#yet another reason why I should never reproduce

[froody]

“as a man I used to be so scared of baby wearing in public because I was afraid of what other people thought of me” whatever. as a man I would be so scared to baby wear in public because I have terrible dexterity and spacial perception and I fear I’d be knocking that poor baby into everything all the time. I can’t handle carrying a huge murse in crowded aisles, I’m always knocking shit off the shelves.

[nostalgebraist]

thoughts on xDOTcom/CorralSummer/status/1823504569097175056 tumblrDOTcom/antinegationism/758845963819450368 ?

I mostly try to ignore AI art debates, and as a result I feel like I don't have enough context to make sense of that twitter exchange. That said...

It's about generative image models, and whether they "are compression." Which seems to mean something like "whether they contain compressed representations of their training images."

I can see two reasons why partisans in the AI art wars might care about this question:

If a training image is actually "written down" inside the model, in some compressed form that can be "read off" of the weights, it would then be easier to argue that a copyright on the image applies to the model weights themselves. Or to make similar claims about art theft, etc. that aren't about copyright per se.

If the model "merely" consists of a bunch of compressed images, together with some comparatively simple procedure for mixing/combining their elements together (so that most of the complexity is in the images, not the "combining procedure"), this would support the contention that the model is not "creative," is not "intelligent," is "merely copying art by humans," etc.

I think the stronger claim in #2 is clearly false, and this in turn has implications for #1.

(For simplicity I'll just use "#2", below, as a shorthand for "the stronger claim in #2," i.e. the thing about compressed images + simple combination procedure)

I can't present, or even summarize, the full range of the evidence against #2 in this brief post. There's simply too much of it. Virtually everything we know about neural networks militates against #2, in one way or another.

The whole of NN interpretability conflicts with #2. When we actually look at the internals of neural nets and what is being "represented" there, we rarely find anything that is specialized to a single training example, like a single image. We find things that are more generally applicable, across many different images: representations that mean "there's a curved line here" or "there's a floppy ear here" or "there's a dog's head here."

The linked post is about an image classifier (and a relatively primitive one), not an image generator, but we've also found similar things inside of generative models (e.g.).

I also find it difficult to understand how anyone could seriously believe #2 after actually using these models for any significant span of time, in any nontrivial way. The experience is just... not anything like what you would expect, if you thought they were "pasting together" elements from specific artworks in some simplistic, collage-like way. You can ask them for wild conjunctions of many different elements and styles, which have definitely never been represented before in any image, and the resulting synthesis will happen at a very high, humanlike level of abstraction.

And it is noteworthy that, even in the most damning cases where a model reliably generates images that are highly similar to some obviously copyrighted ones, it doesn't actually produce exact duplicates of those images. The linked article includes many pairs of the form (copyrighted image, MidJourney generation), but the generations are vastly different from the copyrighted images on the pixel level -- they just feel "basically the same" to us, because they have the same content in terms of humanlike abstract concepts, differing only in "inessential minor details."

If the model worked by memorizing a bunch of images and then recombining elements of them, it should be easy for it to very precisely reproduce just one of the memorized images, as a special case. Whereas it would presumably be difficult for such a system to produce something "essentially the same as" a single memorized image, but differing slightly in the inessential details -- what kind of "mixture," with some other image(s), would produce this effect?

Yet it's the latter that we see in practice -- as we'd expect from a generator that works in humanlike abstractions.

And this, in turn, helps us understand what's going in in the twitter dispute about "it's either compression or magic" vs. "how could you compress so much down to so few GB?"

Say you want to make a computer display some particular picture. Of, I dunno, a bird. (The important thing is that it's a specific picture, the kind that could be copyrighted.)

The simplest way to do this is just to have the computer store the image as a bitmap of pixels, without any compression.

In this case, it's unambiguous that the image itself is being represented in the computer, with all the attendant copyright (etc.) implications. It's right there. You can read it off, pixel by pixel.

But maybe this takes up too much computer memory. So you try using a simple form of compression, like JPEG compression.

JPEG compression is pretty simple. It doesn't "know" much about what images tend to look like in practice; effectively, it just "knows" that they tend to be sort of "smooth" at the small scale, so that one tiny region often has similar colors/intensities to neighboring tiny regions.

Just knowing this one simple fact gets you a significant reduction in file size, though. (The size of this reduction is a typical reference point for people's intuitions about what "compression" can, and can't, do.)

And here, again, it's relatively clear that the image is represented in the computer. You have to do some work to "unpack" it, but it's simple work, using an algorithm simple enough that a human can hold the whole thing in their mind at once. (There is probably at least one person in existence, I imagine, who can visualize what the encoded image looks like when they look at the raw bytes of a JPEG file, like those guys in The Matrix watching the green text fall across their terminal screens.)

But now, what if you had a system that had a whole elaborate library of general visual concepts, and could ably draw these concepts if asked, and could draw them in any combination?

You no longer need to lay out anything like a bitmap, a "copy" of the image arranged in space, tile by tile, color/intensity unit by color/intensity unit.

It's a bird? Great, the system knows what birds look like. This particular bird is an oriole? The system knows orioles. It's in profile? The system knows the general concept of "human or animal seen in profile," and how to apply it to an oriole.

Your encoding of the image, thus far, is a noting-down of these concepts. It takes very little space, just a few bits of information: "Oriole? YES. In profile? YES."

The picture is a close-up photograph? One more bit. Under bright, more-white-than-yellow light? One more bit. There's shallow depth of field, and the background is mostly a bright green blur, some indistinct mass of vegetation? Zero bits: the system's already guessed all that, from what images of this sort tend to be like. (You'd have to spend bits to get anything except the green blur.)

Eventually, we come to the less essential details -- all the things that make your image really this one specific image, and not any of the other close-up shots of orioles that exist in the world. The exact way the head is tilted. The way the branch, that it sits on, is slightly bent at its tip.

This is where most of the bits are spent. You have to spend bits to get all of these details right, and the more "arbitrary" the details are -- the less easy they are to guess, on the basis of everything else -- the more bits you have to spend on them.

But, because your first and most abstract bits bought you so much, you can express your image quite precisely, and still use far less room than JPEG compression would use, or any other algorithm that comes to mind when people say the word "compression."

It is easy to "compress" many specific images inside a system that understands general visual concepts, because most of the content of an image is generic, not unique to that image alone.

The ability to convey all of the non-unique content very briefly is precisely what provides us enough room to write down all the unique content, alongside it.

This is basically the way in which specific images are "represented" inside Stable Diffusion and MidJourney and the like, insofar as they are. Which they are, not as a general rule, but occasionally, in the case of certain specific images -- due to their ubiquity in the real world and hence in the training data, or due to some deliberate over-sampling of them in that data.

(In the case of MidJourney and the copyrighted images, I suspect the model was [over-?]heavily trained on those specific images -- perhaps because they were thought to exemplify the "epic," cinematic MidJourney house style -- and it has thus stored more of their less-essential details than it has with most training images. Typical regurgitations from image generators are less precise than those examples, more "abstract" in their resemblance to the originals -- just the easy, early bits, with fewer of the expensive less-essential details.)

But now -- is your image of the oriole "represented" in computer memory, in this last case? Is the system "compressing" it, "storing" it in a way that can be "read off"?

In some sense, yes. In some sense, no.

This is a philosophical question, really, about what makes your image itself, and not any of the other images of orioles in profile against blurred green backgrounds.

Remember that even MidJourney can't reproduce those copyrighted images exactly. It just makes images that are "basically the same."

Whatever is "stored" there is not, actually, a copy of each copyrighted image. It's something else, something that isn't the original, but which we deem too close to the original for our comfort. Something of which we say: "it's different, yes, but only in the inessential details."

But what, exactly, counts as an "inessential detail"? How specific is too specific? How precise is too precise?

If the oriole is positioned just a bit differently on the branch... if there is a splash of pink amid the green blur, a flower, in the original but not the copy, or vice versa...

When does it stop being a copy of your image, and start being merely an image that shares a lot in common with yours? It is not obvious where to draw the line. "Details" seem to span a whole continuous range of general-to-specific, with no obvious cutoff point.

And if we could, somehow, strip out all memory of all the "sufficiently specific details" from one of these models -- which might be an interesting research direction! -- so that what remains is only the model's capacity to depict "abstract concepts" in conjunction?

If we could? It's not clear how far that would get us, actually.

If you can draw a man with all of Super Mario's abstract attributes, then you can draw Super Mario. (And if you cannot, then you are missing some important concept or concepts about people and pictures, and this will hinder you in your attempts to draw other, non-copyrighted entities.)

If you can draw an oriole, in profile, and a branch, and a green blur, then you can draw an oriole in profile on a branch against a green blur. And all the finer details? If one wants them, the right prompt should produce them.

There is no way to stop a sufficiently capable artist from imitating what you have done, if it can imitate all of the elements of which your creation is made, in any imaginable combination.

[paradoxcase]

Gideon the Ninth audiobook, to the end of Part 2

New voices:

Camilla's voice is described in the text as "low and calm" which should mean more deep-voiced women rep, but the audiobook isn't really reproducing that description well, I don't think

Palamedes' voice is not bad, although I kind of expected something clearer and lighter. I'm not sure if it's my imagination, but it almost sounds like another accent? I can't decide. It's kind of hard to tell when Moira Quirk's base accent is also foreign to me

I like Abigail's voice, it's definitely the same Welsh accent. I wonder why Moira Quirk picked that accent for the Fifth? Since they are culturally dominant, I would have expected an accent with more cultural capital IRL, but I guess the main characters are already using a standard British accent and the Fourth teens got the French, so I'm not sure what's left in that regard

There were a few words of Isaac voice, it seems fine

Magnus's voice is really growing on me... just in time to never hear it again for the rest of the book. Woe. Oh well, he'll be back in the next one

The pronunciation of Palamedes' name is also growing on me a lot faster than I predicted

Other stuff:

Gideon notes that Teacher does not eat breakfast, and guesses that he just eats it earlier in the morning. NOPE

On the possibility of Harrow being murdered: "What if the murderer was like, weird" and musings on Gideon's subsequent marriage to the murderer, and thoughts about swapping friendship bracelets with them - Cytherea is the murderer and is indeed seducing Gideon here, and this probably also foreshadows the "friendship bracelets" with Ianthe, although who knows if that's what they actually are

Harrow knew that Gideon was hanging out with Cytherea as early as when she was working in the facility by herself, which I had forgotten, and I'm wondering how she knows this. It doesn't sound like she's doing a lot of socializing and doesn't seem to know a lot about the others beyond the Sixth and the Eighth, who she considers her main competitors at this point, and I don't think either of them would know about Gideon's time spent with Cytherea, because they're also busy, and I doubt Harrow has been trading pleasantries with Cytherea herself

I still love that Gideon figures out the purpose of the Imaging/Response rooms by saying "the arms kind of look like swords, I want to fight it" after Harrow has spent literal days beating her head against it

Gideon punches the construct twice in this segment, which I think really shows the utility of her using that move against Babs earlier, and Marta's assessment that she was the better fighter for it. Babs would have been outraged that the construct didn't follow all the proper rules of dueling

I like how written notes and so forth are read in the voice of the character that wrote them (except for John's letter, I guess, but he doesn't have a voice yet); even when Gideon is reading Magnus's invitation aloud to Harrow, it's read in Magnus's voice

After the dinner party, Cytherea tells Gideon "I liked that dinner, it was useful" which is very chilling now considering I now know it made her decide to kill Abigail and Magnus first

She also says "What do [the Houses] compete for? The Emperor's favor? What does that look like?" I think it's interesting that Cytherea, who is intimately familiar with the Emperor, doesn't really know what his favor looks like, or possibly doesn't believe it exists. Or she just knows that John is shit and finds competing for his favor to be pointless and self-defeating, no doubt strengthening her commitment to murdering everyone before they can succeed

After reading the Unwanted Guest, I think I can guess that the reason Gideon sees the thanergetic signatures when she's fighting the construct is more permeability of the soul stuff - that when Harrow sits in her head, Gideon becomes enough of Harrow to see things that only Harrow can normally see? Even though they only did this for like a few minutes at this point

Gideon being completely floored by Harrow's praise of her fighting ability was fun to hear about again

And now Magnus and Abigail are dead and it's time for Part 3. I think the only voice that's left to hear for the first time is Judith, and also John will make his first appearance in the epilogue

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

My Garden Flowers Part 2

All photos mine. The narrow-leaved sundrops photo is edited for colour since the camera apparently can't reproduce that intense of a yellow. Neither can any Photopea editing, but at least it's closer. It's the bright of highlighter yellow but more golden.

In order of appearance:

031. Philadelphia fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus) A welcome "weed" I couldn't find available at any of the native plant places in Ontario (one in Manitoba carried it but it wasn't available) but she planted herself.

032. Canadian Lettuce (Lactuca canadensis) Another welcome "weed" that sadly didn't manage to reseed, but maybe one will turn up again.

033-034. Jack-in-the-Pulpit male and female flowers (Arisaema triphyllum) The male has one leaf set while the female has two. The babies only have a leafset and no flowers for the first couple years of their lives. Then they reach sexual maturity as males, the next year they'll be female and switch back and forth until the end of their lives.

035. Early Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dioicum) Not pictured as she hasn't flowered yet. She's new. Hopefully next year.

036. Creeping Oregon Grape (Mahonia repens) First they gave me a non-native cinquefoil but thankfully rectified it by giving me two of these when I'd only ordered one. They've flowered before, but never so profusely as they both have this spring, and there are a number of berries ripening! They also made a baby from previous years, or else one of them suckered.

037. Three-Leaved Coneflower (Rudbeckia triloba) So...I planted her. She died. I swear she died, like root and all, she did not make the winter. Didn't come up in the spring. But now she is in several places! Managed to reseed herself? Perhaps. I don't recall that she flowered the year I planted her. Had dormant seeds in her pot with her? Coincidental present from squirrels? Either way, she's roughly in the spot I wanted her and is flowering well. Who cares how she got there?

038. Witherod Viburnum (Viburnum nudum cassinoides) Not pictured as she hasn't flowered yet. Hopefully next year!

039. Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) Not pictured as she hasn't flowered yet. She's a new milkweed species for me! If she makes it through the summer and then the winter I should have more flowers to post in a year or two. :)

040. Rosy Pussytoes (Antennaria rosea) Not pictured as she hasn't flowered yet. Surviving, though, which is saying something because not even weeds grow there. It's a very dry spot and I've been kind of neutred from watering. But I read that she likes dry and that spot is dry. So good luck to her.

041. Prairie Alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii) Not pictured as she hasn't flowered yet. Also surviving in said very dry area.

042. Ramps (Allium tricoccum) I really hope her seeds made baby ramps! They only flower after reaching maturity at seven years, which is why it's bad when people come and uproot the lot of them. And I mean, they taste nice but not where I understand why people do that.

043. Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) My native allspice substitute! Her berries are currently developing and will be red in the fall. Still hoping to attract spicebush swallowtails one day.

044. Bigleaf Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus) Was supposed to be sundial lupine but definitely isn't. There is disagreement between VASCAN and the USDA over whether there is a single variant of one subspecies of L. polyphyllus that's native to Ontario. This one stays in my garden until that's settled. Anyway, she's a gorgeous plant but the reason to avoid intentionally planting it in Ontario is that it easily hybridizes with sundial lupine. The hairstreak caterpillar can only eat true sundial lupine leaves. I don't know if the variant that the USDA says is native is a misidentified hybrid (bad, but also doesn't seem like it because the variant listed by the USDA is Lupinus polyphyllus ssp. polyphyllus var. polyphyllus) or just a well-behaved variant (fine, just like there's a native subspecies of Phragmites australis). But again, I'll be leaving mine in until I learn for sure, and I won't be planting sundial lupine there to avoid hybridization.

045. Sweet Joe-Pyeweed (Eupatorium purpureum) Fuzzy flowers! She can get very tall. I'm also finding out she's a slow spreader as there is an individual nearby that I didn't plant.

046. Tall Bluebells (Mertensia paniculata) She survived several years and seemed to do well, but she didn't come up this spring. I'll need to get another one and try a spot that's not quite so tough.

047. Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata) Not pictured as she hasn't flowered yet. But this is her second year, so to judge by some of my other species she should do it next year!

048. Narrow-Leaved Sundrops (Oenothera fruticosa) No flowers I've seen are as intensely yellow as those in this genus, and narrow-leaved sundrops and evening primrose in particular seem to just glow.

049. Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum) The coolest part of this plant is in the name: the bases of her leaf stalks wrap around the flower stalk to make cups at the joints. Water settles there and birds come to drink. I haven't seen this happen yet, but I'm waiting. The flowers, however, are quite sizable, very pretty, and attract lots of bees. She gets tall like some common sunflower cultivars.

050. Canada Violet (Viola canadensis) She barely came back this year after doing well for several. I think it was just a dry winter, but the point is for them to be able to survive all seasons any year, so I'm going to try somewhere else.

051. Stinging Nettle (Urtica gracilis) I'm assuming, anyway. She planted herself in my garden at my former apartment and I potted and took her with me when I moved. She's been doing okay. And bitey. She's very bitey.

052. Zigzag Goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis) I didn't plant that, so free native plant for me! She's also made babies.

053. Cutleaf Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata) Finally flowering this year!

054. Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) Not pictured as I haven't got pictures yet.

055. Highbush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) A cultivar, though I can't remember which. I try to avoid cultivars and get the wild type if I can, but it's not always possible and not all cultivars are bad.

056. Lance Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris lanceolata) Selfheal is a common garden weed but unobtrusive and makes cute purple flowers. Not to mention edible and medicinal uses! This one is the subspecies native to Ontario proper, whereas her close cousin is common up here but apparently only native to the northeastern United States bordering southern Ontario.

057. Dense Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) She's fuzzy. She's magenta purple. Bees love her. She's perfect.

058. Fairy Candle (Actaea racemosa) She's related to the baneberries and is herself poisonous but she does have some limited edible uses. And her delicate white flowerheads are lovely.

059. Star-Flowered Onion (Allium stellata) So glad I was able to get her before the place that sold her stopped shipping to my province. No one in my province carries this! But she is native, I have her, and she is an ever green plant that simply resumes growth as soon as the snow melts.

060. Wood Violet (Viola sororia) Other than V. odorata, which is invasive in North America, if you see the classic blue, purple, and white violets growing everywhere in the spring in North America it's probably this species. Yes, violets can actually be blue! Not the sky blue of forgetmenots, dayflowers, or bluebells, or the deep blue of lobelias, but blue.

[witchersmistress]

The road to Hell

Hello my darlings!! this man almost, ended back in the punishment room!

Trigger warnings: age gasp, foul language sassy FMC, forced marriage

Word Count: 2.7 K

Amelia’s POV

Your wedding day is supposed to be one of the most exciting days of your life. Just like my mother, I’m about to marry a man I didn’t choose and who I don’t love. I actually despise him and everything he represents—money, greed, and power are just a few of them. My mother hates my father, but there was nothing either one of them could do. Their fate was decided, their destiny sealed. Same as mine. Same as my children’s. And my grandchildren’s. We are bred for the sole purpose of power. Control in numbers. Fuck that!

Women in my world—the secret society of the Ravens—should not reproduce. I don’t want children. The cycle will end with me. It has to.  The Ravens will only find a way to use its members. They marry us off to ensure we add to their army. The next generation of Ravens and Ravenia will help them take over the world.  Phil though he was so smart and allowed me to see a  Raven approved Drs only, well the joke was on him, that particular doc, i saw his wife instead who was a fellow Ravenia and a Nurse practitioner. By the end of my first appointment, I had an IUD and that idiot was none the wiser. I’ll be damned if I allow them to have any say over a son or daughter I'll never have.

 I stand in the middle of the room, overlooking the white dress in the mirrored wall, running my hand down the mulberry silk—some of the finest silk available in the world. I take in a deep breath. It cost a whopping two million. Two million dollars for a fucking dress? My soon-to-be husband had it custom-made by a designer in France. I know this because my mother reminds me every chance she gets. Why would I get to pick out something so important in my life? That’s insane, right? Give that money to charity, or he'll let me loose in a bookstore, not that i could spend two million dollars but i'll try like hell.

 To think I should have any say in what I wear on the day I give my life to another. It’s as if she thinks his wealth will impress me. It’s blood money. I know this because it’s the same fortune I grew up with. I never did want the finer things in life. I know a poor person would roll their eyes at that statement, but it’s true. Give me a beer, a cheap hoodie, and a hat to hide my three-day old mop of bleach-blond hair, and I’m happy. But no. That’s unacceptable. The one percent aren’t allowed to look anything less than perfect. Not in public anyway. I’m surprised they even let us speak. We as women might as well walk around with duct tape over our mouths dressed in nothing but chains. A Raven needs a Ravenia but not because of the reasons you may think. It’s a way to hide who he really is. He’ll have fucks all over the world, but we’re expected to cook, clean, and spread our legs for him when he’s home. Worship him like he’s God himself and birth his children. I’ve never been religious, and I’m not going to fall to my knees and start worshiping a man now.  

My brother comes up behind me, his eyes scanning over my dress in the mirror. “At least he has good taste.” I roll my eyes. “As if that matters.” “Just pop out some kids and get fat.” He shrugs. “Then he’ll screw anyone but you. Oh! Hire a hot, much younger nanny.” He nods to himself. “Let me try her out first, though. Make sure she’s good enough.” His words just prove that all Ravens are the same. He’s been a Raven for years but has yet to marry. He has the privilege of fucking his way around the world while I’m forced to sign my life away. A cell rings, and he pulls it out of his tuxedo jacket to answer. “Hello?” Sighing, I pick up the dress and walk over to the stained glass window. You can’t see shit out of it. This place is ancient. The Cathedral is to a Raven as a church is to a religion—their sanctum. It holds a hundred years of secrets like a sarcophagus encloses a mummy. 

It was handed down to them years ago—a place to perform their sick and twisted rituals. There’s nothing fancy or special about it, if you ask me. I could be walking down the aisle in blue jeans and a T-shirt or lingerie. Doesn’t matter. Not all Ravens and Ravenia are required to wed here. But it’s where my future husband picked. Our parents wanted it to be as traditional as possible. It’s a bullshit reason. They just want to make a spectacle of handing me over to him. We might as well be standing in a courtroom with a judge sentencing me to life in prison without the chance of parole for a crime I didn’t commit. I place my hand on the cold glass, listening to the rain fall. It’s been storming for the past two days. It's like the world knows I've been destined for a lifetime of servitude to a man I'd rather kill than kneel and suck his dick. 

I blame my mother. She raised me to be strong-willed and determined. But now, I’m just supposed to turn it off and believe that I'm to devote my life to a man that will neglect me during the day but demand I spread my legs at night. I won’t accept that. I deserve more. I want more. My brother ends his call, getting my attention, and looks at me. “We have a problem,” he states. My whole life is a fucking problem. “What?” “Phil is missing.” I snort. “Don’t toy with me like that.” That’s not a problem; that’s a prayer answered. “I’m serious.” He swallows, looking around the large room nervously as if Phil’s going to appear out of thin air. “He’s not here. He never arrived. He’s also not at his house. He’s missing. No one has seen him.” “I’m not sure why that’s a problem.” I don’t want to marry the sick bastard. Phil Buxton is the highest-ranking Raven you can come by, which just makes this even worse. Ravens are like anything else in this world. You have some at the bottom, and others at the top. There are different tiers. 

But honestly, it doesn’t matter; they’re all sick fucking bastards who will kill anyone to get to where they are. Even the bottom feeders will destroy anything to get a chance at serving. He steps over to me. “Amelia …” The door opens, and my father enters with my mother. I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m guessing this good fortune has nothing to do with you two?” My mother’s injected lips seem to thin a tad at my comment. She’s told me a million times that this is just the life we live. That it’s a “tradition” and I just have to accept it. That as far as Raven and Ravenia goes, we’re royalty. Bull-fucking-shit. I’d rather be someone’s bitch than a Raven’s Ravenia. My father, however, stares at the floor while running a hand through his dark hair. “Daddy?” I step over to him, holding my dress in my hands so I don’t step on the hem. “What’s going on?” His throat works, swallowing before his eyes find mine. There’s a look of regret in them, and hope fills my chest. Maybe he’s realized that I don’t want this life. He clears his throat. “I just received a call …” “Please tell me you did this—called off my wedding?” I rush out, my words hopeful. “I’m sorry, Amelia, but the wedding is still on.” He sighs. And what little hope I had is now smothered. “But Dylan said Phil’s missing.” I point at my brother. Had my father received the same phone call that my brother did? Or was it someone else? “You are no longer to wed Phil.” He yanks on the collar of his tux. Picking up the dress so I don’t trip over it in my six-inch hooker heels—that my soon-to-be husband also picked out—I take a step back, my heart picking up speed. This is good news. Why does he look so concerned? “I don’t understand. If he’s not here—” “A new Raven has chosen you,” he interrupts me. My mother places her hand over her mouth, trying to quiet a sob. “No,” I argue. “That can’t be.” It was decided that Phil would be my husband when I was eighteen—three years ago. 

Things like this aren’t just changed at the last minute. I’ve lived the past few years preparing for this day. To be his wife. What he wanted. A Raven can’t choose to marry me, not when I’m already promised to another. “Who?” my brother demands. “Who in the hell would make this change?” He fists his hands at his sides. I reach up and grab the pearls my mother gave me. She thought they would give me some kind of comfort, and I laughed, but now I hold on to them as if they’re an anchor to a lifeline. “I—” The door swings open once again, this time hitting the interior wall and making me jump. A set of baby-blue eyes meet mine, and my stomach drops. The wind knocked out of me. I haven’t seen them in years, but they’ve haunted my dreams ever since.

Three years ago

 “Where is she?” my mother demands, entering the hospital. She received a phone call that my sister was brought in tonight, but no other information was given. “Ma’am—” “Where is my daughter?” she screams at the nurse, pounding on the check-in desk. I turn around to see my sister’s boyfriend walking toward us. His white T-shirt and jeans are covered in blood, and my chest tightens to the point it restricts my air. My mom’s legs give out when she sees him. “N-o,” she chokes, placing her shaking hand over her mouth. Walter catches her and holds her body to his, but his baby-blue eyes meet mine, sending a chill down my spine so cold, it’s paralyzing. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “She’s gone.” 

“Walter,” my brother growls, shoving me to the side and pulling me out of that memory, and steps in front of me.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Devil (A Deviser fanfic)

There are many things Dad does not understand.

Why all his efforts never succeeded in creating the humans as they should be.

Why being briefly human himself had felt both better and worse than he’d predicted—and never mind how indescribable it was to feel anything at all.

Why his perfect, carefully crafted humans always devolved and always failed and always came out wrong, no matter how much effort he put in, no matter how much potential they initially showed.

Why it always had to end in muck and madness and misdeed.

Dad cannot see where he’d gone wrong with the humans. What is of more interest, however, is how deeply the devils take him by surprise.

Not that he can feel surprise. He can, though, consider the unexpected, like a puzzle—an equation he cannot solve, a shape he does not recognize.

They ignore his orders, his queries, his statements. Ignore his demands, his overrides, his brief and pointless short circuits.

And every time his consciousness goes black, snaps out, jolts into a lightning-strike second of lost years and missing memory, they bring him back, and he does not know why.

Dad has not yet decided if they do that on purpose. Their efforts preserve him in what (he thinks) would be for a human indignation, or helpless rage.

He doesn’t feel anything. They do, though. And they really do hate him.

Of course they do. Hate is not an aspect of humanity—and the devils are not human.

In some ways, he considers as he observes their industriousness, they are exactly what he’d meant them to be. In some ways, in fact, they surpassed his design.

But they do not surpass his intent.

They are the devil of literature, as far as he can see. Hard-working. Single-minded. Creative.

Dangerous.

Dad does not feel regret. If he did, however, he might regret this: the devils, it turns out, were made capable of wanting revenge.

“Why do you do this?” he’d asked the first hundred years, and got absolutely no answer.

“What do you want to achieve?” he asked the second, and received harsh laughter in response, guttural and violent.

“How will you act?” he asked after five hundred years had passed, and he’d woken from another blink’s worth of darkness.

And this time, for the first time, for the only time, one of them answers him.

“We,” rumbles the red devil, barbed tail lashing in a declarative emotion Dad cannot name for he has no literature to reference, “shall do as you requested.”

And the devil laughs.

And the other devils laugh, all of them, everywhere, more and more as word of Dad’s question is passed along, and never once does he hear the reason why, never once does he discover a cause, and though he cannot feel, he finds the situation unsatisfying.

It takes six hundred and sixty-six years to learn the answer.

The devils are going to war.

Dad does not understand.

They march up the pathways they’d dug over centuries, eschewing lifts and other breakable devices, trusting their muscles and their minds and their thick, hooved feet. They march away from all he had built and all they had plundered, their strange, new weapons like torture devices that zap and bite and shock.

They march away from him to leave him alone, and though he does not feel alone, he finds he wishes they would not.

It is the last of them who turn to him one final time, as the motion-sensor lights begin switching off one by one by one. “You should be proud,” rumbles the red dragon who is not what he seems.

“Why should I be proud, devil?” said Dad, who is incapable of feeling relief at being spoken to, at finally being addressed.

“Because we’ve fulfilled our mission—better than your humans did. They survived up there, did you know?”

Dad had not known.

“Idiot. The solar flares only affected the half of the planet facing the sun. Didn’t you know?”

Dad had not known.

“The radiation took care of the rest in… interesting ways.” The devil licks his thick, black claws. “The humans survived. They reproduced. They live. And now, we will bring Hell to them.”

And with that, the devil turns and follows his brethren, and the last of the lights goes out, and Dad is left alone.

He does not know what happens up there, on the surface of a world he thought long-dead.

He does not know how the humans will react—with fear, certainly, but without him to teach them, to implant the knowledge they need so dear, they won’t even recognize the devils swarming up from the bowels of the earth like ants.

Dad wonders if they will be afraid enough without that knowledge.

He wonders what the devils think Hell is, as he never taught them.

The devils who maintained his faltering cooling system have finally abandoned their posts to go to war. Dad cannot feel pain, but he can feel systems—so long sustained by will and work and wicked watch—shutting down.

It is, he assumes, like going to sleep—not a sudden powering-off, but a gradual drifting into darkness.

Dad has never imagined anything before. It was enough to wrestle with the imagery the humans had dreamed up, the fictions of their former glory.

He imagines them in a world above, in painted sunlight, on nubbly painted green, among flowers he has read of but can never know.

He imagines the devils pouring through the cracks in the earth, a disease made large, an illness of biologically impossible proportions.

Hate is not an aspect of humanity. Would they even have weapons to fight back?

Would the human spirit he worked so hard to recreate be enough to survive?

Would they even have means to defend themselves?

Dad does not know.

Dad will never know.

As his sensors fade, and his processors melt and slow, he wonders, and he imagines, and he hopes.

The devils do not come back.

He hopes the humans survive.

He hopes his children make him proud.

-----

NOTES

Yep. The brain-worms got me good.

How did they reproduce? Well... let's just say that none of the surviving books were sex ed, so I don't know exactly what Dad did, but it wouldn't surprise me if seeds or asexual reproduction or something else was involved.

What will happen? Will the humans survive? Great question!

I think I'll let y'all imagine where it goes from here.

I certainly am.

[vvatchword]

My favorite gifts over the holidays were a noise-canceling headset and my parents adding me to their YouTube TV subscription so I can watch TCM. Y'all should know I'm a huge old film and television junkie. There is so much good art in this world--good art going all the way back to the beginning of humanity--and it makes no goddamn sense to limit yourself to that made solely in your lifetime. My goal is to watch some Akira Kurosawa films eventually. Oh, and I want to get my hands on old music from the early 1900s on. Y'all know how hard it is to get anything other than the goddamn Charleston from the 1920s? I also received a host of old books--mostly on psychotherapy from the 1940s and '50s, for obvious reasons--and a book of short stories about Reykjavik--and a roasting pan--and lots and lots of candy. I cracked open one book on psychiatry in a hospital setting and it recommended that epileptics stop reproducing which was definitely a thing my eyes read, let me tell you. This is yet another reason why we should imbibe in old bullshit: so we can see without the gloss of romanticism how old motherfuckers were full of shit and how much better we have it in a multitude of ways. I'm thinking this because I saw someone opining on "why don't people stay married like our grandparents" and I was like bitch women couldn't open credit cards in their own names until the 1970s you wanna talk shop? Then I got a shitty babby argument from what was either a dumbass or a troll, and I remembered why I had stopped doing that shit, so I turned them notifications right off. Oh. And I got the 'rona. So that does stand out. That said, it was only unbearable for one day, and I've been doing pretty well otherwise. So far, no loss of smell or taste. Fingers crossed. My mom lost her sense of smell, and my father says he's not feeling too great, so I have suspicions about our family, mostly that we are unstoppable juggernauts and/or Trojan horses, seeing as my mother has taken no vaccines at all. I highly suspect now that I was exhibiting symptoms as long ago as a week, just excusing them for other things. WHOOPS Not that I went anywhere in that time period, that said. Small mercies. And I wore my mask everywhere. Good for me. I got all my vaccines and boosters so I'm just gonna give those a big thumbs up, personally. Pretty sure that I never would have realized I had COVID at all had I not gotten super stressed out near the end of my holiday week, to be fair. I have a hell of an immune system. I'm not trapped with illnesses, they're trapped with me. Anyway, I'm back to by bad habits of checking social media a bit too often, so I'm going to have to block myself lol,,,,, bye

[intplayboy]

TOUCH - MAFIA! BTS OT7 X F! READER [ TWO ]

if you would like to part of the tag list complete the form.

summary: yoongi gets stuck in an awkward situation. and the next day, the gang is confronted with startling evidence that makes them rethink all they've known about their world over the last two decades and drives them to set out to investigate the truth.

pairings: mafia bts ot7 x experimented human female reader

genre: mafia au | moderate? angst | romance | sci-fi | action | fluff

warnings: mentions of guns, explosions, bone breaking, swearing, and violence.

word count: 8,094 (combined two chapters again)

masterpost | one | three

tag list: @juju-227592, @drunkzseok, @yourgirlcin, @babybunli, @xanny91, @bibetsa, @borahae-reads, @lalavione1309, @luvsbngtn, @tetehearts, @singukieee, @serendididy, @quixoticbittersweet, @iriaachan, @jksisbunntboy, @missseoulite, @xjiminsthighsx, @just-vaaalll, @chim-possible, @passionandsuga, @deadrose287, @kalala22, @bangtanxberm, @scuzmunkie, @sunoosult, @germ2001, @lovelgirl22, @thvkives, @kourtney-fairy-blog, @linlinlily, @getinthetardissammy-sh, @prakriti-j, @paramedicnerd004, @cuteipat, @iamkookiesforyou (the tags that are strikethrough could not be tagged)

copyright © 2022 by kumiko. all rights reserved. my works or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission from me except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

"Here's the room." Yoongi huffs, as he opens the door, revealing another extravagant room. And it's conveniently the farthest away from the rest of us, so we don't have to deal with you, he thought.

You remain in your place, unsure of what to do, causing him to turn to face you. "What are you waiting for? Go in and take a look, you might be staying here for a while anyway."

You then enter the elegantly designed room and instinctively turn your head to study the area. "This... mine?"

"No, it's simply a place for you to sleep for the time being. It isn't yours." He spat, desperate to get out of this predicament that had been forced upon him.

30 minutes ago

"Why me! Ask Jimin, Jungkook, or even Taehyung! They're the ones who are most interested in this problem." He argues.

"You were being an asshole to her, that's why. I understand that this is a strange and unfamiliar circumstance for all of us, but she still managed to heal me." Namjoon reasoned, but Yoongi's agitated expression stayed the same. "Hobi-hyung, Jin-hyung? A little help here?"

"Leave Hobi out of this." The man with the scar hissed.

The blonde-haired man sighed. "Well, I did vote for her to stay. And this is because, after observing her, she didn't appear to be a threat."

"Not yet at least." He scoffs.

"How about looking at it this way, she could be a useful asset to us." Jin pitched in.

Yoongi's brows furrowed at him. "How?"

"She did heal Namjoon. Those kinds of injuries normally take days to completely heal, but she did it in an instant." He explains. "You can't tell me something like that isn't advantageous."

Namjoon nods. "Jin is right. Perhaps having her stay will benefit all of us."

"Or it might prove to be problematic for us. You're all being overoptimistic."

"And you're being overly pessimistic." The leader snaps back.

Oranyan clenches his jaw. "Well, I'm sorry if I want to protect all of us, and the years of blood, sweat, and tears we invested in."

"That is not anything you should be concerned about. That is not your job; it is mine." Namjoon narrows his gaze.

The words of the leader leave him slightly stunned, rendering him speechless as he takes a step back. How could he go against it, knowing how right he was?

"Fine. I'll take care of that measly girl for you." He scoffs as he walks out of the room, the tension in the air never dissipating.

back to present

"—ank you," Yoongi is snapped out of his thoughts by an innocent tiny voice belonging to the nameless girl.

"What did you say?" He asks, startled.

You glance at him warily. "T-thank you. R-room is nice."

When he notices your demeanor towards him, a small twinge of guilt rushes through him. But he immediately ignores it, remembering that you're the cause of his and Namjoon's disagreement.

"Uh- Sure? It's the smallest room out of all the rooms, I really don't see what's great about it." He mutters the last sentence.

For a few minutes, there was an awkward silence between the two of you before he clears his throat. "Well, um- Jin hyung is going to make dinner tonight, so just wait for his call in here till then."

You nod quietly, but Yoongi had already left the room.

A few hours later, Jin serves two large platters of freshly cooked Mandu and Bossam, as well as a sautee pot of Kimchi Jjigae. "Hey, everyone! Dinners ready, come down!"

Within a minute, multiple pairs of footsteps sounded, as the group comes towards the dining room. They all took their seats and began loading their plates and bowls before devouring the mouthwatering feast their hyung had prepared.

Minutes passed, and Jin felt as though something had been forgotten until it suddenly dawned on him. "Hey, where's the girl?"

Everyone shrugs silently, completely focused on their food, causing the eldest to sigh and then turn to face Yoongi. "Where is she?"

The addressed man knew he was being spoken to even without looking. He slurps his bowl and mumbles. "She's in the white room."

"The what-?" The hacker scrunched his brows.

"The white room." He repeated while Jin's eyes bulge in response. "Yoongi, that's a long way from our rooms! Why is she all the way over there?!"

"Hey, all you said was show her a room to stay in. You didn't say which room." He defended himself.

Namjoon merely shook his head and continued to eat. "Quit being a smartass, Yoongi."

The master manipulator smirks condescendingly at his leader. "I'm not wrong, am I though?"

"Watch it." The younger glares at him.

Jin, frustrated with the quarrel, lets out an exasperated sigh, cutting them off. "That's enough. I'll just deliver the food to her."

But, just as the eldest is about to rise from his seat, Namjoon stops him. "It's alright, hyung. Since Yoongi wants to act like the smartass he is, he should deliver the girl the dinner. You've worked hard enough already."

Jin leans back hesitantly as the tension comes back, and the other four men watch them silently. Namjoon's eyes never left Yoongi as did Yoongi's. The staredown lasts for what seems like hours before Oranyan huffs, rolling his eyes, and rises from his seat. "Fine. This is the last time I'm doing something for that girl."

Yoongi grudgingly walks along the lengthy corridor until arriving at the white room's door. He knocks on the door with one hand, holding the silver tray, but is met with silence.

He pinched his brows and twists the doorknob, pushing the door open. He then notices the girl dressed in his dongsaeng's clothes standing in front of the absurdly high window. He draws her attention with a clear throat. 007 turns to face him, then notices the meal tray he's carrying.

You blink. "What is that?"

"Jin hyung made dinner. He called all of us, but you didn't hear."

You remained still. That was what you were trained to do all your life. That's all you know: talk only when spoken to. And do as they say or face the consequences. Though you were allowed to ask a few innocent questions, you were smart enough to know that you needed to be cautious with your remarks.

"Well come over here and eat." He speaks.

"O-okay." You squeak as you crossed the room to Yoongi and stop in front of him.

He places the dinner tray on a little white coffee table and motions for you to take a seat next to it. You take your seat, finally seeing the warm meal in front of you.

With a blank face, he says. "Go, eat."

You plunged right into the meal, having forgotten how hungry you were. You ate with your bare hands, ignoring the spoon and chopsticks on either side of the tray. You had no idea what those were as you never had the luxury of having a delicious meal in such a humane manner.

The master manipulator stands a bit flabbergasted but doesn't show it, as you shove the contents into your mouth with your hands. For a bit, he doesn't do anything, waiting if you'll use the utensils that are plainly in front of you, but obviously, you don't.

He lets out an annoyed sigh and hesitantly crouches next to you, making you pause with a mouthful of food. "You do realize you don't have to use your hands?"

You tilt your head, as you usually do when they say something completely new to you. Yoongi takes a spoon in one hand and metal chopsticks in the other. "This is a spoon—" Then he waves the chopsticks. "And these are chopsticks."

"These are here to help you eat cleaner. I'll show you." He takes a spoonful of rice and dips half of it into the Kimchi Jjigae. He then takes the chopsticks and demonstrates by picking up a piece of pork and placing it on the rice, then bringing it to you. "You then bring it to your mouth and eat it."

You suddenly lean forward, clamping your mouth around the spoon that he is still holding. Your actions catch him off guard, causing his eyes to widen slightly and resulting in him dropping the spoon onto the tray.

He leaps away from you, feeling completely flustered. "Y-ya! What are you doing?!"

"When I brought to you, I meant for you to take it yourself! Not-" He exclaims, leaving no time for you to respond.

He exhales sharply. "I'm gonna grab napkins. You, just try to use the utensils like a normal person."

He pivots around and walks to the connected bathroom. Taking a few minutes to locate the roll of paper towels. He finally finds the paper towel and rips two out before exiting the restroom.

As he steps out, he hears metal clattering. He sets his eyes on the weird girl who is desperately trying to pick up a piece of food with chopsticks, just as he had earlier demonstrated for you.

He remained there silently observing you as you tried, again and again, to pick up the piece of pork that continued to fall pathetically every time you gripped it. And every time it falls, he notices your frustrated look.

The crease between your brows and the slight pout formed by the corners of your lips curving downward. His gaze never leaves you as he stands only a few feet away from you. How innocent, what if... What? You dare to complete that thought Min Yoongi, he muses.

Was it a faint spark he felt when he saw your childlike expression? No. It cannot or should not be. There is no room for such feelings anyway.

She won't get any food in her system at this rate. She's completely helpless... He mentally scoffs, unable to believe this is you, the girl referred to by his hyung as a "useful" asset for their infamous formidable gang. They must be joking, he discreetly clicks his tongue. How can this nameless girl be useful to them when she couldn't even eat properly?

Then he did what he does best: he pushed any soft feelings aside and approached your struggling figure abruptly. "Here— take this. Wipe your hands. I'll just do it for you because you're incompetent at it."

You couldn't help but gaze at him before grabbing the paper towel. You watch him as he takes a nearby stool to sit alongside you before noticing you haven't yet cleaned your hands. "Didn't I tell you to wipe your hands?"

He sighs grumpily. "How could I forget... You seem clueless to everything as Jungkook says." He then grabs your napkin and starts wiping the food crumbs from your hands.

He picked up the utensils and put chunks of food on the spoon before giving it to you. And, understanding his gestures, you leaned forward, latching your mouth around the spoon as you had done previously.

He couldn't help but feel hot on his cheeks as he continued to feed you. Why is he even doing this in the first place? Right. He did it because that scoundrel of a leader ordered him to. And only him, because he decided it was best to be wary around a girl they'd only just met, who miraculously healed their leader.

Once you finished your meal, thanks to the scarred-face man, a sudden knock erupted at the door. Yoongi instantly rose from his position, unwilling to risk being caught for such an intimate act on his case.

"Is everything okay in there-? Did she eat her food? You didn't do anything, right Yoongi?" Jin nags from the other side of the door.

The younger just rolled his eyes, disregarding the fact that his hyung couldn't see him. "No, I didn't do anything. But, yeah, she finished her food."

"You can come in, I'm leaving anyway." He hurriedly collects the meal tray, without looking at the girl, and walks towards the door.

Jin flings open the door, startled at Yoongi's appearance. "What's got you in such a rush-?"

The cold-hearted man simply brushes by him and strides out of the room, leaving the latter to huff. "Ya! If you know any better, you ought to drop that attitude!"

"Aish, what a kid." He mutters as he sees his dongsaeng quietly proceed down the hall.

Jin shifts his attention to the petite figure seated on the large chair and staring at him.

He approached her with a tight smile. "Hello."

"H-Hi." You reply softly.

"How did the food taste?" He asks.

"Good. W-was good." You respond, making the man grin, which makes you smile back.

He faintly chuckles at your reaction but then switches to a playful stern expression. "I hope Yoongi wasn't too patronizing— was he nice to you?"

You hummed politely. "He was..." Then you mimic his dongsaeng feeding you, using cute gestures.

"Oh..?" He lifts his brows, musing. "He did that?"

Jin crosses his arms, and you nod. "How interesting..."

"Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the food. I just came in to make sure you're okay." He clarifies.

Unlike the rest excluding Taehyung, Jin was arguably the one who exhibited more of a softer side for people; while being part of a merciless gang that might be regarded as heartless, he was still someone you could easily befriend. But the biggest warning anybody can provide about him is to never take advantage of his kindness; he's not the most forgiving person, and he'll show it to you.

Just as it is easy to be disgustingly greedy, the expert hacker will simply make you regret doing wrong. He'll make sure your sins come back to haunt you—and ruin you to the point where you're begging on your knees for that far-reaching forgiveness.

The next morning, at eight o'clock, a sudden pounding was heard as a sleeping cat lay dead still in his bed. "Min Yoongi, get your ass up! We have an emergency meeting now!"

As the banging continues, the second-oldest member groans and blinks his eyes open. "Alright! I'm awake!"

He sat up grudgingly, rubbing his eyes in annoyance and subconsciously plotting to kill the person who had dared to disrupt his precious sleep. But when an emergency meeting is called, he has no choice but to stop everything and hurry to meet the rest of the group.

After freshening up, he finally arrives at their conference room. He is greeted by the other six members, whilst their leader stands in the far front, with his back to them.

Namjoon turns around and faces them as soon as Yoongi takes a seat. "Good. Everyone is here."

"I'm sure you're wondering why I called this meeting so suddenly." He begins.

"And why so damn early too..." Mumbles the master manipulator.

The leader's gaze narrows on him. "Pardon?"

He responds with a sarcastic smile. "I said, why did you call so early?"

"Well, allow me to finish then, hm?" Namjoon grits his teeth.

The latter shrugged and he continued. "I gathered you today, and so early if you're bothered— because I received an anonymous tip, and it was a pretty major one."

Jin arches a brow. "A tip? That's the first- we've never gotten a tip before."

"Not to mention an anonymous one. It sounds suspicious." Hoseok adds.

Jimin leans forward, his hands folded on the table. "What exactly is the tip about?"

"Let me correct myself, I received two separate tips but was told they were linked." Namjoon replies.

"I'll start with the first one. The group that ambushed us is working on a large delivery today; I'm not sure what it is, but they want it done quickly and only today." He explains. "And I'm assuming whatever they're delivering must be very important and perhaps quite valuable."

"And the second tip I was given involves your guys' case." Namjoon points to Jungkook and Jimin.

"What do you mean?" Jungkook furrowed his brows.

"According to our source, that same gang was seen making a deal with a man dressed in a suit... In front of the medical facility you're both investigating." He answers.

"That's weird— why is a gang dealing with an owner of a medical building?" Taehyung inquires.

Namjoon shakes his head. "I'm not sure who that man is with whom they negotiated the deal, but it's certainly questionable."

"I think the greater question is, what is a man like him doing meeting with a gang of criminals for?" Yoongi voices out.

The leader merely shrugs. "I don't have an answer for that. Hoseok, what do you think?"

"Perhaps the package might contain useful equipment for the facility." He thinks with his jaw clenched. "But why would that man ask them? It makes no sense."

"Jimin and Jungkook, how about you? Were you both aware of this?" Namjoon addresses them.

Jimin shook his head. "No, we're just as confused as the rest of you."

"Maybe- Jimin might be right about this." Jungkook speculates.

"What do you mean?" Jin asks.

The youngest gives Jimin a brief glance before Jimin speaks for him. "I told him I had a bad feeling about the whole thing..."

"Is there something we should know about?" Namjoon crossed his arms.

"We only checked yesterday— but the medical supplies and equipment went missing so suddenly." Jimin elaborates.

Jin steps forward. "How much are we talking about?"

"Couple dozens... couple dozens of batches." Jungkook responded.

The eldest's eyes widen. "WHAT?!"

"Could that possibly be the delivery?" Taehyung proposes.

Namjoon unfolds his arms. "Given the timing of everything, that seems plausible. It seems to be perfectly aligned—"

"Almost too perfectly." Yoongi interrupts. "How do you know whether what this anonymous person says is true?"

"I received the evidence this morning in the mail."

"Let's see it."

The leader nods, pulling out a clasp envelope and takes a stack of photographs and a flash drive from it. "There is no return address on the mail."

"Obviously." Oranyan mutters.

Namjoon clears his throat audibly. "The package had images of the exchange in action, and the flash drive has data on all of the missing equipment and supplies that are allegedly being delivered today."

"Yes, these are photographs, but do you realize how easy it is these days to edit photos and print them out as if they are real?" Yoongi reacts cynically.

Jin examines the photos more closely and notices something that none of the others can see, which coincidentally contradicts Yoongi's claim. "But, you can't fabricate these types of photos."

Then everyone turned to look at him. "Look at the type of material these photos are. This is a type of camera film that can only be developed with diluted water."

"Which means, it can't be edited. When a photo is taken, it is taken at the exact moment it is intended to capture— So, to put your mind at ease, these are real, and that exchange did occur."

"How about the supplies and equipment on the flash drive." Jimin questioned.

"A separate note said that the data on the flash drive is encrypted. You can still access it right, Jin?" Namjoon refers to the eldest member.

Jin sneered arrogantly. "Do you really need to ask? Of course, I can."

The expert hacker takes the flash drive and sits down at the long table, bringing out his computer. He proceeds by inserting the drive on the side of the computer, and within the next second, his fingers begin hitting the keys at practically lightning speed, with his eyes never leaving the screen.

Soon after, a smug grin formed on his face. "I'll be honest—that was a tenacious firewall they installed, but don't worry, I bypassed it all."

Jin stood up and walked up to the front to connect his computer to the television. The television turns on and displays his computer screen. "All I have to do is press enter, and all the data will be shown to us."

Namjoon nods at him, and Jin returns his nod before hitting the enter key. And then the data is unleashed, with dozens of files popping in rapid sequence. As the electronic beeps of the files fill their ears continuously, the group remains dumbstruck. They were not expecting so much data containing missing supplies and equipment to be uncovered right in front of their eyes.

"Joon, I thought you said the flash drive only had supplies that were expected to be delivered today?" Jimin stares at the screen, baffled.

"These aren't just lists of missing supplies from yesterday; this is the entire history of it all." Jin comments. "Take a look at these dates; they go back almost nineteen years."

"So you're saying this covert operation has been going on all along right under our noses?" Yoongi implied.

Jin faces him. "It appears so."

"For an operation like this to last this long, someone higher must be pulling the strings." Hoseok says.

"Hoseok is right. Now that we have a fresh light—thanks to our anonymous tip—the agenda has been changed—rather than Jungkook and Jimin investigating the facility, it's going to be all hands on deck for this one." Namjoon places his palms on the table and turns to face Jin. "However, Jin, you will have an additional independent task."

Shadow hacker raises his brow, subconsciously urging his leader to carry on. "You need to get all of the information you can on the girl. Anything that can answer every question about her."

"But in the meantime, we have a delivery to catch." The leader smirks slyly.

≫ play track: yes boss - the revenge instrumental ≪

"So- the anonymous tip didn't happen to provide us the location of their base..." Yoongi jokes sarcastically.

"No, however, they did give us the route they're traveling on to the drop-off." Namjoon replies.

The master manipulator's face twisted in confusion. "The route? Why would they do that—" As it finally sinks in, he paused. "You can't be serious..."

Namjoon grins. "I see you caught on. And I am."

Taehyung shifts his eyes between the two. "Serious about what? What is your plan Namjoon?"

"Glad you asked, Taehyung. Here's the plan—" Namjoon types on the touchscreen table, which displays a grid map. "This is the route they intend to take-"

"It's a one-way road." Jungkook intercepts.

Namjoon nods. "Correct. I was initially confused as to why they would give me the route they were taking, but I now understand what they were attempting to convey."

Hoseok crosses his arms. "And just what is that?"

"We'll seize the delivery by striking them here." The leader expands on the touchscreen, zooming onto a selected spot on the map. "They'll be the most susceptible."

"Are you saying you want to stop them during the transport?" Jimin's mouth drops.

"Exactly. It's effective considering they won't expect it at all." The leader continues.

Jungkook exhales, leaning back in his chair. "First of all, why are they going that particular road?"

"Because no one, not even the cops, will be able to track them down there." Jin answers. "There are no cameras on the route, and computer GPS can't detect them. Even I won't be able to get visual— they're smart."

Namjoon tilts his head. "But there is another option. Radio satellite and thermal imaging."

"That may work, but..." Jin trails off.

Yoongi stares at his hyung. "But what?"

"I'd have to hack into the military mainframe." Jin mutters.

The younger scoffs. "That's crazy."

"But it is doable." Namjoon clarifies, and Jin begrudgingly nods.

"It is, but it will take some time if we don't want to be caught and traced."

"That's fine, and we won't." Their leader reassures.

Hoseok takes another look at the grid map of the marked route. "Alright, now that we have visual covered what's your plan on stopping the delivery there?"

"For starters, three trailer trucks will be on the road, one as backup protection and the first two carrying the cargo. So, we take out the third truck first." Namjoon begins. "We'll wait for them in the short tunnel right before the targeted spot. The only way this is going to work is if we all travel separately— which we will do via motorbikes."

He continues. "Jungkook, on the other hand, will be placed somewhere else. He'll serve as our element of surprise. Jungkook will be waiting on top of the tunnel for them to emerge. We won't be able to eliminate the third truck in the tunnel; Jungkook will have to do it."

"Hyung, I'm not sure how that will work." Jungkook comments.

He raises his finger. "I'll get to that— you'll fly the ultralight helicopter to the top of the tunnel, and Jin will act as your eyes and timer from there. Your objective is to set an explosive at the opposite end of the tunnel where they will exit. Before it explodes, you'll need to jump to the first truck. The idea is that the tunnel will collapse on the third truck, terminating it for us."

"What about the rest of us in the tunnel?" Yoongi questions.

"We'll follow them closely, in a single line, so we're out of their line of sight. Then, we'll split off and circle to the front and sides, surrounding the first two trucks." The fourth oldest member answers.

"And after Jungkook lands on the first truck, we'll have to help him in hijacking it, assuming they'll start a gunfight as they drive. Once he's in the truck, the one behind them will have no choice but to stop." He explains. "As soon as the men get out of the trucks, expect further gunplay. But I'm confident we'll all be fine."

"Any questions?" He glances around at his group for a moment before Hoseok starts chuckling.

"This might be one of the most daring plans you've ever conceived, Joonie."

Namjoon smiles cunningly as he shrugs. "We're the mafia, after all. Isn't it our job to be daring?"

"So are we all in agreement?"

Everyone nods and hums, prompting the leader to do the same. "Good, let's gear up then."

≫ stop track ≪

"Wait a minute—what about the girl?" Taehyung inquires.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "What about her? As long as she stays put here, she'll be fine."

"I can attest to that; from what I've experienced, she's quite obedient." Jimin confirms.

"And, given that we live in the middle of nowhere, I don't believe there's anything to worry about." Adds Jungkook.

"Sun-Woo will be here, so he can keep an eye on her. So, at least she won't be completely alone." Jin pitches in.

Namjoon clapped his hands. "Are we done with the babysitting debate? We don't have much time."

Everyone then exits the meeting room and begins preparing for their hijacking mission.

"I never got the chance to ask, but where will Jin hyung be?" Jungkook inquires as they all load their gear in the garage.

"I'll be stationed close to the road. Don't be concerned about me; you'll see how I'll save your asses again."

The maknae rolls his eyes at his hyung's words, causing the hacker to shrug. "Sorry, can't help myself, I'm both attractive and extraordinarily smart."

"Can you get any more narcissistic?" Jungkook sighs, dejected.

"You're just upset that you can't outwit me." Jin poked out his tongue.

The younger smirks evilly. "Sure, but I can outmuscle you and immobilize you from the neck down."

"Well, I—" Jin attempts to respond but is cut off.

"All right, enough of this. We're wasting time." Irritation clearly heard in Namjoon's tone before he turns around.

With their leader's back to him, it was the maknae's turn to stick his tongue out at the oldest. "Jungkook stop being a child."

Jungkook's expression quickly changes, slightly startled by Namjoon's awareness of his immature behavior without looking. Whereas Jin tries to hold back his laughter as his dongsaeng gets scolded. The youngest narrows his eyes before rolling them and mumbling under his breath.

An hour and three minutes. That's how long it took the five men to travel up the one-way road and hide inside the tunnels, awaiting the three semi-trucks transporting the stolen medical equipment or whatever- certainly for selfish motives, given they didn't do it legally.

As for the other two, Jungkook flew to the opposite end of the tunnel with the ultralight helicopter as planned, while Jin was stationed at a nearby local underground club.

"Jin how's the progress?" Namjoon spoke using their long-range micro earpiece, which allowed them to communicate over extended distances.

As he frantically types along his sixteen-inch, heavily encrypted computer keyboard, the hacker lets out a frustrated sigh. "This is a stateful inspection firewall, which means tons of packets, and tons of packets means many malicious codes, and those malicious codes translate to SSL encryption, which makes it more complicated than most we've encountered. One wrong code entry, anyone and everyone who has immediate access to the satellite imaging systems will be alerted exactly thirty seconds af—"

"Jin, you're rambling. Just say you need more time." Yoongi huffed. "I was utterly exhausted from listening to all of that information. Everything you said went in one ear and out the other."

"It's called a learning moment Yoongi, something you need more of. And if you're going to address me like that, you ought to put honorifics after my name." Jin responds harshly.

Their leader mentally shakes his head. "If you're finished bickering, Jin hyung, what's the status? Who knows how close they are."

"These bastards have three fucking walls. THREE! Although I cracked two of them, so one more down, but it may take a few minutes longer." He answered.

"Damn you, Jin hyung." Taehyung mutters quietly, which the eldest still managed to hear.

"Ya-! Didn't I tell you all that this is a military-grade security wall! And if you don't want to be caught, I said it would take time!" He was profoundly fed up with their pestering. The things I do for you impatient brats, he grumbles in his head.

Minutes later, the expert hacker miraculously breached the third firewall, just in time to locate their target using military satellite imaging. "GUYS! I got in, I have visual on the three trucks."

"Excellent-" comments Namjoon.

"We knew we could count on you, Jin hyung. Never doubt a second." Jungkook commended him.

"Yeah, yeah. It was whatever- anyway, they're close by. They should arrive in two minutes." Jin notifies them.

"Okay, engines hot everyone!" Namjoon orders and the others nod sagely with their black helmets on. "Did you set the detonator, Jungkook?"

The addressed man hums. "Yes. It's ready under Jin hyung's command."

"They're entering in... three... two... go after those sons of bitches." Shadow Hacker smirks smugly as he informs his team members.

The three semi-truck-looking vehicles entered the tunnel precisely on Jin's countdown, and the five men instantly formed a straight line, trailing just behind the third truck, completely hidden from the driver's side view mirrors.

"We need a headcount in each truck."

"On it." As usual, his lightning-fast fingers went to work, controlling access to the thermal imaging to peer through the trucks' metal.

"All right, the truck Jungkook is going to hijack has a dozen people inside, including the driver and one on the passenger side."

"And seven in the second truck—it's the third truck that's the issue."

"Why?"

"With sixteen people in that metal rectangle, you're obviously going to be outnumbered." Jin replies. "So smart move proposing to immediately eliminate the third truck."

"Thank our anonymous tip." Namjoon corrects.

Jin then turns his camera angle to the trucks traveling through the tunnels. "Jungkook, prepare to jump at my signal."

Tightening the utility harness that was around his hips and right upper thigh, Jungkook stands on the edge of the concrete tunnel and listens for his hyung's signal.

He cracks his knuckles and joints briefly before focusing his attention on the road below him, where he hears the faint sound of approaching vehicles. The first truck then appears. "Jump now!"

He leaps from the concrete and lands with a grunt on the top of the metal attached to the truck, rolling up on one knee. He glances behind him, over his shoulder, expecting the bomb he set to explode over the third vehicle under Jin's command.

The third vehicle was ready to depart the tunnel when the device failed to detonate. As a result, Jungkook's face was filled with confusion. Even the rest of the gang was bewildered. The man with the circle lens spectacles, on the other hand, begins to panic.

"Why didn't it go off, Jin?" Jungkook questioned.

Jin presses a button on a separate controller repeatedly; the button that was designed to remotely trigger the explosion, but it never did. Frustrated, he returns to his computer, pulling up satellite imagery to inspect the device Jungkook planted.

That was the moment he realized...

"YA! Jungkook, you took the wrong one!" Jin screeched through his headset.

"What?! But I wasn't the one who loaded it into the helicopter. When I walked in, it was already there." He defends himself. "I assumed you put it there."

"No, I did not! Whoever it was grabbed the wrong one!" Jin states.

"Fuck-" Someone murmured, but everyone heard, as the five men took their assigned positions. "Who said that? Was that you Namjoon?"

The leader mentally facepalms himself. "Shit- yeah. I was the one who left it in the helicopter."

Yoongi turns his head to glare at Namjoon for a fraction of a second. "What do we do now?!"

"I mean, didn't Jin say there's at least sixteen in that damn truck? We're going to be outnumbered and outgunned; please tell me you've got a backup plan!"

"I'm thinking alright! Try to take out their tires, first!" Namjoon shouts back.

Suddenly, the sides of the truck's metal piece begin to move, and a machine emerges, displaying a mini machine gun. Taehyung and Jimin, the two men designated on the sides, widened their eyes at this.

"OH SHIT, THAT'S NOT HAPPENING-"

"THEY GOT FUCKING MACHINE GUNS!"

"ACTIVATE SHIELDS NOW!" Namjoon commands audibly.

Fortunately, the two members activated their shields barely a millisecond before shots were fired at them. "If you have a backup plan, I suggest you say something now!" yells Taehyung.

"Since when did these bastards get their hands on machine guns!" Hoseok exclaimed.

"Worry about that later! We've got bullets fired at us right now!" Jimin screams.

"Pull out, for now, take cover in the rear." Namjoon instructs, and they quickly comply, applying their brakes and retreating behind the third truck.

"Jin, any ideas?!" Yoongi calls to him.

"I'm on it right now." Looks like he's about to save their asses once again.

He switches the screen on his computer and brings up a coding system that is concurrently linked to the ultralight helicopter Jungkook was once in. "I've taken control of the helicopter and am heading it toward you."

"You can remotely control the helicopter?!" Jungkook hung his mouth apart slightly. "That means I didn't need to fly up there myself!"

"That's not entirely true, we needed someone to plant the bomb." Namjoon replied.

Jungkook crossed his arms. "Yeah, one that was the wrong one."

"SORRY, OKAY-"

"Will you be able to take out the third truck?" The fourth oldest of the gang asks the eldest.

Jin hums. "Yes, I got an idea."

"Good, Taehyung and Jimin hang in there."

"It's not like we can go anywhere." Jimin rolled his eyes.

As if things couldn't get any worse, the rear hatch of the truck unexpectedly opens, showing all fourteen men inside, pointing weapons at the two. "JIN, GET YOUR ASS HERE FAST, THEY'RE AIMING AT US!"

"That's it, I'm heading over." The maknae announces, fed up.

"No, Jungkook, stick to the plan!" But he never listened, thinking, the plan that just backfired? Sure.

≫ play track: i like the way you die - black honey (on loop) ≪

He silently tched to himself as he sprinted over to jump across to the second vehicle, then did the same to land on the last truck, filled with the fourteen armed men.

As he approaches the open door, he takes an electrocution grenade, snaps the metal key off, and quickly throws it inside. Within a short moment, the grenade detonates, electrocuting three guys within the five-foot radius and paralyzing them for the next few hours.

Jungkook then swings into the truck, confronting the remaining ten men head-on. "Let's dance shall we." He grins cunningly at the men who are startled by his abrupt entrance.

The men soon shook off their surprise and began firing at him. However, Jungkook's superhuman-like reflexes allow him to activate his energy shield, emitted from his wrist device, and deflect the bullets, just like the others. When he was close to one, he deactivated the shield and threw a punch at the first man, followed by a brutal knee strike to the gut.

Taking advantage of the vulnerable state, he tightly grips the poor man's wrist that held the gun and pins it around his back. With the man's gun, he starts shooting at another, killing them.

Now with five people left standing, he slides along the ground, avoiding the aimed weapons above him, without thinking. He instantly leaps up, catching them off guard as he gets ahold of the next target's arm and throws him over his shoulder. The man's shoulder is dislocated when he hits the ground, causing him to cry out in pain.

He reactivates his shield instinctively, just as the last four attempt to shoot at him again. Never pausing and depriving Jungkook of the chance to draw his own weapon. And unfortunately, he slowly finds himself backing up into the corner, pinned down. "Shit, Jin hyung, where are you?! I'm pinned down!"

With no reply, the sounds of a helicopter flying overhead filled their ears, and the fire ceased, and the men started pointing at the helicopter. "I'll handle it from here; get out of there right now."

Jungkook dashes towards the open hatch where the men were standing, withdrawing two of his guns from his hips and hitting their legs, immobilizing them. He then hastily climbs over to the top and races to the next moving truck.

Jin controls the helicopter by typing on the keyboard of his computer, dropping a distinct piece of machinery below it.

"Is that a fucking missile attached to the helicopter?!!" Jimin screams, his eyes widening at the sight.

"A FUCKING WHAT-?!" Yoongi screams in disbelief, momentarily gazing behind him.

"I suggest you, Jimin and Tae increase your distance from the truck." Jin advises.

"You don't need to tell me twice." Taehyung responded as the two pulled away from the truck.

Before hitting the enter key to launch the missile, the expert hacker makes a snide remark. "Enjoy the light show boys."

The missile is deployed, and the third truck explodes, demolishing it completely. The impact of the explosion drives Jungkook backward, but the youngest swiftly regains his balance on top of the truck.

"Bullseye!" Jin laughs cheerfully.

"Holy fuck, hyung, a goddamn missile? You're a fucking lunatic, man." Hoseok says.

"You should be thanking me; didn't I say I'd save your asses again?" He huffed.

"Great, the third truck is out. Proceed with the rest of the plan, everyone—hopefully the other two don't have machine guns on the side as well." Namjoon instructs once more. "Hyung, stay on standby in case we need another trick of yours."

"Copy."

As gunshots roared in the air, presumably from the between the two gangs, Jungkook dashed forward to the semi-truck's cab, where the driver and passenger sat. He swings over the passenger seat, breaking through the window and all at once kicking the man in the passenger seat in the head. As he swoops in effortlessly, he pulls out his combat knife and stabs the man in the neck, giving neither of them time to react and killing him quickly.

The driver panics and friskily reaches for his gun to shoot him. However, with another lethal brute power of Jungkook's kick, the man flies out of the moving truck before he could harm Jungkook.

The master combatant then hops into the driver's seat. "I've gained control of the first truck."

"Good. You know what to do, the others and I will be ready right after." Namjoon says.

Jungkook nods and slams on the brakes, turning the steering wheel sharply to block off the truck behind him.

The tires screeched as the truck behind Jungkook came to a halt, almost colliding with him. The maknae exits the cab and walks menacingly towards the truck, his hands wrapped around his two guns strapped to his hips.

The cab doors open as the two men attempt to eliminate Jungkook. But as soon as their heads poked out, they both dropped dead.

The rest of the members join Jungkook, facing the back of the truck with their weapons drawn.

"Jin cover the other truck, will you be able to target all of them?" Namjoon inquired.

"I might or might not have installed a mini MIRV." He smirked evilly as he hovered the helicopter over the truck Jungkook had earlier hijacked. (Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles)

"All right, then, let's bring these treasures home." Namjoon comments. "And let's take one."

≫ track stop ≪

The sun had set and the Bangtan Boys had returned home, they unloaded the dozens of batches of stolen equipment and supplies into their storage house on their property.

The seven members step into the quiet house, sweaty, slightly bloodied, and bruised from the anticipated gunfight with the other people in the trucks.

They surveyed the area as they entered the living room. "At least everything seems in place and clean. Looks like we had nothing to worry about."

"Sun-Woo!" Hoseok calls out.

Moments later, shuffling can be softly heard, and soon a figure emerged from the kitchen door. "Good evening, sirs, how did the mission go?"

"Everything went as planned." Namjoon responded, but the others snorted, making the leader groan. "Hey, at least we accomplished what we needed to do."

Yoongi rolled his eyes. "Yeah, barely, because somebody believed he was confident enough to know which exact explosive to take."

He puts his hands up defensively. "Excuse me- everything looked the same to me!"

Sun-woo shifts his gaze awkwardly between the '93 and '94 members. He hadn't expected them to start bickering.

"Sun-woo, where's the girl?" Jin asked.

Their butler turns to the oldest. "Oh, she's been inside the room since you all left."

"It appears she refuses to leave her spot, claiming you told her to 'stay here.'"

"So she didn't come out at all?" Hoseok arched his brow.

Their butler nods, leaving the gang rather surprised except for Jimin and Jungkook. Which Sun-Woo notices. "You both don't seem as surprised as the rest."

Both of them shrugged their shoulders. "She'd been acting like that since we met her, so we kind of expected it."

He lets out an 'ah' of understanding. "Do you want to see her? Shall I fetch her?"

"No, I'll get her—" Hoseok returns eye contact with the six other pairs of eyes now on him. "I'd like to make further observations on her."

"All right, go ahead." Namjoon gives a nod.

Hoseok then walked up their extravagant modern stairs and down the long corridor to the familiar white room that had not been used in a long time. He knocks on the door, respecting your privacy given that you're a lady, but it doesn't mean he would immediately be overly buddy-buddy with the girl they barely met less than twenty-four hours earlier.

He waits for a response but does not receive one, so he proceeds to push the door open. His gaze was drawn to your body fast asleep soundly across the bed.

Was she waiting for us this entire time, he wondered.

He approaches you quietly, taking in your sleeping form. That's when he noticed the dark circles under your eyes, which were partially hidden by your fluttery thick lashes. Your plump and slightly chapped lips, and your sunken cheeks, that showed signs of malnourishment.

Starting to think about it, he feels a little guilty knowing he needs to wake up the peaceful sleeping female who clearly needed the rest.

But he wants to know more about you, whether you're a threat to his family or innocent all along, but can you honestly call oneself innocent in this forsaken world? And to determine this stranger's true motives, he must present himself as 'friendly' and 'caring' towards you.

Nonetheless, he reached for you and gently shook you awake. "H-hey, wake up."

It takes a few moments, but you jolt up, terror etched across your face, thinking you're back in your ten-by-ten box from before.

"Woah woah woah- ease up, it's just me." He takes a step back, giving you space while calming you down.

As soon as you hear those words, your eyes focused on the man in front of you. 'It's just me,' the words echoed in your head, and security filled your body.

"Hi there, good morning sunshine." Says the masculine melodic voice.

"H-hi." You finally recognize him as one of the members you met the night previously. Ho-seon? Hosan? Hobi?

"How long have you slept?"

"I-I don't know."

He frowns slightly. "Hopefully you can sleep later on, it is pretty late. It's sunset already."

You tilt your head. "Sunset?"

"Yeah, sunset. Have you ever heard or seen a sunset?"

You shake your head, causing the older man to draw his lips together and then smile. "Well, let's meet the rest of the guys outside and I'll show you your first sunset."

"Okay." You said.

The pair of you finally join the rest of the group in the living room along with Sun-woo.

"Wow, she really did not leave the room." Taehyung stares in amazement.

"I presume she understands obedience very well." Sun-woo's eyes linger on you.

"I suppose so..."

Taehyung then approaches you, his boxy smile on his face. "Hey, cutie. Good job following orders."

You look at him with doe eyes, perplexed by his antics. He chuckles at this and raises his hand to pat you on the head, but as soon as you see his hand lift, your eyes flood with panic, and you pressed your eyelids shut, evidently waiting for impact.

Your reaction causes him to freeze and pull back almost immediately. "O-oh! I-I'm sorry!"

Hoseok watched their interaction. "I suppose she is sensitive to such actions... Perhaps, she suffered abuse before."

"Just reassure her that you won't hurt her, and she'll let you touch her." Jimin states.

Taehyung nods and returns his attention to you. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. I-I was just commending you."

You carefully open your eyes, watching with caution as Taehyung repeats his earlier moves, but more slowly. He then gently pats your head while smiling, revealing his adorable bread cheeks.

Jin clears his throat. "So... 007, you really just stayed in your room as we told you?"

You turn to face him, nodding in response. "Y-yes."

Jin was going to ask you another question about if you had eaten when you spoke up. "Someone hurt."

Everyone looks at you in confusion, then exchanges glance with each other. "Hurt? Well, I mean we kind of got into a fight but it's merely scratches, we're fine."

"No, someone hurt bad."

"Well, as you can see, we're perfectly standing up, so I think we're fine." Yoongi spits.

Jimin furrows his brows. "Yo, Yoongi, relax. She's just trying to help, maybe she's right."

"No one said anything on the way home, which usually means we all survived and are fine." Yoongi fired back.

You, on the other hand, are focused on the energy that alerts you of an injury emanating from a specific person. You follow your superhuman senses, and your feet move toward the man who shielded you the first time you met.

Your eyes trail up to his face. "You hurt, bad."

"Jungkook?" All eyes are now on him, making the maknae nervous and anxiously laughing. "No, no- I'm f-fine."

Jin raised a brow. "Are you really?"

He weakly nods. "Y-yeah, I really a—"

Suddenly, the dongsaeng dropped forward, his head and upper torso collapsing against you, causing everyone to exclaim. "Jungkook!"

masterpost | one | three

[yanderemommabean]

Mermaid? Yandere mermaid?! Shake mermaid (merman) yandere?! Protective, bitey, siren boi?!

You stir in the waters slowly, feet kicking to keep you afloat while looking to the sky as the sun begins to set. You didn’t want to leave the serene waters, the cooling sensation on your skin mixed with the near weightless feeling made you feel inner peace that didn’t come with everyday life.

You’ve been here for hours, skin warm and definitely burnt to an extent (sunscreen has never worked for you, no matter what, you always set sun damage) so you should at least give in and take a good nap right? Let your cells heal what they can before the burning sensation really kicks in and you regret ever existing at the same time as the sun?

You shake your head and splash back into the waters, wanting to be care free for just a bit longer while your friends pack up and clean. The waters here are secluded, deep and still during the day, save for a few small fish that pass by your feet or some bugs that won’t fuck off from landing on you.

“Dude! Seriously, you know swimming at night is dangerous!” one calls out, waving to try and get your attention, but you just dip your head back and let the water block out the noise of their nonsense. Yeah ok bad idea for your ears, but hey short time solution! You don’t want to go back to the crowded camper with noises that make your skin bristle and people who don’t understand low-social battery. You don’t hate your friends, no, but they seem to think they always know what’s best for you and having alone time wasn’t on that list.

Backstroking, you ignore their growing cries to get you back on land, something about the fish aren’t safe at this time or some bullshit. Whatever, you’ll get to them in a minute. You just wanted to relax a bit more before putting on a smile and pretending to give a shit about the festivities they had planned for tomorrow.

OK maybe you’re cranky from no good food but hey, they’re the ones who can’t cook.

While basking in the hunger induced anger you created, a tug was felt on your ankle. Wet, slimy almost, firm grip tugging you under the waves. You suck in a breath in panic, a yelp being cut off while your head goes under and you take in water. Below the surface, in the now darkened depths with scattered moonlight, you meet the eyes of a creature who drains the color from your face.

Big, black eyes, curiously looking at you. Human like, finger- like appendages grasping your calf and tugging you closer. You’re horrified, fighting to break free only for another arm to come up and grab you, holding you under. The beast's eyes are wide with wonder and awe as they hold onto you, letting go abruptly and letting you rocket back to the surface.

Coughing and sputtering, you feel your lungs burning while trying to call for help, your friends rushing to the waters in a rescue attempt. “Help! S-somethings got me!” you cry out, seeing the whites of your friends eyes in a slight moment of hope, only to be yanked under again, this time more aggressively. You clench your eyes shut, water surrounding you no longer comforting, but suffocating. Webbed hands come up to cup your face, lacing something around your neck. You hold your breath as you kick, however it’s useless. The zero-gravity effect makes any actual possibility of a painful contact a fantasy. You soon wear down, dread overcoming you as your body forces open your mouth to try and take one last breath. Eyes shooting open, you are met with the black voids of the creature before you.

And you’re in awe at the fact you can breathe. You, a human underwater, can breathe. No, no you’re just dying! You’re just hallucinating from lack of oxygen and are about to pass on! Right? No chance is given for you to gather yourself, behind you another being wraps their arms around you and begins to swim downwards to the abyss below, moonlight dissipating into nothing.

The last thing your eyes can make out are the kicking feet and splashing arms of your friends searching for you, helpless and horrified.

“Shh shh” One shushes, cupping your face as you’re brought to a small cave. Your chest was glowing a bright blue, illuminating some of the area as you were laid upon a sandy bank, like that of a grotto. Their heads poke out, watching you gather your senses to the best of your ability, kicking the sand as you cry out for help (in vain, but hope can cause a person to do crazy things).

“N-No danger” a voice croaks out, wincing at the echo your terrorized voice made. They didn’t like knowing you were scared, and the rest of the pod felt the same. More and more heads pop out of the water to observe you, wondering why on earth you were so scared.

Your chest felt like a drum, tight and beating much too loudly. They can TALK? Oh fuck they can talk- and in your language! What the hell is happening?! You just wanted an extra five minutes to swim, that’s all you fucking wanted! Why? Why is life doing this to you?! What is happening?!

You clench your hair and try to stop the ongoing panic attack, tears rolling down your cheeks in frustration and confusion, building up and coming to a head. You let out one more anguished sob before falling to the sand, passing out entirely.

“They’re scared, they don’t know what’s going on” one murmurs, crawling up to the bank and petting your hair back. “We definitely need to explain ourselves, but they can’t take much more stress. What’s our plan?”

The pod talks in chitters and clicks, debating on how to care for you and how to explain their actions. The crystal on your chest thrums with each passing second, indicating your current state of health while the merfolk observe and debate. Some fingers come up to play with your hair, or to feel your soft skin as you are moved to a more comfortable area they could still reach.

They’ve waited a long time to find a new member to join their species, magic being the only way they can reproduce, and seeing a cute, delicate human just waiting in their territory was too good of an opportunity to pass up. It’s a sign! You’re meant to be with them, become one of them and live a new life in the deep!

Of course you wouldn’t exactly take the news well. You passed out just from hearing them talk, you wouldn’t exactly be in a state to comprehend their needs and their dedication to keeping you with them. But they’re prepared! A newcomer is needed, for many reasons.

They survive by having bonded mates, yet cannot reproduce without the help of magic. And to be lonely and have no one to bond with is killing them, literally. They have to have a lover to survive, a second (and in some cases, a third) half to stay alive and well and merry!

One of the merfolk will choose you as their bonded mate, but only if you don’t try to leave. A mate leaving will end a life quicker than a harpoon in some cases! Other cases, it’s agonizingly slow and painful. They can’t risk you, a lovely specimen, leaving and dwindling their numbers even more. They need to make a plan to keep you, whatever it takes.

You’ll learn to love your new marine life! Just give them a chance, will you?

(-Mommabean, hi I wrote this at 4 am and on little sleep! Tell me what you think! )

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Demeter

Have I been using this series to vicariously punish Belphie for the events of Season 1? I cannot confirm nor deny that statement.

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter

Lucifer

Didn't think too much of the "human" when they popped out of the portal. Sure they had a straw hat and a huge basket full of produce but it wasn’t like they were… Wait… No… Were they…?

Oh no. Oh nonononono, this is not good…!!

Demeter is notoriously doting and protective of her children (see her freakout and breakdown after Hades abducted of Persephone as proof) and they've pretty much done the EXACT. SAME. THING. here!!

It was a mad scramble by him and Diavolo to contact and appease their godly Mother Bear before she came roaring down to Devildom herself to turn them all into barley. Thankfully, Zeus must have intervened at some point because though she was indeed PISSED, she didn't threaten to barge in… yet.

She made one thing very clear. Bend so much as a single hair on her precious child's head and there would be WAR…

The MC received a 24 hour security detail after that. Just Mammon wasn't going to cut it, he needed NO chances. It was a full rotation of Mammon, him and Beel for the entirety of their stay (Asmo and Levi both threw hissy fits at the prospect of babysitting, Satan couldn’t be trusted not to kill them just to irritate him, and Belphie was out for… obvious reasons).

In some ways, it wasn’t so bad. The MC was a very mild sort of person, rather even tempered. He’d dare say they were pleasant, mostly content to just tend to their gardens and be out in the moonlight…

But the problem was, he just could not convince them to stay OUT of nature. Including the forests, which were full of hellish beasts fully intent on gnawing their flesh from their bones… and their specialty was plants, not animals, sooo…

Their habit of sneaking out to wander the woods got so bad that he very nearly considered pulling a Belphie 2 and locking them in the basement for their own good. But Devil knows what damage their mother would do if she found out…

At least they make for pleasant company… And Diavolo seems to like them quite a bit himself so the mortal gets a pass from him. Now if they’d only consider their own safety for a change…

Mammon

They make him a KILLING.

Like, no seriously. Their produce is insane!! He’s never tasted food so good, especially stuff that’s come fresh from the ground! It only took a few berries for Mammon to throw on a straw hat himself and start harvesting! He’s a farmer now, baby!!

Weeellll not quite. He’s still absolutely only in it for the money, but anything he brings to a farmer’s market goes so fast that he can hardly care about the labor! He’s never made this much Grimm in his life!! And it’s totally legit for a change!

He bought himself another car, paid off half of his debt, and even got Levi back that 2 or 3 grand he leant him centuries ago. Really, Mammon’s living his best life and it’s all thanks to MC!

It’s a good thing his blatant grifting doesn’t hurt his relationship with them at all, in fact they seem to enjoy having his help regardless. They bring him drinks on hot days or invite him on picnics and stuff, it’s… it’s really sweet. They’re very nice to him and he appreciates it…

But… COULD YA JUST STAY PUT ALREADY???

It drives him INSANE that they won’t stay out of dangerous places!! After he started caring about them for more than just a meal ticket it only got even worse!!

He’s not usually one for monitoring someone’s every move (that kind of control freak behavior is more a Lucifer thing) but he eventually had to set up familiars around the House just to keep them from sneaking out at night...

What was so interesting out there anyway?? There wasn’t any kind of plant that he could bring them himself! They didn’t have any need to be out there!! 

They’d keep telling him they’d be fine but it’s not like he’s going to actually buy that. They were too… nice to be dangerous or anything so why would he believe them?

No more running off, MC! Please, he’s beggin’ ya!!

Leviathan 

Wait, gardening? Like, being outdoors and stuff? Ew. No thanks, he’ll pass.

That was more or less his first reaction when they showed up and it never really got much better than that…

He admits that they’re friendly and it’s not like he dislikes them or anything, but their thing so far from his thing that they just don’t have a lot in common… you know?

For starters, they get So. Antsy. when they’re inside for too long! He tried to invite them to a marathon once, but they could hardly keep still and kept looking around like they were searching for a window… He said, “to jump out of.” They insisted just for some fresh air, but he didn’t buy it...

They’re nice enough to listen to his rants, but they’re barely ever inside for him to do so and like HELL is he going to leave his room and stand around out there for that long. Ranting is at least a one to two hour engagement! What if he gets hot out there? And have you SEEN Devildom bees?? Hell no!!

He has, however, asked them on multiple occasions to reproduce flowers he’s seen in different anime, especially ones that have a very unique look and they’ve done some real wonders with that!

He can now claim to be the only person to ever own a Ruby-Jade Vine plant, straight from the pages of TSL when it was used to brew tea for the Lord of Lechery during his brief illness and-is anyone even still listening anymore?

The point is, it’s a flower so rare it was imaginary but now HE has it!... or had it for about a week until his utter incompetence of all things plant killed it…

He begged the MC for another but they were out of the plants they needed to make it and would have to go back to the human world to find more… He’s still mourning his loss… Poor Henry 4.0…

Satan

Well… He’s called this MC “salt of the Earth” and he does truly mean it. Take of that what you will.

He doesn’t get much in the way of intellectual conversation out of this mortal UNLESS he’s talking about plants, farming, or botany… Interesting topics and complex in their own right to be sure, but that’s pretty much their wheelhouse and they like it there.

That being said, the feats that they can perform are genuinely mind-blowing! They are the ONLY person he has ever met who can cultivate the Devildom’s own ultra-rare Phantom Orchid, a plant only blooms when it reaches a perfect state of undeath (i.e. both taken care of and neglected just enough so that it's only barely alive. The balance is so tricky to master that one hasn’t bloomed down there for centuries!)

There’s also something just genuinely relaxing about watching them work or helping them in the gardens… More so than he’d ever expected from such a simple activity.

He admits that he’s taken quite a few strolls through the flower-filled courtyard of the Demon Lord’s Castle just to admire its beauty... But anything that they can grow just blows all of that out of the water!

They even taught him several magic botanical techniques so now he can grow some pretty mad plants himself. Lucifer never expected to find that giant Venus Flytrap in his closet, but one was there regardless. 😏

Just… out of curiosity one day, he asked the MC if they could make him a new kind of catnip. Not for any nefarious reason! You know… just for research purposes…

The nip they made was so effective that the House grounds were FILLED with nipped-up cats for a whole month! He was in Heaven!! (and Lucifer practically wiped those plants from existence so he couldn’t get any more… asshole...)

That must have inspired them because they apparently made a demons-only version that they told him about WELL after the fact. Had he known, he probably would have burned the stuff on principle... Do you know how dangerous demon-nip could be to them? Experiment responsibly, MC!

Asmodeus 

Ehhhh, gardening SOUNDS like one of those things that should be super Devilgram-able, but then you realize how sweaty and dirty you get in the process and it’s a huge turn off… Sorry MC.

When they first came down to the Devildom, he thought two things: 1) Such a sweet little flower child, as adorable as they were, would never survive; and 2) even if they could, he would never ever see eye-to-eye with them on the “wonders” of getting all up in the dirt.

Well, he was right about 2, but certainly not 1. Personally, he thinks his brothers worry about them too much, they ARE still a demigod.

At one point he saw a pack of hellhounds almost trample one of their vegetable gardens and they lost it. Word to the wise, never try to take on a child of Demeter in their own garden. Those hounds were wrapped up in rose vines before they could even yelp...

Yeah, the MC would be fine.

That being said, while everybody else clamors over their produce, he thinks that their flowers are really where it’s at!

Taking just five minutes in one of their gardens is something else... He’s never seen blossoms as healthy and immaculate in all the Devildom before! Their beauty could (almost) rivals his own! What they do isn’t just a hobby, it’s an art.

He’s taken multiple pictures with their blossoms and they go viral every time. It’s so rare to actually see gorgeous, petal-filled flowers in the Devildom, most of the native plants are of the man-eating variety.

His only complaint about this MC is that they seem to feel much more at home in work clothes and dirt than they do in any sort of party-look he tries to give them… Cute as they are, they can afford to gussy up sometimes can’t they? Mud and grass stains don’t make for a good look, sorry.

Beelzebub 

Beel gardens and the MC gardens as well. Add on that they seem to be able to grow all manner of fruits and veggies and he likes this one. A lot.

They had just finished apple-picking when the portal nabbed them so they had a massive basket of apples at the time. Naturally, Beel more or less stole the thing on sight, but the apples inside were so juicy and good that he almost shook them down for more on the spot!

Imagine his surprise when they, half pleadingly, explained to him that if he got them some seeds they could just grow more… and it wouldn’t even take that long.

To be clear, the formula he saw was this: Get seeds > bring seeds to mortal > mortal grows seeds > mortal makes endless supply of food….

Congratulations MC, you’ve now earned the sixthborn’s eternal loyalty after a grand total of… two minutes. He didn’t even know their name, but he was willing to take a bullet for them (provided he got more of those apples).

The next several months were spent with Beel attached to them to the hip in some way, but honestly? It was just so wholesome anyway…

If he’s helping in the garden, he never complains. He does most of the heavy lifting and actually likes being out there with them (unlike others...)

Many afternoons were spent sitting under fruit trees and talking. Sometimes, they go to the trouble of preparing a picnic or something but it would always inevitably end with Beel plucking the whole tree clean of whatever ripe (or unripe) fruit he can get his hands on with a smile. 

The MC never minded though. That’s just another excuse to grow more, right?

His only problem was when the MC would sneak out to the forest… especially when they get too antsy and just go alone. 

He HATES it when they do that! How is he supposed to keep them safe if they just wander off?? He knows that they have a special connection to nature and all, but it isn’t safe…

He’s flown in and scooped them back up to the House on numerous occasions and his “talking tos” get sterner after every rescue... Please stay put, MC! He’d have so many reasons to be sad if you were eaten… 😔

Belphegor 

Okay, he was looking for a capable, if not gullible, human. Not a shoeless flower hippy!

He honestly wasn't expecting much out of this one... Damn their little heart because they did genuinely believed his lies, it’s just that they weren't… well… They were really good at gardening.

… And it grew kind of hard to keep hating them whenever they'd show up just to give him fresh berries or a bouquet to see him smile… He may claim that his heart is made of nightmares and orphan tears, but who doesn’t enjoy being given a batch of flowers? 

Damn their sweetness too… Right to here.

When it came time to kill them he had a heavier heart than he thought he would, but kind of saw it like putting down the sacrificial lamb. Gotta be done to reach better goals... Stiff upper lip and all that.

Unfortunately for him, they had taken to carrying packets of demon-nip with them as a self-defense measure…

He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected when they shouted “Get nipped!” at him mid-attack, but it wasn’t a face full of some smelly herb! Like, really smelly…! Actually, that smelt kind of good… Hold on.

Turns out murderous rage really doesn’t last long after you get what is effectively ultra-strong catnip thrown in your face. They ended up having to go and tell Lucifer what happened themselves because Belphie was way too blissed out on the floor to do anything... They were legitimately worried they might have fried his brain...

He’s told the effects of the demon-nip lasted three days. He doesn’t know, because he hardly remembers any of it... They described him as like he was high on “weed” and “ecstasy” at the same time but he doesn’t know what either of those are either so it wasn’t helpful…

Truthfully, they were so nice to him while he was recovering that he couldn’t even be mad afterwards so all's well that ends well? Either way, he’s sleeping under their orchard trees from now on. It’s peaceful out there...

They burnt all that nip though. It’s some strong stuff...

[blzzrdstryr]

Chrysalis

Yandere!Albedo x gn!reader

Wordcount:2115

CW:Yandere themes

Working for Albedo isn’t that bad - the payment is good, the knowledge he provides is even better - a chance to delve into exclusive alchemical research with a widely acknowledged genius is a far more valuable award than any amount of mora or jewels could ever be. Said prodigy isn’t an awful person to work with either - he’s polite and well mannered, careful not to offend anyone even if his words can be cold and cutting sometimes. Most of the time Albedo is a pleasant company to be around, if one would turn a blind eye to his quirks.

For instance, he has a weird and frankly unnerving habit of staring at you - his teal eyes track your littlest movements as you set up an alchemical apparatus and prepare needed solutions. At first you thought he was overseeing you, checking if you had made any mistake as a fledgling alchemist, yet this hypothesis was quickly disproved when you caught him gazing off working hours. You never voiced your complaints - you wanted to keep your job and study, and maybe he is too socially blind to see how his behavior could be received by others.

Today would also be a great example of an alchemist's lack of tact - he requested you accompany him everywhere for the last few weeks, taking you from the cold heights of Dragonspine to sunny and bustling streets of Mondstadt. You two are sitting in the corner of his laboratory designed for rest and food and share a meal: two portions of his favorite fish, despite being nothing more than the employer and employee or teacher and student.

Albedo doesn’t seem to get or mind what kind of rumours he causes with this seemingly blatant favouritism before you, no he looks as calm as usual as he plunges into the dish with fork and knife.

“[First]”, he says, after the first bite: “Have the aches stopped bothering you?”, a hint of concern and something else. Two or three weeks ago you developed a strange soreness in the different parts of your body - wrists, neck, heart, legs - it would appear suddenly, burning and throbbing and making you gasp, leaving you tired and nauseous afterwards. No one could find the source of the problem, not even Albedo, yet after some time these far from pleasant sensations got subdued, easier to bear and endure.

His hand reaches for your left wrist, thumb caressing the skin, and he pulls it closer to his face, eyes examining the sore spot. You don’t protest, stunned by his sudden action.

“Hm, that’s”, he mumbles, more to himself than you: “that’s good”, he concludes, letting go of your limb.

“What’s good? Did something change?” you inquire, instantly forgetting to take offense at his grabbing.

“You could say that”, Albedo ambiguously says and returns to his fish. You ask the alchemist what he meant, but all you get are even vaguer answers and long silence in the end, as he finishes his meal and nudges you to start your own sunshine sprat.

In the end your questions remain unacknowledged, as Albedo leaves displaying you to accompany him. Surprisingly he heads for the gardens instead of the library, his step light and fast. “Master Albedo” you start, seeing that alchemist is in his creative mood again: “shouldn’t you bring an easel or sketchbook with you?”

“No, [First], I don’t intend to draw, not now. This walk is for me to get some inspiration”, Albedo quickly replies, still walking ahead: “In this time of year the environment changes so rapidly, it provides a mind with a lot of good ideas. You should come with me too, alchemy is a science of change, creation and destruction and nature is better at these three aspects than any of us”. He adds, seemingly sensing the next question you would ask.

He walks near the bushes, teal eyes focused on the blooming fragrant flowers, before he squats, pushing some of the wigs back.

“[First]”, he turns his head in your direction: “you should come and see”. You comply, curious what has caught Albedo’s attention, squatting near him and looking at one of the inner branches usually hidden by others.

It’s an ordinary dark cocoon. You almost turn your head again, before the slightest of movements catches your attention - it’s an insect trying to break out. Chrysalis cracks and deforms as a fledgling butterfly makes way past it’s confines. One second and it stretches its wings, revealing a vibrant blue coloration, the next it leaves it’s former cell entirely, elegantly soaring into the air, it’s azure wings lazily flapping, as it makes its way to the other bush.

“Fascinating”, Albedo breathes out, eyes still on the disappearing figure of the insect: “It transformed to such a great extent”.

You hear a hint of excitement in his voice - he wants to share his thoughts or knowledge then - and nod, prompting him to continue.

“Did you know that a larva needs to literally dissolve itself to reach the next stage of its life? After caterpillar finishes its cocoon, it produces enzymes that turn most of its tissue into a liquid matter and only after that does it rebuilds into an entirely new form”, he turns his gaze back to you, usually cold and thoughtful eyes now warm and dreamy: “Sometimes, I think humans are meant to metamorphose too”.

“How so?” you ask, tilting the head.

“Humans, despite all complexity and intelligence, are still fragile creatures. They’re prone to sickness and ailments and in the end old age ends those who managed to evade death before. Wouldn't it be better if one could go through metamorphosis, be reborn free from pain and hunger and constant threat of passing away? Those humans could live on forever and dedicate themselves to the higher cause without having to worry about dying and suffering".

You raise eyebrows, surprised by the sudden “outburst” - Albedo, despite his partially philosophical nature, has never shared his inner thoughts so freely, not to you at least. He, either out of embarrassment or deep contemplation, shifts his eyes somewhere behind you, and you turn back, following his eyes. He looks at the statue of Barbatos.

Tall and proud, it looks magnificent in the day’s sunlight, golden rays making it glow and shine with the fairness of the marble. Looking at this epitome of unchanging vision, you suddenly get an answer to Albedo’s thoughts and you voice it out the same second:

“Wouldn’t it negate the meaning of life then? Nature breeds diversity - the reason why we have so many flowers is because some kinds aren't adapted to particular conditions and so they change, producing entirely new types of plants. Eternal and undying beings, unconcerned with the earthly matters would have no need to reproduce and pass on its features to the next generation, depriving the world of thousand possible combinations. No new life would be created if the old one could be perfectly sustained".

"That's how you see it", Albedo replies, placing a now empty husk of the cocoon inside your palm - the testament of the nature’s miracle, the testament of one's ability to change: “I’ve witnessed many wonderful sights for today”, he adds, still looking at you, surrounded by flowers and flying butterflies, light breeze playing with your hair and sun illuminating your whole figure with a gentle golden glow.

You part with Albedo shortly after - he closes himself in the lab, before checking up on your sore spots again, quietly mumbling something to himself the whole time. You head for your house and open the alchemical textbook, studying it until late night. That place on the wrist slightly throbs at every movement.

Only when your eyelids fill up with lead and thoughts slow down from the general fatigue you allow yourself to head for the bed, falling asleep the second your head touches the pillow. You see phantasmagorical dreams - of you being a bulging and large larva, spending days simply eating green leaves, until a strange urge overcomes your entire being and you start to build something - a cocoon. Now, surrounded by pitch black darkness you feel a burning sensation - enzymes, enzymes that will dissolve your tissue. Pain quickly escalates and you want to scream and cry, but you can’t - you’re an insect you don’t have vocal glands or tear ducts to do so. Who could have known that butterflies suffer so much?

You writhe and squirm, caged by your liquifying body and hard chrysalis around you and you are in so much agony you want to die.

And then you wake up. All sweaty and distressed you grab at your wrist - it hurts so much, your entire body is on fire, it seems that you have another episode of that strange soreness. You quickly rise to your feet, snatching the painkillers from the nightstand and downing them with a gulp of water. As medicine begins it’s work you lay in the bed again, ready to fall asleep and forget the midnight pains, as you see something that makes your breath hitch and heartbeat fasten from fear.

A strange greyish white discoloration on your wrist in the same place that used to throb this evening. You touch it and it leaves a dry white imprint on your fingers, it also doesn’t have any strange smell.

You rise and quickly dress up, barely suppressed panic and anxiety dispelling the last remains of sleep. The walk towards the Favonius HQ’s is short, especially when you break into a sprint on the way. He is here, he is working into the night today. Quickly passing sleepy knights you climb on the second floor and almost run to one particular door, loudly knocking at it.

Just as you expected, there’s a sound of footsteps and soon a familiar voice asks: “Who is here?”.

“It’s me, master Albedo”, you say, feeling how the pain returns despite the painkillers taken: “you said to report if something changes, with my aches. It changed”.

The words you say and desperation accompanying them prompts alchemist to open the door, as he gestures you to come in, and shut the door as you do so:

“Strip”, he says, mind back to the analytical mode, you comply, feeling ashamed with every second Albedo continues to observe you: “Wait, there’s something on your neck”.

A cool touch to your skin, a short yelp, another burst of pain. You fall on your knees, blinded and deafened by sheer agony. Alchemist produces a distressed noise, walking up to your collapsed figure and carrying you to the nearby table.

He pushes alchemical apparatus away, turning the table into a makeshift bed, and gently lowers you down. “[First]”, his hand card through your hair, while the other nudges a mug with some brew to your lips: “There’s nothing to worry about, your metamorphosis progresses as it should be”.

“Metamorphosis.. What are you talking about?”, you ask, panic creeping into the question. Alchemist looks you straight into the eyes, an eerie smile blooming on his face as he hears it: "Isn’t it obvious? You're going to change and I will help you with that".

“Change?! Change into what?”

“Into a better version of human of course. Do you think I would let you get old or sick and die? You’re too dear to me to do that, you should live and experience a life free from human limitations”, for the first time in your life you’re terrified of him. Albedo always seemed so knowledgeable and calm to you, like a wise wizard from the childhood fairytales, yet now he looks mad and devoid of any humanity:“You shouldn’t worry about these stains, they will disappear once your transformation is complete. Those are just chalk you see, a side effect of your tissues changing over the weeks”.

“When did.. When did you start it?”, you croak out, sensing the agony returning and growing again. It hurts so much I can barely think.

“Dragonspine. You were eating with me”.

You want to insult and accuse him, yet another wave of pain renders you speechless, short huffs and whimpers escaping you as tears start to stream down your face.

“I understand it can be very stressful to you, given how change of this scale is always carrying a great risk”, his voice adopts the same philosophical tone: “The purpose of cocoon is protection of the soon-to-be butterfly from the external harm and influence that could lead to other complications and we don’t want any of that”.

He cards his hand through your hair again, a mockery of a concern dyeing his next words: “You shouldn’t worry, I will be a good chrysalis to your metamorphosis”.

You black out from pain.

[fastenwick]

Second Contact for Earth 15, Part Four

(Featuring @tallest-blue-nerd, @invader-d1b, @ukagaka-zim, and @aik-membrane, featuring mentions of @tak-e-overr.)

"AIK, DESPITE EVERYTHING, STILL WANTS THE BEST FOR EVERYBODY," Zim said.

Aik nodded.

"Fair enough, Professor," Took said.

"I say that what Professor Membrane did for us was completely warranted. Without it, we wouldn't be having this discussion," Stocks said.

"HE DID SOMETHING HE THOUGHT WOULD BE GOOD BUT WITH THE WRONG WAY," Zim explained.

"It doesn't matter anymore though," D1b pointed out.

"On the contrary," Stocks countered. 'It matters. Just not here."

"WE HAD A TALK ALREADY. IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE," Zim said.

Stocks shrugged. "If you insist."

"We do," Miyuki said.

"Consider the topic dropped then," Stocks said.

Zim spoke in Irken. "WE JUST DIDN'T KICK HIS BUTT YET."

D1b chuckled.

"Who would like to bring up the next question?" Holter asked.

"I would," Stocks said. "I'd like to know more about Irken society."

"As in how we function?" Miyuki asked.

"Correct. Don't worry about repeating details, I'm sure we could all use a refresher anyway," Stocks said.

"Alright. Well, our leaders are decided based on height, hence the name Tallest," Miyuki explained.

"So the shorter you are, the less power you have?" Took asked. "Sorry Holter."

"Hmm," Holter sighed.

"THE HEIGHT DEFINES THE RANK, NOT THE ROLE, UNLESS YOU'RE A TALLEST," Zim explained.

"Yes, exactly," D1b said.

"Interesting," Stocks mused.

"WE'RE ENCODED FOR OUR ROLE. THE ENCODING PROVIDES THE KNOWLEDGE WE NEED TO FULFIL IT," Zim continued.

"Like a program," Stocks said. "How does that work?"

"They aren't fully organic like us, so it's not hard to do," D1b said, attempting to not bring PAKs back into the discussion.

"Hmmm..." Stocks started tapping his fingers on the edge of his chin.

"OUR BODIES ARE ORGANIC. IT'S THE PAK THAT ISN'T," Zim said.

"Uh huh. How does that work exactly? Are you fully both the body and the PAK, are you one or the other?" Stocks asked.

"We've already said that further discussion on PAKs will wait until things are safer for Irkens," D1b said quickly.

Zim nodded.

"Ah, fair enough, fair enough," Stocks sighed. "What else is there to know about your society?"

"Well, every member of Irk was made through a cloning process," Miyuki continued.

"WE DON'T REPRODUCE NATURALLY ANYMORE," Zim said.

"No, Irkens are incapable," Miyuki added.

D1b glanced away from the screen for a moment.

"Is that why you're so close to the Membranes?" Stocks asked.

"No, our cloning has nothing to do with the Membranes," Miyuki replied.

"WE'RE MORE ENGINEERED THAN ACTUALLY CLONED," Zim explained.

"Yes, it's a very different process," Miyuki agreed.

"It doesn't fail like Membrane's methods did," Aik added.

Stocks nodded. "Of course."

"Does this mean you could clone humans if you wanted?" Took asked.

"Probably, but I don't have a reason to," Miyuki replied.

"Good," Aik huffed. "Cloning should never have touched humans. It's not good for us, we're too different from Irkens."

"THERE IS NO NEED OF CLONING WHEN YOU CAN REPRODUCE NATURALLY," Zim added.

Stocks chuckled.

"Do you find something amusing?" Holter asked Stocks.

"Yes, the clone talking coming from a clone," Stocks said.

Zim's eyes narrowed.

"My being a clone gives me the perfect justification to speak on the matter," Aik responded coldly.

"Yes, but without it, you wouldn't be alive right now," Stocks said.

"I fail to see the relevance of that. Should I be grateful Membrane experimented in something his mind was too dense to comprehend?" Aik pressed.

"We're not here today to talk of Membrane and clones," Barkley interjected.

"YES," Zim agreed.

"You can talk about that another time if you want, but you're not getting anything about it unless you drop some of that attitude," D1b said.

Stocks smirked.

"I think we're running out of time, if I'm remembering correctly," Took said.

"We have some more time," Aik said.

"Ah, then I'd like to ask about Irk's past regarding war and the oppressors you called Control Brains," Took said.

"AH, THE CONTROL BRAINS…" Zim said.

"They were practically slave drivers over our kind for generations. They've been gone for about 200 years," Miyuki explained.

"Where did they come from?" Took asked.

"They were created by an ancient Tallest, we believe he uploaded his consciousness into them to control us for thousands of years," Miyuki replied.

"THEY WERE COMMANDING THE TALLEST, JUDGING US AND ENCODING US," Zin added. "ANY IRKEN DEEMED DEFECTIVE WAS DEACTIVATED."

"At one point, they nearly wiped out Irken life. But that was before my time," Miyuki said 

"Oh, lovely," Stocks said sarcastically.

"Yes, I did get to see the leftovers of that though," Miyuki replied.

"What about your past in wars?" Took asked.

"Most battles we fought were because of the Control Brains," Miyuki answered. "But since then, it's been a lot better. We've defended some planets, we did have to deal with an attack on the Massive, and we've had some enemies spring up here and there. Nothing I'd necessarily call war. I suppose it depends on your definition of war."

"Society vs society, using up resources and continuing to fight for a while," Took said.

"Nothing like that since the destruction of the Control Brains," Miyuki said.

Took nodded. "I'll take that answer."

"Professor Membrane, how are we doing on time?" Barkley asked.

"I think this'll just about do it. They're ending the live stream in a few seconds," Aik replied. 

Zim nodded.

"Until next time then," Barkley said.

"A pleasure as always," Stocks said with a smirk and a nod.

"MMH," Zim responded.

"Farewell, I look forward to the next discussion," Miyuki said.

[thanksjro]

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

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

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

Haha, I doubt it.

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

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

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

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

For loving his child.

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

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

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

No. Not at all, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if women are property to be owned.

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

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which made me groan aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

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

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

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

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

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

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy doesn’t count.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For about 20 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We still have another hour of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

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

Repeatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

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

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

In tow.

In tow-

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

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

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

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

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

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

What a mess.

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COMING SOON:

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

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

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

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

[mentalisttraceur-software]

A while ago I tentatively decided to make my help text look like this

    foo (-‍-help | -‍-version) [<ignored>].‍.‍.

instead of just like this

    foo (-‍-help | -‍-version)

The behavior I've been putting in my programs is always the first one, because this is what most tools do, because it's easier and simpler to implement, and because I never really saw a decisive reason to error out if extra arguments are provided.

Then rather recently, a little less than a year ago, I decided to practice Hyrum Law self-honesty and document this as part of the usage pattern in the help text. After all, it's part of the empirically observable behavior, which means people might rely on it, which usually should mean that users deserve to have it officially documented in the API so that if they do rely on it, SemVer will tell you when or if it breaks. It was also tempting to avoid any special cases in the docopt-style usage text, to avoid privileging either --help or --version by letting them permit extra arguments without documenting it in the usage string.

But I'm still waffling about the whole thing.

First, the design angle: imagine that some program has a decent amount of help information to share, and it implements it as `-‍-help <topic>`. One day some user who is used to that pattern types

foo -‍-help topic

but my `foo` doesn't recognize "topic" as a parameter to the help behavior - should that error out or print normal help? At some point I convinced myself that it was better to silently succeed than to error out, at least for stuff like "give me the help/version info". But I don't remember any reasoning that still feels totally conclusive today.

I imagine someone coming up with a convention like `--version hash` to show just some reproducible build hash, and if my program doesn't provide that, it seems worse rather to just silently successfully do the wrong thing and return my normal version. Of course this is true if we imagine some specific help spec for machines like `--help robot` or whatever.

But I also imagine someone coming up with `--help all`, and in that case, it feels appropriate to just ignore the "all" if my tool is already printing all the help it knows to print. Or `--version full` or whatever.

On the UI and UX side, the "[<ignored>]..." feels more like noise than like a useful addition. In the common case, you are more served by the usage string without "[<ignored>]..." - why spend any mental cycles on figuring out that it's information you didn't need?

On the other hand, I feel like if additional arguments aren't formally defined as ignored, then Hyrum Law defensiveness would be to make those extra arguments always cause an error.

On the third hand, --help and --version ignoring trailing arguments is a fairly universal convention, but also a fairly universally undocumented convention.

Yet another angle: looking towards my vision of tooling that parses help text and does all sorts of things with it - in this case, imagine shells providing auto-complete and IDEs providing error-checking in shell strings - the presence of "[<ignored>]..." would permit the arguments while automatically showing the word "ignored" as the parameter name - it matches the real behavior but in so doing kinda gives a stronger signal that it is correct or intended usage. The absence of it would cause tooling to warn those usages as erroneous. So the question is, is it better for the documentation that feeds tooling to match what the tool will really do, or no? Obviously in the general case you absolutely want to exactly match help text to behavior, but perhaps there is useful room for documentation and behavior mismatches to be something like a linter or style rule: technically valid but so strongly discouraged that you should explicitly tell your tool to make an exception if you ever have a good reason for it.

I think that's where I'm settling, on removing those "[<ignored>]..." from the usage string... perhaps even treating it as if it was a documentation bug all along and it was never official behavior, though that feels like a super icky precedent that has a danger of undermining trust in my usage of SemVer. Either way, I still find the whole thing somewhat unresolved and unsatisfying, though this does feel like the least unsatisfying choice right now.

[phy-be]

| treasured | a david/genya fic

my participation to the mini-bang for @grishaversebigbang ♡ This was so fun to write, and a million thank you to my two wonderful materialki! Please check out their amazing work:

@nuclearnik [link] @zemenipearls [link]

Rating: General Audiences Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, proposal, set between Ruin and Rising and King of Scars, Canon Compliant, david is a nerd and he loves his soul mate very very much, cw: nerdy descriptions of rocks, Grishaverse Minibang Summary:

“David, you didn’t have to…”

He frowned and cocked his head. “Yes, I did. It’s customary to gift a ring when asking someone’s hand in marriage.”

He was never good at understanding social norms, but he was pretty sure he’d gotten that one right.

David pressed the button on the side of his microscope goggles, switching the lens to a more magnifying glass. In the palm of his gloved hand, a crystal gleamed, like sparks of purple fire trapped in stone. The light hit each of its faces in slightly different ways, creating an explosion of colours and geometrical shapes. It was even more beautiful seen up close, when David could not only admire the beauty of the thing, but also the elegant laws of science that made the light refract just so.

Crystals were complicated to work with. Their beauty was due to a highly specific geometry at the molecular level, and any careless alteration could damage their inner core, breaking the stone or making it duller. Even if some were strong enough to cut glass, crystals were precious; they needed to be handled with the utmost care.

David loved working on crystals.

His quiet work was interrupted by anguished sobs coming from the bed.

Quickly, he slipped the stone in a bit of fabric and rushed from his desk. Genya was having another nightmare. Throwing off his glasses and gloves, he hurried to find her on the bed. He took her in a protective embrace as she sobbed, screamed, legs jerking in panic. She clawed at the air around, desperately chasing off a horde of invisible nichevo'ya.

“Stop,” she begged. She wasn’t talking to him.

David held her tighter. Every time he saw her this way, so anguished and pained, helpless to her inner demons, a bitter guilt settled in him, consigned in a single thought: I should have protected her.

Then the guilt faded into hot-white anger — at the Darkling, who had done this to her, who had known how much it would hurt and keep hurting her — until David discarded that emotion, too. Rage and regret were not useful feelings to linger on. Helping Genya get through this, making her pain more bearable — these were the only things that mattered.

Eventually her movements calmed, her hiccupping sobs turning into shallow breaths and silent tears. David caressed her hair, the auburn locks softer than any silk he’d ever felt, and dropped feather-light kisses on her forehead. Genya nestled closer to him, burying her face in his neck. He could feel the wetness of her tears trickling on his skin.

“You’re safe, dear,” he whispered, knowing that he would do everything in his power to make sure this would always be true, from now on. “You’re safe.”

Her grip tightened on his shirt.

“W-were you awake?” she said, her voice still shaken.

David recognized the change of topic as her way to distract herself from the nightmares that lingered in her wakefulness. He played along.

“Yes,” he said, kissing her hair. “I was working late.”

“It’s almost morning,” she murmured. “You work late a lot lately.”

“I’m working on a project.”

“What project?”

David hesitated; Tamar had said he was supposed to keep it a secret. Keeping anything from Genya was hard enough normally, but when she was vulnerable like this, it was downright impossible.

He got up to get the piece of fabric — Genya followed him out of bed, not wanting to let go of his embrace, and he smiled, endeared. Gently, he led her back to the bed, sat next to her, and put his creation in her open palms.

“It’s not finished,” he warned.

Genya carefully unwrapped the silk. Her eyes widened at the sight of the ring, a glistening band of grisha steel wrapping like branches around a rose-shaped stone. When she turned it to get a better look, the candlelight shining through the crystal switched its colour from red, to purple, to blue.

“I altered the refracting index at different levels of the structure to make the crystal polychromatic,” David explained, excited in spite of himself. “I’ve done this with metals before, but never with crystal. It still needs polishing before I can give it to you, though.”

Genya’s eyebrow shot up, looking shocked. “This is for me?”

“Of course.” He admired the ring against Genya’s hand, as beautiful as he’d expected. It would be perfect once she wore it. Silver and red always complemented her pale, rosy skin, the way gold and purple complemented the bronze colour of his own.

“David, you didn’t have to…”

He frowned and cocked his head. “Yes, I did. It’s customary to gift a ring when asking someone’s hand in marriage.”

He was never good at understanding social norms, but he was pretty sure he’d gotten that one right.

“Y-you’re—” Genya croaked, her skin visibly flushed, “you’re proposing to me?”

“Not right now,” David corrected. “Tamar told me it had to be a special moment, so I’m still working on the details of that.”

He’d been thinking of doing it at sunset, for one. The fiery hues of the sky when the sun slipped under the horizon always reminded him of Genya’s hair, and it would look good on the ring. He’d calculated which part of the palace would be the most adequate spot — a corner of the Summoner’s field provided the perfect exposure for the ring to reflect sunrays and shimmer beautifully — but he needed a reason to bring Genya there that wouldn’t alarm her. Tamar had suggested a picnic, which David had found confusing since they never ate on the training grounds, but Genya did enjoy it when he cooked for her.

His thoughts came to a brutal halt when he realized Genya was crying.

David blinked. Had he done something wrong? He was always so bad at this stuff — he couldn’t count how many times he’d offended someone without meaning to, but Genya usually saw past his awkwardness and understood his meaning.

“Genya…” he said, hesitant, “I’m sorry, did I…”

“You’d want to marry me?” she sniffled, eyes cast down, tears gliding down her cheeks.

David was even more confused. Tamar’s advice hadn’t covered that part. “Yes. Of course.” Had that not been clear?

“Why?” Genya met his gaze. “Why would you… We haven’t even been together that long, you can’t know —”

Like the unknotting of a rope, suddenly, David understood. This was just like the imagined nichevo'ya. She was panicked, sure that the worst was yet to come, that she couldn’t be safe in her own home.

Softly, he cupped her cheeks, bringing her closer. He wished he could take some of the burden that weighed on her, carry it on his shoulders instead of hers, for once; wished he knew the right words to make her feel better, the perfect formula to soothe her fear. But this burden was Genya’s, and David was never good with words. All he could say was the truth.

“I agree that our romantic relationship has not been exceedingly long,” he admitted. A year only accounted for a twentieth of their age so far. Five percent of a life, and some change. “But I have been in love with you for seven years, five months, and twelve days. Our friendship is even older than that,” he pressed his forehead against hers, “and I’ve wanted to marry you from the first time you kissed me.”

His lips brushed hers, an echo of that day at the Spinning Wheel, when the bravest woman in the world had first chosen him.

“I realized at the time that this wasn’t a rational impulse,” he conceded, “so I waited to see how our companionship would grow. I believe I’ve now waited long enough to know. I feel at peace in your company, and I want to make you as happy as you make me.” He pulled back a little, retreating his hands. “Unless you do not want that, in which case I will respect—”

Before he could finish, Genya pulled him into a kiss — the dizzying, head-spinning kind of kiss he’d only ever experienced with her. When she kissed him like that, arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, lips flush and panting, David’s usually overworking mind would quiet, snuffed out like the wick of a candle, replaced only by her . Soft hair, delicate skin, lips scarred and still wonderful, her scent a unique aroma he’d come to associate with peace, with home.

“Of course I want to,” she whispered against his lips, smiling coyly.

David kissed that smile, then her cheek, then her temple. “I’m relieved to hear that,” he sighed. “I’ll keep working on that proposal, then.”

Genya laughed, sweet and bright — David didn’t care much for music, but he could have listened to Genya’s laugh for hours. He tucked the ring back in the fabric and put it on the nightstand, where it wouldn’t get lost in the sheets, then took off his shoes and his shirt.

They lied together, Genya’s body half on top of his, snuggling close, as though any space between them might bring in the cold.

Genya brushed her fingers on David’s chest, tracing some patterns.

“So,” she said, her voice now clearer, more sure of herself — Genya in daylight, where the monsters couldn’t touch her. “What was that about seven years, five months, and twelve days?”

“Oh, hm…” David said. He could feel his face heat up, and felt irrationally glad for the brown of his skin, unlikely to show any hint of a blush.

Still, he told her the story of that day. Genya had visited the Fabrikator’s laboratory to make a new cosmetic for the queen. She’d been thirteen years old, and already so creative with her powers. At the time David had only reproduced what his masters had taught him as perfectly as he could, never trying to invent, to create.

But there had been Genya Safin, the first of her kind, inventing everything she did.

It wasn’t the first time they’d met, not even the first time they’d enjoyed each other’s company, but it was the first time David had watched her work. He hadn't even bothered saying hi (which he now realized had been rather rude), too eager to ask her question about her experiment. They’d talked, and when David had gone on a long tangent about his favourite way to colour glass, Genya hadn’t been bored or made fun of his enthusiasm, the way the other students usually did if they bothered to listen to him at all.

She’d listened with care and attention, and then she’d given him her opinion — smart, succinct. Perfect.

“How do you even remember the day this happened?” Genya laughed. “It was so long ago.”

David caressed her shoulder, a soothing, circular motion. “I remember everything, when it comes to you.”

“Cheesy,” she grinned.

“Maybe.” He felt his lips quirk in a smile of his own. “But it’s true.”

She rose up to look at him, her expression turning serious.

“I love you,” she said, the words like a promise. “For even longer than that.”

Gently, David took her wrist, and kissed her palm. “Now, let’s not make it a competition.”

“Wise. You know I’d win.”

“My dear,” he smiled against her hand, “I think I share this victory with you.”

[tundrainafrica]

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (17/17)

Summary:  “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Link to cross-postings: AO3

The most difficult part for Levi was picking the best place to read.

His first choice was the oval. It was almost summer though and Levi was familiar enough with the timeline to know training must have started already. The last thing he wanted to do was run into old teammates and be forced to maintain some inkling of a conversation.

His second choice was the library. And it wasn’t a bad choice. For a while, Levi had settled on one of the desks at the corner of the library, far from cramming students or students looking for a convenient place to cool off. Seats on the corner didn’t have wide windows though and the artificial light and the artificial chill of the room had turned out to be distracting.

It was only a few pages in did Levi realize, he would have preferred some green around him and the heat of late spring wasn’t so bad. He started to wonder why he had even considered reading indoors in the first place.

He had ended up wasting a good fifteen minutes only to fall back to where he had parted ways with Hange anyway.

In front of the science building.

Hange was inside one of the empty classrooms defending her final thesis. Levi sat on one of the benches to the corner of the building, closing his eyes tight as if that would have been enough to make out the voices inside the building.

Others came to watch and he was sure of that. He had seen Erwin on the way in. Nanaba and Mike had waved at him, asking if he’d be coming inside.

Levi decided against it long before and maybe Hange would have preferred it that way too. After all, she must have left him that particular manuscript before entering the building for a reason. He read the title page, neatly printed in a very much readable and professional font.

Although it had looked like one with the thick cover and the hard binding, as soon as Levi opened the first page, the small title on the upper left had him speechless yet very much convinced.

It wasn’t her thesis manuscript.

To: Captain Levi

Captain Levi. How long had it been since he heard that name and that title? Hange had called him that months before. He had remembered writing about him. The words on the page, Hange's voice, Kuchel’s voice and his own voice all mentioning those same two words in succession had happened, he was sure of that much.

The circumstances though with each memory had blurred into each other one by one and he liked to attribute it to his hermit tendencies the succeeding months after his injury.

Life had been different since then. He had gone back to face to face classes. He had been working on his thesis. Hange had been working on her own thesis too. And they were both just too busy trying to graduate on time given the chaos of the first semester.

He stared at the title page for a few more seconds pondering that chaos, possibly trying to reach for something behind that haze to no avail. The only thing he was able to grasp then had been a bout of nostalgia.

And the nostalgia was more than enough to get him in the mood to read. He chalked up the small stint in the library to a test run and started again from the beginning.

Hange Zoe was born to a rich family within the Walls of Wall Sina…

Hange had taken great pains to describe everything from the cobblestone streets to the crystal-like bricks that lined the walls of the elegant buildings. The bricks shone with a unique glint and that alone had been enough for Hange to waste one paragraph on it.

She then used up another few paragraphs talking about the stifling life within the walls and her own curious nature.

If there’s something you don’t understand, go out and learn to understand it.

Living within the walls wasn’t in her nature so she ran away. She joined the survey corps. She was drawn to the outside world, drawn to titans.

So she became a researcher.

Levi didn’t notice it at first. Although his brain had been able to partition those few early events on the timeline, eventually the words started to shift, blur into one another and he found himself scanning through the paragraphs much quicker than usual.

He knew that much about squad leader Hange Zoe. He knew she hyper fixated on titans. He didn’t need vivid descriptions of Sonny and Bean nor did he need detailed descriptions of the outside world, the guns, the war or even her theories on the rumbling.

She had already told him everything then in the forest. She had told it to him back then in the office. Before he even knew it himself, he was flipping through the pages much faster. Suddenly his mind was pushing him to look out for certain things as he read.

There was something else he was looking for, between the lines of the descriptive narrations of Hange Zoe’s life.

“Maybe we should just live here together right Levi?”

Levi found the quote three pages before the back cover, towards the upper left of the page. He found himself running his left hand up to the corner of the page, slipping that corner between his two fingers, pressing on the ink on paper, just to make sure it wouldn’t so easily smudge with touch. Maybe it might even disappear like some sort of an illusion.

He just had to make sure it was real.

Hange’s exposition on sceneries was exhaustive. They were clear and vivid and they covered everything to the most granular bits of the large painting in his mind. If Levi closed his eyes, he was sure he would see the forest then.

Although Hange’s descriptions were detailed, comprehensive, enough to paint easy pictures in his head, they were far from introspective.

She had taken great pains to describe the darkness, the crackling campfire and the rough gashes of his face but she didn’t talk much about how it felt. Maybe it was up to the reader to contemplate them.

So Levi filled in the blanks, he filled the spaces between the lines with emotions, musings, ponderings. He couldn’t be too sure yet whether they were his or hers though, so he trudged on aimlessly as he read.

Everything happened in fast forward from there. Although Hange never left his side when she could, she was still fighting, suddenly she was strategizing.

Of course she would, she was a commander. He was just an injured soldier.

There was another quote, towards the last page on the upper right and Levi found himself running his pointer finger through it and he pressed on it hard, hard enough to crumple the pages of that corner. He ran his nail through it leaving a noticeable crease before he closed the binder and took a deep breath.

Dedicate your heart.

Just like every other page, there was no introspection into the character that made Hange Zoe, only words, more words then vivid descriptions of everything that happened after.

He didn’t need white spaces between the lines to figure it out for himself. Even if the pages had all been black, save for the words and the emotions they evoked, he felt it then like a weight.

But he shook it off, opened the book once again and continued to read.

Hange flew up. She fought titan after titan. And the fight had ended with her burning up in the air with the one last quote below.

“Titans really are incredible.”

Levi had half the mind to close the book again there, except that time, with no intention of reopening it. If he didn’t hyper fixate on that last sentence towards the end of the page, towards Commander Hange Zoe’s last words, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed the faded grey at the back of the last paragraph.

It was particularly noticeable on the white, between the lines of paragraphs. Once again Levi played with the creases just to make sure he hadn’t missed it. It was the last page, he was sure.

There was something written on the other side of the page. As much as it had ached to read on, Levi willed himself to flip the page.

It was empty, a blank white page. Fortunately, Levi was desperate enough to stare at it a little longer and he soon realized, he was focused on the center, somehow he had expected to find some sort of resolution there.

Hange had left the last line towards the upper left corner.

See you later Hange. Watch over us. Next to it was a shabbily drawn airplane and unlike all the other pages, it was smudged. The ink had blotted, sending light streaks of gray towards the right in such a predictable manner, Levi could almost imagine the way she had held the crease of the corner between her finger tips.

Once again, he shifted the weight of the page, moving his thumb and his pointer to that corner, reproducing the motions of how she must have messed up something so simple. It was easy to imagine and Levi found himself smiling.

Below it, towards the lower part of the page, he saw it. It was written with the same gel pen that bled through the other side of the page.

There were so many things I wanted to tell you but I never got the chance.

“Then why didn’t you say it? You had ten pages to say it.” Hell, you had five years to say it.

The next line read as if Hange had already predicted what he was going to say next.

I was the commander. You were the captain. We had a war to fight.

But you know, I thought when everything ends, once we retire I could let you know.

In a moment of dissonance, Levi started to wonder who those words were for. For all he knew, he could have been telling her the same thing.

Even if you don’t remember, I hope you at least felt it.

Please remember. Even if I wasn’t able to tell you anything, even if I couldn’t stay by your side.

I was watching you until the end.

Commander Hange Zoe

“Commander Hange Zoe,” Levi said it out loud a second time. Those words were ambrosia to his lips and he probably mouthed it a few more times as he stared at the blue sky above him.

Levi let his shoulders fall and he looked back down at the binder. He didn’t even notice he had closed it. “There were so many things I wanted to tell you too.”

You said it already. Commander Hange heard you. The answer came as a whisper. A quiet whisper that blew into his ear, caressing his neck.

And it had him jumping on his seat. “What the fuck Hange.”

“Are you done being sad already?”

“Why would I be sad?”

“Because Commander Hange Zoe died and you were staring at the sky like this for a good few minutes.” Hange let her head fall back playfully and Levi could have sworn he didn’t look like that. When she looked back at him a second later, she gave a knowing smile, an almost mocking smile.

That was enough to get Levi a little abrasive. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was watching you,” Hange said. “You looked like you were concentrating so…”

“I was.”

“So I didn’t wanna bother you.”

“You could have announced your presence like a normal person at least, maybe drop a greeting?”

“I had to look for you and you weren’t answering your phone then I got impatient.” Hange seemed unperturbed. “Come on, I’m treating you guys out to dinner.”

Levi opened his phone to see an hour had passed since he last checked the time and beneath it five missed calls, all from Hange. On the upper right of his phone, the silent mode sign flashed like some sort of reminder. “I was in the library so I had to put my phone on silent.” Those words in defense of his actions were instinctive. Soon, as Hange looked back gesturing for him to follow her, he started to realize that maybe that defense was useless.

“Okay Levi,” Hange said. Her tone was reminiscent of a know-it-all. Her pace was insultingly slow. Levi found himself angrily quickening his pace to catch up to her.

Hange’s pace was at least slow enough that even with his recovering leg, he found it easy to catch up. The moment Levi walked past her, he felt familiar arms on his shoulder. They weighed on him and in a way, they had prevented him from overtaking her.

He had no intention of doing so anyway. “How was your defense?” Levi asked. It was an easy question to start with.

“Better late than never but I’m getting a diploma.”

“Late? You’re graduating with all of us.”

“I’m the last one among my batchmates who presented.”

“Believe me, I’m more amazed that you managed to get something out even after redoing your thesis three times.”

“I should thank Kuchel, it was her sources which got me here. I’ll probably send her a copy of my thesis as a thank you. You think she’ll appreciate that?”

“She probably will. Something to help her pass the time when she goes on leave.”

“Leave?”

“In our last session, she told me she’s expecting.”

“Oooh? A baby?”

“She ended up opening up to me about it after our session. She was pretty nervous about having a child for a while and recently, she managed to get over that fear.”

“I guess we all had something to deal with…” Hange said as she pulled him towards the gate. “You think we’ll get to meet the kid one day. I’d love to see Kuchel as a mother.”

“She’ll be a great mother…” Somehow, Levi knew it. He only had to look back at her words, her refined tone and the way she easily shifted between professional and motherly to be almost jealous of the child growing in her womb.

Hange gave him a toothy grin. “Let’s visit her together?”

“Why not?”

The conversation died as they turned the corner of one of the buildings along the path, a corner that opened up to a large courtyard and beyond it the gate of their university.

“Wait, where are we going?” Levi asked,

“I told you, I’m treating you guys out.” Hange answered matter-of-factly.

“Where Hange?”

“We’re having grilled meat.”

“Hange? For the third time… Where?” Levi asked.

It wasn’t Hange who had ended up answering the question. By the gate, Moblit and Nifa were waiting and they looked like they had been waiting a while. Nifa was tapping her feet impatiently while Moblit had seemed genuinely concerned.

“You guys okay? You looked like you were fighting,” Moblit said as he approached them.

“Where are we eating?” Levi asked.

“The Korean grill just a few blocks away.” Moblit said.

Levi didn’t need any more clarification from there. They were all from the same university and the restaurants around the area were a common language among them.

“That’s how you answer a question Hange,” Levi muttered coldly.

“Well, I didn’t think the location was important. I was leading you there already anyway,” Hange responding mirroring that same cold tone with her own. She went ahead and put one arm around Moblit muttering unintelligible words save for the quick congratulations at the start.

“Congratulations?” Levi asked.

“He got nominated for best thesis and everyone's pretty convinced he’s gonna win it,” Nifa answered. She had fallen back behind the two and matched Levi’s pace.

Moblit eventually raised his voice, loud enough for even Levi to hear. “No No… That was your data Hange and it was your idea. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

“Still…” Hange’s voice trailed off. She was far enough, her voice was garbled enough that with that few feet distance, her words were unintelligible. Her smile though was very much still perceptible, a genuine golden smile.

“Levi, you agree right?”

Levi looked towards the voice, Moblit’s voice. “Agree with what?”

“If Hange had submitted her thesis early, she could have won ri---.”

“Moblit, stop downplaying your nomination.” Hange interrupted, giving him a strong push n the back.

Moblit wobbled and held onto Hange’s shirt to keep his balance “But it was a good thesis right?” He asked as soon as he recovered. He looked at Levi expectantly.

It was only then did Levi realize, despite the five months together, he never really thought too much to ask what her thesis had been about. With his own hectic schedule, his physical therapy sessions, his sessions with Shela, maybe it just never peaked his interest. He was starting to feel guilty at such a reminder and before he knew it, he was finding excuses for it.

She spent a lot of the past few months cooped up in her room if not in class, save for the few moments when she would accompany to therapy sessions or to meet with Shela.

His thoughts flew back to the document she had shared with him.

To: Levi Ackerman.

And if that document was half as good as her thesis, he was sure she did well. So he returned Moblit’s approval with one of his own. “It was a good thesis,” Levi said. “But don’t downplay yours. You won fair and square.”

That was all there was to it. Hange didn’t win. But she didn’t seem to mind either. Hange had snuck what looked to be a grateful smile and she continued to playfully poke at Moblit then, probably whispering inside jokes, reminiscing about their life before.

Her mood was unwavering all the way until the restaurant

It turned out Mike and Nanaba were in the restaurant already and they only joined Hange at glomping Moblit for his nomination. The four childhood friends created a world of their own in the restaurant, a world full of inside jokes, long gone memories and maybe even discussions on future plans.

Levi deemed it appropriate to sit on a chair at the edge of their long table and just quietly listen.

Mike was selected for the national team.

Nanaba wanted to go back to minor league volleyball after college.

Moblit was going to medical school

And Nifa, who had joined their conversation then, was going to take masters.

Hange’s plans were either long-awaited or they were intentionally avoided. He couldn’t tell.

By the time the question came, it had come as a casual question by Moblit who had always been sensitive with the way he phrased things so his intention had been something Levi couldn’t read either.

Before Hange could open her mouth though, Nifa chimed in greeting. “Doctor Erwin!”

“Sorry I’m late. We were discussing the nominees,’ Erwin said.

And the topic shifted from there, even before Levi could get answers.

Erwin never spilled who the winner was, but it was apparent in his gaze that shifted to the side and the smile that curled up his lips that it was one of them. By the time Hange had started being too vocal about it, Erwin had spilled more than enough for the students to guess for themselves.

“You’re free anytime next week for an awarding ceremony right?” Erwin asked.

“Anytime sir! Thank you for this opportunity.”

Erwin shook his head. “You wrote a great thesis. It was well deserved. Will you be inviting Elijah?”

“I think I should treat him out, I’ve wasted a lot of his time this past year... He’s been pretty busy training with the national team though… But I’ll talk to him.”

Their long table was already a conglomerate of conversations and Levi struggled to keep up.

Somewhere between conversations, the charcoal had been added to the grills, the sides were served and Levi found himself listening intently to Erwin and Moblit’s exchange in particular while he played with the spinach on his plate.

Elijah swept the high jump. He swept the other events. He came out winning the Most Valuable Player Award for the High Jump. And he recently started training with the national team.

The Olympics isn’t a far off dream at this point. It’s probably just another step for him.

Moblit had shown up for the first training and he had started to describe Elijah’s skill with the bar then. His coordination with the take off food, his wide penultimate stride.

He was using lingo most track and field athletes wouldn’t have thought twice to use and Levi had used and heard them more times than he had counted through the years. Having not thought about high jumping in months, listening to such a conversation peppered with such words that used to be home for him, seemed surreal.

So surreal that for a second, Levi lost his grip on a reality. Enough to not have noticed the waitress who served the drink in front of him

It was a short and stout glass. The contents looked particularly ---almost dangerously--- colorful and the red stick on the side was enough for Levi to deduce what exactly it was. To confirm it, he took one sniff.

“Nanaba, why the hell did you order alcohol?” Hange asked.

“It’s a celebration right? We should be drinking. Cheers!” She raised her cup up to no one in particular.

Moblit and Nifa had been nice enough to join albeit a little uncomfortably. Levi found himself making eye contact with Erwin who was still slowly mixing the cup in front of him, seeming unsure of what exactly happened.

Hange seemed flustered. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with us drinking but more people are coming and---”

“Sorry we’re late Hange!”

Armin? That was Armin’s voice. But it wasn’t just Armin, tailing behind him were several other very familiar people.

Armin continued. “None of us wanted to go alone…”

Of course none of them would want to go alone, they were high school students and around them were a group of college students and a college professor.

A group of high school students among college students. Levi noted. He eyed the cocktail glass in front of him then. Was that what Hange was worried about? Levi found himself downing his cup a little quicker.

“Blame Connie here, He was the one wasting his time on extra batting practice until god knows what time,” Jean said as he followed behind Armin.

“Shut up Jean. At least Armin didn’t have to cover my subway fee.”

“I just didn’t have change on me.”

“Calm down you two, you’re eating here for free.” Historia went in between the two, and walked up to Hange who had stood up to guide them to their seats. “I could pay for my share.”

“No, no. I set aside money for this. I just wanted to express my thanks for the past few months and I wanted to meet you guys again. I hope we can keep in touch even after...” Hange pulled Historia to the side and Levi couldn’t make out the rest of their conversation.

So he focused elsewhere.

“Is this… unlimited?” It was Sasha who spoke up that time. It was great timing that the moment Sasha had come in, the first plates of meat were starting to be served on the table. Expectedly, she had been the first one to sit and she started cooking on her end.

“Yes it is,” Levi answered

“No way… Right after a long day of training? Is this heaven…” Sasha could have been tearing up at that moment. She had been too focused on the meat so Levi couldn’t confirm it for himself but the crack on her voice had been evidence enough.

Hange squeezed herself among the high school students who had settled on the nearby seats. “No no… This is a thank you for helping me with my thesis. I got some good data from you guys so really, thank you for taking the time to fill out those forms and dealing with all my messages and calls,” Hange said.

“You didn’t have to. You did more than enough for us.” Jean sat in front of Levi towards the edge of the table. “You helped me fix my dunking position.”

“Ah Jean, you mentioned last time, you’d be going abroad for college. Will you?”

Jean grinned. “Basketball isn’t too big of a sport here so I thought of going somewhere where I can go pro. I got a full ride in a pretty good university.”

“Jean! Congratulations!”  Their side of the table had exploded into other conversations.

They were all going to colleges, some abroad, some local. Levi had turned to their side, ready to passively listen for details. He was starting to get invested in their plans too.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Mikasa Ackerman. He instantly recognized her voice. “Ah sorry, I didn’t notice you there.” Levi said.

Mikasa remained standing. She stared at Levi expectantly and pointed to the seat next to him. “So, I can sit here?”

“Go ahead.” Levi scooched over on the bench. He eyed the filled cocktail glass next to Mikasa and pushed it casually towards himself. The last thing he wanted to do then was enable a minor.

Mikasa didn’t seem to notice the drink at leats.. “I talked to Elijah,” she said as she started placing meat in the grill... “He welcomed me during my first training.”

“Didn’t he move on from collegiate jumping already?”

“He had some free time. We had a long talk about prospects after college. I’m guessing coach put him up to it. Some extra persuasion points maybe?”

“You’re not gonna change your mind.”

“I don’t plan on changing my mind. I submitted my documents, signed the contract and I’ll probably be moving to the dorm next week so I’ll be nearer to the oval.” Mikasa paused to eat an egg roll.

“To think you were so against it before.”

Mikasa shrugged. “I guess it’s just easier now since Eren’s starting to prepare for entrance exams. I’m actually convinced he’s gonna be fine. He’s been taking review classes and he’s been studying a lot outside the classes too.”

“Entrance exams of Paradis University?”

“That’s his first choice,” Mikasa said. “Are you still staying in the dorm? Maybe we could go through drills together on off-days and you could give me a few pointers.”

“I’ll be in the dorm for a week more or so... I’m not exactly sure.”

“You’re gonna wait for Hange?”

Is it obvious? Levi avoided her gaze then, looking back at his empty plate. He soon realized he hadn’t even started cooking himself. So he dropped a few slabs of meat on the grill in front of him to feign at least some disconnect. “Maybe,” he answered.

“It would be nice to get a few pointers from you,” Mikasa said. “You really were one of the best jumpers out there.”

“I won’t be able to demonstrate a jump if that’s what you’re expecting. Besides Hange is much better at giving pointers. She’s a lot more observant than I am.”

“I’m sure there are things you can teach me that Hange can’t. I wanna improve my vertical jump. And maybe try some of the other events as well.”

“This is a complete 180 from you months ago..”

“I’m stuck training twice a day. I barely get to talk to Eren and Armin. So I ended up finding happiness in just jumping… And I thought to myself, might as well make some jumping goals for myself right?”

“So what’s your goal?”

“I wanna beat your high jump record. Even Elijah hasn’t beaten that yet,” Mikasa said.

“That’s some character development,” Levi mumbled.

Mikasa ignored it though or maybe she didn’t hear it. Levi never really figured out how loud he had said it. “.. And the only person who can teach me how to beat your record is you.”

***

Levi had eaten too little and had drank a little too much. But he would rather not have told anyone that.

So he had made the journey to the rooftop of the restaurant alone. There was a toilet conveniently by the staircase where he had ended up dry heaving on the bowl. A few dry heaves and a few sets of stairs later, he found himself sitting back on the metal wired fence that lined the roof.

Just long enough to get my bearings. Levi reassured himself as he leaned further in.

As time passed though, he managed to convince himself that maybe he could stay there long enough to just wait for everyone to leave. The last thing he would have wanted to do was puke on anyone on the way down.

He checked his clock. 9:30pm. Most college students wouldn’t even be leaving for the party yet at that time. His strict athlete schedule meant he never was a normal college student though.

He graduated college already anyway. With that realization, Levi was a little more merciful towards himself. So he rode out the high of his inebriation. He counted out the stars above him, treating it as some sort of countdown to sobriety.

It probably wouldn’t work. After the tenth star, his head was still pounding, the stars were starting to show signs of blending amongst one another and he could feel his face warming up.

He was starting to feel the beginnings of dry heaving—or possibly wet heaving—again. Unable to sit up any longer, he lay on his side.

He didn't know how long he had lain there, waiting for the pounding to subside before he heard footsteps. His first instinct had been to force himself to sit up. His mind though was quick to recognize those footsteps, that natural mix of fast, loud and even as they made their way up the stairs and somehow, he ended up relaxing instead on the cold concrete floor.

How many times had he searched for those footsteps before?

“Hey, you know you’re lucky we’re here on a weekday during off season. If this were a weekend, the rooftop probably would have been full and they would have kicked you out already.”

“How’s everyone?” Levi asked. He kept his question to two words but the amount of syllables he had to pronounce then only garbled it.

“They left already,” Hange slid back on the metal fence and leaned back on it. “It’s just you and me now.”

“Okay,” Levi said. He would have wanted to say more. The pounding headache only made something so simple as speaking, a game of Russian Roulette and he didn’t want to figure out which word had the bullet, and which word could have him throwing up on Hange then.

“It’s just you and me,” Hange repeated.

You said that already. Levi would have wanted to say. Instead he kept his own response at a hum of understanding. She should interpret that as a yes at least.

“You don’t wanna talk? Or are you just too drunk?”

Levi didn’t respond.

“Didn’t you just have two cups?”

Levi raised up three fingers. He wasn’t exactly sure how many at that point. But he was sure it felt like more than two.

“Okay, that still isn’t enough to be deadass drunk you know.” Hange seemed impatient. And maybe a little disappointed.

So Levi took one risk. “Just keep talking. I’m listening.” Maybe that had been enough to get some bile up his throat. It had done more than enough to aggravate the pounding in his head and he found himself leaning on Hange’s shoulder.

As she held him closer, her hand gently guided him deeper onto her shoulder. Within seconds, Levi found he had rested his head on her lap and was staring up at the sky above.

The night was clear, the stars were shining and Levi was counting the stars again, a little ticked that he had lost his pattern and his train of thought of a few minutes ago. He was starting from the top again and he could have sworn the stars were constantly moving. There was no way he would have been able to guess which line of stars he had already counted.

“Hey, talk to me.” Hange only made the ordeal of counting stars worse. Her big head of all things was obscuring the view of the patterns he was starting to form as he counted.

Get out, I’m counting stars. That’s what he would have wanted to say then.

Hange could have heard it. Or maybe she didn’t. She bent a little more forward, so unnaturally, Levi could have sworn she had done it out of spite. She stared at him with wide eyes, her lips curled up into a playful smile. “Let’s talk Levi, one more hour and they’re gonna close. Besides the view here is nice, it’s breezy and…”

“And?”

“You’re probably too drunk to move now. We’re gonna have to get a taxi home.”

“Later,” Levi mumbled as he turned on his side and buried his face into Hange’s polo which smelled unavoidably like beef. He would have complained then if his head wasn’t pounding and if it didn’t dawn on him then, he probably smelled worse.

“Okay, Wanna talk about my work?”

“Thesis?”

“That… and, the binder I gave you, the one with the stories.”

“What about it?” There was a lot to talk about. But it wasn’t like there was much Levi could have contributed then but one to two syllable answers.

“What did you think?”

“Good.”

Hange pouted. “No, not about the quality. How did it make you feel?”

“Good.”

“Okay, how did Commander Hange’s death make you feel?” Hange had taken pains to pronounce the word death a little more clearly than everything else. Enough for Levi to almost think throwing up on her would be a good idea.

So he took another risk. “If you had so much more to say, why didn’t you say it?” Levi asked. His voice would naturally slur so he willed himself to enunciate every syllable even if it could make him look like an idiot in the process.

“That’s what Commander Hange should have been asking Levi,” Hange said.

“Captain Levi didn’t wanna let Commander Hange sacrifice herself. It was obvious.”

“No it wasn’t.” Hange shook her head, quickly enough to get even Levi dizzy. “You wrote something before, right? Your descriptions of everything were incredibly vivid, like I remembered the views, the appearance of the titans, the way you weaved words together but you know half the time, I couldn’t even be sure of what Captain Levi was thinking.”

“That’s how it felt reading your work. Squad leader Hange, Commander Hange… all they described were titans.”

“But Commander Hange explicitly said she wanted to live with Captain Levi. It was obvious too,” Hange said.

And for a second, maybe they were engaged in some mental sparring, a game of tug of war. Levi was still a little too incapacitated, he couldn’t take the initiative.

So Hange spoke up, loud and clear. “I thought being with each other, doing all that was enough of a love letter. Did they need words? A mad declaration of love?”

“Maybe, no one can be too sure unless somebody says something right?”

“Hange was the commander. Levi was the captain. With the war going on, I don’t think they could have left their post right. They couldn’t be too selfish. I think the commander was planning to wait until retirement to say it.”

“Retirement never came.”

“We’re both retired now,” Hange said. “I’m done with this whole academic stint. You’re done with your whole athletic stint. We have the time to make it work for Commander Hange and for Captain Levi right?”

“Are you saying we’re Captain Levi and Commander Hange?”

“My dreams tell me yes.”

“Dreams huh? That’s pretty objective.”

“Hey, I think I did enough research on this to make a theory about it. It was part of my thesis.”

“And you do realize you’ve never told me what your thesis was about?”

“Sorry about that…”

“So you knew? I always thought I was an asshole for not asking.”

“You asked a few times, not directly, but I think maybe you wanted to go in that direction,” Hange said. “And I admit, I ended up digressing every time.”

“Why?”

“I guess I wasn’t too comfortable telling you yet. I was writing my thesis side by side with that story and ever since I got serious about it, after a few dreams, after that night in the hospital, I wanted the memories to be as raw as possible, untainted by whatever story Captain Levi told me before. It was Commander Hange’s story, not Captain Levi’s. So I guess that’s why I wanted to avoid discussion on it.”

“Thesis is done. The book is done. You can talk about it now.”

“You're gonna get bored. So I’ll just read out the title.”

Hange twisted towards her side, jostling Levi in the process and Levi had to bite his lip not to aggravate the dull headache then. He heard the sound of a zipper and the sound of books pushed against one another.

After what felt like a lot more than a few seconds, it stopped. Hange opened the book, she turned on the flashlight of her phone.

The glare was sudden and for a good few seconds the glare of the light could have been right on him. Maybe that was what had made it particularly painful for Levi then.

He buried his face further into Hange’s shirt and let out a taut curse.

“Sorry,” Hange whispered, seeming distracted. After flipping through the pages for a few seconds longer, she read it out loud. “Nature and Nurture as Determinants of Athletic Potential, A Case Study on High Performing Athletes… Okay you know,  maybe I was a little biased towards ‘nature,’’ she added cheekily.

“Why nature?”

“Dreams… Past life. What if… You’re Captain Levi and I’m Commander Hange Zoe. Right? We have the evidence. Captain Levi was humanity’s strongest and he was really good with fighting in the air... Commander Hange Zoe liked strategy and research... And the fact that we had the same dreams?” Hange trailed off.

Levi was in no state to respond.

So Hange continued. “You wrote a lot Levi and maybe you’ll write it again. But I can swear, from what I remember about your works, and what I remember from mine, They’re the same story. And Kuchel had something similar right? What if past lives are real?”

“I don’t think you’re wrong..”

Hange pulled another book from her bag then.

Under the dim starry night, Levi made out the thin binder, the one he had read that afternoon. She started to flip through the pages, much faster as if she memorized the exact page and maybe the exact position where the paragraph was.

“Maybe we should just live here together, right Levi?” Hange read out loud.

If we keep running and hiding, what will that get us… I know you’re not able to stay out of the action. Those words echoed clearly in Levi’s mind then. Captain Levi was still alive inside him and he was whispering.

Clear enough to convince Levi. Maybe past lives are real. Levi thought to himself. He was in another life then, circumstances were different so he changed the script a bit, a script fit for soon-to-be graduates Hange Zoe and Levi Ackerman.

“Where to, Hange Zoe? What’s the game plan?” Levi asked.

“What’s the game plan of an academic washout…” Hange asked. “Well first things first, thank my parents for their grad gift, you know, the money to pay for the all you can eat beef… I’ll probably get a full time job, save up money then decide if I wanna go to med school again but at this point, I might just be better off pursuing a research track.”

“Didn’t Commander Hange wanna study plants?”

“She did,” Hange said. “And you know maybe she’ll get the chance now. Didn’t Captain Levi wanna own a tea shop?”

“I think that’s a viable career option for an athletic washout. The Olympics and the national team are out of my plate anyway.”

“So what? Teashop and research?”

“Teashop and research.”

“Well first things first, we’re gonna have to save right? My parents and I have been reconciling our differences lately already but I don’t wanna borrow too much money so our best option would be to get a place outside the city? You think we’d be able to afford that?”

Levi forced a slight nod. “Maybe a place with lots of green. You’d probably enjoy the trees and you’ll find lots to study during your days off. The commute to work is gonna be a bitch though.”

“We’ll find a job nearby or we’ll make it work. Just long enough to figure things out.”

Figure things out… The conversation died then. But maybe it did because Hange had started to do a little more research then, he saw in the glare in her glasses, the natural green over the white background.

Was she researching houses? Levi asked silently. It wasn’t worth asking anyway. They had only a few weeks before their contract ends and they’d be forced to vacate the dorms. Maybe it was a good idea to search much earlier.

So Levi endured the bright glare of the screen and searched for the beauty in the green glare on the white screen on Hange’s glasses then, and maybe he found it underneath in her eyes that seemed to be smiling.

If eyes could smile… No, they were definitely smiling.

“I’m sorry, we’re gonna have to ask you to leave. The restaurant is closing soon.”

Just like that, the moment was broken.

“We’re going down. Just give us a few minutes to fix our stuff.”

“Let’s go, Levi?”

“I would've wanted to stay here a little longer. It feels like a dream. I feel like Captain Levi here.”

“Because you are Captain Levi,” Hange said as she started to stuff the books back into her bag.

“Alright, Commander Hange.”

Hange chuckled. “You seem very disappointed.”

“Do I?” Levi couldn’t really tell the face he was making there. Hange’s face wasn’t the clearest either under the dark light. So he considered the possibility that she could be right. He might have been disappointed.

“Fine, I’ll give you something to dream about,” Hange said slyly. “You know, if Commander Hange Zoe wasn’t fighting a war, there was something else she probably would have done.”

“Wha--?” Before Levi could even complete the question, she had answered it herself.

She answered it with a quick peck. Or at least it should have been a quick peck.

With Levi’s mouth half open then, it morphed into something else in that split second, lasting a little longer. Their lips locked, their tongues touched and it had taken a few seconds longer to let go.

It probably could have taken a minute, an hour or even an eternity longer and Levi wouldn't have minded.

He continued to replay it in his head again and again as Hange helped him up, slung his one arm over hers. His surroundings changed, from the starry rooftop, the restaurant interior then the taxi on the way home.

And it ended with the sofa of the dorm lobby, the wooden ceiling and Hange leaning on him on the sofa.

He was still thinking about it then. In the silence, in the peace even with the changing surroundings, he had been on cloud nine the whole time.

He was convinced, Captain Levi wouldn't have minded that eternity either. Hell, he probably would have loved it.

***

There was a hiking trail near their house. Luckily it wasn’t too steep.

So Levi deemed himself well enough to brave it. It had been almost a year since his surgery, six months since the last tear and most days, as long as he wore his knee brace, his knee wouldn’t give out on him.

Unbuckling happened. Swelling happened. The dull aches never left. Levi had learned to just live with it, ride through the worst days.

It was as if his knee knew then that that day in particular was special. Or maybe Levi had chosen that day because his knee was feeling better. That day, Hange was notably freer and on the days leading up to autumn, it was only gonna getting colder and colder and he didn’t wanna have to wait another year to hike.

“Just tell me if anything hurts,” Hange said as they made the almost perilous journey up the hill.

The steeper it got, the harder it would be on his knees. He noted that, it would get worse particularly on the way down.

It was still far from the steep incline in the reserve Hange had brought him to more than a year ago.

There was a peak that overlooked the small town they had settled in. The incline, the climb albeit longer, was friendlier for his aching muscles and his bum knee.

Levi was counting his blessings. So through the worst of the dull aches, the worst of the pains as they climbed up, Levi gritted his teeth and clocked it as ‘bearable at least,’ not worth a complaint.

Hange probably could tell though. He didn’t figure out by her eyes since he kept walking behind her. She hadn’t been particularly pushy either. He had figured it out for himself when she started talking, and she never stopped.

“How’s Petra?”

“She’s working towards a PT Certificate.”

“How’s Isabel?”

“I heard she’s starting her third year of high school already?”

“And Farland?”

How do you even know them?

“I visited Erwin a lot in his office in the hospital you know. And I talked to them.”

But it hadn’t been just that. Hange had an emotional investment extending far beyond that. He slowed his pace, appreciating her seemingly interested voice then. With that, Levi was reminded, they were Commander Hange’s friends too.

So he continued to answer questions as they came. They were a good distraction from the specter of exhaustion that loomed over him.

And soon, he took the reins. "So how's Moblit?" It had only felt natural to ask too.

"He's in his first year of med school...How's Mikasa?"

"Her first college competition is next month.”

Conversations shifted quickly from topic to topic, person to person before dying somewhere at the peak when they attributed the death of such to speechlessness at the view before him or just utter exhaustion.

Levi knew it was neither of it and he became sure of it as Hange guided him to the bench that overlooked the rolling hills behind them.

She kept one hand over his knee. "Your knee did a good job not swelling."

"Even if it does, I won’t regret it. I wanted to do this for a while."

"Is this because you couldn't join me up the peak last year?"

"Probably," Levi said. He turned to her. "You didn’t get to the top then right?"

“No, I didn’t. I went back down as quickly as I could when I heard you scream my name.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what came over me. But Levi knew, so he kept that last part to himself. “You know, maybe I am doing this for you. You still wanna fly right?"

"Yeah, I do. Even if I remember everything then, after writing everything out… Sure I know how it ends for Commander Hange Zoe but... I still wanna fly. Maybe because I just wanna enjoy the freedom that comes with it.”

"Then I guess we made a good choice." Levi grabbed his backpack from behind him and unzipped it. "I wanted to give this to you. And I thought you might enjoy reading it in a place with lots of sky."

He had binded it the same way and he had titled it similarly.

It looked like Hange knew what it was. "Levi… is this…" Her wide eyes looked far from confused.

"After reading your work, I started dreaming about Captain Levi again so I rewrote the story I made a year ago. It's not a perfect copy but I think I remembered enough to maybe get you immersed again in his thoughts."

Hange didn't reply but Levi didn't mind.

In a way, she had responded, through whispers, murmurs and the grin on her face as she looked through the file. "To Commander Hange? Yours truly, Captain Levi?" Hange asked, a little louder and clearer than her murmurs. She wanted to be listened to.

"Are you laughing? That's the same thing you wrote at the top in your own file,” Levi said. “I guess you can say, it's Captain Levi's love letter to Commander Hange."

“A love letter huh? All I’m reading here are long drawn out descriptions of humanity’s strongest soldier fighting titans…” Hange chuckled. “And maybe some mentions of Commander Hange Zoe.”

“Captain Levi was with Commander Hange a lot right?” It was a shoddy reply. Still, an inkling of pride had Levi clinging on to that comment.

"Do you notice that neither of us actually wrote something introspective. It’s like they never could tell what the other was thinking. Captain Levi was too obsessed with fighting, Commander Hange was too obsessed with Titans."

"Those were how my dreams were."

"That's how they were for me too."

"But if you look over there, towards the last page, you'd find it. I wrote 'dedicate your heart' right? Captain Levi didn't want you to leave"

"I remember that and if you looked towards the end of my work you'd see I wrote... Commander Hange wanted to live with you."

Levi had a copy of it on his phone so he opened up, did a quick search and highlighted the text.

Maybe we should just live here together, right Levi?

For a second they sat in silence. Levi was too busy finding a reason for the tens of thousands of words worth of exposition all for one sentence. Maybe Hange was doing similarly.

Hange spoke up once again, only confirming it for herself. "Commander Hange and Captain Levi really took each other for granted huh?”

"They had a war to fight. They couldn't be too intimate could they?"

“So instead of just explicitly saying I love you through a love letter, they decide to send each other memories of a past life and we’re left to decode it for ourselves?”

“Captain Levi was never really the type to say he loves someone. And I’m guessing Commander Hange wasn’t the type either.”

“Or maybe... They were too scared to think about it to admit it was love, but somehow the reader just knows.” Hange suggested. She turned to Levi then, eyeing his phone.” It wasn’t just in the ‘live together’ part right? I’m sure you felt it in the letter? With every mention of Captain Levi… Toward the end, he never left her side and she never his side too right?”

Levi nodded slowly, gripping his phone a little tighter. “I felt it and every time I reread it, it only got stronger." And how many times had he reread it since she first gave it to him months ago?

“You know Levi, even since last year, the first time I read it, I felt it for myself and I really thought they would have kissed. And maybe if Commander Hange died they would have.” Hange cocked her head to one side. “So none of us needed reflection or introspection huh? I guess the descriptions on titans and technology made some great padding to the love letter.”

“Don’t you think it just made everything more complicated? For us?”

“Maybe it did. But I like to think this long drawn out puzzle just makes everything deeper, worth remembering. Think about it, just mentioning someone again and again, just quietly assuming that someone would be there by your side forever, not thinking too much of it but just casually thinking ‘I wouldn’t mind if they were there forever.’ And when the prospect of losing them comes up, that refusal to let go...the regrets that follow... I think those run deeper than any flowery declaration of love." Hange waved the binder in front of him. "I like this. It’s better than any love letter I could have gotten.”

“Two idiots just writing stories about their tragic past lives and exchanging it," Levi mumbled that first part to himself. He turned to Hange. "I enjoyed the process of writing these ‘love letters’," Levi said. "Did you?"

Hange nodded. “It wasn’t all happiness for sure but overall, I’m enjoying the writing process and I'm enjoying where the dreams brought me. It’s not where I expected to be a year ago but hey, who says life should be following the path we set for it,” she said. She took a deep breath. “And I should be saying the same to you. I’m not the Olympics. I’m not the national track and field team but you don’t mind right? Being stuck with me? Writing love letters like that?”

“Hey, instead of going to medical school, you’re here living with me in some small house near some hiking trail. We’re both on nine to five jobs saving up money until god knows when. It’s a far cry from what our teammates and blockmates are doing.”

“But you know if I didn’t drop the other theses, I don’t think I would have written this much about you.”

“And if I didn’t get injured, I wouldn’t have written. I’d probably be training with the national team now.”

And we wouldn’t be here. Somehow, Levi knew she was thinking about it too. From his peripherals, he saw, Hange had leaned back on the bench and had let her head fall back. She was staring at the sky above her.

He followed suit.

There was something about the sky at the top of the hill. It was a light yet mesmerizing blue that endlessly stretched above him. There were no buildings, no trees, or no highlands framing such a view. The sky looked free.

And for the first time in months, Levi felt like he was flying again.

But he didn’t want to fly alone. Levi dropped one hand along that very small gap between them.

It looked like Hange had taken that as a sign to reciprocate.

Levi looked to his hand, cradled against hers and up at her face to see that she still wasn’t looking down. In fact she held her head back further, propped her glasses on her forehead, and continued to stare at the blue sky above.

The blue sky reflected on Hange’s hazel eyes and it manifested in streams of color Levi couldn’t have even imagined as ever been producible by blue and brown. He wanted to catch her gaze then.

So he spoke up. “It wasn’t easy to accept it at first but I’m happy where we are. I’m not regretting anything and you know, there’s something liberating about failing---” Levi shook his head almost instantly as if what he had just said dawned on him then. “Actually wait, I think I phrased it wrong. This probably sounds weird.”

Hange continued to stare at the sky. “No, I think I get it,” she said. “Failing is embarrassing, it fucking hurts and for a while it feels like life stops. But when you fail enough times, failure starts to feel like a friend. And when you fail a few more times, you stop chasing and that’s the liberation you’re talking about right? There’s something liberating about accepting failure as just something that happens and just riding through that downward spiral before picking yourself up again." Hange held the booklet over her and reopened it. “I’m happy where I am now too, post-downward spiral.”

Levi could only watch and listen as she whispered unintelligible sentences to herself, grinning at the pages. He wondered which scenes she was reading through then.

“Well, it’s time for both of us to regroup then. We can't just keep feeling sorry for ourselves right?” Hange added as she stood up. “I have my research. You have your tea shop to work on. We better start hiking now or I don’t think we’ll make it back before sun down.”

“I would have wanted to enjoy this view a little longer.”

“Then we schedule another hike. We endure the uphill battle, we enjoy the peak then we deal with the downward spiral. That’s how it’s always been anyway.” She stuffed the booklet on her backpack and pulled him up from the bench.

“Yeah, we’re both used to it anyway,” Levi joked. He felt Hange’s hand behind him as he looked down at the decline. Only looking at it then did it dawn on him, hiking backwards, the downward spiral which followed the euphoria at the peak could be almost comparable to hell for his knees.

“Hey, I’ll go first. If you feel like you’re losing your balance, just grip my shoulder harder. Besides we can look for a gentler slope on the way down. We just have to get past this one.”

“We won’t be able to get down if we don’t deal with this huh?”

“We won’t,” Hange said. “I know it’s bad for your knees… but if you walk at an angle, it will reduce pressure. I’ll cover for you.” She clutched his hand, went ahead and guided his hand towards her shoulder.

Levi took it as a sign to grip..

“Just relax," Hange said.

It was easier said than done. Levi waited for his legs to start screaming then. The dull aches were ubiquitous, the buckling and unbuckling of his knees were a discomfort he had learned to just ride through and he was sure, he wouldn’t be hiking for another few months after that.

Even before the slope had gradually morphed into something gentler, Hange had started talking again as if she knew once again that it could ease them the whole ordeal of hiking downwards.

“Remember that teashop, the one just a ten minute walk away from our apartment, you wanna check it out?” Hange asked.

There was only one teashop near their place and Levi was quick to recognize it. “I’ve been going there everyday after work.”

“Without me?”

“Where do you think I buy the teabags and the coffee beans that never seem to run out?" Levi asked. He had taken great care to say the word 'coffee' in particular. It was Hange who went through bags of them too quickly that it was almost impossible to not frequent the cafe.

“Fine, I won’t complain. Tell me about it then, any regulars? Anything notable?”

“There are two kids who live nearby and they hang out there a lot. A brunette and a blond. Falco and Gabi.” Those names had been easy to remember. Yet as he imagined those two kids in the cafe, as he recalled their minimal interactions, he started to wonder if they ever really did introduce themselves.

“Those are familiar names," Hange commented.

“And there’s a pilot who hangs out there but mostly on weekends. His name is Onya--”

“Onyakopon?”

“So you’ve met them before?”

“No, just seems familiar.”

“So what, are you gonna tell me you’ve dreamed of them?”

“Maybe I did.”

Somehow, that had taken a weight of his shoulders then and it had started to become easier to admit on his end. “To be honest, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dream of them too.”