made me more intrigued to him but I hate when the fandom decides that it will be fun to demonise ojiro about it for no reason when Hitoshi was clearly in the wrong.
Moving on to my actual problems about shinso:
HIS WHOLE BACKSTORY. in my opinion yes he is an interesting character but his backstory really really sucks and just contains with people telling him "oh you're quirk sounds kinda evil" like it really doesn't do much nor does it explain how shinso acts the way he does. There is almost no conflict in that backstory or anything like quirk discrimination which is present in another characters backstories like izuku,toga and shoji. I think this is mainly a problem due to hori not being able to show but just having to tell us everything which really ruins the story in its self
HIS CONFLICT/FIGHT WITH IZUKU. maybe as an izuku fan Iam being biased but it makes no sense how shinso went on to izuku about being born with a silver spoon in his mouth when during that WHOLE TOURNAMENT izuku didn't use his quirk but his brains which is something anyone can do. I understood the point of the speech but it really really fell flat because 1) izuku didn't use his quirk and 2) it was a horrible guess on shinso's part.
THERE ARE NON OFFENSIVE QUIRKS IN 1A. The whole idea of shinso thinking he didn't get into the hero course because he didn't have a good flashy quirk is just stupid when you see a lot of the other hero course kids like toruu, ojiro or even koda who don't have any offensive QUIRKS at all and it doesn't help when there are many and I mean MANY heros that fight with non offensive QUIRKS and are quite successful like night eye.
Now let me talk about his potential. The idea of a brainwashing quirk is actually very interesting and it's a good quirk as well it would make sense if shinso hates his quirk due to discrimination or bullying and he has a very tunneled view of the world which is that people with flashy/strong quirks are always happy, on top of everything, powerful and arrogant. Now we can go on and have Hitoshi cement that idea in his head after whatever nonsense bakugo pulls during the sports festival and whatever rumours came out of the usj incident. During the sports festival we will have shinso's behaviour stay the same but when it comes to him and the izuku fight you could either have izuku use his quirk before ( it could make shinso think oh so someone who doesn't even know how to control their quirk got into the hero course but i couldn't) or have him fight another member of the hero course who has a flashy quirk maybe someone like momo. During the fight shinso can provoke the character to get an answer out of them but also question how and why they got into the hero course. (I prefer having izuku being chosen to fight shinso.) This happens and then the fight goes the same line as canon. The next time we meet shinso it should be way sooner then season 5 and I feel like hori should focus on more of the academia so we meet him during those moments where we see him talking to izuku more and try to change his views; we can have him apologise to ojiro and the way he treated 1A. We can then have him involved in 1A sooner then season 5 make it some time around the final exams where we see him see others fighting and he notices how their quirks aren't as flashy and powerful as he thought also have him focus on the momo and todoroki fight or have him involved in it. In my opinion it would be good for him to see momo who is the smartest in 1A and has a cool flashy quirk crumble thinking she isn't good enough and it will also break a lot of the stereotypes he had.
Overall, we slowly see Hitoshis character develop from someone who has a narrow minded view based on only his experiences and hate who then changes and sees the reality of life while also fighting against his own stereotypes of him being a villain by becoming a hero.
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keepsmagnetoaway · 22 days ago
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Marvel Team-Up 100 (December 1980)
Chris Claremont/Frank Miller & John Byrne
We've read a fair few issues of the long-running Marvel Team-Up and it's always an interesting time: now, for its 100th issue, we have the treat of it featuring X-Men (or, at least, X-Men-related characters) in both its main story and its back-up, both of which are striking and important stories.
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In the first of them, the featured team-up is actually Spider-Man (yay!) and the Fantastic Four (boo!), but the story also introduces the silhouetted figure you can see here, initially seemingly as a villain.
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If you're thinking "fuck, these layouts are good," then you're right: it's Frank Fucking Miller! We don't have time for Miller Discourse - I will literally never have time for Miller Discourse - but Miller here was at the beginning of his imperial phase, having just started drawind Daredevil and being on the point of taking over writing on it too, and his distinctively moody take on New York City is on display in this issue. This nightmare Deco tower, at a wildly expressionist angle, is purest Miller.
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Anyway, I'm skipping over most of the action here because it's Reed Richards bullshit and I hate it, but I do want to talk about that mysterious new character: it's Karma, and she's got Issues.
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A beautiful panel filled with politics: that's good comics, baby. It's important to say that there is also a fair amount of tone-deaf stuff about Asians in this issue - Karma's wider family feature and they're not exactly subtly depicted, especially the villainous members, who include Karma's evil twin brother.
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And yet...this is 1980, the Vietnam War is a recent memory in the US, and along comes a complex, traumatized Vietnamese character, who evolves from villain to anti-hero to something like a full-on hero in the space of this single comic when - in a moment that's genuinely shocking, coming as it does in the middle of a fight in which Peter Parker and Ben Grimm seem to be competing to make the most wise-cracks - she kills and psychically absorbs her brother. This, I repeat, is our introduction to this character, her very first issue. Fucking hell.
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And that's Karma! The story ends just after this, with her tentatively established as some kind of hero, but the reader is none the wiser about what's coming next for her: which was, as you probably know, an integration into the X-Men world and a gradual emergence as one of the most interesting and popular characters of that world (helped by the fact that she also eventually turns out to be gay, hell yeah). It's a hell of an introduction and a fascinatingly political story about the shadow of American imperialism, and it's then followed by this issue's back-up story, which is also powerfully political.
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This is a Claremont/Byrne story, a little chaser after our farewell to him in the main book, and (despite the team behind it...) it's about Blackness. It's The One Where Storm and Black Panther Meet, And Also Apartheid South Africa Tries To Kill Ororo.
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It's actually largely told, after the initial sequence, in a flashback to their first meeting, and I have tried and failed to work out how it's supposed to fit in with the backstory also depicted in the 2006 Storm series - I don't think they exactly line up, but the 2006 series does sort of reference and expand on this story, in particular by reusing Andreas 'The Bull' de Ruyter, the enjoyably repulsive Afrikaner villain.
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In the present, it turns out, de Ruyter is still trying to kill them, and they get to defeat him all over again, and part ways in a bittersweet, ship-teasy moment (again, no idea how this fits into subsequent canon with them getting married and so forth, but, who cares).
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This is a really remarkable issue, all told, and though it's all created by white men, and as ever there are some, shall we say, heavy-handed moments, but its use nevertheless of a Vietnamese heroine, her life ruined by American warfare, and of two Black heroes fighting an explicitly apartheid-supporting villain is pretty striking: on top of which, the art is outstanding. Great stuff! This is also the start of a run of half a dozen guest appearances and the like from this era that we're about to read, so let's hope the rest of them are this interesting.
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