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#I am a sucker for men in period clothes

parisiterileymoon · 11 days

Text

Angel dust x male reader

Set in the 40s, Im a sucker for a good forbidden romance. (We are all freinds of Dorothy here;])

C/W:mafia, period accurate homophobia, suggestive material(implied fornication), murder, someone gets dragged by the hair, major character death, guns, google translate Italian.

Anthony. His name rolled of the tongue. Anthony. An~tho~ny. When you looked at him, your stomach twisted in knots. You both got out of having to serve in the war due to belonging to the mafia. If anyone found out about your little affaire, you would surely be killed. You looked down to see your beloved Tony curled in the fetal position away from you in bed. "What, was I that bad?" you asked him, only half joking. "Nah toots, I'm just tired. It's...damn what time is it?" "uhhh- how do you not have a clock somewhere in here?" you rolled out of bed with a thunk, pulling on a pair of boxers and looked for your watch. "HA! Found it. Itssss 1:00 AM? Good god!" you laugh, placing your watch back on the floor with the rest of your clothes. All of a sudden you hear footsteps. Not like light and quick like Molly's but heavy and slow like... Henry. Anthony's father. You see, Molly was the only person who knew about you and Anthony. You frantically look around, hopping into the closet. His father bursts into the room. "Anthony, who is in here." you watch your lover panic. "Nobody, pa! I swear! It's just me!" "Questa è una fottuta stronzata Anthony e lo sai, don't lie to me boy!" he begins to look around and his eyes land on the closet. It's as if he can stare straight through your soul. Your palms begin to sweat and tears well in your eyes. Henry pretty much tares the door of the closet off. He pushes you to the ground. "YOU! YOU TURNED MY SON INTO A QUEER" you look at Anthony, sweet Anthony. For a split second you look in his eyes and feel safe. But than Henry kicked you in the stomach and grabs your hair. "PA STOP HE DIDN'T DO NOTHIN'" Anthony cries and drops to the floor, cradling your face. Henry kicks him away from you and begins dragging you outside. "NO PLEASE- PLEASE LET ME GO I'M SORRY" Anthony tries to run after you but his father pulls a gun out of his back pocket "you step one foot closer to me and I shoot you and the fag." "no..." tony falls to his knees. "No pa please..." "anthony I'm gonna be ok" you say, crying. Henry Yanks your hair. "WHO SAID YOU COULD SPEAK QUEER" he pulls you outside and throws you into the mud. He points his gun at you. "No son of mine... No son if mine will be a damn queer. I'm doing the world a favor by making sure you turn no more good men. Any last words?" you look over Henry's shoulder at your lover, screaming and protesting for his father to stop, and you smile at him. "Anthony," you reach out for him "find me on the other side". The last thing you see is your beloved Tony sobbing as he falls for his knees, crying your name. Your life flashes before your eyes as you feel a sharp and unbearable pain in your head. Than, almost like magic, you feel an odd sence of peace. You feel warm and comforted. You see a light. It was almost blinding. Somehow you knew... This... This is heaven.

Would he find you? No. No he wouldn't.

A/N: if you have any gripes, please comment! Constructive criticism is highly appreciated<3

#hazbin hotel #angel dust #hazbin angel dust #angel dust x male reader #angel dust hazbin hotel #angel dust x reader #forbidden romance #Crying brb

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themand0lorian · 3 years

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Oh my GOSH. This thought occurred to me and I pray it inspires you because I need to read it desperately. Javi x reader where she’s a relatively new agent who clicks with javi immediately and they have an unspoken thing. How would javi respond if Carillo not so subtly threatened the reader for not getting with the (very violent, shoving out of helicopter, child shooting) program? I’m always a fan of a protective Pedro 😭

*maxwell lord voice* am I the protective pedro character gal now? ill take it~

ANYWAY, hope you enjoy, anon-I had some trouble with this, as I’ve never actually seen Narcos! I watched this specific episode for this, but I would guess pretty much every character is OOC lol. Spewing it forth anyway because I’m a hurt/comfort sucker...

You

Summary: Carrillo's unorthodox methods force Javier to examine his own feelings.

Pairing: Javier Peña x Female DEA!Reader (no Y/N)

Rating: M (Swearing, Canon-Typical Violence [no smut])

Words: ~4000 (AO3)

Tags: Canon-typical violence, language (cursing), protective Javi, Carrillo's a jerk, fighting, soft ending, emotional hurt/comfort, death of a minor character, death of a child, references to drugs/police/DEA

Notes: This is a direct retelling of the scenes in S2E3, when Carrillo shoots a teenager. The violence depicted is minimal and non-gorey, mostly focused on the reader's reaction, but I felt the warning should be there.

“Javi, stop,” you plead, swatting his hands away from your tac vest. He outmaneuvered you, tugging tightly onto another strap as you sighed, the air escaping allowing him to pull it that much tighter around your waist. “You do this to Steve, too?”

“No. Steve can do it himself.”

“So can I,” you retort with a roll of your eyes, and Javi tightens one last strap at your shoulder, then pulls you by the top of vest to center it on your torso. Satisfied with his work, he pats you on the shoulder before turning to look at the rest of the scene. Carrillo and his men are similarly suited up, as much protection as their slim budget can offer under their casual clothing, though they are all strong and well-built. You’re the only one obviously wearing the vest, your unforgiving blouse giving too much away, unlike the linen shirts most of the men wore. You follow Javi over to the Colonel, who is outlining instructions in Spanish to his squad; fan out, search the area. Find those bastards. Carrillo turns to you and Javi, exchanging a nod before moving on his own path.

You were instructed to follow Carrillo’s lead, the search for the men behind the slaughter of his squad under his jurisdiction. You and Javi exchanged a silent look, both bracing your arms to hold your guns at your sides before you, too, split up. You each had your own path to follow, and with the downed officers, men on the ground were thin; too thin to pair up.

This was the first time you had even been out in the field since moving to Colombia. You were new to the DEA, fresh-faced and green, called in for the ongoing war against drugs as more and more agents grew tired of the fight. You were immediately placed with Javi and Steve, a third person to round out their mostly successful duo, to “provide a different perspective as the two men became more and more alike,” according to the ambassador. Somehow, though, the ambassador’s plan fell through-really, you were a third wheel. Javi and Steve went out in the field, kicking ass, taking names and you…manned the tip line.

You would have been okay with it, had your Spanish been better, had the three of you switched on and off for who had to deal with the outlandish calls of the day. But Steve knew less Spanish than you, and Javi seemed to turn the line into something else entirely, calls stretching for long periods of time and clogging the number as he spoke in hushed tones to various “informants.” You shuddered thinking of it, and therefore accepted your post, the only one willing to placate clairvoyants with active imaginations and overly concerned abuelas who were peeking their noses into men they thought worked for Pablo Escobar.

Still, you were successful, receiving the tip that led to tonight’s mission for the murderers. So when Carrillo benched Steve and brought Javi with him, you knew this was your shot. The Colonel needed people, and you were itching to get into the weeds of things again—Carrillo was apprehensive at your fresh face, but with a bat of your eyelashes, he left the decision to Javier. Javi reluctantly agreed to let you come along in Murphy’s absence, chain-smoking a few extra cigarettes in the office as the time for the mission approached, huffing and angrily shoving files around when his fingers left his mouth.

You weren’t sure what his problem was, but you knew him well enough to know something was up. You and Javi had been friendly since you arrived a few months ago; always on the same wavelength when it came to theories and planning. Steve often remarked how you were a “female Javi,” which you took mock-offence to, but it was true; the two of you just clicked. Outside of work, you spent hours on his couch, mulling over classified files that you didn’t ask the origin of; him with a glass of whiskey, you with a glass of white wine. You figured he kept it around for his rotating cast of “informants,” always taking a larger swig when you thought of the intended recipients.

You weren’t immune to Javi’s charms; however, you were warned immediately by the ambassador that interoffice affairs were prohibited. You twisted your face in confusion, but the second Javi walked in to her office, a smirk and a “Hi, cariño” on his lips, you understood. He was undeniably attractive, broad shoulders and pillowed lips always smirking in your direction, a contrast to the scowl he normally wore, but you tried to shut down the “cariño” nickname immediately, wanting to be taken seriously in your new role. Still, you had watched the man flirt with anything with tits, an unidentified pang in your chest when he complimented the new secretary or eyed up a woman on the street. You tried not to let that bother you, allowing your friendship with the man to blossom instead; he was handsome, sure. But he was also kind and thoughtful, and funny when he wanted to be. He had puppy-dog eyes that could rival an actual puppy-dog, but he was fiercely loyal to you and Steve, and you knew that he would have your back when things went awry, as evidenced by the meticulousness with which he strapped you into your tac vest.

You creeped through the back alleys on your assigned path, light footfalls barely masking the tremble in your breath. Walking alone at night as a woman in Colombia always sent a shiver down your spine, gun or not—but doing so in search of cop killers made the hair on your arms stand on end. You tried to push the thought away, rounding another corner with your back to the brick wall as you continued, until suddenly, you heard muffled yelling in the distance. Too unclear to make out the words, you recognized the gruff tone as Carrillo, figuring he found the perps.

Without thinking, you abandoned your route, running toward the source of the noise. Your footfalls remained silent, gun outstretched as you tried to sneak up on the group in case back up was needed. Carrillo had four or five people kneeling before him, hands on their heads as Javi and some other members of Carrillo’s team stood by. You slinked forward, hearing Javi mumble inaudibly under his breath, trying to get a better vantage point when you realized—the people on the ground were short. Too small to be adults, your mind raced to put the pieces together—they were kids. One no older than 12, the others more likely in their teens. And Carrillo was walking back and forth with a gun to their head. You let out a small gasp at the sound, your hands falling limp to your sides in shock as Javi turned to you, searching for the noise.

The next few moments happened in a blur. As Javi looked to you, Carrillo pulled the trigger, sending the limp body of one of the boys to the ground. You shrieked, seeing it all—your body folded over in protest, knees buckling and you were unable to remove your eyes from the boy. Carrillo dismissed the remaining children, all scrambling out of the alley as Javi wrapped his arms around you, holding you upright. You wanted to scream, to cry, but nothing was coming out; instead you started to dry heave, bile rising in your throat as you gagged, spitting the acid at your feet; he still held on. Carrillo paid you no mind, walking in the opposite direction to his car; Javi stood with you, turning you away from the dead body and stroking the back of your head as you sobbed dryly, shock rendering him mute.

He had delicately placed you into the car before getting in himself, the drive back to the embassy silent other than your heavy breaths. Steve was waiting when you arrived, but Javi pushed past him, whispering in your ear that he would drive you home and guiding you into his own car. When Steve pressed for more information, Javi finally broke from his silence.

“Carrillo put a gun to the kid’s head and he pulled the trigger. To make a fucking point,” he held in a sigh. “She—she watched the whole thing. I’m taking her home. We good now?” he asked, not waiting for an answer as he slammed the car door behind him.

You weren’t surprised when Javi wordlessly passed your apartment building, instead pulling into his own. You weren’t surprised when he led you up to his apartment, when he uncorked a fresh bottle of white wine, when he poured himself a whiskey. When you both sat wordlessly, staring forward into his living room, silent and still, drinks untouched. What did surprise you was your own voice, breaking the silence.

“He was just a kid,” you whimper. Javi sighed heavily, taking a swig from his glass. Neither of you looked at each other, intently studying the patterns in the floor instead.

“I know,” was all he could muster out, deep and gravelly. He took a larger swig, emptying his glass; yours remained untouched as he poured himself another, breathing in the aroma deeply.

“Do—do you ever think that maybe, we’re just as bad as they are?” you ask quietly, and Javi finally looks at you to see tears streaming down your cheeks. He places his glass on the coffee table to reach a hand to yours, intertwining them when you open your palm to him in silent invitation. His hand sits heavily between you, grounding you into the couch as he squeezes lightly, pulling you closer to him until your head rests on his chest, his free arm pulling your legs over his lap and holding them there, rubbing softly at the denim of your jeans. It’s the closest you’ve ever been to him, but your brain can’t process that. All it sees is the twisted face of the boy in the alley, his blood pooled on the ground. Javi’s chest rumbles, a unique comfort to bring you out of your stupor when he speaks again, unwrapping from your hand to wrap his arm around your shoulders before encasing it again.

“Not you, cariño. Never you.”

Time passes slowly in Javier’s arms. Neither of you move much, occasional twitches as muscles relaxed and settling chests when deep breaths finally escaped. You didn’t say anything, didn’t have to; the boy’s death weighed heavily in the air, and before long, the sun was nipping at the Colombian sky again, brilliant pinks and oranges coloring the landscape out Javier’s window. Neither of you had slept, listening to the other breathe softly as you sat stone still, but the deep ache in your bones was from more than lack of sleep. The unwelcome intrusion of light caused you to finally unfold from each other, Javi groaning as he stood to stretch his back and tossing you a linen shirt. You pulled it over yourself, a slight grunt as the crick in your back stretched with your arms, tucking the ends into your jeans to make it fit more appropriately as you walked back to Javi’s car and back to work.

Carrillo was already there when you arrived, him and Steve arguing in hushed tones in one of the conference rooms along the back wall. Just the sight of the Colonel turned your stomach, your eyes quickly averting as you made eye contact with him, instead focusing on the linoleum as you trudged to your desk. A steaming mug was placed in front of you as you sat, warm and black, its pair held deftly in Javier’s hand as he settled into his own desk, flipping through files languidly.

The day moved slowly, but a different type of slowly than the night before; the night in Javi’s arms moved like molasses, slow and sickly sweet, calming as it ran fluidly. The day moved like tar, thick and pungent, plopping to the ground in jarring segments as a phone was hung up too aggressively or a secretary’s high heels clacked too loudly. You returned a few of the tip line calls, mostly fruitless nothings until one call got directed straight to Peña, which he readily took and followed up on, alone. When he returned, he gestured for you and Steve to meet him in a conference room; you almost fainted when you saw Carrillo sitting at the table when you entered, but you kept your gaze down, unwilling to engage.

Javier outlined his tip, despite Steve’s incredulous negging, for a lab deep in the jungle; you tried not to wince at his mention of his CI, remembering the ghosting feeling of his arms wrapped around you instead. Once Carrillo agreed, Steve and Javi nodded in acknowledgement; your eyes were still trained on the map in front of you, until Carrillo’s gruff voice rang out.

“You have a problem with me, princesa?” he practically growled. You chose not to answer, focused on the map in front of you as Javi and Steve stood in thick silence. Carrillo shoved the map away from your line of sight, standing and stomping over to you before grabbing your chin to turn your eyes to him. “Huh? Don’t like my methods?”

You swallowed harshly, meeting his gaze but still unable to form the words. You knew why he did it, you knew he was deeper into this fight than you would ever be. But the boy’s face still haunted you, ghosted behind your eyes as you fought the tears pricking them. Javi had started at the man when he touched you, Steve holding him back with a hand out to his side as the Colonel spoke again.

“That’s fine. You don’t like it, the airport’s that way. Get your pretty little ass on the next flight home, princesa—” he seethed, continuing. “You either get with the program, or you get sent home in a body bag.” He’s in your face now, hand taught on your cheeks as he spits venom. Steve finally lets his arm down, knowing nothing would stop Javi after that threat; Javi makes good on his reputation. Within seconds, Javier shoves Carrillo off of you, the pinch of his fist leaving your face to throw a punch at Javi, which he dodges. Steve practically pulls you out of your chair and out of the way as the men grunt and shove each other around the room, fistfuls of shirts exchanged as they move. The two skirmish until Javier has Carrillo pushed against the wall, breathing heavily into each other as pure rage flashes across his eyes; you’re unable to hear their low conversation as Steve stands between you.

“I thought you were all in,” Carrillo growled, the two speaking quickly in Spanish.

“I am.”

“Apparently not when some stupid bitch gets involved.”

"That ‘bitch’ got you your last intel, you bastard,” Javi responds, pushing Carrillo a little farther into the wall as the man smiles wickedly. “You threaten to send her home, you send me home, too.”

“Must be some great pussy,” Carrillo retorts, and Javier lands a punch straight to his nose at the insinuation, hoping you were too far to hear. Blood is running down Carrillo’s face as he chuckles, Javi breathing heavily in rage, when finally, you speak up.

“Listen!” Your voice is almost shrill as you cut in, Steve doing little to hold you back either. “If we’re gonna get Pablo, we’re gonna get him together. So--are we getting this lab or not?” You ask, watching Javi release Carrillo slowly from the wall. The Colonel storms out of the room with Steve on his heels; you barely get to look at Javi before he storms out as well, the testosterone thick in the air.

It doesn’t dissipate on the drive to the lab, Carrillo holding a cloth to his bloodied nose as Javier speeds more dangerously than usual. You and Steve exchange silent looks in the backseat until Javier throws the car in park, your crew stepping out into the muggy jungle. Carrillo, Steve, and some of his men lean on the hood to outline their plan; like the night before, Javi is strapping on your tac vest, and you do little to stop him as he presses the Velcro at your shoulders.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Prove yourself to him. To any of us,” Javi says lowly, continuing with the straps. “You’re already the most valuable person on our team.”

“I doubt anyone thinks that, Javi,” you scold him as he fastens the last of the straps, a little pent-up aggression slipping through as he presses the last one into place harshly. Like before, he pulls on the shoulders to center it, then rests his hands there as you look up at him through your lashes.

“You’re the most valuable to me,” he clarifies before walking away. He leaves you no room to retort, to really even process the meaning behind the words; the men are moving down the rocky terrain toward the lab, you and Steve with Carrillo and Javi with some of the other men. The raid goes as well as you expect; the first few down without a fight, the rest downing officers and their own. You try not to wince as you hear every gunshot, every splash of blood spilled, every twisted face to join the boy’s from the night before. You land a few good shots, almost on autopilot, saving Carrillo from a bullet meant for him when he turns his back. He nods in silent thanks, capturing the higher profile targets before leading the team back out into the wilderness.

The ride back to the city is quiet but less tense, adrenaline still coursing through the group until you make it to the office; the four of you stand around the cars as the next moves are made.

“Murphy, you coming?” Carrillo asks, and Steve only nods, starting his walk to the helicopter that holds the targets. The blades of the chopper are almost deafening, but you see Javi open his mouth to come along to, until Carrillo speaks again, low enough only for the men to hear.

“You're not coming. You need to talk to your girl--she's either in, or she's out.” Javi nods, watching as the Colonel makes his way to the helicopter before it takes off. Javier leads you back inside, a hand ghosting over your back until you make it safely to your desk. It’s late, the office mostly empty, and you begin to tear the straps to your tac vest until larger, calloused ones cover yours. You look to Javier, standing a breath away from you, hands lightly resting on the strap in silent permission. Once granted with a nod, he pulls the straps excruciatingly slowly, undoing the ones at your hips first, left then right. You take a deep breath of him, of his face just barely inches from yours as his hands ghost up your arms to your shoulders, unstrapping the ties there too, left, then right. All at once, the vest falls between you both, a heavy clunk on the floor, but your eyes never leave Javier’s. You’re holding your breath tighter than it's held in the vest as he searches your face, hoping, praying he’ll give in to whatever unresolved tension is left unsaid. Between his words to Carrillo, his words before the raid, your head is swirling. Instead, he pulls away; your breath finally releases.

You absently answer a few more tip line calls while Javier types up his report, barely processing the words of a little girl who saw the telephone number in the paper and wanted to tell someone about her cat. Steve trudges in at some point, worse for wear; he pours himself a glass of whiskey, drowning himself in it; you both choose not to ask. When the time comes for you to leave, Javier again leads you wordlessly to his passenger seat, driving slowly past your apartment and to his instead. You follow him in quietly, patting off your shoes at the door as he pours another glass of white wine, finishing the bottle, and a tumbler of whiskey for himself.

“Shouldn’t you be saving some?” your tongue moves faster than your mind, continuing to vomit words when he looks to you confusedly. “You—you said you got today’s tip from a CI. I—I thought you might need it for her.”

“I buy this for you,” he admits quietly, the bottle clanging in the trashcan as he tosses it. “Only you.” You swallow harshly, an apology on your tongue that can’t come out; instead, you swig the wine, allowing it to burn your throat. Javi turns from you, walking from the kitchen to his couch with you on his heels. You sit in much the same pose as before, both slightly too far, both staring absently at the floor until you speak again.

“It—it got easier, today. Seeing everything.” He knows what you’re referring to without further explanation. “Maybe I’m just as bad as them after all,” you announce smally, swirling your glass before taking a swig. Javier mirrors Carrillo’s actions from the conference room, though this time full of tenderness, grabbing your chin and turning your face to him. There’s no tears, no blood-stained cheeks; only eyes full of remorse, lips begging to be kissed. He looks straight into your eyes, keeping his thumb on your chin as he speaks again.

“Not you, cariño. Never you.” You nod absently and mirror your previous actions, pulling your legs over his lap on your own accord. His arms slip around you easily, holding your head to his chest as one hand rubs absent circles on your hip. Your drinks are forgotten on the coffee table, light breathing the only noise in the apartment until you speak again.

"You know--if I'm not bad, then you aren't either," you reassure him, tracing absently over the seam of his shirt. You knew the past few days were weighing heavily on him, too, and hoped you could provide the same comfort he so readily gave.

"Why do you say that?" he questions honestly.

"Steve always says we're two sides of the same coin. So if I'm not bad, neither are you," you explain. Javier nods, continuing to hold you close; you can tell he just barely believes your words. The silence hangs comfortably between you as you war within yourself, but like before, your tongue moves before your brain can catch up.

“Hey, Javi?” He hums in acknowledgement, eyes downturned but focused, and you turn your head to look up at him. His hand stays on the back, supporting it as he shifts his gaze to your face instead. You swallow before speaking again. “You’re the most valuable to me, too.” He stays there a moment, eyes searching your face for a trace of anything, until you inch that much closer to him, noses barely bumping. You both breathe heavily into your shared space, eyes averted as the tension grows between you. When you lean that much more forward, wrapping your arms around his neck, Javier finally closes the gap, bringing your head towards him to envelop your lips with his. The kiss is electric, like a knife cutting through the tension between you, fireworks exploding in the background. You’re almost surprised when he releases you back, his hand still resting on the back of your head as he rests his forehead to yours.

“You—you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that,” he whispers, and you fight a shy smile, pressing your lips back to his chastely instead as you murmur into his mouth.

“It’s you, Javier. Always you.”

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thanksjro · 3 years

Text

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

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

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

Haha, I doubt it.

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

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

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

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

For loving his child.

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

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

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

No. Not at all, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if women are property to be owned.

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

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which made me groan aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

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

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

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

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

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

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy doesn’t count.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For about 20 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We still have another hour of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

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

Repeatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

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

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

In tow.

In tow-

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

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

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

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

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

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

What a mess.

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

COMING SOON:

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

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

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

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

#transformers #bayverse #part one #maccadam #Hannzreads #Hannzwatches #text post #long post #film analysis #off topic

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Emp-Ire, “The Oracle.”

I had very little time to write today, but I have had people request the story behind this one, so I thought I could open it quickly today before I get swamped.

Again forgive me. I had to write very quickly. I hope you have a good day!”

The world shone like a beautiful marble beneath them, vast stretches of blue water under swirling clouds of white. The landmasses were mostly green like on earth, though there was more orange present here than there would have been on the human homeworld.

There was not one singular landmass, or even a few large ones, but thousands of little islands clustered together like shards of broken glass scattered across the floor after one drops a plate.

Ramirez looked out the window his hands and face pressed to the glass as they descended downwards towards the blue glittering surface.

“Remind me what the theme of this planet is.”

“Planets don’t have themes Ramirez.” Adam Said, crossing one ankle over his other knee.

“Ok yeah yeah, but I mean, what microculture do they have.”

Adam shrugged, “Some kind of Greek-Roman thing going on.”

Ramirez grinned, “Excellent?”

Adam’s brows furrowed together suspiciously, “Why?”

“You know how the Romans and the Greeks were….” Adam blinked, “No?”

Ramirez raised an eyebrow, “I don’t have to give you a lecture on WHY olive oil was so popular during Roman times, do I?”

Adam stared at him for a long moment before it finally clicked, “Oh… oh…..ew.”

“What? Got a problem with that?“

“I definitely did not want that image of you in my head thanks.”

He grinned, “That means you were thinking about it.”

“You were holding me as an intellectual hostage, and I do not negotiate with terrorists.” Ramirez laughed as they lowered through the clouds .

“What is their major export?”

“I thought it was Textiles, some kind of silk though I forget what kind. I think they also quarry certain kinds of stone, but I could be wrong about that too. All I know is they have extreme restrictions on what kinds of equipment can and cannot be used planetside, so they have to keep everything…. Not medieval per se, but no emissions,and extreme infrastructure is a no go.

“Alright cool, where are we landing.”

“I think they are calling it New Athens or something.”

Ramirez leaned back in his seat, “Do you think these people actually believe all this stuff or is it just like elaborate roleplay?”

‘I think that even if it is elaborate roleplay, it won’t be for long. Soon enough people born here are going to believe it.”

The struts on the landing gear cracked and popped as they settled into place. Outside the window the landscape was mediteranian, with rocky hillsides and low lying bushes interspersed with the occasional tree-like structure. Long grass of some kind poked up from the soil, orange in the daylight which had a strange yellow cast.

They stepped out of the shuttle and onto the platform where some enterprising person headset up a vending booth for proper period clothing. The man seemed a bit miffed as the two of them passed by and into the nearby changing stalls, having already been equipped by Adam’s mother.

Adam stepped out a moment later to find Ramirez fiddling with his sandals, and Adam became aware of a slight breeze on the wind as it tugged at the tunic he wore.

As someone who had worn almost every type of clothing under the sun, he had to admit that he was familiar with the sensation of having a breeze, though that didn’t mean he was entirely used to it.

They turned and walked down the nearby pathway sandals flopping on the ground as they made their way over the next little rise to look down on the still-being-constructed New Athens.

“Holy Shit.” Ramirez said quietly

Adam blinked, craning his neck back to look at the massive statue rising itself into the air. A statue of what must have been Athena.

“And look, no crane.”

“No shit, and those buildings over there, I think they already finished that one.”

The two of them stopped gawking long enough to make their way down the path and onto the well kept paving stones of the city. They must have entered a market district as men and women called to them from booths on either side of the walkway. Large crowd filtered in and out, and just a few blocks away from here he could see holding pens where they were keeping specific earth animals, like goats and pigs. Strange exotic birds hung in cages, though none of them were earth birds.

Clearly they must ahvebeen native.

In a near daze they made their way up through the city and towards the marble temple erected on a hill at the center of the city. Trees shedding petals like delicate blue blossoms fell onto the street making the scene all together familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Ramirez craned his neck up to look at the still-rising statue as they passed by stepping up the marble steps and under the massive pillars that held up the artfully crafted roof of the structure.

“Wow.”

Little fountains, reflections pools and an elaborate guardian had been built up around the marble structure, and in this palace people had congregated. A couple of men were arguing, what do Adam sounded like the finer points of philosophy, while a man serenaded a crowd of onlookers with a strange and unfamiliar instrument. Humans weren’t the only ones here of course, a couple of Tesraki could be seen lurking around the stalls, and selling their wares though the population was predominantly human.

“I like their idea of exterior decorating.”

He turned to see what Ramirez was talking about, and was greeted by a very fit, very nude, marble statue of some unknown young athlete or demigod..

“Of course YOU would think that.”

Ramirez frowned deeply, “I was merely commenting on the artistic style in which they have rendered the image from stone. The detail and the dedication that it must have taken to-”

“You’re talking about his abs.”

“Yeah, I am talking about his abs, but not JUST his abs. He’s got nice calves too.”

“Calves?”

“I am a sucker for nice calves, you see that’s why you and I would never work, because you only have one real one.”

Adam snorted and looked down at his legs, which were he admitted a bit out of place in the world of knee length tunics. You could almost assume they had walked right into the past and then, boom. Advanced prosthetic leg.

“So what are we going to do while we are here?” Ramirez wondered.

“Not entirely sure yet. Sightseeing, obviously, maybe just hang out on one of the many white sand beaches, we can do whatever we want. Who knows, maybe you could go visit the oracle and ask her why the gods cursed you with such a thick skull.”

“I was thinking about asking which one of the gods is my parent since clearly I am a Demigod.”

“You seek the oracle!”

The two of them nearly jumped out of their skin turning around to find a very tall, very beautiful woman standing behind them with an entourage of admirers following behind her. She stepped forward, making it very uncomfortably close to the two of them.

“Well hello aphrodite.” Ramirez muttered

She smiled at him, “Sweet words can get you far in a place like this.” She traced her hand over his shoulders as she walked around him head tilted.

“Well there is more where that came from I assure you.” Craning his neck to see her more clearly.

She smiled, “I am Althaia devine assistant to the oracle.” She turned to look up at Adam, “And you, do you seek the oracle as well.”

She traced her fingertips down his arm, and seemed rather miffed when he didn’t react other than to pull away slightly, “How much?’

She frowned again, “What do you mean.”

Adam smiled stiffly, “I mean how much do we have to pay to see the oracle.”

Althaia Huffed, “Ten Credits.”

Adam laughed, and Ramirez frowned at him.

Althaia turned to walk away but Adam waved a hand, “Hold on, hold on. I asked how much I never said we weren’t interested.”

She trend to look at them with one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows raised, “Come with me then.”

The two of them fell into step beside her, Ramirez looking like one of her devoted admirers.

She turned to look at him, eyes narrowing slightly, “You seem familiar. What do you do for a living?”

“Just a soldier, both of us just soldiers.”

“And are you seeking…. A quest perhaps.”

He wondered what kind of touristy quest she was talking about. Probably some kind of scavenger hunt that would ring them to the edge of the city where they would find a golden fleece draped over a tree.

“Not sure yet,”

She led them up the temple steps and stopped outside two large double doors. A pair of guards, golden breastplates and blue accent feathers stood before the door. Their shields held to their chests, their spears at the ready crossing them as the strangers approached.

She turned to look at Adam and held out her arm. He smiled as he exchanged twenty credits with her.

Althaia waved a hand and the two guards uncrossed their spears and stepped aside. The doors creaked inward and Adam and Ramirez were hit in the face by a waft of incense which floated heavily on the wind and into their faces.

“Go, go and speak with the oracle.” She said nudging them forward.

Ramirez sniffed at the air as the doors closed behind them.

He frowned, “Hold on a minute.”

Adam looked at him, “What?”

“This is not JUST incense.”

“Pretty sure that's how it used to work.”

The two of them stepped forward over the marble floor passing more and more marble statues as they walked towards the end, where a group of guards…. With suspiciously bloodshot eyes… stood before an alter, where sat another beautiful woman wearing a light fabric shift, long black hair cascading over her shoulders.

“You have come seeking the oracle?” She said her eyes distant.

He was pretty sure that’s just because she was high.

“Yes?

She looked at them eyes seeming to stare into and THROUGH them, “Two soldiers…. Two soldiers on a quest.”

She must have known who Adam was otherwise that prediction might have been pretty impressive. Either that or Althaia had an earpiece in and was feeding her information about the people coming to see her.”

“Son of Aphrodite, Son of Athena….”

Adam just smiled.

Ramirez elbowed him in the ribs, “hear that, she thinks I’m sexy.”

“Yeah and she thinks “I’ am the smart one, so Don’t get too excited.”

She eyed them shrewdly, and something in her expression made Adam feel strange. It was as if she was contemplating something very very deeply. As they watched, she tapped her fingers against the stone.

“Take a ship, tell them to drop you on the border of Laconia, and then head inland. You will find your quest there.”

Adam smiled, “Thank you, Oracle.”

She waved them away dismissively, and the two of them stepped outside Adam breathing a sigh of relief as they stepped out of the smoke and into fresh air.

He coughed, “So, what do you think this quest is going to be.”

“I don’t know, maybe we will meet a sexy snake lady.” He elbowed Adam, “We already have a cyclops.”

“Oh shut the hell up.” Adam grumbled as they made their way down towards and towards the docks.

The ships were simple wooden constructions with large sails and lines of chairs below deck for rowing. It was almost a surreal feeling as they boarded and set off on the crashing waves. There was no salt in the air which made Adam think that this was fresh water, which was pretty convenient for the people that lived there. Once they told the captain of the ship where they were going, he gave them a strange look, but took their credits and ordered his men to sail.

Adam was getting mildly suspicious by the time it all started, but decided to go along and see where this would bring them.

On all sides small islands passed by, and on those small islands he could see cities being erected, Vineyards being tended, and the occasional strange and mysterious looking animal disappearing back into the plant life.

“Laconia.” he rolled the word around in his mouth, “Does that sound familiar to you?”

“No, why would it. Here is my thought. We show up, walk to the middle of the island and find a golden sheep or something. I don’t know maybe we meet a guy dressed up like a minotaur and have to wrestle him for it or some shit. Either way, should be fun, and then we can spend the rest of the time lazing around on the beach sunning ourselves.”

Adam nodded but wasn’t sure whether to believe Ramirez as the boat made its slow way down the straights, past other vessels which sailed with blue trimmed sails. It took them almost half a day to reach this, Laconia, which Adam still argued sounded familiar, and disembarked on the sandy shore.

The captain didn’t give them any direction, but ordered his men out once more.

Adam hd expected there to be some kind of pathway or maybe a sign marking where they were supposed to go, but there was nothing, and so he shrugged and motioned Ramirez to follow him as he made his way up the center of the island.

They were walking for a while. This island was a bit larger and so had an expanse of grassland and mountainous terrain interspersed with the occasional tree.

“I have no idea where I am going.” Adam muttered under his breath as they came up around a rock incline.

He nearly leapd out of his skin as a loud battle cry rose up from the stone and a group of what must have been five men descended on them from the rocks spears raised. Not thinking Adam ducked under the trust of one man and shouldered him in the chest. Throwing him back as he snapped upwards to grab the spear.

He wrenched it form the man’s hand as she shoulder him painfully to the ground.

He spun around in a circle, clashing spears with a second man who had come in from the left.

Off to his right Ramirez had been caught off guard and been plowed to the ground by one man holding an absolutely massive circular shield.

His spear was knocked aside in that moment of hesitation and a leaf blade appeared at his throat.

He looked up to see an absolutely massive man standing over him red cloak billowing in the wind, golden helmet with its red plume glittering in the sun. The man was so ripped with glistening muscle that he made the statues outside New Athens look practically puny.

He looked down where one of his men was slowly hauling himself to his feet, another muscle bound brute who looked almost embarrassed.

“Who are you!”

The man demanded.

Adam raised his hands, “I could ask you the same question.”

“I’m not the one with a spear to my throat.”

“Adam, and that one is Angel.”

“What business do you have on our island. Spies for the Athenians.” he snarled, and his acting was so good for a moment Adam almost believed him.

“Uh no…. No, they sent us here but, I don’t work for them.”

The men muttered angrily. Five hulking shapes, five men who clearly made a living of hitting the gym.

“Tan they sent you here to die.”

Adam frowned.

The spear pulled back.

And then a hand stopped him, “Wait…. The king should decide.”

There was a pause, “I suppose you are right.”

“King, king of what?”

The two men turned to look at him, deep frowns on their faces.

“The king of Sparta.”

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puttingfingerstokeys · 3 years

Text

Hat Trick

in which Johnny Cage is... himself. Featuring the Shaolin Rowdy Boys. Formatting is for losers.

faraday cage implied, shaolin rowdy boys too obviously.

Prevented timeline

“Yeah, yeah, your hat’s cool an’ all, but honestly, Raiden’s got you beat,” declared Johnny Cage, wrapping a towel around broad shoulders, mopping the sweat off his brow. Kung Lao shook his head and clicked his tongue.

“Lord Raiden’s hat is not a weapon,” he said as Liu Kang walked into the SF locker room area. The Shaolin monks had been asked to come and provide special training for the new batch of recruits and they had just finished for the day.

“It does not need to be,” Liu Kang reminded his friend, sidling past Kung Lao to the locker he was borrowing. Sweat glistened upon his muscular back and Johnny made a conscious effort to keep his eyes on the man with whom he was conversing. If Lao noticed, he said nothing. He was not blind. Even well into their fifties, all three men were at the height of their strength, power, and if you asked Johnny—no one did; it was a bad move in general if one did not have time—looks.

Johnny shot Liu Kang a set of finger guns, brow cocked. “See? He’s got it. Dude shoots LIGHTNING!”

“Correction,” supplied the humbler of the two monks, his fist full of clean clothing, “Lord Raiden is lightning.”

Johnny waved this off as if to say “tomato-tomahto”.

“Anyway, what I really wanna know is how he keeps that lid on,” Johnny Cage continued, stripping his clothing off thoughtlessly and tossing it in the “dirty” bag. This, at least, he had learned—long ago, he had learned this, in fact, when Cassie was just a kid and she complained that his dirty things did not belong in the duffle bag with his clean things; something about cross contamination or “just plain gross” or something—and had held to for many years. What was once an unruly jerk, to put it mildly, had become a responsible father… mostly. He still had his idiosyncrasies.

“He is a god,” said Liu Kang, shrugging and moving past Kung Lao once more, opting to strip closer to the showers. Johnny, he knew, liked to strut. Neither of them begrudged him this, however, as it was his home territory.

“That’s a shitty explanation,” said Johnny, shooting Liu a look as the monk disappeared around the tiled corner to the showers. Lao and Johnny thought they heard a low chuckle before the shower started up and steam began to roll from that doorway.

“Do you have a better one?” Kung Lao asked, closing his temporary locker, fist also closed around his clothing. He too intended to disrobe elsewhere. Johnny by now was in compression shorts and nothing else. It was about to be nothing, period, as one thumb hooked over the elastic. The word “CAGE” was embroidered on the waistband and for half a moment, Kung Lao wondered who had put it there for him, like a child who forgets his clothing at a friend’s home. It then occurred to him that Johnny Cage was a very wealthy man and had clothing lines—multiple—with his name stamped all over them. Vanity, Kung Lao thought, making a face of disapproval.

“Yeah, I do—I’ll just ask ‘im.”

Kung Lao had heard and seen much when it came to Johnny Cage and his obvious interest in the god of thunder. He and Liu Kang had agreed to keep it between themselves, though if anyone could not see it, they were blind as Kenshi… though he had seen it as well—something about the man’s heartrate when the god was nearby. This, however, was for some reason right up there with the time he had heard Johnny Cage refer to Lord Raiden as “thunder tits” with no consequences.

“You cannot just—”

“PFFTH not with that attitude,” said Johnny and then shouted—his voice echoed violently in the tiled room and Kung Lao winced, “HEY—Raidude, you on this frequency or whatever? I got a question!”

Kung Lao, fully expecting nothing, jumped again as a muffled clap of thunder once more rent the now-steamy air. Whatever it was had occurred outside, naturally, but was loud enough to pull Liu Kang’s attention and he poked his dripping head around the corner, long hair draped about his shoulders, a quizzical look upon his face. “Was that…?”

It was.

Ducking slightly under the economized entrance of the locker room, the god of thunder entered without pomp, circumstance, or ceremony. “I have an answer, Johnny Cage, and I am grateful that you did not whistle this time. It is… abrasive.”

“Of course it is,” Kung Lao grunted under his breath. Raiden regarded him momentarily and the monk covered himself, though he was not nude. Liu Kang’s head stayed where it was, though he seemed to want to shrink back into the showers. His cheeks were red and it was not necessarily from the heat. In fact, of the three mortals, only Johnny Cage was not blushing.

“Hey, I said I wouldn’t, right? Anyway—whatever, I got a question… Your hat,” he said, gesturing toward it. “How’s it stay up there?”

Raiden touched the brim briefly and looked puzzled, brows knitting, as if he had never considered this. The two monks watched, wide-eyed. Johnny gestured.

“So, can I knock it off?” He figured he would at least ask this one. Sucker punching a god was both dangerous and difficult, even a friendly one.

“You may attempt.”

If Liu Kang’s sharp ears were not full of suds and deceiving him, he would have sworn upon the jinsei itself that Raiden’s voice contained a hint of genuine amusement. They watched as the god of thunder even dipped his head, ever-so-slightly, to make the blow easier. Like lightning, Johnny’s hand shot out and both monks remembered suddenly why he was a valuable ally. The hit was charged with just a little of what he called his shadow energy, to give a little more impact. The hat did not move.

“OW.”

“All right, all right… you’re not fuckin’ with me; I get it.” Johnny waved it off, as he waved much in his life off, until something about the hat caught his eye. “Hang on.”

Raiden straightened; this time, open amusement played across his face. Johnny held his wrist and anticipated a bruise, even with the shielding of his power. He watched as Raiden raised a hand to the ornate jingasa and lifted it effortlessly, bringing it downward for Johnny's inspection. All three sets of mortal eyes were upon it, as if anticipating something mystical to occur. Kung Lao was kicking himself for never considering asking the god about his clothing, but then… when had the occasion arisen for such a conversation? It had not in fact arisen just now, either. Johnny simply did not care. Sometimes, Lao envied him this.

With deliberate slowness, then, knowing how dangerous it was to get close to Raiden. Certain proximities were safe, but those were much more intimate than he was comfortable attempting with two other people in the immediate area—and he did not yet know this secret, anyway. He laid his hand on the hat and felt the buzz of electricity through it, from the god of thunder.

“Is this…?” His voice softened, such that Liu, with the shower on behind him, almost could not hear. He did, however, hear it and the tone in which it was delivered. Kung Lao was already edging toward the door to the showers and ended up buffeting his friend out of the way and back into those showers, to give the other two some space.

“Your gift? Yes.” The answer was simple, might almost have sounded casual or pat, if anything Raiden ever said could sound that way.

“Did you… put that thing on just ‘cause I called?”

“It is one of my most precious possessions, Johnny Cage; thus, I wear it frequently.” Raiden replaced the beautiful jingasa and straightened. “If I cannot further satisfy you, I have matters to which I must attend at the Sky Temple.”

Johnny could think of some serious, further satisfaction, but kept it locked away tight, in a deep, dark corner of his mind and heart and shook his head. “Hate t’see you go, big guy,” he said, once more shooting finger guns at something that should not be finger-gunned, “but I love watchin’ you leave.”

“Indeed.”

And with that, the god of thunder, Earthrealm’s protector, departed, first through the doorway of the locker room and then via a bolt of lightning. Johnny stood for several moments, hands on hips, before shucking his shorts and sauntering into the shower area only to see Liu Kang and Kung Lao, huddled close together, clearly whispering. The whispers echoed, but were also stifled by the water. He rolled his eyes and ignored them, wondering when they’d see what everyone else saw. Idiots, he thought, ah, but they’ll get to it eventually.

#cc #cw #mortal kombat #johnny cage #raiden #kung lao #liu kang #faraday cage #shaolin rowdy boys #liulao

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obfuscobble · 3 years

Text

East Asian traditional dress ranked by my comfort when I wore it.

1. kimono & hanbok A combo of beautifully flowing silks and good waist structure. Excellent ventilation even in the height of summer. For my body type, both men’s and women’s obi provide support that honestly fixes my posture to sit long periods in a chair comfortably. I can totally understand that other folks might hate the stiffness though. Both baji and hakama are great for sport and sitting on the floor/ground. With a variation of textile and layering, these types of traditional dress adapt easily to extreme seasons and rapidly changing weather. I can attest to the comfortability and adaptability of kimono & hanbok from snowy Boston to sunny Orlando. Based on these experiences, I predict I would also find hanfu quite comfortable. 2. áo dài Honestly I adored wearing this gift from my Vietnamese neighbours this year. Comfortable and miraculously tailored, it is as much a work of fabric art as it is a testament to clothing design for tropical climbs like my current Florida home. The pants had more liquefaction than I was anticipating, and the top much more tightness. Bad news is that in general, I find fitted circular collars to be a negative sensation ; but I’m well aware this is a “me problem” not applicable to others. 3. sampot Fantastic in hot muggy weather! Very easy to tie! One can vary formality with choice of silk and jacket. Petition to normalise this as the new cool hammer-pant. 4. tangzhuang Pretty good coverage in cold climes, and a much comfier version of the mandarin collar in the one I have. The construction isn’t as immediately flattering as the áo dài , but it is comfy and I am a true sucker for thick and complex brocade. 4. cheongsam All the collar problems of the áo dài, and none of the pant access or flow. Haven’t worn one since transitioning but honestly I just wasn’t impressed. I may be a sucker for brocade but if I’m going to crossdress, I think I’ll stick to clothes I actively like.

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cialbi · 3 years

Text

Boy with Hope: Lavender - Chapter Two

Summary: Severely depressed and addicted to alcohol, you had given up entirely on life. Your passion was gone, your friends had left you and you found yourself completely alone. As you closed your eyes for the last time, the smell of lavender wafted through your nose and a boy with purple wings appeared above you.

Genre: Angst, Romance, Fantasy

Pairings: Angel Hoseok x Reader

Warnings: Language, Depression, Alcoholism, Future Smut

Word Count: 2105

⤎Previous

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

You did it.

You're dead.

You're dead, you're dead, you died, you're dead.

That was the only explanation, because seriously, gorgeous men with beautiful smiles don't just appear in your room, cook you breakfast and heal you with their magic hands. And they most certainly don't sprout enormous, sparkly purple wings from their backs. That shit only happens in romantic fantasy movies and you're movie genre was most certainly a mix of angst and horror. Magical stuff doesn't happen in those kinds of movies.

Yes, being dead was the only logical explanation.

This is what you wanted right? To be dead.

Life had been so dark, the pain so unbearable, you could barely walk through it each day. Everything you did was to alleviate some of the anguish: the drinking, the drugs, but it was never enough. You had needed peace. Now, finally, for once in your life you had gotten what you wanted--you should be happy!--so you didn't understand why, instead, you felt so... empty.

"I can't believe it..." You whispered, clutching your arm for some kind of support. "I actually did it, I actually--"

"Wait, no!" Hoseok started, grabbing your arms with his big, warm hands. "That's not what I--"

"And this--" You angled your face to meet his eyes. "This must be my punishment!"

The orange-haired man searched your face frantically for some kind of answer to what you meant. "I'm sorry, what are you talking about?"

Laughing shakily, your expression fell blank. "You know, my punishment. In Hell."

Hoseok's head cocked to the side as he observed you, curiously waiting for you to provide some kind of followup to your statement. When you gave none, he huffed, trying to hide his exasperation. "I don't think I understand Y/N. How is sending an angel to help you a form of punishment from Hell?"

"No you see, that's just it!" You huffed back, prying his hands off of your arms and thrusting them back and away from you. "You say you're here to help me, and maybe, maybe, that's true. But sooner or later, you're gonna realize."

Hoseok sat back, leaning against his elbows. "Realize?"

"That I'm unhelpable." Your voice dropped so low it was barely a whisper as you averted your stare to your hands clasped in your lap. "Just like everyone else did."

A silence fell across the room of your tiny apartment, the air growing thick with a tense energy that dropped low on both your shoulders. Hoseok's sparkly eyes narrowed to slits as he watched you closely. You could hear the soft breathing blow through your noses as you busied your gaze on the silver cross that rose and fell with each movement of the angel's chest.

Slowly, Hoseok broke the silence. "Y/N. I guarantee you're still very much alive." The serious tone mixed with the stern stare he fixed you with had you looking up to meet his face. His expression was soft and smooth, but his eyes twinkled with sincerity. Considering his next words, he continued. "But you should know, it was very difficult to bring you back after all those pills you swallowed. I tried to take away the pains of the aftermath, but it looks like it's going to take much more time for the effects to completely go away." He paused again. "And then there's still the withdrawal period. That, I can't take away."

Oh.

Withdrawal.

You were so caught up in the action that you hadn't even stopped to think about that.

According to Hoseok, you had been asleep for two days, and usually withdrawal can kick in within thirty minutes of sobriety, especially for someone who had become so reliant as you had. Symptoms are usually worse at night--something to do with your brain getting sleepy--but with just the mention of withdrawal you could feel some of them begin to rear their ugly heads. Muscle pains, racing heart beat, the sweats...

You'd become painfully conscious of them now.

As if sensing your awareness, Hoseok sighed. "You're going to have to go through them without my magic, even the hallucinations... I'm sorry. But--" He flashed you a beautiful, reassuring smile as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. "--you don't have to go through it alone."

A new realization dawned on you. You hadn't considered that either. That all of this was just a-- "Hallucination..."

Hoseok blinked. "What?"

You laughed a little, suddenly feeling stupid for believing any of this magical nonsense. "This is all just some fucked up hallucination. Those floating lights weren't real, those wings weren't real. You're not real."

"That's not--"

"Man. I really did a number on my brain this time. I mean, I can't believe I fell for it! Angels? Hah! What is my mind going to mess me up with next?" You yammered.

"Y/N, please just---"

"Hahaha, oh my god. I've been talking to a hallucination this entire time!” The speed of your voice was picking up as you went on, the words meshing together in an incoherent babble. “I guess I've had hallucinations before, but they've never talked to me. I must be going crazy.” Your eyelids became extremely wide. “That's it, I'm crazy! I'm totally and completely cray--"

"Ok! Let me just stop you there!" Hoseok interjected strongly, placing a firm hand on your knee and bringing you out of your downward spiral. You immediately snapped your attention to him, the look on his face making you gulp. It was dead serious, lips pursed into a thin line and ivory skin so smooth that not a laugh-line nor dimple was visible. "Let's get something straight.” He held up one finger next to his cheek. “One. You're not dead. Two.” He added a second digit. “You're not crazy... don't ever say you're crazy in front of me again. And three." He held up three fingers, this time in front of your face. "This is not a hallucination. Me... this..." Placing a hand on your shoulder, he looked you square in the eye, the silver chains around his wrists dipping cool against your skin. "Is real."

For a few moments you both just sat there, staring at each other for the thousandth time in one morning. It was like he had you in a trance with those deep chocolate eyes, so it took all you had in you to tear your gaze away and lean back up against the wall to steady yourself. You felt completely thrown off by his sudden change in character and it was making you feel a little woozy.

When you didn't say anything, Hoseok took your chin gently between his fingers and moved you to look at him again. The sunny smile was back on his lips. "Hey. It's going to be ok Y/N. We're going to get you through this together."

The withdrawal symptoms were more present now, and your body had begun to grow hot and cold at the same time. Little beads of sweat began to pool around your forehead and your muscles groaned in dehydration. Maybe it was from all the adrenaline you exhausted while trying to get away earlier, but you were suddenly very burnt out. And still very much in denial.

"You're not real. And I can't get through this. I don't want to get through this." Your head lulled from side to side against the white brick of your wall as you said that. You really didn't. Sobering up took a lot of discipline and work--you just wanted the easy way out and you knew exactly what you needed to get there. So with a voice barely audible, you declared. "I need a drink."

Like, you really, really, needed one.

Hoseok rubbed your shoulder in soothing circles. "Yes. I am. And no. You don't." the angel assured, then snorted softly, running a hand through his sunshine colored locks. "Man, when he said you were stubborn..."

You ignored him, the rapid thumping of your heart distracting you from anything outside of yourself. You needed to quench these symptoms, to dull the noise. You needed to be numb again, and there was only one way to do that.

“I’m sorry but, I just can’t.” You said weakly.

“Hm?” Hoseok hummed, lowering his arms to rest on each of his knees. “Can’t what?”

“I can’t do it.”

‘I can’t stay sober.’

Swallowing thickly, you pushed yourself from off the wall, first into a sitting position, and then, with Hoseok watching curiously, you forced yourself into a standing position, legs spread in the shape of a V atop the bed.

His eyes widened, realizing what you were about to do. "No, Y/N. Please! Don't!"

But it was too late.

With as much energy as you could muster, you lept over him, dodging as he made a dive to stop you, and landing on the floor, just barely keeping your balance. Your bummed knee howled in pain at the impact but you ignored it. Hallucination or not, nothing was going to get in your way. Nothing, no person, no angel, was going to stop you.

Looking over your shoulder, you stuck your tongue out at Hoseok. "Don't touch me, featherbutt! And don't try to stop me either!"

"Y/N, wait! I need to tell you--"

But you didn't waste time for him to finish. You turned on your heel and made a break for the front door, still dressed in your soiled clothes from two days ago and completely barefoot. The adrenaline was beginning to pump through your veins again, giving you that extra boost as you swung the door open and raced down the hall of your apartment complex. Your knee hurt like fucking hell, but you willed yourself to disregard the pain and keep pressing forward.

Glancing triumphantly behind you--haha! Sucker--oh shit!-- you caught a glimpse of an orange head before you collided into something firm and warm, sending you flying back onto your butt.

You winced, clenching your eyes shut at the new pain in your backside. "Goddammit!"

"Woah there. Language." A deep voice bellowed from above.

Cracking an eye open, you made a note to send your steeliest of glares at the person standing over you, but instead, you gasped. There was another good looking man with jet-black hair towering over you, a cigarette clamped between his lips and a long stream of smoke blowing from the dull orange light at the end. His face was young looking, which mixed in a shocking manner to the maturity of his profound, onyx eyes.

Goodness, he was painfully handsome.

And scary.

He was wearing a black cashmere sweater underneath a black blazer, bottomed off with loose-fit black jeans and a thick silver chain that looped through his belt. But what really caught you off guard was the array of silver jewelry glittering around his body, or, more specifically the detailed silver cross that refracted the light around his neck.

It was identical to Hoseok's.

"Oh great, there are more of you?" You glowered under your breath.

"Yoongi hyung quick! Catch her!" Hoseok called, slowing into a steady jog as he tried to catch up to you.

The man took the cigarette between his lithe, ringed fingers and flicked it off to the side, giving a heavy sigh as he fixed his eyes on you. His expression was suddenly very focused and alert, and you found yourself feeling like prey all over again. "Now where might you be going in such a hurry, princess?"

Scooching away from him, you picked yourself up off the ground and started a slow walk backwards, turning your head every few seconds to see Hoseok inching closer and closer. You didn't have the stamina to take on two of them in this state, hell, you wouldn't have had the stamina regardless, and by now your knee was throbbing in an angry rage. You had to find an opening somewhere between the two of them.

The blacked-haired man made the first move, lunging forward with his arms outstretched, attempting to restrain you but you just barely slid past him. In comparison to Hoseok, he was much shorter, which made it easier to weasel your way around his grasp. He cursed rather colorfully by your evasion and you couldn't help the victorious smirk that pulled on your lips as you continued your stampede down the hall.

And he scolded you about language.

"Fuck Hoseok, she's fast!" You heard him yell from behind you. "She's not even wearing shoes!"

"Quick hyung, after her!" Hoseok's voice replied.

Hearing their words only fueled your speed, racing down the winding staircase that led out into the alleyway and where a few steps ahead laid the mainroad. You could hear the clatter of their footsteps from above as they raced to keep up with you, and by the sound of it they hadn't quite made it to the staircase yet. You paused for a moment to catch your breath, gathering what was left of your bearings as you turned to look down the alleyway. There's a liquor store just around the corner, about three minutes by foot; somewhere you frequented on especially hard days and you most certainly considered this to be one of them.

"Y/N wait! Please!" Hoseok's voice came again, this time from the landing of your apartment complex.

But you didn't wait.

You ran.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Next⤏

A/N

Again, completely unedited!

I hope you enjoyed this next part, the story's just heating up! I wonder if I should make the chapters longer....

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tomsrebeleyebrow · 4 years

Note

i am such a sucker for ancient egypt shit!! can’t you write something about the reader being queen and tom being a guard and their both have a secret relationship so they have to sneak around to do anything, you can add something smutty if you want 👀

A/N: ooooh my dear, i also am an ancient egypt freak!! 😤 (and i already wrote an au oneshot like that so you can read it >here<) one of my favorite time period with the greek/roman ones 🤤💞 so let’s say i looooooved writing your request, so i hope you will enjoy it as much! 🙏🏻 and as always stay safe, darling 💖💗

‘Stay safe, Cheer up’ blurb event

NSFW CONTENT BELOW, SO BEWARE! + slight references to Ancient Egypt’s fashion

Since your youngest age, you’ve been taught many times what your future would be like. Even if, at first, all those manners and protocols sounded absurd to you, you learnt them all to slowly make them yours. Having always been close to the population ever since you would walk, by learning more about them or by playing with children your age, you grew up to be loved by everyone in Egypt.

And now, you were one of the very few women Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, beautiful and powerful that all gods must have blessed you since day one. But still a well-grounded and independent woman who didn’t need arranged marriages to rule a country. And also in a secret relationship with Tom, the chief of your Royal Guard… and your childhood friend.

Was it against the rules? Totally unconventional. But both of you never really cared.

“The Pharaoh requests your presence, Chief!” one of the guards informed Tom who was about to head back to his quarters.

“Thank you. You can go back to your position” answered Tom while adjusting his breastplate.

Passing by the soldier and now walking through the court, Tom noticed in between each pillar surrounding the palace that the night finally settled down on the Egyptian Kingdom. The stars started to shine in the clear sky, dancing all around the full moon. The moonlight lighted up the royal garden as if showing Tom the right path for him to follow to finally reach you.

With a firm nod, Tom dismissed the two soldiers guarding the access to the private part of the palace. The royal quarters. Your quarters. After waiting for the two men to completely leave, the brunette pushed the golden doors open and closed them behind him, before climbing a few stairs, the sound of his strappy sandals slightly echoing in the open corridor he was passing through. Finally, he stopped under the entrance arcade.

And that was when Tom saw you.

On the other side of the big room, you were laying on a soft chaise lounge onto your right side, your back facing the man as his eyes slowly slid down the light linen robe you decided to wear despite the fresh air of the egyptian night. Tom could make out every curve of your body through your thin piece of expensive fabric, not letting too much work left to his wild imagination. Tom wished he could have captured that beautiful scene in front of him: the Pharaoh herself, casually dressed and laying down while looking at the city of Cairo by night from afar, through the open balcony of her bedroom.

You were the incarnation of grace and power, a delightful mix to Tom.

“You called me, my Pharaoh” Tom finally announced his presence, not moving an inch from his spot.

At the sound of the familiar voice, you slowly turned your head for him to only enjoy your profile for a bit. Your face was free from the usual makeup you used, such as the black kohl around your eyes which makes you look so serious all the time. But Tom’s favorite thing would always be seeing your head without the khepresh, so your long and beautiful hair you kept hidden under it could freely cascade along your shoulders and back.

“I did, yes” your clear and delicate voice resonated in his ears. “Please approach, Tom.”

Following your orders Tom walked towards you, not a word spoken between the both of us as you gracefully passed your legs on the other side of the chaise lounge, bare feet touching the stoned floor and now sitting to face the chief of your royal guard that was approaching. Then you stood up, the robe fully smoothing at the move and just waited there.

Once Tom stopped right in front of you, his height clearly towering over yours, he kneeled onto one knee to then bow his head low, like any people had to do before daring to talk to you, the Pharaoh. Your eyes never left his until his disconnected to look at the floor, waiting for your next words.

“Tom, please stand.”

Your voice was so hard to define sometimes but Tom was one of the only honored people, with your parents, to know that was how you had to be in front of your Kingdom, for anyone to respect and also fear you at the same time. So like he was asked for, the man slowly stood again as his brown orbs found yours once again. The silence between you was quite relaxing, the varied noises of the nocturnal creatures from outside creating such a nice ambiance around you.

After a minute or two of unspoken words, Tom’s hand brushed yours before his rough fingers gently intertwined with your immaculate one, the skin contact oh so needed bringing shivers in both your bodies.

“My love”, whispered Tom as he kissed each knuckle of your hand, “I missed you so much.”

A lovely giggle made it through your lips, soon followed by a warm smile only reserved to the one you loved.

“You see me all day long, my dear” you replied, lifting your free hand to caress his cheek.

“I missed our shared time, just the two of us” professed the chief guard, his words full of love and now lust as he wrapped his other hand around your hips to bring you closer to him. “I missed having you for myself only.”

And after having discarded all clothes from both your bodies, Tom was bottoming you out onto the same chaise lounge he saw you laying on when he arrived, tearing lewd moans out of you to his fullest and own pleasure.

“O-Oh! Tom!!”

His hands slid to your ass squeezing both cheeks, as his hips roughly thrusted back and forth against yours. His lips ran down to place hot open-mouthed kisses on your shoulder and neck, making feel his desperation with each new skin contact.

“You are mine” Tom growled into your ears, pushing and pulling your ass to meet his every single thrust. “All mine, (Y/N), my Queen, my love. Alaways.”

Your fingers digged into his back, his hips slapping against yours with aggressive friction. You could feel Tom’s skin becoming hot and sweaty from his passion. The man was squeezing your ass so tight it may just leave his hands’ prints on it the next day. Your head tossed back, moaning your lover’s name loudly while squeezing him as tightly against your body as you possibly can before you felt your arousal sliding down your thighs and coating his cock.

Tom continued to thrust, sloshing your juices with his movements before sliding away from your hot core. Seconds later, his milky seed slid against your inner thigh as he breathed heavily. Both of your hands slide away from him, falling on your sides as your chest kept raisins up and down in an attempt to relay air back into your tired and frayed lungs. Your handsome guard lover continued to hover above you, admiring how even more gorgeous you looked like that, all spent and out of breath for him, before basically dropping down completely on top of you.

“T-Tom, are you trying to suffocate me?” you squeaked before giggling, feeling his sweaty body against your own.

Tom actually chuckled before sliding to your side, carefully not to accidentally fall from the chaise lounge, wrapping his hands around your waist before turning you to face him. Your faces were inches apart and even though a blush blossomed onto your cheeks, like that always happened after these times, you raised a hand and trailed your soft fingers along his sharp jawline. You were thinking for a long time, and now was finally the time.

“What are you thinking about?” Tom whispered to you, rubbing circles onto your naked back and with an ounce of concern in his voice.

“... Marry me.”

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mannatea · 4 years

Text

Fireside Dreams, a Rose of Versailles ‘fic

Words: 5,176 Summary: Oscar was in love. Pairing/Character: Oscar/André Extra Info: This was originally posted on Fanfiction.net back in 2008. It is a full rewrite. Rating: I’d say T bordering on M, but it’s rated M on AO3 just to be safe. :) Genre: Romance and Friendship with a dash of Angst. Kind of character-study-ish, too.

Notes, if anyone’s interested in them.

All right, so...if you read the original version of this story, you’ll notice the rewrite is...very different.

A few little things:

I use the French manga as my usual reference, so you’ll see a lot of lines quoted that might not match up perfectly with the Japanese-to-English translations that many people are used to. There is one line I did pull from the Japanese though, I believe it was: “One eye isn’t too much to sacrifice for you, Oscar.”

The French version says, instead, “I’ll always be ready to sacrifice an eye for you, Oscar.” I like this too, but I don’t think it really conveys that deep emotional impact that the scene was supposed to have on the reader. Rather, it almost sounds goofy (since he only has one other eye to sacrifice)!

I guess I could have gone with a loose translation of the French (maybe, “If it’s for you, Oscar, I’ll sacrifice my other eye without complaint.”) but I wanted something the audience would be familiar with.

I do believe the intent of the original line is supposed to convey: 1) I’d do it again, 2) No regrets, and 3) harken back to André’s promise to put his life on the line for Oscar some day...even though the eye thing was a complete accident in the manga.

The lines for the lips I know are my creative translation of the French manga.

I feel like I shouldn’t HAVE to put translations for the French in here, but...I dunno. Why did I put them in the story like some kind of ouiaboo? Because there are some words that just don’t have the same meaning in English, my dudes.

Mon Dieu = My God!

d’accord = okay, yes, [agreement]

Whenever Oscar tells André to do anything, in the French manga, this is how he responds. I could have just written “okay,” but I can’t help but feel that it’s too informal/not respectful enough, and “yes ma’am” (which is closer to how I read it) just feels too formal.

Je t’aime = I love you. André shouts it over and over in The Incident Scene, which is what I’m referring to by using it.

I actually hate the title (“Fireside Dreams”) but I’ve known it as this for so long I couldn’t change it.

I changed the ending A LOT for reasons I’ll talk about below, but...I kept the cheesy last line. Well, I rewrote it, but I kept the general feeling of corniness that existed in the original!

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

Goals when writing this were as follows:

Try for a tone that felt as if it could have been part of the manga.

Eliminate André’s POV (more on this later).

Deep-dive into Oscar’s POV.

Treat the story like a fanficcified Character Study piece.

The manga tone thing was frustrating, because the manga lends itself to this really flowery, romantic language that I don’t actually think Oscar would use very often (mostly because the entire series tells us that she is Not That Kind of Person and I don’t appreciate her suddenly Becoming That Person Because Love). A lot of the fandom will disagree with me on this point, and that’s okay. I tried to strike more of a balance where Oscar thinks some of these types of things, but says Logical Oscar Things.

André’s POV originally came in when he did: at Oscar’s door. It also transitioned suddenly into third person omniscient from third person limited, aaaaand when I reread it...I didn’t like it. I felt like it made it harder to follow! The original was supposed to be more of Oscar’s story anyway, so I just committed to it in the rewrite. Overall I do feel this was better for the story, but I lost some lines I really liked from the original that were in André’s POV! Who knows, though, maybe they’ll make an appearance in another story, someday!

Regarding this story as a character study, though... Okay, I’ll try not to let this get long, because I haven’t eaten all day and it’s already getting late here, but I want to address this.

Something that always stuck with me about the manga was how Oscar confessed her love to André quite early on compared to the anime, and how it felt to have their relationship evolve before the end of the series (when she asks André to marry her).

1. I am always ALWAYS ALWAYS a sucker for the woman to ask the man to marry them, ESPECIALLY in period dramas, and

2. See the image below.

Oscar as a character has always interested me greatly, and been highly #relatable, but on my last rewatch I feel like I understand her better than I ever did as an early 20-something.

Despite being in a relationship with André when she asks him to make her his wife, she’s still afraid of actually following through with the act! That’s not something we get to see in the media very often, so I enjoyed getting a peek at it in Rose of Versailles.

Additionally, I felt that Oscar’s whole romance arc was kind of its own character study for her in the canon. She spends most of her life being efficient and logical. Love confuses her. Feelings are difficult to navigate and express. She would not have defended André so passionately I think if she did not love him, but when faced with those feelings she doesn’t even tell him she cares. If the author wanted to make Oscar astute/in tune with her own feelings, she could have written that scene a hundred different ways, but instead we get “I didn’t do it for you, I did it for Nanny! Hahaha!” Part of Oscar’s issue is most assuredly due to the way she was raised, but I feel it didn’t create that character trait so much as it expanded upon it.

Anyway, something difficult to put into words is Oscar’s wondering in the story about being “broken.” I’m writing this from a very specific perspective, but I feel like Oscar’s feeling is relatable to many different types of people. I mean, raise your hand if you’ve ever felt like you were broken, if there was something deeply wrong with you. Now raise it higher if you feel that way and yet...you’re also pretty satisfied with yourself and like who you are, and you don’t really wish to change.

Oscar’s in an interesting position. She’s a woman who identifies as a woman, but she lives as a man. She wears men’s clothes, she does men’s work, she has men’s hobbies, and she’s expected to publicly Act Like a Man. She’s good at these things. She enjoys these things. She delights in her own skill, and has a lot of fun springing the fact that she’s a woman on poor unsuspecting people (like Rosalie, lol) while also shooting down things typically associated with being a woman (like when she glared at André for suggesting she had an understanding of something because of women’s intuition). It’s easy to understand Oscar’s POV: she wants to be free to be herself, and that means picking and choosing from gender stereotypes as she sees fit, identifying herself as what she is and what she is not.

At the end of the day, Oscar is...Oscar...which is how I imagine André feels about it.

I’m sure if you read the story, and you went out of your way to read this far, you probably have a personally complex view of Oscar yourself, so please don’t feel as if my view of her has to match yours. Everyone will read her a little differently!

I wanted to explore the confusion that Oscar feels. The confusion that makes her put on a dress even though she isn’t comfortable in one, the confusion of falling for someone you already knew from the beginning was unattainable (though I didn’t go into detail on this particular point), the difficulty in expressing feelings when you’ve been raised to not do that, and the understanding that different does not mean broken.

Oscar is not broken. You are not broken. I am not broken.

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

One last note about this story, and it’s related to The Incident Scene. I’m choosing to interpret it in my own way, so if it’s different than yours, I hope my interpretation wasn’t too jarring!

I look at the scene, particularly in the manga, to be kind of a Domino Effect of less-than-stellar choices. Oscar tries to communicate her feelings but does a very poor job of it, and in the process hurts the person she’s trying to communicate with. As a result, he makes a bad choice and hurts her in turn. I don’t feel that any of the hurt was intentional (these two people love each other, after all), but circumstances have put them into positions where some kind of hurt was inevitable.

André undoubtedly would have been rejected by Oscar no matter when he confessed (just because she wouldn’t be mentally capable of processing it quickly enough to spare him), but he chose to confess to an Oscar 1) as part of an emotional outburst/explosion, and 2) physically.

Oscar is not used to Intimate physical contact, and understandably freaks out. She’s also not used to André as a Passionate Person. He’s always been so mellow! It’s frightening to her on multiple levels.

NOTHING EXCUSES ANDRE, BY THE WAY! Taking his frustration and sorrow and fear and emotion out on Oscar was terrible.

But context is important, I think, to understand how manga!Oscar forgives him before he even leaves her rooms. André’s outburst was never about him being horny, or him wanting to be intimate with Oscar. If you look closely I think it’s clear that it’s a chain of André trying to communicate to her in turn, and failing repeatedly until he rips her shirt (that he’s already holding onto)—something I don’t believe he meant to do, or he wouldn’t feel such immediate shame for it.

It was an outburst of fear that she was abandoning him. It was an explosion of all the love he legally wasn’t allowed to feel for years of his life. It was frustration and sorrow over seeing the person he loves best denying Who She Is in the face of an unrequited crush.

I never felt that André was insisting she was a woman instead of the man she wanted to be so much as he was insisting that Oscar Is Oscar, and she cannot change that, and shouldn’t change it out of fear or embarrassment AS WELL AS SAYING, “You are who you are and I LOVE YOU FOR THAT! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! PLEASE HEAR ME AND DON’T HURT YOURSELF BY TRYING TO BE SOMEONE YOU’RE NOT!”

Unfortunately André fails to speak plainly enough and the whole thing Backfires. (Now you can consider how he was raised to speak to his betters.)

I know all of the above wasn’t necessary to read the story (or even afterward), but I thought it would assist if anyone read my ‘fic and came away from it wondering if they’d read/watched a completely different version of The Incident.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I sure hope you leave a comment over on AO3, since you can do so anonymously, and Feedback Is Life!! ♥

#rose of versailles #berubara #berusaiyu no bara #mannafics

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chiseler · 4 years

Text

Glad Rags: Fashion and the Great Depression

Some years ago, in a breathtaking lapse of taste, The New Yorker published a fashion spread that aped iconic photographs of Dust Bowl migrants. I was as appalled as the next right-thinking person by the pouting models in $400 distressed cardigans pretending to thumb rides along desert highways. But if the charge is infatuation with the aesthetics of the Great Depression, I am guilty, guilty, guilty. Throw me in the clink—just so long as it resembles the hoosegow that Barbara Stanwyck saunters around in Ladies They Talk About (1932).

Why was everything, from automats to automobiles, from nightclubs to radios, from skyscrapers to bus stations, from cocktail shakers to the battered hats on homeless men, so elegant in the thirties? Why did bums back then look better than bankers today? Why are the movies and music, the clothes and every aspect of design from typefaces to elevator panels, so intoxicatingly stylish?

The easy answer is that art deco glamour was a form of escapism, a consolation to the down-and-out, and an expression of irrational optimism. Cruise ships, trains, office towers, mechanized restaurants: art deco was all about speed and modernity, the thrill of zooming into the future. (Then why does deco still look modern and alluring, while the space-age design of the sixties just looks dated and silly?) If cynicism was society’s ballast during the Depression, style was the kite-string tugging upward, the flag that kept flying.

It’s not the swells in their glad rags that I admire most, or even the bootleggers in silk shirts, but the wardrobes of working girls. Take the plain, slinky black dress that Stanwyck, as an ambitious office worker in Baby Face, accessorizes with a series of different detachable white collars and cuffs. Those starched cuffs and collars—chic, yet as humble as table-napkins—are perfect, almost poignant symbols of Stanwyck’s determination to better herself with the small means at her disposal. In Golddiggers of 1933, out-of-work chorus girls draw lots for the privilege of wearing a gorgeous, borrowed outfit to an audition. The little hats that hug one side of the head, the soft dresses molded to the hips, the scarf collars and pleated hems, create a look that collapses the two meanings of “smart.” Neither frivolous nor utilitarian, it’s a neat, streamlined look that is still seductive; it signals quiet confidence and also wit, the sort of wisecracking verbal self-defense these girls mastered.

Movies like Baby Face tell their stories largely through their heroines’ clothes and belongings: they climb from cotton frocks to furs, from paper matchbooks to jeweled cigarette cases. (Clothing is no less crucial to the gangster’s rise; tailored shirts and luxurious overcoats are almost the point of his law-breaking.) Like Stanwyck in Baby Face, Joan Blondell in Blondie Johnson starts out in the drab, shapeless clothes of the down-trodden. Alight with anger after her mother dies, denied aid by a sanctimonious government official, she vows to get hold of dough, “and plenty of it.” Next we see her, she’s wearing a snazzy velvet suit that fits like a glove and conning suckers out of ten dollar bills by pretending to be a damsel in distress. She’s willing to bat her eyelashes and exploit her curves, but it’s really her brain she uses to get ahead, rising to become the head of a criminal “corporation,” and fiercely defending her virtue, even while clad in diaphanous pajamas. In Hold Your Man, Clark Gable calls attention to the warmth of the room, trying to talk Jean Harlow into doffing her coat. She complies, but when he suggests she remove her hat as well, she quips, “I’m pretty cool about the head.”

It’s this sense of wit and sass that’s often missing from latter-day reconstructions of the thirties, making people in period pieces appear overly formal. Current actors, looking embalmed in handsome clothes and make-up, fail to capture the way Cagney in his pin-striped suits was always poised on the balls of his feet, ready to crack into a tap dance; or the stunning bodily freedom with which women wore their thin, fluid, backless gowns, somehow never looking unduly exposed. Carole Lombard in shiny satin wide-legged lounging-pajamas and high heels furiously riding an exercise bicycle: there is the deco spirit in a nutshell. I sometimes wonder if it was the sheer delight of wearing such flattering clothes that gave women in thirties movies their unequaled zing.

Their sleek clothes don’t hide the female form the way dresses of the 1920’s did with their dropped waists and bosom-flattening bands. Neither do they exaggerate it with structured undergarments like those abandoned after the first world war and re-introduced after the second. It takes little insight to observe that the times when fashion has been most extreme in its devotion to the hourglass figure have been repressive eras for women, and periods when their clothes were more androgynous have been times when women made strides toward equality. In the early thirties, however, fashions were feminine without being cartoonishly so; they simply revealed the way women really look. The ideal of beauty was slender but not boyishly skinny, effortlessly athletic without gym-workout muscles.

Thirties dames look sexy on their own terms, not trussed up for male consumption like women of the fifties in their waist-cinching girdles, teetering stilettos and torpedo bras (often filled out with falsies on actresses of the fifties.) Many women in the early thirties wore very little under their clothes, as pre-Code movies prove with their obligatory lingerie shots. One almost feels sorry for pre-Code men faced with gals like Blondell, who in Blonde Crazy allows Cagney to inspect her flimsy underwear but repels his every advance with a slap that sends his head snapping back against his spine.

It is surely no coincidence that the interwar period was perhaps the only time when fashion was dominated, or at least heavily influenced, by women designers. Chanel borrowed from men’s tailoring to make women’s clothes simple, comfortable and sporty, without making them mannish. Madeleine Vionnet pioneered the bias cut, constructing garments so the grain of the fabric ran diagonally across the body, creating that smooth, clinging drape that defines feminine style of the thirties. Stanwyck’s lithe, bold stride wouldn’t be the same without the skirts that show off her beautiful hips and just enough of her killer gams. The jazzy, diagonally-striped ensemble that Claudette Colbert wears in It Happened One Night—something she has apparently purchased with the proceeds from pawning her wrist-watch—is the sartorial equivalent of her cocked eyebrow and throaty, sarcastic delivery.

These are Hollywood movies, of course, in which actresses often wore dresses so tight they couldn’t sit down between shots. But there’s plenty of documentary evidence that ordinary women, while they made have had less perfect figures, had just as much stylistic sass. Inept, small-time criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow might never have become folk heroes if police hadn’t found a roll of undeveloped film in their hideout in Joplin, Missouri in 1932, and if the pictures hadn’t shown Bonnie wearing a snug beret, a skirt and sweater as jazzy as Colbert’s, and standing with her high-heeled foot hiked saucily on the bumper of a Ford V-8.

Or consider the stout matron in Walker Evans’s 1935 photograph of a New Orleans barbershop, sporting a blouse with sizzling concentric stripes, a jaunty black tie and a black hat with a rakish white feather. Men were no slouches either. Evans’s 1936 pictures of street scenes in the “negro quarter” of Vicksburg, Mississippi feature men lounging idly in shirtsleeves, unbuttoned vests and felt hats, each one a fashion plate. Lined up in a row in the wood-frame buildings behind them are hand-painted signs for the Savoy Barber Shop, the New Deal Barber Shop, and the Brother In Law Barber Shop. These men may not have jobs, but at least they have well-trimmed hair.

One can always ask, was there really such an epidemic of elegance in the thirties, or did photographers just seek out images of dignity? In the same way, one can look at the photographs of Robert Frank or the documentary footage of Los Angeles in The Savage Eye (1960) and wonder if there was really an epidemic of ugliness and vulgarity in the late fifties and early sixties, or whether artists just emphasized it. But the question is moot: either way, the images reveal how Americans—or at least their professional observers—saw themselves. Struggling against deprivation and anxiety, they were proud, stoic and stripped to their lean, essential spirit. Prosperous and secure, they were hapless victims of an aesthetic crash. A movie like Murder by Contract (1958), about a hit man killing time in L.A., staying in suffocatingly tacky motel rooms, seems to be the portrait of a man sleepwalking through a society where taste has flatlined.

Fifties style was artlessly boastful; its ideals were plastic mannequins of happiness, innocence and surfeit. This is why when it failed it failed so hideously: the old, the poor, the ugly, the lonely look caught in a pitiless glare, all their shortcomings exposed. The beehive hair, bouffant skirts, school-girl necklines and cat’s-eye glasses made young women look stodgy and matronly, and older women look grotesquely girlish. In the thirties, haute couture expressed sublime hauteur, but it was based on aesthetic principles so sound that even when they trickled down to the cheapest knock-offs and most threadbare hand-me-downs, they still looked good. And so we come to the paradox of men in breadlines, women in migrant camps, whose je-ne-sais-quoi can inspire fashion spreads.

I am haunted by a bit of archival footage from the superb documentary Riding the Rails (1997), which shows a group of teenage hobos gathered on an open flat-car. Their elegance is unforgettable. It’s partly that their ragged clothes are so well-cut—in those days before baggy, one-size-fits-nobody garments—and partly that they’re worn with such an air. One boy wears an overcoat that’s too big for him and a handkerchief knotted on his head; he looks like a Napoleonic soldier retreating from Moscow. Men today who affect newsboy caps tend to wear them as though they were balancing a plate on their heads, but these boys wear their soft caps pulled down low over one eye, making them look at once tough and shy. They also seem, like everyone Dorothea Lange photographed, to stand and move with uncommon, easy grace: idle, but charged with contained energy. Their faces are wary, reticent and disillusioned. In another archival clip, boys sitting around a fire in a hobo jungle respond to a reporter who asks them why they are on the road. “Out here for my health,” one deadpans. “Just riding,” another tersely shrugs.

These are the real-life versions of the characters played by Frankie Darro and the Warners juveniles in Wild Boys of the Road (1933). Several things about that film are startling. One is how the kids dress and act like grown-ups (at a school dance, they wear evening clothes and circle the floor to “The Shadow Waltz”), as opposed to today, when grown-ups dress and act like kids. Another is how quickly and completely two middle-class boys turn into outcasts, panhandlers, embittered scavengers living in a garbage dump. But most startling of all is the way stoicism and dignity are taken for granted, the universal determination not be a burden or feel sorry for oneself. The elderly interviewees in Riding the Rails are candid, matter-of-fact, wry and compassionate. There is more to elegance than dressing well, than being tasteful or—that overused and inelegant word—“classy.” There is an intangible quality, a kind of mental and moral grace. Elegance has spine, but it’s not rigid; it bends but doesn’t break. It is understated; it is reserved. It knows the virtue of holding something back—some strength, some anger, some sense of irony—because there is more than one rainy day.

by Imogen Sara Smith

#The Chiseler #Imogen Sara Smith #Fashion #Great Depression

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