#was actually very okay with claptrap!

[sightkeeper]

Went and saw the Borderlands movie! It was not good! I think the first half was good fun, lore inaccuracies and character weirdness aside. It was the nonsense I expect from a video game movie.

The second half where it tried to actually pull a heartfelt story out of its ass and have blockbuster emotional moments? Nah.

[party-gilmore]

they really have figured out the way to get me to watch any obvious cash grab movie is just stick jack black anywhere in it huh

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Korea drops my favorite cameo ever & gives KISSES

Entirely subjective yadda yadda. Organized sorta by favs in each category.

Sept 2023 Wk 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Fri grey) ep 4 of 12 - Well that’s one way to find out if he’s gay, see how he reacts to reading a het sex scene out loud. Yai is flirting so hard it’s like he knows everything. 

Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 4 of 12 - Oh no! I love them. Also cohabitation trope! Also ALL the other ones: hair dry, meet in childhood... GMMTV going no frills with this one.

Hidden Agenda (Sun YT) ep 9 of 12 - Zo’s drama over Pat helping Joke flirt seems awfully manufactured. I’m losing faith in this show. Could GMMTV PLEASE hand JoongDunk a decent script? 

Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 5 of 10 - Sand & Ray are the only interesting couple, and I’m pretty much only watching for them. They gonna go south fast, tho, and they're already ruined by persistent singing. Ooo. When Sand said Top "stole his ex" did he mean Boston? How gay. 

Naughty Babe (Sat YT) ep 2 of 8 - The pronoun conversation had a bonkers translation but I enjoyed the actuality of it. The reasons for Yi's trickery are very convoluted soap opera. But I suppose that is the amnesia trope for you. 

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 10 of 12 - Boys. We discussed this already. No sex in onsens! I found this one dull, until the end when LLS showed up. Happy to just have him in everything. Thank you Thailand. Looks like it is a classic ep 11 DOOM next week. Who cares? 

Venus in the Sky (Tues iQIYI) 1-2 of 10 eps - The usual Thai pulp claptrap this time a reunion romances in and around a convenience store between a boy who recently quit his job and his former bestie who is now a doctor. Mostly not great acting, plot, or production but the sound is okay and no bad effects or singing (so far), so that’s something. The gay brothers have a fun relationship. It’s vampy and campy but fun. I like it but not sure anyone else would.

Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 4 of 10 - The date was cute but I still don’t like the lead or the premise (we moved into Cyrano de Bergerac territory). It’s moving slowly but it seems like we might be over the crush/stalker part of the narrative, so that’s a relief. 

Crazy Handsome Rich (Sun Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - I just can’t. The sound is too weird. With punch down humor and other issues incoming I may DNF this. You’ve been warned. This ep we got to see LLS with his shirt off. Did anything else happen? 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 8fin - No wonder he is everyone’s favorite hyung, boy can read the room like no one else. I love that we got to see exactly how clingy and demanding Choi Jun was always going to be. Only Lee Jun is easy-going enough to put up with him. Also I’ve never watched a KBL with more innuendo. For Korea this was… raunchy. I gotta say had Laws of Attraction not come along, Simon might have been my favorite character of 2023.

Final thoughts on Jun and Jun:

A delightful office romance about an ex-idol who joins cubical life only to find his new boss is his first love. Others boys are sniffing around too. Operative word being "sniffing" as much of this romance involves smell. With a snappy script, enjoyable sides, a pretty as peaches cast, and descent chemistry this show made up for in style what it lacked in substance. I like fluff. I loved this. I smiled every moment I was watching. With tons of rewatch potential (especially the last few eps), my only caution is this is for fans of the BL genre only, I don’t think it’ll work for anyone else. A solid 9/10 from me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I like that Korea is trying high heat, but Taiwan and Thailand are leaps and bounds better at it.

Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 9-10fin -

Omg they so cute as flirty bf. Eeeeeeee! CAMEO!!!!! My fav guest couple ever! So exciting!!!! I love that they intersected with MY Strongberry couple (Private Lessons). I’m not used to this but Holy innuendo Korea, what with Jun & Jun and now this show? It’s a bit much for my gay little heart. The final episode was entirely unnecessary, but it was fun to see them being all domestic and stuff. Maru with his dumb lettuce leaves was hilarious. I feel like I need to rewatch this one to really understand it properly, so I will likely do that soon.

Summary of Love Class 2:

3 couples form within a semester of university: 1. a hyung romance reunion of exes, one of whom has a dangerous past, 2. a friends to lovers romance, and 3. a mature student and TA one night stand + complexities (many aspects of which had me laughing). I enjoyed the characters and dialogue of this show immensely. It was a little bit more breezy and friendly than I was expecting after the first installment, Love Class. I’m not entirely sure Korea can handle multiple couples like this because it definitely felt disjointed, especially the 3rd more mature couple (also my favorite) who probably should’ve had their own series. But it was definitely fun and something different from Korea. 8/10 RECOMMENDED

Also, Korea tried to give us higher heat... that was... interesting. I mean, you tried hon...?

Kisseki: Dear to Me (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) ep 4 of 13(?) - Everyone is a sad sack this ep. Ooooo. Teach/student my favorite. We never get this one. It’s messy. I’m not sure if there is a plot. I’m not sure they’re sure if there is a plot. But I am still enjoying it.

Why R U? (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 5-6 of 8 - Why is the Fighter character always so frustrating regardless of name or country? Ji Oh stalking his crush via IG is so relatable. He’s very first crush awkward, unsure, and sweet. They also gave a nice kiss - I love the backpack drop (kiss version of a mic drop?) I still hold that if you haven’t seen the original this might not make much sense. But I am enjoying it. 

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 4 of 8 - Oh goody, another JBL where we have to pay attention solely to what they do and not what they say. 

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 9 of 12 - Big fat sigh. 

It's Airing But...

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) ep 3 of 24 eps - I couldn't get hold of it and I'm not mad. I'm putting it on hold until distribution gets sorted, or icky get their shizz in order (like that'll happen).

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting

9/15 You Are Mine (Taiwan Gaga) Secretary has to deal with grumpy boss.

9/15 Bump Up Business AKA Bump Up Project (Korea movie) suspected cinema release? I don't know much about what's going on. Last status update. Love story between a trainee who is about to debut and a celebrity from the same agency. Kpop boy group OnlyOneOf has signed up to star in this idol-based BL (based on a webtoon). They’ve been auditioning for this since Libido IMHO. You can watch me chronicle their BL MV series in this post. It’s from Idol Romance who will do sad but can do good kisses (Wish You, Nobleman Ryu, Once Again, Kissable Lips, Poongduck 304, Tasty Florida, Tinted With You).

Still To Come In September

9/26 I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan ????) - Adapted from the manga, childhood best friends: The cool, smart one who’s good at everything, and his average, dorky friend who struggles. Always by the other’s side, but not together in the way they truly want to be. No matter how hard they try, their hearts cannot reach each other.

9/27 Absolute Zero (Thai iQIYI) - from 2021, Studio Wabi Sabi and New Siwaj finally bring us this “time loop to prevent tragedy” romance. We don’t always get HEAs from them, so I'm on my guard.

9/27 Bon Appetit (Korea iQIYI) - from 2022, 8 eps from GoGo Studio, romance between an office worker who lives off junk food and the man next door who cooks well.

9/? Mr Cinderella 2 (Vietnam YouTube?)

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I love him. And I love his version of this character better than Jimmy's.

I also love it when a show gets meta. (Both Why R U? Korea) Why they didn't just go for YRU? the world may never know.)

(Last week) 

[meowmeowuchiha]

Ranting about the new Borderlands movie under the cut

Okay I'm just gonna say it

The Borderlands movie trailer? Doesn't look AS BAD as I thought it would, but still awful.

Most of the characters are extremely miscast

But honestly? I don't think Kevin Hart is that terrible of a miscast.

If it was Borderlands 2 and pre sequel Roland then yeah he'd be awful and I feel like that's what most people are thinking of.

But if you're going based off of first game Roland? He's not that bad. Just listen to the voice lines from Roland from the first game. Can find it on YouTube easy enough.

On to everyone else!!

Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina: Honestly, I'm gonna just say that it's both miscast and miswritten, but I acknowledge that it's probably gonna be pretty damn hard to find someone who could pass as a younger teenager (since Tina in the 2nd game is 13) who could also feasibly act as Tina. She's a very very unique character and I feel like acting as her, even if she WAS written properly, would be incredibly difficult. Getting that combination of batshit insane, childish naivety, and actually knowing what she's doing would be TOUGH. Ariana Greenblatt, from what I've seen, does well enough as bratty snarky teens. Tina was written as that for some god forsaken reason.

JLC as Tannis (aside from the fact that JLC is a fucking zionist. I'm only critiquing casting based on how they are as actors, not whether or not they're decent people.) isn't...terrible? It's odd, and I can't give a definitive opinion on it because hardly anything is heard from her in the trailer.

Jack Black as Claptrap: Honestly, personality wise, not a bad fit for Claptrap. However, voice wise, absolutely a terrible fit. Claptrap's voice I'd supposed to be shrill, nasally, and just overall ear grating. That's part of his CHARM. The rest of the fault in how awful they did with Claptrap lies in the writing. I will admit, I'm not certain who I would've cast as Claptrap instead, but I at the very least would have tried to see if Jack Black could try and at least imitate Claptrap's voice??? Or just...like I said, found someone better.

Cate Blanchett as Lilith: Yeeeaaaah, very miscast. I'm not even all that upset by the age thing. That's like....a tiny tiny gripe that tbh I think people are focusing way too much on. When the real problem is the fact that Lilith was HORRIBLY written for the movie. Lilith, in the games, is this hotheaded, snarky, cocky woman. She's the woman who's told "hey, for strategy reasons, we need you to stay behind for this fight" and responds with "no I'm going >:(" and shows up anyways. She's the one who goes "I...liquefied a guy. It was AWESOME!! This eridium stuff is the TITS!!!". She is not the stone cold badass bitch that she seems to be in the movie. I will admit, I haven't seen anywhere NEAR Cate Blanchett's full filmography. I've only seen a tiny handful of movies. But from the ones I've seen, she doesn't tend to play characters like Lilith. Her characters tend to be more serious. Less snarky and sarcastic. She just....doesn't seem to fit in the Borderlands universe at all really to me??? She'd be miscast in pretty much any role. The only one I could MAYBE see her managing would be like....Athena. Again, not her fault, just...the vibes. Lilith was terribly written for the movie, and was also terribly miscast.

I can't really say anything regarding anyone else, as I didn't really see enough of them to form even the barest hint of an opinion. Either way, the movie is going to be awful, even if it might not be as terrible as I'd thought it would be before the trailer.

If you're gonna watch it, pirate it if you care about Palestine. The director and at least a couple of the actors (JLC, Edgar Ramirez) are zionists, and yet more of them (Jack Black, Gina Gershon) are of the mind that it's a two sided conflict and they want both sides to make peace and their hearts go out to both sides.

[silverstreams]

Hello again, let's see if I can be more coherent now that I'm not sick. I wanted to more properly answer your question about the sort of fic I was looking for! The timeline of it all was that once I stumbled on your fic, I'd been tossing around opening up A03 to find something, but hadn't consciously sat down to think "I wonder what fic to search for".

What I'd seen from yours in both the fanart and the tags on the fic told me it'd likely be in my interest wheelhouse. And then once I got reading, I very quickly realized "Oh, this is my type of fic." Sometimes when I get into or fall back into a fandom I do have the urge to write something, and that urge is usually because I want to read something that doesn't exist. I hadn't consciously, again, plotted out what a Portal story would actually be from myself, but TLG hits on a lot of themes and character features I like to write myself, and frankly has some great twists in it I don't think I would have ever thought of. So it's hitting the itch nicely.

But since I'm rambling a bit, this is what I usually write/enjoy in fics:

Morally complex antagonist or antihero who makes decisions ranging from 'that wasn't great' to 'yes okay we need to talk about your choices'

When the above character's descent into bad decisions is caused by a trauma or situation beyond their control

Explorations of what it means to be human, not in the neurotypical sense, but in "how do we connect as a species" in spite of the wonderful diversity of the human experience

When the above theme is applied to the above character, usually resulting in a non-human character with the potential for growth discovering something critical about what makes humanity profound and somewhat indestructible

When the above situation presents the character with the opportunity for growth and potentially redemption, wherein the growth at least in part involves them recognizing the mistakes they made regardless of the trauma that led them there

Sarcasm

Character(s) who identify outright as ace or could be characterized as such

A slow, slow burn dependent on character development and if a love story is even included in the fic.

A lot of this is featured in the last major fic I wrote. Oddly enough, enemies to lovers isn't something I usually gravitate to! But in TLG it has enough compelling character reasoning to make it work for me quite well.

Also, to reply a bit re: my kid, she loves the game. She's a bit young for it, so we're giving her "quick summary" of a couple parts in terms of content, but we've been introducing her slowly to gaming and she's really good at the problem solving. She loves the characters and likes to mash up stories about them with other characters based on figurines she finds around our house.

This is how we got a rousing crossover going with Geralt, Claptrap, and Glados. Then we showed her Poker Night at the Inventory and I think her mind blew a bit about why Glados and Claptrap were in one game like she was joking about.

She also brings us home a tremendous amount of drawings of Glados that she does at school and I'm just waiting for a phone call about "why does your kid keep drawing the scary looking robot and why does she love her so much?"

oh my god……child glados drawings……that is adorable thank you

[gear-project]

Annon-Guy: Which Guilty Gear and BlazBlue/XBLAZE characters would be good at playing Poker (Texas Hold'em)? I'm asking because there's this game by TellTale called Poker Night 2 where you play Poker with Brock Samson (Venture Bros.), Claptrap (Borderlands), Ashley "Ash" Williams (Army of Darkness) and Sam (Sam & Max) with Gladis (Portal 2) as the Card Dealer. P.S. You should check up the conversation quotes on YouTube when you get the chance. They're fun 😊!

Who's the best "Gambler" and who has the best "Poker-Face"?

Well, if we're talking cream of the crop, that would be Johnny of course!

He gambles with the best of them, and he can read a situation faster than the average person could draw a sword!

But it's not like Johnny doesn't have any sort of weaknesses. When it comes to women, he tends to lose track of his concentration! Hah!

But, if we were to list some other "poker-players" that would do well in the game of Cards:

Slayer: He's just unflappable. You won't read him unless he WANTS you to read him.

Ramlethal: Despite her recent change in tastes, it's actually quite difficult to get a read on her emotions. She'd be very good at bluffing.

Bedman: You can't read someone who sleeps through everything. He'd be a surprisingly "patient" player. Bedman can also read others' thoughts through his abilities.

Venom: Not quite as powerful, but Venom can read other people's "aura", which means he has the upper hand in reading others' intentions! Perfect for an Assassin, but also perfect for a HUSTLER.

Kum Haehyun: Don't let appearances fool you! She can read the state of anyone with her Tuner's abilities… Of course, she's not very good at hiding her weaknesses… She's powerful, but risky.

Robo-Ky: Okay, now that's just cheating! Robo-Ky has X-ray vision and can see other peoples' hands! Robo-Ky does have some standards though, so he follows the rules if there are any.

Chipp: Here's the thing about Chipp: high risk, high reward. That's not only his fighting style, but that's also his life motto! He isn't very cautious, but if you're the type who goes all-in, he's good at negotiating the risks. His foresight ability is also second to none (impressing even the likes of Gabriel and Answer).

Answer: Chipp's right-hand man is also pretty good in situations that call for his talents. His memory and recollection abilities are a great tool in reading any given situation. He could probably use his knowledge to win horse race bets too!

Sol Badguy: He's known for his brute-force methods, but he's also a scientist, and his gambles tend to pay off significantly. I'd say, if Sol was in a situation where all bets are on the table, he'd be a sure bet to win! (He'd likely be an all-rounder player… no real strong traits, but no real weaknesses either.)

I-No: She's a performance artist to say the least. She can coax weaknesses out of anyone she meets, and when it comes to confrontations (bluffs), she can bluff with the best of them. She is a bit of a risk-taker though, so it might be tough to win in some situations in her case.

Potemkin: Hmm-hmm~ You weren't expecting a grappler to play cards, were you? Potemkin is actually very good at hiding his emotions, though once he has a winning hand, it's hard to really stop him once he gets going. His massive hands could probably only "just barely" hold his cards, but when you're the best at what you do, you don't need to worry about losing as much. That being said, Potemkin is still a bit of a slow-starter… so getting good luck and a lucky hand might be troublesome for the likes of him.

Izuna: For a guy who doesn't like to stand out, but of course he'd be pretty good at bluffing. Izuna's a bit of a card shark on his own, but his methods are most likely unorthodox and random, so his luck is also just as random.

Axl Low: This man believes in the Goddess Lady Luck… he's surprisingly religious. And truth be told, he is pretty lucky, and he's good at reading situations very well. But, as Lucky as he may be, he doesn't take undue risks if he can help it… and he's not very good at hiding his emotions (unlike other potential players).

Goldlewis Dickinson: You can't have a game of Texas Hold'em without a True TEXAN! Gold is likely all about the payout: what risks to take and how much would be most profitable! He'd go full-force on a gamble, and he'd be good at hiding his plays… But reading others' bluffs on the other hand is his weak-point (he's not good at reading situations, or even when situations go awry…). Still, he'd make up for it by solid hands and nothing too risky. A well-rounded player.

Dr. Paradigm: What can I say? He's a master strategist. His tactics and planning are very thorough, though his luck is somewhat lacking (don't ever say "this plan is perfect" around him… it'll jinx). He's a good reader of tactics, so of course he'd be decent at bluffing and plays. But again, he hasn't had much good luck lately (or being playable as a GG character… hopefully that'll change someday soon).

Dr. Faust: Ooh~ A Wildcard player has entered the room! Faust is good at taking advantage of random situations, so he's very Luck-oriented. Having a Bag over his head also helps quite a bit for bluffing and calls. He does get a bit emotional at times, however… so having a stable hand might be difficult.

Nagoriyuki: A very focused and straight-forward player. He can spot weakness in other players almost immediately. Still, as strong as he is, he doesn't take many risks and as a result his luck and skill tend to taper off when he hesitates. It's also pretty easy to read someone who doesn't rely on those risks to get good hands. Even if Nagoriyuki wears a mask, he plays the game straight.

A.B.A.: You wouldn't think she'd be good at a game like Poker, but A.B.A. can hide her intentions and blend in a crowd very well. She tends to keep her cards close to the chest, so she wouldn't show very strong plays at first, but once she gets going, well… good luck trying to keep up with her! She's emotional and unstable, but her playstyle would be unique, on top of that she's great at bluffing! If she has to win for Flament Nagel's sake, she'll do anything and risk anything to win!

Well, that was fun to write… I hope you enjoyed it! I will check out what you suggested eventually!

[thanksjro]

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

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

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

Haha, I doubt it.

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

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

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

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

For loving his child.

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

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

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

No. Not at all, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if women are property to be owned.

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

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which made me groan aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

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

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

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

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

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

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy doesn’t count.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For about 20 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We still have another hour of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

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

Repeatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

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

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

In tow.

In tow-

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

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

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

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

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

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

What a mess.

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

COMING SOON:

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

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

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

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

[silvokrent]

RWBY Character Analysis: Pietro and Penny Polendina

Up until now I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinions on the newest volume, in no small part because my personal life has been one absurd setback after another, and I haven’t had the energy to engage in fandom meta. If you do want to know what my current opinion of RWBY is, go over to @itsclydebitches blog, search through her #rwby-recaps tag, and read every single one. At this point, her metas are basically an itemized list of all my grievances with the show. I highly recommend you check ’em out.

Or, if you don’t feel like reading several hours’ worth of recaps, then go find a sheet of paper, give yourself a papercut, and then squeeze a lemon into it. That should give you an accurate impression of my feelings.

In truth, I have a lot to say about the show, particularly how I think CRWBY has mishandled the plot, characters, tone, and intended message of their series. And while I enjoy dissecting RWBY with what amounts to mad scientist levels of glee, I think plenty of other folks have already discussed V7′s and V8′s various issues in greater depth and with far more eloquence. Any contribution I could theoretically make at this point would be somewhat redundant.

That being said, I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me for a while, which (to my knowledge) no one else in the fandom has brought up. (And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Today’s topic of concern is Pietro Polendina, and his relationship with Penny.

And because I’m absolutely certain this post is going to be controversial and summon anonymous armchair critics to fill my inbox with sweary claptrap, I may as well just come out and say it:

Pietro Polendina, as he’s currently portrayed in the show, is an inherently abusive parental figure.

Let me take a second to clarify that I don’t think it was RWBY’s intention to portray Pietro that way. Much like other aspects of the show, a lot of nuance is often lost when discussing the difference between intention versus implementation, or telling versus showing. It’s what happens when a writer tries to characterize a person one way, but in execution portrays them in an entirely different light. Compounding this problem is what feels like a series of rather myopic writing decisions that started as early as Volume 2, concerning Penny’s sense of agency, and how the canon would bear out the implications of an autonomous being grappling with her identity. It’s infuriating that the show has spent seven seasons staunchly refusing to ask any sort of ethical questions surrounding her existence, only to then—with minimal setup—give us Pietro’s “heartfelt” emotional breakdown when he has to choose between “saving” Penny or “sacrificing” her for the greater good.

Yeah, no thanks.

If we want to talk about why this moment read as hollow and insincere, we need to first make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Spoilers for V8.E5 - “Amity.” Let’s not waste any time.

In light of the newest episode and its—shall we say—questionable implications, I figured now was the best time to bring it up while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind. (Because nothing generates momentum quite like frothing-at-the-mouth rage.)

The first time we’re told anything about Pietro, it comes from an exchange between Penny and Ruby. From V2.E2 - “A Minor Hiccup.”

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot.

Ruby: Believe me, I know the feeling. But why not let us know you were okay?

Penny: I…was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn’t my father.

The scene immediately diverts our attention to a public unveiling of the AK-200. A hologram of James Ironwood is presenting this newest model of Atlesian Knight to a crowd of enthusiastic spectators, along with the Atlesian Paladin, a piloted mech. During the demonstration, James informs his audience that Atlas’ military created them with the intent of removing people from the battlefield and mitigating casualties (presumably against Grimm).

Penny is quickly spotted by several soldiers, and flees. Ruby follows, and in the process the two are nearly hit by a truck. Penny’s display of strength draws a crowd and prompts her to retreat into an alley, where Ruby learns that Penny isn’t “a real girl.”

This scene continues in the next episode, “Painting the Town…”

Penny: Most girls are born, but I was made. I’m the world’s first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura. [Averts her gaze.] I’m not real…

After Ruby assures her that no, you don’t have to be organic in order to have personhood, Penny proceeds to hug her with slightly more force than necessary.

Ruby: [Muffled noise of pain.] I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower!

Penny: [Releases Ruby.] Oh, he’s very sweet! My father’s the one that built me! I’m sure you would love him.

Ruby: Wow. He built you all by himself?

Penny: Well, almost! He had some help from Mr. Ironwood.

Ruby: The general? Wait, is that why those soldiers were after you?

Penny: They like to protect me, too!

Ruby: They don't think you can protect yourself?

Penny: They're not sure if I'm ready yet. One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the Tournament.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the approaching soldiers from earlier. Despite Ruby’s protests, Penny proceeds to yeet her into the nearby dumpster, all while reassuring her that it’s to keep Ruby out of trouble, not her. When the soldiers arrive, they ask her if she’s okay, then proceed to lightly scold her for causing a scene. Penny’s told that her father “isn’t going to be happy about this,” and is then politely asked (not ordered; asked) to let them escort her back.

Let’s take a second to break down these events.

When these two episodes first aired, the wording and visuals (“No, it wasn’t my father,” followed by the cutaway to James unveiling the automatons) implied that James was the one forbidding her from interacting with other people. It’s supposed to make you think that James is being restrictive and harsh, while Pietro is meant as a foil—the sweet, but cautious father figure. But here’s the thing: both of these depictions are inaccurate, and frankly, Penny’s the one at fault here. Penny blew her cover within minutes of interacting with Ruby—a scenario that Penny was responsible for because she was sneaking off without permission. Penny is a classified, top-secret military project, as made clear by the fact that she begs Ruby to not say anything to anyone. Penny is in full acknowledgement that her existence, if made public, could cause massive issues for her (something that she’s clearly experienced before, if her line, “You’re taking this extraordinarily well,” is anything to go by).

But here’s the thing—keeping Penny on a short leash wasn’t a unilateral decision made by James. That was Pietro’s choice as well. “My father asked me not to venture out too far,” “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this”—as much as this scene is desperately trying to put the onus on James for Penny’s truant behavior, Pietro canonically shares that blame. And Penny (to some extent) is in recognition of the fact that she did something wrong.

Back in Volumes 1 – 3, before the series butchered James’ characterization, these moments were meant as pretty clever examples of foreshadowing and subverting the controlling-military-general trope. This scene is meant to illustrate that yes, Penny is craving social interaction outside of military personnel as a consequence of being hidden, but that hiding her is also a necessity. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answer, but it’s also something of a necessary evil (as Penny’s close call with the truck and her disclosing that intel to Ruby are anything to go by).

Let’s skip ahead to Volume 7, shortly after Watts tampered with the drone footage and framed her for several deaths. In V7.E7 - “Worst Case Scenario,” a newscaster informs us that people in Atlas and Mantle want Penny to be deactivated, despite James’ insistence that the footage was doctored and Penny didn’t go on a killing spree. The public’s unfavorable opinion of Penny—a sentiment that Jacques of all people embodies when he brings it up in V7.E8—reinforces V2’s assessment of why keeping her secret was necessary. Not only is her existence controversial because Aura research is still taboo, but people are afraid that a mechanical person with military-grade hardware could be hacked and weaponized against them. (Something which Volume 8 actually validates when James has Watts take control of her in the most recent episode.)

But I digress.

We’re taken to Pietro’s lab, where Penny is hooked up to some sort of recharge/docking station. Ruby, Weiss, and Maria look on in concern while the machine is uploading the visual data from her systems. There’s one part of their conversation I want to focus on in particular:

Pietro: When the general first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Allow me to break down their conversation so we can fully appreciate what he’s actually saying.

The Penny Project was picked as the candidate for the next breakthrough in defense technology.

Pietro wanted a protector with a SOUL.

In RWBY, Aura and souls are one of the defining characteristics of personhood. Personhood is central to Penny’s identity and internal conflict (particularly when we consider that she’s based on Pinocchio). That’s why Penny accepts Ruby’s reassurances that she’s a real person. That’s why she wants to have emotional connections with others.

What makes that revelation disturbing is when you realize that Pietro knowingly created a child soldier.

Look, there’s no getting around this. Pietro fully admits that he wanted to create a person—a human being—a fucking child—as a "defense technology” to throw at the Grimm (and by extension, Salem). Everything, from the language he uses, to the mere fact that he entered Penny in the Vytal Tournament as a proving ground where she could “test [her]self,” tells us that he either didn’t consider or didn’t care about the implications behind his proposal.

When you break it all down, this is what we end up with:

“Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t we make a person, cram as many weapons as we can fit into that person, and then inform her every day for the rest of her life that she was built for the sole purpose of fighting monsters, just so we don’t have to risk the lives of others. Let’s then take away anything remotely resembling autonomy, minimize her interactions with people, and basically indoctrinate her into thinking that this is something she wants for herself. Oh, and in case she starts to raise objections, remind her that I donated part of my soul to her. If we make her feel guilty about this generous sacrifice I made so she could have the privilege of existing, she won’t question our motives. Next, let’s give her a taste of freedom by having her fight in a gladiatorial blood sport so that we can prove our child soldier is an effective killer. And then, after she’s brutally murdered on international television, we can rebuild her and assign her to protecting an entire city that’s inherently prejudiced against her, all while I brood in my lab about how sad I am.”

Holy fuck. Watts might be a morally bankrupt asshole, but at least his proposal didn’t hinge on manufacturing state-of-the-art living weapons. They should have just gone with his idea.

(Which, hilariously enough, they did. Watts is the inventor of the Paladins—Paladins which, I’ll remind you, were invented so the army could remove people from the battlefield. You know, people. Kind of like what Penny is.)

Do you see why this entire scene might have pissed me off? Even if the show didn’t intend for any of this to be the case, when you think critically about the circumstances there’s no denying the tacit implications.

To reiterate, V8.E5 is the episode where Pietro says, and I quote:

“I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.”

Oh, yeah? And what life is that? The one where she’s supposed to kill Grimm and literally nothing else? You do realize that she died specifically because you made her for the purpose of fighting, right?

No one, literally no one, was holding a gun to Pietro’s head and telling him that he had to build a living weapon. That was his idea. He chose to do that.

Remember when Cinder said, “I don’t serve anyone! And you wouldn’t either, if you weren’t built that way.” She…basically has a point. Penny has never been given the option to explore the world in a capacity where she wasn’t charged with defending it by her father. We know she doesn’t have many friends, courtesy of Ironwood dissuading her against it in V7. But I’m left with the troubling realization that the show (and the fandom), in their crusade to vilify James, are ignoring the fact that Pietro is also complicit in this behavior by virtue of being her creator. If we condemn the man that prevents Penny from having relationships, then what will we do to the man who forced her into that existence in the first place?

Being her “father” has given him a free pass to overlook the ethics of having a child who was created with a pre-planned purpose. How the hell did the show intend for Pietro to reconcile “I want you to live your life” with “I created you so you’d spend your life defending the world”? It viscerally reminds me of the sort of narcissistic parents who have kids because they want to pass on the family name, or continue their bloodline, or have live-in caregivers when they get older, only on a larger and much more horrific scale. And that’s fucked up.

Now, I’m not saying I’m against having a conflict like this in the show. In fact, I’d love to have a character who has to grapple with her own humanity while questioning the environment she grew up in. Penny is a character who is extremely fascinating because of all the potential she represents—a young woman who through a chance encounter befriends a group of strangers, and over time, is exposed to freedoms and friendships she was previously denied. Slowly, she begins to unlearn the mindset she was indoctrinated with, and starts to petition for agency and autonomy. Pietro is forced to confront the fact that what he did was traumatic and cruel, and that his love for her doesn’t erase the harm he unintentionally subjected her to, nor does it change the fact that he knowingly burdened a person with a responsibility she never consented to. There’s a wealth of character growth and narrative payoff buried here, but like most things in RWBY, it was either underdeveloped or not thought through all the way.

The wholesome father-daughter relationship the show wants Pietro and Penny to have is fundamentally contradicted by the nature of her existence, and the fact that no one (besides the villains) calls attention to it. I’d love for them to have that sort of dynamic, but the show had to do more to earn it. Instead, it’ll forever be another item on RWBY’s ever-growing list of disappointments—

Because Pietro’s remorse is more artificial than Penny could ever hope to be.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Okay I was talking to the amazing @border-spam and I kinda accidentally Went Off in her inbox so imma ramble here instead cuz I wanna go more in depth on the topic of the afterlife in the borderlands universe bc it is definitely canon thru the Guns Love and Tentacles dlc

Tl;dr: at least they didn't introduce time travel [stares directly into Lilith's fucking soul]

So she brought up the whole aspect of the siren afterlife where the siren can choose their successor or let their powers go off and choose 'their own' user (and they usually choose young kids for some reason) which is a weird thing to suddenly introduce in the 3rd game, because this should've been, if it did exist, talked about before in past- Maya would not have been the first person to know about this. And the fact that this siren afterlife even exists is a weird thing to have in general, to even introduce as a story point when they could've kept it as randomly chosen people getting siren powers (because what sort of sicko wants to give a little girl a probably shortened life of pain and fear that they themselves had to live through).

And it IS weird because introducing an afterlife is just a wild thing to do in a universe where technology can be used for all sorts of weird shit and magic borderline (pretty much) exists. I mean ik we're all pretty much on the page that siren stuff ISN'T actual magic and is instead Eridian stuff that hasn't been explained, but still you get what I mean it is insanely advanced tech or science that looks like magic to us

Because listen. In GLaT that side quest where you go help the dead little girl. That happens because of Maliwan tech. I remember, because I remembering musing to myself that it is probably the same sort of Maliwan tech used to access Heck during the Bloody Harvest event. I am going somewhere with this I promise

Firstly, since this afterlife or weird death dimension is Officially Canon (idk if the Bloody Harvest event is canon but this is official main DLC so it's canon), why is it never mentioned by the characters? I feel like they wouldn't keep quiet about it, and told Tannis, and I don't think she would have let that go without investigating it. The characters don't know they're in a story, and they don't care about satisfying character arcs or development or shit. If Lilith or Tina had the ability to see Roland again, don't you think they'd try? If Ava or Krieg knew there was a chance they could speak to Maya, even if for one last time, don't you think they'd go for it?? Like they don't care about satisfying character arcs, they would try it. Tannis invents a machine that lets us go inside people's heads, this is a universe where you can copy/turn people into AI, and put that AI in a robot body, don't you think SOMEONE would try to make that happen??? When the afterlife scientifically EXISTS?? This removes, like, ALL stakes if we're literally able to open portals to this death dimension and talk to the people in it. And in a game where the writers were soooo adamant that the new-u stations aren't canon, why did they introduce the concept of an afterlife in a dlc that is canon

There is more to this, hang on, I'm not just bitching abt logistics I swear

Okay so when you go thru that quest, there are manticores that appear. Manticores are enemies on Nekrotefeyo, so it's weird that they suddenly appear in this 'completely unrelated' area of the game. I put that in quotes because it's probably related tbh. The green colors in this dimension and the wisps and everything remind me a LOT of Nekrotefeyo's core spilling out. It also reminds me a lot of the wisps we see when we kill Guardians, of their souls/minds getting whisked away to be put in either the main place they're stored OR into another Guardian body, but those are usually R e d. It ALSO reminds me a lot of Krieg's mind's planetscape in his dlc, same color scheme and everything

So u guys know I am a big fan of the whole Eridians created humanity as a step up from the Guardians theory, because we see guardians/Eridians in the murals of the Vaults interacting with humans and gifting the babies Eridian relics and such and such. There are human statues in the Vaults, sirens are obviously linked to Eridians, etc etc. They clearly, at the very least, lived side-by-side, tho I believe the Eridians created humanity. I believe this theory very hard, I wrote a whole essay on it previously, yada yada. So if we take it one step further and imagine that the Eridians created a place to store Guardian souls when they die before they find a new vessel (the inside of Minos Prime, perhaps? The inside of Nekrotefeyo?), what is stopping them from doing the same thing for humans??

Which would explain how this place is accessible through technology- it is a physical place created by Eridians. If it IS the core of Nekrotefeyo, given the color scheme being the same as the death dimension and human 'wisps', it would make sense that dark Maliwan is there doing research and why it is their portals specifically that can access this area, and, if bloody harvest IS canon, why we only fight Maliwan soldiers in Heck (besides ratch). They were exploring their new discovery until we came along

It would also explain how sirens are able to choose their successors after they die- they're brought back to the 'collection unit', the 'soul storage place', idk, and they can either choose someone to burden, or let the powers go and choose a random person.

Which is really messed up if u think about it, but then I don't believe the Eridians are good people ever since they started feeding us to the Destroyer, soooooo.

I wonder if wisps eaten by the Destroyer are lost forever. If so, then I wonder if Steele's Siren powers are gone and that's why her resurrected claptrap body couldn't use her powers, or if her wisp just escaped and her powers went to some random person.

Also why didn't Nyriad choose Leda instead of the twins to give her powers to. It's like Nyriad wanted them to suffer bc she locked herself in the Vault they were conceived in. And like... Can wisps not escape Vaults? Then that brings me back to Steele's Siren powers. She did technically die? Outside the Vault? I think? It's not 100% clear cuz she was definitely impaled outside of it, but idk when exactly she died died. I mean there's the whole thing about how they recovered her body in the first place, buuuut let's not go there bc I'm already brain hurt for today

The main point is: the afterlife is weird. I think it's a place created by the Eridians to store people when they die, and that's why it's a physical place we can go to and open portals to and why the Sirens have the opportunity to burden other people with their powers when they die. It does make me wonder if Troy had absorbed Maya's entire fuckin wisp when he turned her into hot chocolate powder, or just her powers. Cuz the powers go to Ava when Troy's dead, meaning Maya DID choose, but did she choose immediately after she died, or only after Troy died.

These are questions that MUST be answered they're IMPORTANT HHHHH

[the-cybersmith]

Okay, I was content to just send this anonymously and leave it at that (for some reason, OP rarely answers my non-anonymous asks), but I feel I should respond here because you are being disingenuous.

I gave multiple examples of the hypothetical, and not all of them were fictional. Sam Harris is not an action movie character, neither is Dick Cheney. Torture is not something which is only discussed in action movies.

Also, OP is radically oversimplifying the issue. Torture DOES work, it's why it's so popular, including amongst certain socialist regimes (Saddsm Hussein was a type of socialist), there are only some specific scenarios where it doesn't work.

In order for torture to be ineffective, all of the following conditions have to be true:

1: you want specific, accurate information from the subject (if you want a confession, or sexual favours, or you just like hurting people, this doesn't apply).

2: you are uncertain if the subject actually knows that information (if you are torturing someone for the combination to his/her own safe, this doesn't apply).

3: you have no way to quickly verify that information in a non-costly fashion (if you want the password to a laptop and there's no maximum number of entries you can just remove another toe for every wrong answer, so this doesn't apply).

So, in most scenarios, torture works just fine. The majority of torturers don't want information, they want compliance and/or they just like torturing people. Those who DO want information can usually verify very quickly if what they are told is true or false.

"Torture doesn't work" is a moral cop out. It's an attempt to dodge the question and avoid confronting a genuine dilemma of right and wrong.

Also, don't try the ludicrous "private/personal" distinction. The human body is the most productive tool in history, it is the source of all other production, so even the (fake news baloney horsefeathers Marxist claptrap) definition based on "means of production" would not spare the human body. If Marxism had been instituted in Ancient Rome, gladiators wouldn't have been emancipated, they'd have been collectivised. Similarly to any slave society. The human body is not exempt from classification as a means of production, ergo it does not avoid socialist classification as private property, which socialists believe is no right at all.

Answer the question, OP. Torture works.

Why is it, from a socilist/communist/marxist-leninist perspective, WRONG?

As a Capitalist, as a Libertarian, as a Monarchist, I can tell you why it is wrong. I want YOUR answer.

Question: what is the communist position on torture? Since you tend to be materialists/relativists who don't believe in natural rights. What's the Marxist-Leninist response to the "ticking time bomb" scenario proposed by Sam Harris, Jack Bauer, and whatever the name of that character who Liam Neeson played in "Taken" was? You cannot appeal to absolute morality, because you don't believe in it. You cannot appeal to human rights, because that is private property, which you also don't believe in!!!

You cannot appeal to human rights, because that is private property,

[vnderoo]

lyrics were slightly altered for this one

word count: 1.3k

love her || h.o.

One second he's Sir Sentimental Then he’s afraid he's said too much

To be completely honest, Harrison never had the greatest relationships in the past. They were always so toxic in their own way. He never found someone who loved him for him. But then he met y/n.

Harrison’s relationship with y/n was easily the best relationship he’d ever been in. They took things at the pace that made each other comfortable. He was more than patient with y/n and for that they were grateful. He never pressured them into doing something that they was eerie about. He never tried to push the boundaries. He proved to them that chivalry was a trait that could still be found in few men today.

Often times, for most people, when it gets very late in the night, they become sentimental–or “in their feels” as they like to say. It was that time in the night for Harrison. He stayed up having a conversation with y/n as they cuddled in bed.

“Sometimes when it’s late at night, I think about us.” Harrison turned to look at y/n.

“Yeah? What are these thoughts?” they gave him a cheeky smile.

“As cliché as it sounds, how lucky I am to have you.” they shook their head. “Okay but hear me out. As you well know, I haven’t had the cleanest track record when it comes to people that I’ve dated. They were all twats and the relationships went sour. Then you came along and the world didn’t feel so gloomy anymore. It’s like you brought this ray of sunshine that I never knew I needed.”

y/n was left in awe. They really found themselves a keeper.

Upon realizing y/n wasn’t saying anything, Harrison started to worry. Did he just scare them? Is y/n about to breakup with him? Did this make them uncomfortable?

“I’m sorry.” he shook his head, “it just came out.”

They gave Harrison a confused look, “why are you apologizing, bub?”

“Someone in the past told me to stop it with the ‘sentimental claptrap’ the last time I opened up about how I felt about the relationship. After that, I went back into my shell and never mentioned anything again.”

“Haz, I’m not that person. I love you more than words could ever describe. I’m here to stay.”

“That’s what they all said and looked at how it all ended.” he sighed.

“You being cute isn’t going to be the demise of this relationship and I refuse to let that be the reason.” they stroked his cheek with their hand, “plus, it’s a little too late for you to get rid of me at this point.”

And they say love can hurt But seein' him smile can get you every time

y/n meant what they said when they said that they loved him. They would move mountains for him if need be. y/n knew how damaged he was when they first met him. But they also knew that there was something about him that had them wrapped around his finger.

y/n gave Harrison this sense of safety and security for him to be whoever and do whatever he wanted. He wasn’t perfect but they never judged him for what he did or what happened in the past. They only paid attention to the person that he had become.

They went to an art gallery together for the sake of getting out of the house and escaping boredom.

“You can put your acting skills to the test and pretend you’re an art collector or something.” y/n joked.

“Don’t tempt me.” he walked up to a painting, “ah yes. The...” he leaned closer to the plaque, “Son of Man by René Magritte. Lovely painting. The symbolism of the apple is beautiful.”

“And it means what exactly?” they wanted to see what the blue eyed bloke had up his sleeve.

“That apples were quite juicy during his time and green apples were the best. This was the inspiration behind the man in the bowler hat in the Haunting of Hill House.”

“Actually,” they laughed, “it’s a surreal painting. The meaning behind it is that everything we see hides something else. Like you can see the green apple, but you probably didn’t notice the man’s eyes peeking over the apple until I mentioned it just now. Or that his left arm is twisted at his elbow.”

“Nerd.”

His laugh was music to their ears. His smile was something that lit up the room and it was infectious nonetheless. It didn’t matter what side of the bed they’d woken up on that morning, anytime they’d see him smile, their day would be better.

And I promise I'll never walk away

y/n remembered they once came to his place after a long day of running errands and he was staring blankly at the tv in the living room, tears running down his cheeks. They didn’t know what he was crying about but seeing him in that condition was heart shattering. They didn’t know what to do or say to help him feel better.

“Haz? What’s wrong?” he didn’t reply. “Bub, you’ve gotta talk to me.”

“I’m a burden. It is what it is and it’s embarrassing and it’s stupid. But it’s true and I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t say that.” they sat next to him and held him, “you’re not a burden.”

“I feel like I am.”

“Look at me,” y/n let him go, “you are not a burden. Okay? You’re a strong person who wears his heart on his sleeve. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through, you don’t let your past define who you are today. But what you are is a bad cook.” they winked. Harrison wiped his tears and smiled. “There we go. That’s all I needed to see today. Your beautiful smile.” they kissed him.

Opposites attract and we're the livin' proof of this But I keep on comin' back like a magnet

Harrison was an outgoing guy. He loved being out and about with friends, doing God knows what. y/n was quite the opposite. They liked staying indoors and reading. They were a homebody and didn’t like going out much unless they were absolutely required to. Sometimes that would annoy Harrison because he just wanted to explore with them, but they just wanted to explore the shows on Netflix.

At the beginning, the pair would get into petty arguments about being too outdoor-sy or being too indoor-sy. They couldn’t find a middle ground. He would complain that sometimes y/n came off as a sad sack throwing their life away by consuming themselves in fictional worlds. y/n would rebuttal by saying that all he does is go out to the pub(s) and have multiple drinks with his friends and come to their place when he was drunk. They each knew that the other was right.

After giving each other a couple hours to simmer down, they’d come back together and work things out like adults. They came to the conclusion that they would go adventure every other weekend and on weekends that they weren’t adventuring, they’d find a movie to watch together. Some of which were recommended by Harry.

Because you love him

Harrison and y/n being together was perfect. They molded so well together. They understood each other in ways that no one else had understood them. Their chemistry was something that some people had never seen before. But here they stood. True, pure love at its finest.

With all the fun that they’ve had together over the years, Harrison knew that y/n was someone he saw himself living the rest of his life with. There was no way he was letting them go. Ever. 

Love him, yeah

[jovishark]

idk anything abt poker night but i liked reading why the penny arcade guy fit in the game so why dont the poker night 2 characters not fit w each other (unless u were serious abt the 'dont talk to me abt poker night 2' part, then just ignore this i just like reading the way u explain stuff)

i just. okay.

i guess in a way they do Technically fit conceptually.

brock is a mercenary/bodyguard. claptrap is a robot from the borderlands. ash is an oldass zombie hunter. sam is... a dog who is also a freelance cop in new york. they all have pretty Gritty lives.

but the dialogue feels a little more forced, considering brock and ash are two guys who are pretty stoic generally, sam is pretty lighthearted about everything, and claptrap was literally named after someone who never stops fucking talking

between claptrap and glados, who functions as the dealer, the robot-sounding voice mod gets tiring to listen to, especially when they interact.

ash is notably the star of the evil dead Movie franchise, which was first adapted to a video game in 1984. his character is considerably older than the others and the style of 3d model they used feels very out of place and offputting.

sam and brock are both kind of proper cartoons, except brock sampson is from the venture bros, which was on tv from 2003-2018. hes another Very big name to have in the game.

thats what makes the inclusion of claptrap so.... confusing? hes not a person (but then again neither is sam), and borderlands has at least some other developed characters they could have stuck in there. it feels like hes there for visual contrast (like the strong bad element in pn1, but strong bad didnt BEATBOX)

sam is the one who adds the most actual comic relief by virtue of being a cool simple dude who actually has a pretty sketchy career. also, hes a cute dog man who puts his feet up on the table. and, hes the direct parallel to max's inclusion in pn1, including sitting on the opposite side of the table and having max nearby during the game

glados as the dealer is. fun? but shes way more Present than the monkey island guy was in pn1. shes almost like a whole other character as opposed to the framing device for the game. glados is a character who takes up the entire room shes in (theoretically and physically) so you cant help but only play the game so shell show up and if i wanted that, id play portal 2

the biggest reason i think they dont all fit together is Because they all have gritty aspects to them. pn1 worked because max and heavy had serious careers, and strong bad and tycho were just Nerds with connections to telltale games. brock and ash are crazy big names to put in a game like poker night, which made it feel like an advertising schtick instead of a conscious decision. claptrap sucks and dont make me play poker against the worlds worst beatboxing robot, he gives me nothing. sam is allowed to stay because he makes me smile and he offers good fatherly dialogue.

there just needed to be more contrast in the grit and more interesting dialogue. telltale kind of pooped the bed on that one. poker night 1 had a simple concept and characters that easily slotted together. poker night 2 was the disney's lion king of telltale games. too many big names for comfort, unnerving visuals, and annoyed me so bad i had to stop.

[madamefluffnstuff]

Okay so I actually loved it??? Like, a lot! I was super impressed.

Here's my opinion coming from someone who has played every single Borderlands game except for "New Tales from the Borderlands".

Spoilers for the 2024 Borderlands movie below:

Now before I start, as I mentioned previously, I went in knowing it would be an adaptation of previous media, it would not be a perfect adaptation, and I was okay with that. They took the first two games and combined them together, and it was somewhat okay? I was a little confused at first but once I realized it made a lot of sense.

I'll start with the not so good things: Script was not great. I don't know who wrote it but Jesus Christ that writing dragged the film to the ground. I know the writing in-game is short and kinda choppy at times but short and choppy does NOT translate well to film dialogue. I felt bad for the cast because you had all these incredible actors who consistently make great films and this script made them look bad. I know these people can act well but here? Didn't work.

While I absolutely loved the majority of the cast choices, I don't feel Ariana Greenblatt was a great choice for Tiny Tina. She had the Tina spunk and silliness but she was too perky for Tina. There wasn't enough of the Crazy side of Tina and I really wish we could have gotten more of that. Now this part might be due to the writing but she was also far, far too soft-spoken and quiet to be Tiny Tina.

Gina Gershon was also not an ideal pick for Mad Moxxi. It felt as though she was trying too hard to be Moxxi and it was kind of grating, to be honest. It gave the impression of a Caricature of Moxxi. Again, this may be because of the writing.

The main Villain was... eh? Handsome Jack could not have been used just because of how much lore and story he has. This guy Atlas felt very last-minute thrown together. Very shallow and not much depth to him except "Find the Vault". I wasn't terribly impressed with him. Just very "meh" all around.

Now, the good; the rest of the Cast. I would never have pictured Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis but she did an incredible job, down to her mannerisms and lonely cluelessness. Kevin Hart was given a difficult, stoic character and knocked Roland out of the park. Florian Munteanu gave me a whole new appreciation for Kreig and I am now not so normal perfectly normal about him.

And Jack Black- I had completley forgotten Jack Black was going to play Claptrap and only remembered when I watched the credits. He took our favorite robot and RAN with him. I honestly thought it was the original actor for a bit, that's how well Jack did. He was a perfect Claptrap.

I'd also like to mention the sets and scenery; while they weren't carbon copies of the original game levels, you could take one look and instantly recognize which ones they were. I saw New Haven, Old Haven, the Vault itself, the Thresher Pit, etc. The set designers did such a good job making it so recognizable!

Last, but most certainly not least, the cameos. I made a little game out of checking the background to see who and what was there. The Firehawk symbol, the keys, the Psychos and Burning Psychos, and even the brief scene with Ellie and Scooter at the end! I gasped out loud when I saw them! I knew it was Ellie instantly from the outfit, and it was perfect.

So was it a good movie overall? Kind of! It was pretty decent and I was entertained the while time. Was it a good adaptation? Sort of? They had many, many elements that were true to the game and of course to fit it to the screen, they had to change some things. Some things didn't need to be changed, though.

If you go in with the expectation of a different story in the same setting of the Borderlands games, maybe even as an Alternate Universe story, you'll probably like it.

I hope this helps!!

So I'm going to see the Borderlands movie today. The reviews have me legitimately worried. I've played the first one several times and the others... not as many times but I did play them! I still put a lot of hours into the exploration and gameplay. I just really, really hope it's not as bad as they're saying and the majority of the reviewers are ones who haven't actually played the games and don't understand it.

I'm going to go in with an open mind and knowing that it's an adaptation of a previous media. It will not be a perfect adaptation, none have been, but I'll give it a fair chance. Depending on how it goes I might update this with my personal opinion(s). Cross your fingers for me, folks.

[mad-unit-alive]

Roleplay with @l7814-tp

(Part 4)

*He connected his antenna real quick. To try to understand something. And, of course, froze up again*

"Of course" they chuckled "We're both claptrap units aren't we?"

"..."

*L7814-tp thought to himself again. Actually seeing what this monster looks like made him confused. But, then again, humans are very bright... So anything could happen*

"Well..."

*He then disconnects his antenna again. He was programmed to want to know other claptrap units better. He just can't look at this one because it frightens the ever hell out of him, and he doesn't like to stay in one spot for a long time*

"G-good to know... Well, um, since you already know my name... What's yours? It's always great to meet a comrade... Even if they're a giant scary monster!"

"I was never given a complete name when I was created, so due to my behavior and what I am made from, I'm called by Insanity." They replied.

"Ah"

*Was all L7814-tp could say. It is fitting. But just has his gun on his mind. Not to attack Insanity, mind you, but because apparently his semi-assult-sniper-rifle is his comfort item. Probably because it's big, green, able to shoot multiple times per reload, and has a nice scope. But, he doesn't know where he dropped it, and he is blind so he'll have to feel for it*

"Looking for something?" Insanity asked with a smirk in her voice.

The sound of clicking sounded, like someone flipping a rod of some kind. She twirled it in her claw like arms and inspected the gun.

"I see you're into sniper rifles as well, not a bad choice may I add. They are best for safe distance and making the kill almost anonymous." She continued. "Wonder how long you had this for."

"I just got it a few weeks ago actually. A human of mine (and my only human friend) friend that shows up on Concordia once and awhile gave it to me out of the blue."

*He said turning to face Insanity. Crossing his arms*

"Can I have my gun back please?"

Although he couldn't see her, Insanity made a playful mischievous smile and hand one arm hold it just about above her head and playfully laughed.

"Oh I don't know..." she said sarcastically. "Try to get it from me then?"

"How dare you."

*He said sternly. Even though he couldn't see, he could understand what's going on in context. He's had this happen to him so many times, it's not funny. And with the fact that he can't look at her without freezing and that he's shorter than her. It's almost practically impossible to get it back. He was thinking to himself as he explored the room (all while feeling the floor to know where he's going) to see if he can find anything to get him into the high ground*

She just chuckled at L7814-tp stumbling around and knew all too well that he wouldn't fix his eye and why.

"Kid, you haven't even much of seen what I look like. You have only seen my one claw and that was it." She corrected

"And I'd rather keep it that way! Do you know how long it takes for me to boot back up after shutting down? 3 days! And that's if someone happens to leave a cooling fan with me. Too much stress overheats my system!"

*He tripped on himself as he said that. But he got himself back up*

She bursts out laughing when he tripped. Before taking a deep breath and replying.

"Okay, let's try this." Was all she said before a sound of a flame burst emitted from where she was standing. Then she rolled up to him and without saying a word somehow reactivated his vision for a moment.

She looked like a normal claptrap unit, near his height with a navy blue paint job, eye was a slight pink and nothing appeared out of the ordinary when facing any other normal unit, no blood stains, no scars, no claws.... nothing.... they looked completely average.

"How's that?" The unit asked

"How- Much better actually..."

*{How the heck did she do that!?} He thought to himself. But then the thought got overruled*

"Now give me back my gun!!"

*He then reached for his gun furiously*

A red light flashes in front of him and L7814-tp falls straight to the floor. Did he just warp through her!?

A giggle was heard from a few feet away and the unit was standing

"Ok, ok I'm done playing!" She laughs.

Going over to help him up and handed the gun over.

Still unable to contain her laughter.

*he grabbed his gun and hugged it tightly before putting it away. But he was mad though. He couldn't believe he got fooled by a comrade so easily. But then again, Insanity is different than an average comrade*

"Thank you... But damn you..."

*He said angrily*

Insanity only laughed before have a hologram wink emoji appear in front of her.

"Hey, it's better than killing you slow like how the manager here died. Believe his death was slow and cruel." She remarked.

"Consider yourself lucky that you are even a comrade. Or else fate could have dragged you the same way as that guy." She pointed to a man's corpse, which appeared that his insides were ripped out and his intestines were wrapped around his neck tightly, choked and hung there.

"He was awake for the whole thing, in case you were wondering."

*{Cheese and rice!}*

"You're right on that..."

*And that's when he remembered something*

"Oh wait, the mission! I got a mission to do!"

*And for the next few seconds, he tried to pick up the coordinates, but nothing showed up. He adjusted his atenna a bit. Still nothing*

"What's the mission about?" She asked

"If it's after some crystal heart found from the Helios crash, then I can help in a way" insanity continued. "But sadly you can't have it."

"It was very vague... But it didn't say anything about a crystal..."

*After slapping the side of him a couple time he picked up the signal*

"Ah! I got a sig-"

[papa-rhys]

Shared Empires (Rhys X Reader)

Note: Wow it’s literally been like over a year and a half since I wrote/posted fanfic, how do I even format this shit? I legit can’t remember so here goes

Warnings: none

Word count: 2131

Category: fluff

It’s been seven years since the fiasco with Handsome Jack and Hyperion, but you still can’t shake that blasted gaudy yellow colour from your mind’s eye whenever you see Rhys. 

             It’s hardly fair to keep associating him with the limp-dicked prick that awakened the Warrior - Rhys is the opposite of Jack in every way, except for the zeros in his bank account and the need to have an office with ceilings that are far too high (how are you supposed to kill spiders when they’re that high up?) Rhys is bumbly and friendly and harmless enough. And he’s better-looking, too. But that yellow colour is seared into your retinas for an eternity and there’s a tiny part of your unreasonable lizard brain that feels the need to point out Rhys’ involvement in what Hyperion did every time you come a little too close to enjoying yourself in his presence.

             Still, he’s paying your wages as of right now and a deal is a deal; help him win this war against Maliwan and he’ll make sure you never struggle for a meal again. And if there’s anything at all that you’re good at, it’s killing corporations dead in the water.

             “How you diddling, Mr Hyperion?” you ask, striding into Rhys office and feeling mighty proud of the frown you pull from him. This kind of tingle could only come from irking Rhys, you think. Or from finding the juicy photos Moxxi keeps stashed on her echo device.

             “I thought I told you not to call me that,” Rhys says, handing you a gun as you cross the floor of his office and reach him where he stands. 

             “You did,” you chirp, cheerfully, “I just didn’t listen. What’s this for?”

             Rhys straightens his back, puffs his chest out a little; all the hallmarks of a man who’s ever-so-proud of himself. He stands with his hands on his hips and his chin held high and you’re itching to throw out another teasing insult, just to bring him down a peg. It’s not fair to tease him so often and you know it, but lord is it fun to see him blush. And you’re, like, ninety percent certain he enjoys it, too.

             “That is the finest Atlas weapon on the market,” he informs you. “It’s a reward… for killing that nutjob with the miniguns... You’re welcome.” 

             You look the gun over and shrug with one shoulder, then you stash it in your backpack and shrug the bag off, lobbing it onto one of the too-big sofas in the lavish seating area of the office. There’s no way in any reality that Rhys reads enough books to justify the size of those bookshelves, but you suppose rich people have to spend their money on something.

             “What’s next on the to-do list, then, boss?” you ask, hopping up and sitting on the back of the sofa, swinging your legs back and forth.

             “Okay, I could really get used to you calling me boss,” Rhys says. “It’s... actually kind of a turn on, so let’s not talk about that anymore. Nothing is the answer to your question.” You pull your head back against the barrage of words that just flitted your way, but there’s no time to process them. Rhys is talking again. It seems he does that often. “There’s nothing on the to-do list,” he continues. “For once, we have a break in the chaos. Can’t tell you the last time that happened, I’m actually kinda miffed about it. I’m very accustomed to fearing for my life. But we’re off the clock for a while, so relish in the quiet for a while. You earned it!”

             You let yourself slip backwards onto the sofa, laying upside down and stretching your arms out each side of you. He’s not the only one who’s used to living a fast-paced life. Quiet is the exact opposite of your job description. Shooting, murdering, setting things on fire - all things that you’re far more suited to.

             “Whatever will I do with all of this free time?” you ask, gazing up at the ceiling and watching a spider making the trek from one side to the other. Maybe Rhys has a step ladder he uses to kill them?

             Rhys meddles with something out of view and music begins playing on a record player at the edge of the room - the soft, sweet kind that couples dance to; not the tedious wub-wubs that claptrap tortures you all with. Rhys comes back into view again when he leans over the back of the sofa, resting on his elbows. “We could try some dancing?” He says the words like he’s asking a question, wincing slightly as he tests the waters. 

             This is one of those moments that lizard brain ruins; reminding you of Rhys’ past and what it meant to you seven years ago. The fighting and the taunting and the constant cat and mouse. The people you lost, the ones you couldn’t save. Jack’s barrage of insults and moonshots; spat at you in equal measure. Rhys could have pushed the button on any one of those moonshots, your lizard brain suggests. He was complicit.

             But that was then, wasn’t it? And this is now. He learned lessons from Jack. He’s different. And there’s no point in fighting for the future if you still spend all of your time in the past. It’s okay to enjoy a little taste of what you’re fighting for.

             A smile spreads slowly across your lips and you cock an eyebrow. “You? Dancing? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

             “You’ve never seen my dancing,” he says accusingly, though there’s an upwards slant to one side of his mouth. “I have moves like no one else.” 

             “No doubt about that,” you tease, letting him help you up off the sofa.

             The music tinkles and hums in the background as the two of you head for the centre of the office, surrounded by nothing but empty space. You shake out your hands and feet, warming up like you’re gearing for battle, and Rhys shakes his head with a smile.

             “You really don’t know how to be graceful, do you?” he asks.

             “Don’t get paid to be graceful, Rhysie boy,” you reply, rolling your neck until it cracks softly. “I get paid to kill stuff.”

             “Well, let’s hang fire on that for now, shall we?” Rhys holds out his hands and you take them, letting him guide you. He’s better at dancing than you thought he’d be, but only slightly. Better - [quotation marks] - meaning he hasn’t yet tripped over his feet. But the night is still young, so you’ll not rule that out just yet.

             He spins you and dips you and you both mutter a wealth of light-hearted insults between the pair of you. His bright smile could almost trick you into thinking he’s good at this. That he’s not a bumbling idiot with a too-big office and two left feet. A part of him is actually quite suave... in his own way.

             “Am I impressing you?” he asks.

             “Give me a minute and I’ll decide,” you smile as he spins you around on the spot.

             “Oh, come on, I’m impressing you. Admit it, I’m great at this.”

             He pulls a laugh from you, and against your better judgement, you allow it. There’s no way he’ll ever let you forget it if you compliment him on his dancing skills, so you opt for something with a little more self-preservation. A safe middle ground.

             “You’re making a good effort,” you offer.

             “Pfft,” comes the reply. He twirls you outwards and pulls you back in again.

             “Okay then, hotshot,” you say, landing against his chest with a soft oof, the breath catching in your chest. “You’re a lot better than I expected you’d be. How’s that?”

             He grins widely, the smile reaching his eyes. One of them is blue, the other a hazel colour that looks almost as electronically enhanced as the other. Do eyes naturally come in colours that bright? There’s a moment that seems to stretch for an extraordinarily long length of time, where you find yourself questioning the bizarre and totally irrational urge to do something weird, like kissing him or something. What madness that would be, right? Crazy. 

             You’ve both slowed down, now, the dancing mostly forgotten. All that’s left is a gentle sway as he speaks. “I wanna ask you something,” he says. “But I’m a little bit terrified of you.”

             “A little bit terrified?” you echo. “No need to be scared of me unless you’re thinking about cutting my wages.”

             He gives a nervous laugh that fades off as quickly as it’d had appeared. “Your wages are safe with me,” he says. “But that’s kind of along the lines of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

             “Go on…”

             Rhys spins you around to face the window behind his desk, the entire city visible beyond it in all its glowing glory. The neon lights paint a million different colours on the floor of the office and the sky is speckled with explosions that almost look pretty if you imagine that they’re not a product of war. The whole office is flooded by the view, buildings visible through every window.

             “I wanna share this with you,” Rhys says. “All of it.”

             “What do you mean?” you ask him, the light flooding your eyes, overloading you with input.

             “I don’t want all this to myself,” he explains. “It’s too much. Kingdoms are meant to be shared, right? Well, I wanna share this one with you. If you’d want that, obviously.”

             “You mean, like, business partners?”

             He laughs, nervous again. “If business partners are in love with each other, then yeah, I guess.” 

             You turn to face him and look up at him with your eyebrows raised. Now it’s your turn to blush; not an easy task for someone to accomplish. Touche, Mr Hyperion.

             “I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” he asks, watching you as you look up at him, slightly dumbfounded. Then he seems to cave in on himself a little, shoulders slumping. “I know you’re only here because I’m paying you to be here and I know you’re waaaaay too cool to ever feel that way about an idiot like me, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway, you know? And see if maybe you’d - “

             You push up onto your toes and press a kiss to his lips, cursing him for being lanky enough to make you put effort into kissing him. If he were any taller, you’d need a harness and those stabby things that rock climbers jab into cliff faces. 

             He holds onto your waist as you kiss and for all his bumbling and lack of self-assurance, he soon takes to it, cupping your jaw with one hand and leaning down to meet you halfway.

             Your own hands take hold of the collar of his vest, gripping fabric on either side and using it to pull him towards you. With shuffling steps, the two of you are edging towards the desk as one, all stumbling and heavy breathing, carefully making your way up the shallow steps, until you hit the edge of the desk. 

             “I don’t think this is an appropriate way to act with your employees,” you breathe.

             “Then you’re fired,” Rhys says. “There; now you’re not an employee.”

             Your heart hammers in your chest, pulse thrumming in your ears to match the beat. Wobbly legs and and a woozy light-headedness tell you that your body is pumping adrenaline through you at record pace. It’s different than the feeling you get on the battlefield; you feel so much more out of your depth here. Out there, you have a rhythm - motions to go through. Routine. But here, you’re just going with the flow, not quite knowing what you’re doing. A new partner means a new rhythm. A new pattern to be learned. What makes Rhys tick? What does he like and dislike? What does he - 

             “Oh!” 

             The two of you break apart at the sound of the voice coming from the doorway. Surprise in both of your faces matches the surprise in Lorelei’s voice. She watches you with her arms folded across her chest and her hip jutted out to one side as you and Rhys gather yourselves up.

             “If I had a dollar for every time I’d walked in on you in a compromising position, I’d be able to buy you out,” she tells Rhys. He smiles uncomfortably and fixes his tie. “But this takes the bloody cake,” she adds.

             “We were celebrating,” you offer.

             Lorelei hums. “I’ll bet,” she says, looking amused. “But you were celebrating prematurely. Maliwan just showed up at the front door and they’re not bothering to ring the doorbell. Need you outside, Vault Hunter.”

             Rhys sighs heavy and turns to you, the last traces of his pant visible in the way his chest moves with each breath. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

             “Yeah,” you agree, sighing. You smooth out your hair and make your way over to the seating area to collect your backpack, crossing the room on shaky legs. Hauling your bag onto your shoulders, you pick out your favourite gun and check that it’s loaded. “Alright,” you muse, nodding to Rhys and then to Lorelei, “back to work, then.”

[fairie-gothmother]

In The Shadow of Starlight, Part 6: Gut Instincts

First part: The Fall

Previous: The Sheep Will Flock

How long had it been? Days, weeks? Troy lost track of time while he’d been slowly starving to death. Since his excommunication, each moment blurred into the next as whatever he possessed of the leech power fed off of his own body. Finally, he had some relief. He couldn’t help but be grateful for the scientist’s carelessness during the lab experiments. That was the first time he’d taken from any siren apart from his twin. It felt very different. This energy was more restless than he was used to. Maybe this what Ty meant by saying she could taste what she leeched.

Now that Troy had some extra juice, he felt incredible. Even after Lilith dumped him in Sanctuary’s garage on the bottom deck, he was amped. And what did Troy do when he was hyped up and left to his own devices? He beatboxed. The Calypso bobbed his head and swayed to the groove, bustling around the room and inspecting the equipment. He had to admit, it wasn’t a bad setup. He knew everyone was talking about him, probably deciding where to eject him into space, but he wished they’d hurry it up already.

He paused when a noise from nearby threw off his rhythm. A beep came again from a cluttered desk. With no regard to the desk owner’s privacy, he opened one of the drawers to find an Echo device inside. It was an older model, but obviously still in working condition. Troy glanced over his shoulder and scanned the room for cameras before putting the Echo on silent mode and slipping it into his pocket.

“Hey.”

Troy reeled around, startled from the voice and saw the blue haired siren descending the stairs into the workshop.

“Relax,” the sapphire siren said. She wiped the dust off a tool box and casually leaned against it. “Don't look so guilty. I, uh… Sorry for phase-chucking you across Tannis’s lab. You alright?” 

Oh. He wasn't busted after all. Still, Troy couldn’t help but be suspicious. No way she cared to chat. Probably cared even less about hurting him. A golden canine glinted through his lopsided smile. “I did ask for it, didn’t I? But yeah, I’m good. No hard feelings, Meg.”

“It’s Maya,” she said, obviously annoyed. “Get it right next time. Okay, Trent?”

Excuse me? Troy furrowed his brow and glared at her. She wore a playful smirk and raised her eyebrows as if daring him to correct her. Interesting. She was messing with him.

“Alright then, Maya. Let’s hear it already,” he folded his arms across his chest. “Are you guys gonna launch me into the nearest sun? Or does the scientist want me as a lab rat for unethical tests? Whatever it is, please don’t tell me it’s life in prison. That’s boring. I deserve something creative.”

Maya shook her head. “Oh, no. You don’t get off that easy. You’re still helping us fight the COV.”

Troy cocked his to one side, analyzing the siren in a skeptical stare. As hard he looked for the smallest hint that she was full of shit, her body language suggested she was telling the truth. He huffed, “So what, no punishment then? I figured the Firehawk would want this handsome mug served on a silver platter.”

Maya gave a one shouldered shrug. “You said you didn’t leech Tannis on purpose. Sometimes powers are weird like that. With some training, you might be able to control it.”

Easy for her to say. If only it was as simple as meditating on a mountain to master his broken siren powers. “Ah, right. You’re from Athenas. I’m sure those monks taught you all about control and restraint, great power is great responsibility, blah-blah-blah. But it’s pretty safe to say that I’m a special case. Clearing my chakras isn’t gonna do it for me.” 

“It would at least help with that attitude of yours.”

Troy began pacing and brought his flesh hand to his chin. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be considered very zen if I accidentally ended up leeching you. Then again, you might taste like chamomile tea.” He cast a half-hearted sideways glance in Maya’s direction.

Maya rapidly drummed her fingernails on the tool box and said, “I take it back. I’m not sorry to phaselocking you.”

“That’s what I thought,” Troy snickered. “Be honest. How many times a day do you phaselock stuff just because you can?”

Maya closed her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her, mimicking a monk’s prayer pose. “I take a great amount of pride in my self discipline so if you must know-” She raised her left hand, and her fingers sparked. A ball peen hammer levitated from a workbench and hovered across the room into Maya’s hand. “I do it all the time.”

Troy scoffed. “Show off.”

The two were locked in a stare down. It wasn’t clear who cracked first, but neither of them could keep a straight face for long. A gentle blue glow emitted from Maya’s siren marks. Troy’s smile dropped as he looked down to his left hand, noting the harsh red light of his own marks.

“You really didn’t know that would happen to Tannis, did you?” the blue haired woman asked softly.

“No,” he answered honestly. “I’m still trying to get a grip on everything myself.” All his life he’d been broken. His parents treated him as a burden, although they never said it outright. He was constantly sick and needed extra help when he struggled with the use of only one arm. And Tyreen never considered him an equal. Even as one of the twin gods, he wasn’t seen in the same light as the God Queen. And now that he knew he possessed siren power without knowing it, his whole outlook was in question. What did it mean? What other parts of himself remained untapped?

Maya said, “Even if it’s only half, you’re still a siren. It’s not an easy life. Sirens have always been feared, hunted, extorted… worshipped.” Troy met her blue-gray eyes for a moment, then redirected his gaze to the wall. “We’re just trying to find our place.”

Troy’s heart skipped a beat. We?

“Yeah,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. He snapped out of it and quipped, “But, you gotta admit. Life would sure be a lot easier if I could phaselock grapes into my mouth all day.” 

Maya scrunched up her face and flung an empty can at Troy, who reflexively caught it in his mechanical hand with a metallic clang. He waved it, shook his head, and grinned at her.

“Nice catch, wise-ass. Now, get in the drop pod,” Maya teased.

That tiny thing? Troy had used porta-potties with more legroom than that. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Troy groaned. The siren smiled wickedly as she held the hatch open and ushered him inside. He sighed knowing the ride back to Pandora would not be a comfortable one.

~~~

On a normal day, Ellie was a delight. Today was not a normal day considering her garage was used as solitary confinement for one of the most hated influencers in the galaxy. Maya recalled her saying, “He’s about as welcome as an outhouse breeze.” It took a while to convince the mechanic that her garage was just as she left it. Eventually, she cooled her boiling blood down to a simmer.

If Maya was being honest, she didn’t actually believe that Troy hadn’t messed with something. Call it a gut feeling. The same gut feeling that knew Ava would be a siren someday. The same gut feeling that told her to go talk to Troy just now. Her gut hadn’t lied to her yet so she didn’t question it. The ex-God King was absolutely still on thin ice, but she was willing to give him a chance. Maybe he just needed some guidance. Either that or he was a hopeless, cocky little shit.

Hydraulics hissed from the rising door as Maya entered the ship’s bridge. The orbital view of Pandora loomed outside the windows of Sanctuary’s observation deck. Crew members clacked away on keyboards at their posts. Lilith and Tannis stopped mid-conversation when they noticed Maya approaching.

“Troy’s on his way back to base,” Maya announced, slightly out of breath from rushing up three flights of stairs. “Cramer should be waiting for him when he lands. What did I miss?” she asked when she noticed neither of them would look her in the eye.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you about Tannis sooner. I decided the fewer people that knew about it, the better. These days, being a siren puts a target on your back,” Lilith apologized. 

The revelation that the two of them were keeping Tannis’s siren powers a secret was shocking to say the least, but Maya wasn’t upset. She understood. Her own siren powers had been used by others to threaten an entire planet’s population. “I get it. I’m glad to have another siren on our side.” Maya smiled at the scientist, who awkwardly returned the gesture. It was cute when she made an effort.

“How are you, Tannis?” Maya asked.

“I'm fine. No need to fuss,” Tannis said. “It was actually interesting to experience the leech power first hand.”

Lilith knitted her brows. “Troy could have killed you. We still don’t know his intentions. Who knows what other abilities he’s hiding.”

Maya recalled the look of shock on Troy’s face while he held Tannis’s wrist, and the way he kept his distance from the two sirens afterwards as they processed what the hell just happened. After the conversation she’d just had with the Calypso, Maya felt the need to voice her opinion. “It seems like he doesn't understand his abilities either. I really don’t think he leeched Tannis on purpose.”

The commander was unconvinced. “Even if that’s true, we can’t underestimate what he’s capable of. This is still Troy Calypso.” Lilith stared out of the window at Pandora below. “For now, he’s useful to us. We’re going to need all the power we can get. It’s about time to make our move on the Holy Broadcast Center. There’s been a lot of activity lately. I’ve got a feeling something big is about to go down.”

Claptrap’s eardrum piercing voice called from the command console, “Incoming transmission!”

Speak of the devil. Maya’s heart sank as Tyreen’s smug face appeared on the overhead monitors. She was beginning to wonder if the COV had tapped their coms. Their timing was unusually coincidental.

“Hey, Lil!” the cult leader said in a singsong voice. “How’s life been as a non-siren normie human? Does it suck? I bet it sucks. Not gonna lie, these powers of yours are pretty sweet.” Lilith was seething. Tyreen had a knack for getting under her skin. The Calypso continued, “But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. You know someone who knows all about my Firehawk upgrade. Just ask my brother.”

Damn. Word had finally reached her. Now Tyreen knew the Crimson Raiders were harboring her disowned twin.

“By the way, did that traitorous freak happen to mention the fact that he stole something from me? Can you believe it? Yoinked it right out from under me. I don’t want your grubby normie fingerprints on my stuff so if he shared it with you, I’m gonna need it back.”

Lilith calmly replied, “I assumed you’d know better since you were the one who dumped him in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t exactly in any condition to exchange gifts when we found him. He’d been stripped and unarmed.”

Tyreen paused before shrieking with laughter. “She said unarmed! Please tell me you meant to make that pun.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “I needed that. No big deal. It’s a matter of time until I find it anyway. Well, I’ve got places to be. Big milestone event coming up. You’re gonna love it. Oh, and tell Troy I said hi before he runs outta juice and shrivels up. 'Kay? Laterz!” The Calypso winked before the feed was cut.

Maya’s fists tingled with the urge to meet that punchable face. She hollered back at the empty screen, “Troy will be the one kicking your door in, you cocky bitch!”

Claptrap said something about the video transmission’s crappy production value, but no one was listening. Lilith grit her teeth. “Using Troy was the plan, but that’s only if we can keep him alive long enough to get there.”

Maya squeezed her fists tighter, causing her fingernails to dig into her palms. Tyreen was always one step ahead of them. She couldn’t care less that her brother was in the Raider’s custody. Because of Troy’s dependence on her, she never even saw him as a threat.

Tannis chimed, “I have a theory, but you aren’t going to like it, Lilith.” All eyes turned to the scientist. “It is apparent that Troy cannot absorb the life force from living things through touch alone, with the exception of sirens. According to my experiments, it’s highly plausible that he can gain the same effect by ingesting it directly via anthropophagy or hematophagy.”

The room was silent apart from the humming of the spaceship. Maya blinked and said, “Tannis, no one understands you when you talk like that. In layman’s terms, please?”

Tannis sighed in disappointment but explained, “Troy should be able to regain energy from cannibalism or drinking blood.”

~~~

Sorry it took so long for an update. I’ve been working through a serious creative block. Showing my girl Maya some love in this part. This was a little shorter than usual, but I hope it was still entertaining. As always, thanks for reading my garbage! <3