#also i initially had him written as the overlord

[saline-coelacanth]

Alright, I've been debating something for my Black Knight au for a while and figured I could make a tumblr poll to help me decide something

Pretty much, I've been debating whether or not King Arthur should be replaced by the Overlord of Garmadon, because I could see it working either way.

For the Overlord, I feel like it's fitting since it gets revealed that he was just an illusion created by Merlin and wasn't real, so I feel like it's fitting for the Overlord based on the vibes

But for Garmadon, it would be fitting because they explain that he used to be good but was turned evil by the power of Excalibur's scabbard and also he literally summons knights from the underworld, kinda like how Garmadon's first army, the skulkin, were from the underworld

[hazelfoureyes]

for your consideration:

a reader who’s genuinely more powerful than Alastor is. maybe they’re royalty or another overlord or maybe they simply just have a more commanding presence than him, but in any way, he hates it. he goes out of his way to try to one-up them (much like how he did with Lucifer), but the reader never falters, ever-calm and ever-in control. it infuriates Alastor to no end— not only because of the simple fact that he isn’t the strongest person in the room anymore, but also because the reader never treats him like he’s lesser than them. they treat him like an equal, and it makes him even angrier.

when they fuck for the first time, it’s a last-ditch attempt for Alastor to regain control— and it fails, because even though Alastor is on top with his nails digging into the reader’s skin, doing his very best to cause the pain he knows he can cause, the reader still just stares up at him, taking it like they always do. no tears fall from their eyes, no pleads fall from their lips. Alastor is dissatisfied— very much so. so they do it again. and again. and again, until it’s something of a game between them. until one day, the reader’s composure finally shatters.

they’ve had enough of Alastor’s attitude and disrespect, and they tell him as much. they pin him down, snarling about his god complex and his twisted sadism and how long they’ve been waiting to put him in his place. and Alastor finds that no matter how much he struggles, he can’t get that control that had been so rudely snatched from him back. but the thing is— a part of him likes it. really, really likes it— that loss of power that should be his and his alone, being held just out of his petulant reach. it brings him a sick feeling that he’s never felt before and can’t get enough of.

that part grows and grows until he’s the one crying and begging and squirming weakly underneath the reader, both his smile and his mind threatening to break as the reader fucks him relentlessly. no matter how many times either of them cums, the reader doesn’t stop, not until Alastor is screaming his apologies, over and over and over again. he hates it. he loves it.

when it’s all over, and when the reader has settled, Alastor makes them promise that they will never speak of this again. without a hint of smugness, the reader agrees— but maybe the next time Alastor is acting up, the reader will only have to give him a look. and he will know.

I know this wasn’t a prompt necessarily but don’t think you can come into MY HOUSE and lay a feast in front of me and not expect I’d dig in 👏 face 👏 first 👏 so here’s me just kinda riffing off your DELICIOUSLY WRITTEN MESSAGE. NO TIME TO EDIT A CUTE REPLY IMAGE

Wrapped around Your Finger (Ace Alastor bottoms for a GN!Seraphim Reader short smut)

Warnings/Promises: 🗣️ ALASTOR GETS FINGERED, Gender Neutral Reader x Alastor smut, hate fucking, bondage, initial dubcon, Ace Alastor, scratching, kinda degradation kink, Angel Reader, Reader is a good friend, Protect Angel Dust at all costs

minors dni

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ When Lucifer introduced a defected Seraphim to the hotel, Alastor’s smile dropped. You had feet yet to him you seemed to glide through the hotel halls effortlessly. You were impeccably dressed, ever polite, well mannered, clean. It was driving him mad. Yes, Alastor knew the importance of being well groomed. He exalted manners and gentility. He disliked grime and thought a lack of personal hygiene was an actual sin. But the sight of you, every fucking day with that ever present soft smile on your lips? Your gaze, always gentle as you listened to sinners explain their dreams of redemption. Nails on a chalkboard. Every room you were in, all eyes turned to you. It was if the air itself was pulled into your charms.

Every one in the hotel either feared Alastor or, at least, failed to hide their annoyance when He’d sneak up on them or touch them without warning. Of course, not you. Alastor shocked himself with his antics in attempt to make you react to him at all. Charlie would pull him aside weekly, asking what the actual fuck? “Why did you say that? They know they aren’t from here, we all know that, but telling them they are most unnatural creature to ever exist in Hell? And I don’t think it was an accident you knocked their drink over. Al, you are being a bully.” Yes, and he was sorry. Sorry he was so ineffective. Not even a fucking knitted brow so much as flashed at him when he spilled your drink down your chest. You smiled, you had the audacity to smile at him and say, “Whoops. Your monocle isn’t prescription, huh?” He only had one option left to push you beneath him—-rip you to pieces. Any thing to get you to look at him differently than all the other weak souls mulling about in hell.

Alastor had seen you fight, when an overlord came to the hotel to taste seraphim blood, all of the Pride Ring saw your power. Arms out stretched, a glow came from your palms, yellow and bright. With the speed of someone enjoying a breakfast on the patio on a Sunday in hell, you knelt down and pressed your palms into the ground. A flash of light and power rung out from you and blinded everyone watching, but Alastor could see you as he melted into the deepest shadows your light created. White and gold glowing shards erupted from the dirt, fracturing the grounds of the hotel lawn as they formed a jagged but intelligent line straight for the demon. The overlord barely recovered from the blinding effect of your power before a glass-like piece shot from the ground and straight through his chest. It was over in seconds, and you had never dropped your soft grin.

He was prideful, but not stupid. A test, a little experiment first. When you watched sweetly from the sidelines and Charlie directed yet another meaningless activity, Alastor stood opposite you. Your eyes flitted from person to person, your smile small but genuine. Were you glowing? He had had enough. He reached his shadow appendages out and wrapped one around your ankle, as it gripped and prepared to drag you to the floor in what he hoped would be an embarrassing display, nothing happened. As the tentacle touched you, it dissipated. Your light entirely erasing the shadow.

He felt his mind breaking. Every night he paced, feeling your overwhelming presence in the hotel even at such a distance. He decided to try the one thing he’d never tried. Atleast, not since coming to hell. You were always so accommodating, maybe to a fault? He found you in kitchen, alone, making yourself some sickeningly sweet drink. Your body froze when Alastor pressed against you from behind. But, you didn’t make a sound. “Apologies, I don’t think I can suffer any longer.” He ground his hips into your ass, “I never do this, a gentleman through and through. But you see, as a deer demon, sometimes there are periods of—- unbearable discomfort. I can’t focus on redemption like this.”

Alastor was shocked when you swiveled around, eyes closed from your smile, and said, “I came here to help. What can I do?”

He couldn’t understand it. Bent over the counter in the common area, his nails cutting lines down your sides that healed with a frustrating speed, you just sighed into him. Little moans, soft exhales. He slammed your hips against him, the sound ringing through the kitchen. But still, your eyes were closed but not clenched. Your sounds small and even. The only thing keeping him hard was your hand, reached back and digging nails into his thighs. The tiniest hint of your true feelings. He’d bury his mind where your hand tore his skin and find release. Happy to see you at least a little less perfectly assembled after.

Alastor would find you at the most inconvenient times, in the most public settings, and find some excuse to need to fuck you. At one point a sinner even walked in on you two, and to Alastor’s palpable dismay, you apologized to the sinner for blocking the ice machine.

Your resolve finally snapped, however, when Alastor stepped past a line he didn’t know you had. Alastor had you, uncharacteristically, in your bed. He always spoke during sex but now, now it was genuinely grating you. “You’re such a whore, coming to Hell just to eat demon cock. If you drowned in cum you’d probably respawn as an even bigger slut than Angel Dust.” You sat up, one hand on his chest and the other under his armpit, and flipped him onto his back. Alastor’s arm moved to push back, but he found both wrists held down to the bed with a signature glow.

“If you knew Angel half as well as you pretended, you’d know how fucking stupid you sound.” Your hands gathered his cum from earlier that evening, slowly dripping out of you with the sudden change in position. “He’s the whore? Who stalks this hotel, hungry for any ounce of attention? A petulant child willing to embarrass others just so teacher notices them?” Your hand began to pump his cock. Alastor thrashed, he hated people handling his dick, but that was overshadowed by his disgust of having his semen spread over his skin. The sensation made his skin crawl and he would have gone soft but when he met your gaze he only grew harder in your fist. Your eyes were alight, figuratively and literally. The rage on your face made his smile drop entirely. You looked like you hated him. “If he is a whore, then you are Mary Magdalene. I’ll wash your feet for you, sinner.” You used your knees to spread open his untethered legs.

“I know you, Alastor,” the fingers of your other hand slicked through the lathered cum dripping down his ass and began to massage at his hole. “Your greatest sin wasn’t murder. It was pride. Never could let anyone see the famous Radio star with even a hair out of place. You’d drop your morals for even a taste of an improved social image. Even in death, you abuse and hound others who dare to make you feel less than how you demand you look from the outside.” He wanted to say anything, argue, roar, but his jaw was locked in place. Your eyes never left his, and soon his vision was darkening around your luminescent stare. A finger slipped into him, slowly but with resistance.

“Tell me to stop.” Your hand slowed to let his muscles relax around your digit before picking up speed again, curving your palm over his head with every pull upward, “Tell me to stop and I will. I’ll go right back to who I always am, and always will be. I’ll smile at you every morning and move out of your way with a nod in the halls. Say ‘stop’.” Your words were threats, not idle or hollow and it made Alastor’s thighs twitch. Go back? Return to looking at him like you truly wanted the best for him despite how dirty his hands were? Soft eyes threatening to make him melt into a lesser, weaker man?

You were in him to the knuckle, finger prodding and twirling.

His eyes were wide but focused on you. Alastor thought his soul would evaporate, your face a sneer he’d never been so lucky to even imagine before now. He could feel you around him, in him.

A tiny, halted, “S-,” was forced through his teeth.

Stop?

Slower?

He shook his head, eyes fluttering closed.

“God, you’re pathetic. What about a sorry? Can you manage a single apology for your comments tonight? I’ll let you roll me back into the mattress, for a sincere ‘sorry’.” Alastor's knees hitched, his head fell back, and he came over your knuckles with a pained groan. But you didn’t stop. You’d get your reply, eventually.

Alastor gave a threat of his own when you finally got your apology, half screamed through his third orgasm, and let him flee your bed. You nodded and agreed, yes yes, this never happened blah blah yet another example of your enormous pride.

After that night, any time Alastor wanted to yank on Husk’s chains, or double speak someone into a deal, he’d pause and look around. Expecting your two golden lit eyes to be staring, ready to flip him onto his back and drag several more apologies from him.

༻Masterlist༺

[deadbeat-motel]

Something of a quick fix to the whole "no one in hell knows angels can't be killed" because it's such an insane thing to believe that in a thousand years, not a single soul ever thought of fighting the angels? In the show, angels are told to be such an easy kill because they never had to defend themselves and Carmilla produces angel-tipped weapons by the hundreds, to the point of having a market for her products. It's so hard to believe that not one of the sinners who owns one of these "Carmine-Crafted" weapons didn't try to fight back against an angel and succeeded.

So here's a thought:

What if only Carmilla and Zestiel, the two at the top of the sinner's hierarchy and even able to keep every overlord in check, had actually known that angels could be killed. What if the idea that angels can't be killed was propaganda they started and kept going to keep sinners from killing an angel and inciting an unwanted war with heaven?

Somewhat long post ahead.

In the show proper, Zestiel voices concern about "Heaven purging all of hell for daring an uprising" when the idea of fighting back against the angels is brought up. He seems so sure that this would lead to an entire purge if they ever attempted the idea and surely, there must be something within the 700+ years that he had spent in that realm that makes him so sure about this possible outcome.

Here's what I wrote:

In Zestiel's time, the overpopulation of hell had just begun to be a problem. There was no yearly purge like the one we're familiar with now. Instead, it was only annual visits to check in on the realm and on Lucifer himself (personally, I would like to believe these visits were to check in on him after being thrown into hell by the higher order of angels.) Sinners back then were just as murder-happy as they are now and have found out that Angels are not good at defending themselves and that they can hurt the angels with the weapons they bring themselves.

This first murder of angels caused an extreme outrage up in heaven that it started the first purge of all sinners of hell but unlike the normal exterminations, this purge wiped out more than 80% of the population. Zestiel was one of the few who had survived this initial purge and personally saw heaven's wrath when provoked. Everyone who had survived lived on and warned the newer sinners to never attack an angel.

Heaven, however, decided to start the yearly extermination a few years later and many of those surviving demons died in the many exterminations that happened after that. Leaving Zestiel as the only living demon who still remembers the first purge and why it happened. Zestiel wants to avoid having heaven's big purge again not because he cares about the sinners like him, but because he cannot let himself live through something like that again.

Carmilla fits in this as the main weapons dealer in hell, she could make sure that the production of angel-infused weaponry is contained and limited to only her and an exclusive few. She can also make sure that the weapons being used in hell are controlled by her since she's basically made a monopoly on weapons in hell. Zestiel makes her his partner in making sure to continue making sure that the sinners will never fight and win against angels.

Both these overlords work together to continue scaring off every sinner from attempting to kill an angel and even if they try to, they're able to rely on the fact that none of their weapons can even harm an angel.

-----

It's not a perfect fix (admittedly it was written hastily and does go against other parts of the worldbuilding) but it's at least a step in a clear direction and makes sense of the "No one knows angels can be hurt" aspect of worldbuilding.

[nixie-writes]

How about alastor, husk, and sir pentious (separately) have an adopted kid who assumed that they were biologically related to their father their entire life because they bare a striking resemblance to them, until they're finally told that they're adopted later on in their life (14 or 17 years old) and gets mad that they weren't told earlier (angst ensues) so it results in an argument that ends with something along the lines of "YOU'RE NOT EVEN MY REAL DAD" (it could also end with fluff to be an angst/comfort thing but that's up to you)

This has major Helluva Boss Season 1 Episode 3 vibes

Alastor

When he adopted you, you were no more than two years old. A small doe with curled fur and the brightest opal eyes. He adopted you to help him kill initially but as you grew to be a soft, sweet little doe he realized he'd adopted the sweetest little thing.

You always believed you were related to the Radio Demon himself and it gave you a sense of safety. You'd always be okay as long as you had your "father" by your side.

You were 15 when he finally told you the truth. You were mortified. He lied all this time...? Everything he'd done for you suddenly meant nothing. He tried to calm your temper but you were screaming, your demon form taking place. You ended with a sharp "you're not even my real dad so fuck off!" and stomped off to your room, leaving behind a frowning Radio Demon.

Husk

He adopted the sweetest looking black and white kitten. He wanted some form of sweetness in his life and you were it. He took you home with him and planned to care for you and spoil you rotten.

Spoiled rotten you were. You were his darling little kitten and you always referred to him as Daddy growing up. Your "father" adored how much you looked up to him despite his drinking and gambling. He hoped you didn't pick up his habits. He knew he had to tell you eventually.

You were 17 when he told you. You were outraged. Claws out, eyes narrowed, you were about to attack him for admitting he adopted you so long ago. It was only Vaggie getting in your way that stopped you from leaping on him. She tried to reason with you, that you shouldn't threaten to attack your father. All you said was, "he's not my dad, don't refer to him as that" and left for your room. Husk was broken.

Sir Pentious

He found a cute little snake curled up on the side of the road and just couldn't say no. He adopted you in a heartbeat and considered you his sweet little experiment. Your eyes were so bright and curious, you slithered over to everything to either put in your mouth or observe, he liked your curiosity.

As you grew up you helped him build machines to take over the Pentagram. You were so proud of your "father" and you were proud to be helping him. You knew he'd make it as an Overlord one day.

You were 16 when he told you. He told you as he was building a machine he was sure was going to win him the Pentagram. Your claws were sharp, eyes bright with anger, the eggs were hiding from you for the first time since you arrived. You screeched, crying, you didn't know what to say or do. In a fit of anger you smashed your fists through the machine you two had built with the emblem "daddy daughter machine" written on it. "You're not my real dad," you sobbed in pain. "I hate you!" You cried out as you stormed to your room. Pentious had no words to comfort you, you just needed time alone. He could repair the machine and emblem no problem but it wouldn't be the same without you.

[lemurlegs]

Bewitched

Hi people, I'm back with a new chapter. This one is a little short compared to the others, but don't worry the next chapter is going to be long, but it is taking me some time to write it since I'm trying to establish some rules in my fic. So this chapter is more of a lore dump on how certain things work. The next one will also be lore heavy, but more focusing on our character. Anyways enjoy!

Wordcount: 3.6k

Previous chapter

Warning: none i think?

Chapter 4.

Unveiling The Mysteries

An Ultimate Guide To Demon Magic.

Written by Anonymous, 1994

Chapter 1. - The birth of demon magic

After Lucifer fell from heaven, a horde of angels loyal to his ideas fell with him. These fallen angels despised their holy nature and sought out the primordial Darkness that governed Hell before their arrival, pleading with her to transform them into beings as dark as she was.

The Darkness complied, twisting them into entities of corruption. The leading six angels became the first demons, who then went on to become the Princes of Hell, ruling over the rings.

After transforming the princes, the Darkness corrupted the rest of the angels, turning them into the first succubi, imps, hellhounds, and other demonic beings. She gave these new creatures the ability to reproduce and granted them a fragment of her magic, urging them to populate Hell. From these demons, the rest of the hellborns emerged.

In time, the first sinners began arriving. Within a few years, mortal souls outnumbered the hellborn demons. Initially, these creatures coexisted relatively peacefully, but mortal souls grew envious of their hellborn counterparts who possessed demon magic. However, sinners had one significant advantage: they couldn't die permanently. A sinner's soul would always regenerate after being broken.

Using their overwhelming numbers and unkillable nature, the sinners rose up against the hellborns and successfully defeated them.

As the sinners began hunting down the hellborns, the hellborn population started to dwindle. In response, the six princes and Lucifer decided to confine the sinners to a single ring, recognizing their power-hungry nature. Lucifer chose his own ring, Pride, to house the mortal souls.

Outraged, the sinners began destroying the Pride ring, demanding their authority back. When Lucifer refused to yield, the sinners eventually accepted their fate.

Over centuries, the sinners turned to controlling one another. They discovered they could trade souls, gaining the ability to control others at will. By harnessing the power of souls, they finally achieved what they sought: demon magic.

This type of demon magic differed from that of the hellborns, as it required manipulating a small scale of soul magic to function.

Over centuries, sinners seemed to evolve in ways no one could fully understand. Some began to fall to Hell with inherent abilities, without needing to acquire souls. Typically possessing one or two abilities, these demons had an initial advantage over others and became the first overlords.

Gradually, it became common for sinners to arrive in Hell with some form of magic. In recent years, almost every sinner has fallen with some magical ability, though usually only one or two. Despite this change, the amount of power granted upon death remains limited.

Many demons began speculating and studying their history to understand the source of these powers. Some theories suggested evolution, while others believed the Darkness was responsible…

Chapter 4. What is the soul and how does it make a sinner stronger?

In the realm of biology, the soul is seen as a powerful force present in all living beings. It's often described as pure energy, and it resides in a small space between the ribs.

Souls can greatly enhance an individual's power if enough are collected. These are typically obtained through agreements known as soul-binding deals.

When a demon acquires a soul, their abilities get stronger. And as they gather more souls, they unlock new magical abilities. This process of collecting demon souls is key to understanding the extent of one's powers.

Once you gain a soul, there's a subtle shift, almost imperceptible, as its essence integrates into your own. As the connection solidifies, a sense of empowerment washes over you, a tangible manifestation of the soul's influence.

As an individual accumulates demon souls, the process of integration becomes increasingly intricate, leading to profound changes in their magical capabilities. Each soul, with its unique essence and energy signature, acts as a catalyst for unlocking latent potential within the individual.

The integration of a demon soul initiates a complex alchemical process within the individual's being. Initially, there is a subtle but palpable shift in their magical resonance as the foreign energy merges with their own. This fusion sets off a chain reaction, as the energies of the soul and the individual intertwine and harmonize.

As more souls are collected, this process of integration becomes more pronounced, amplifying the individual's magical aura and expanding their repertoire of abilities. The combined energies of multiple souls create a synergistic effect, enhancing the individual's control over various aspects of magic.

Chapter 12. - How to discover your demon powers?

To unlock your demonic powers upon arrival in Hell, there are essential steps to take for optimal results:

Self-reflection is paramount. Start by delving into your past life on Earth. Consider your strengths, weaknesses, and the aspects of your identity that define you. Reflect on your deeds, your associations, and the circumstances of your demise. What were your greatest achievements? What sins weighed heaviest on your soul? These questions can offer valuable insights into the nature of your potential demonic abilities.

Next, focus on raising your energy levels. Developing heightened awareness and sensitivity to magical energies requires dedicated practice. Engage in regular meditation sessions to quiet the mind and attune yourself to the subtle vibrations of the spiritual realm. Through meditation, you can cultivate a deeper connection to the energies that surround you, paving the way for a clearer understanding of your demonic powers.

Here are some other tips to help with your discovery:

Take the time to explore the diverse environments of Hell and experiment with different rituals, incantations, and magical techniques. Engage with other inhabitants, seek out knowledge from experienced practitioners.

Be open to trial and error as you seek to uncover your powers. Not every attempt may yield immediate results, but each experience can offer valuable insights and lessons learned. Embrace failure as a natural part of the learning process and remain persistent in your quest for mastery.

Explore the realms of dreams and astral projection as avenues for discovering your latent abilities. During dream states, the barriers between the conscious and subconscious mind are weakened, allowing for deeper exploration of your innermost self and potentials…

With a surge of excitement, you slam the book shut, springing up from the bed.

"That's it!" you exclaim to yourself.

A dream spell—it's the answer. With it, you could easily uncover your latent abilities. If demon magic truly came from The Darkness, or as you know her as Mona, The Moon Goddess, then some lucid dreaming and a talk with her can be extremely helpful. Maybe she knows how to break the curse.

The book mentioned raising energy, but let's be real, yours is already plenty high. I mean, you've been at this for nearly 500 years. Yeah, your energy is more than raised enough.

As you gather the necessary ingredients for the spell—Chamomile tea, dried lavender, and a few words of Latin—you realize an hour has passed since your return from shopping. You've been so immersed in the book that you completely forgot about unpacking all the items you bought.

You approach the bags containing clothes and toiletries, setting about organizing them and putting everything away. Once that task is complete, you retrieve the phone Angel insisted you buy. His warning echoes in your mind.‘Make sure not to have the phone around Alastor.’

What the hell does that even mean?

As you finish organizing most of your belongings, you turn your attention to the remaining bags. Carefully unpacking the supplies, you arrange them on a small desk in your room. Setting out the altar cloth, divination tools, jars of herbs, candles, and crystals, you create a sacred space for your rituals and spellwork. Fresh grimoires and other books find their place among the items, ready for reference and study.

Turning to the little dressers on the opposite side of your bed, you remove the nightlights and adorn each dresser with an altar cloth, beginning to construct your deity altars. One for Mona, the Moon Goddess, and one for Fenja, the Huntress Goddess—your two main deities.

With the leftover supplies and items, you decide to stow them under your bed. Yet, a chilling realization dawns upon you. While you can secure your door against unwanted visitors, Alastor's ability to shadow warp means locked doors offer little protection. It's best to keep him from seeing your room.

You resolve to secure your door both magically and physically. Walking over to your altar, you grasp the ritual knife resting upon it. With careful precision, you draw the blade across your palm, creating a shallow cut, allowing a little blood to well up.

Approaching the door, you begin to inscribe the locking sigil—a complex pattern known only to you, designed to keep out unwanted intruders. With each stroke, you imbue the sigil with your intent, infusing it with protective energy.

“Mea voluntate hoc ostium obligo; Clausum et obsignatum nullum introitum ad inveniendum.”

As you spoke those words, the sigil you drew began to glow with a violet hue, sealing the door with powerful magic.

It's reassuring that your magic works even here in Hell. While you're on the quest to discover your demon powers, it's a comfort not to feel completely powerless.

As you step away from the door to tend to your wound, you're interrupted by frantic knocking.

Seriously? Now?—you think to yourself, wrapping a cloth around your hand before swinging the door open just enough to peer out.

Standing before you is Charlie, her face beaming with a big smile.

"Hi, sorry to bother you, but today's group activity is about to start, and I'd love it if you could join us," Charlie says, her voice eager.

"Group activity?" you respond, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"Yes, group activities are supposed to help with rehabilitating sinners to get them into Heaven. At least, that's the theory," she adds with a nervous laugh.

"Oookay," you reply, processing the information. "Um, listen, I'll be down in a second, okay? Just need to finish something."

"Sure, take all the time you need. We'll be downstairs in the living room," Charlie says, turning around and practically skipping with joy as she heads downstairs.

You scoff at the idea of getting into heaven. "I'd rather die again," you think to yourself.

Heaven is... well, let's just say you're perfectly fine with living in Hell. You don't exactly agree with heaven, and you have some terrible history with them.

Shaking off the thoughts of your past, you remind yourself it's best not to dwell on it. You walk towards your altar and pick up some yarrow leaves, squeezing them onto your cut to stop the bleeding. After a few moments, the bleeding stops. You proceed to clean the wound before heading downstairs.

By the time you arrive, everyone is already gathered in the living room, with the exception of Alastor. Not that you mind; while you don't have anything against him, you're cautious around someone who owns your soul, especially considering what you've read about him.

You make your way towards the group, who are sitting on the floor in a circle. Spotting Angel, who's engrossed in his phone, you head over to him. As he sees you approaching, he quickly puts his device away and greets you with a wide smile.

"Heyya, toots, finally decided to join the brainwashing?" Angel greets you with a smirk.

Vaggie shoots him a glare in response to his comment.

"Yeah, I suppose," you reply, deciding to play along. "By the way, how's your eye?" you ask, genuine concern lacing your words.

He waves you off. "I'll be fine. It was my fault, I ran into that lamppost," Angel responds, shooting you a look, silently asking you to go along with it.

"Yeah, quite clumsy of you," you agree, as Husk leans forward, interjects into the conversation.

"He seriously ran into a lamppost? It looks more like he got beat up or something. You sure it was a lamppost?" Husk questions, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Yep, lamppost," you quickly confirm, covering for your friend.

Husk doesn't seem entirely convinced, but he doesn't press further.

"Alright, everyone, it's time for today’s group activity! Yay!" Charlie exclaims with enthusiasm, though her energy is met with awkward silence and uninterested faces.

She laughs a little, seemingly embarrassed, before standing up and clapping her hands together. Taking a moment to look over everyone, she begins, "Today's activity—I think it would be great if we talked a little bit about ourselves. Since we have a new resident, let's start with a simple one: What got you in Hell?"

At that question, everyone seemed to withdraw a little. While some began to explain their situations, you start to realize you have no idea what got you in Hell. I mean, you had plenty to choose from, but which one was the one that sealed your fate? You had no clue.

As your turn came for the circle confession, Alastor suddenly manifested from the shadows.

Charlie turned to him with excitement. "Hey, Al! Welcome back. We were just starting today's exercise. Would you like to join?"

"Actually, dear, I have something I nee—" Before he could decline, Charlie began explaining today's exercise.

"We're going to talk about our past! Ginger was just about to explain why she ended up in hell!" she exclaimed.

At that, Alastor's smile widened as he looked at you. "Well, I suppose I can make some time."

With that, he walked towards the group circle and sat down on the couch. Crossing his legs, Alastor locked eyes with you.

"Go on, dear. Don't stop on my account," he said with an amused smirk.

"Well, I've been thinking it over while everyone else got their turn, but I genuinely don't know what got me here," you admit.

At this, Alastor raises an eyebrow, seemingly confused by your answer, considering he remembers you telling him that you manipulated men and most probably murdered them too.

"What do you mean, Ginger?" asks Charlie.

"I don't think I'm innocent or something; I just don't know which of my sins got me here," you explain with a shrug.

“Well list a few of ya sins toots, mabe we can figure it out togetha’” Angel interjects.

"Ohoho, only if you want to stay here for a few hours; that's quite the long list to go over," you joke, having a good laugh at the idea. Unbeknownst to you, the group's faces wear a dreadful expression, while Alastor seems particularly delighted by your response.

"Oookay, let's move on," said Charlie, quickly moving to the next question. "Um, okay, what are three things you're really good at or just particularly enjoyed doing?"

“Sucking dick, snorting drugs and sleeping all day” Says Angel proudly. You couldn't help but giggle, though you noticed Alastor's disgusted look, hidden behind his smile. You had to admit, the guy was really committed to the whole smiley bit.

"Thank you, Angel, let's move on," Charlie quickly interjects with a nervous laugh. "Anyone else?"

Silence ensues.

“Oookay I guess I'll go then. I really enjoy singing, drawing and making new friends”

You can't help but find her adorable. It's hard to believe she's the princess of Hell.

"Who's next?" Charlie asks, breaking the silence.

Husk groans. "Fine, I'll go. Better to get it over with now," he mutters before clearing his throat. "I like cheap booze, poker, and magic."

At that, you light up. "Magic, you say? What kind of magic?"

"Like card tricks and illusions," Husk replies.

"Oh, uh, well, I'd love to see it sometime," you say, a little disappointed.

"You can show me some magic anytime, Pussycat," says Angel flirtatiously, leaning into Husk's personal space. Husk promptly shoves him away, hurling a list of profanities his way.

As everyone explains what they enjoy most, there are only two left: you and Alastor.

“Alright toots, you're up”

"Okay. Well, let's see. I really like history, particularly the 1920s. I enjoy reading, and I like singing." You explain. Let's just say you liking history is more so because you lived through a lot of it. You did some fuuuun things in the roaring twenties.

Now that sure got Alastor's attention.

"Hmm, I suppose it's my turn, isn't it?" Alastor muses. "Let's see, I quite enjoy tormenting souls, jazz music, and cooking."

Everybody grows quiet at that answer.

"Okay, that's, um, good for now, I suppose. You're all free to go," says Charlie as everybody starts leaving. That's when you realize Alastor didn't answer the first question. Curiosity piqued, you stopped everyone.

"Wait, Alastor, you didn't answer the first question. What got you in Hell?" you inquire, feeling a surge of curiosity.

If you thought the awkward silent pauses that happened tonight were bad, then you had another thing coming, because the whole group looked at you as if you had a death wish. And while cautious, you wouldn't say you were afraid of Alastor.

With a snap, his neck bent in an unnatural way.

"My, my, quite bold, are we?" he said, his tone laced with amusement. "Well, if you must know, I was a serial killer in the 1920s, cleaning the streets of New Orleans. I'm quite certain that's why I'm here."

You give him a smile.

"Thank you for sharing, though I don't see what's so wrong in cleaning up the world from vile, disgusting people," you say, looking up at him. Craning your head to look at the tall demon, you give him an innocent-looking smile.

The whole group stands wide-eyed, jaws on the floor at your interaction. Even Alastor seems shocked, but more happy shocked than disturbed shocked.

With that you inform everyone that you'll see them tomorrow. Before you go to sleep though, you go to the kitchen to make your cup of tea. And also to catch a few bites.

You select a mug adorned with a little fox design, evidently made just for you. Cute.

As you begin making the beverage, you sense a strange, dark energy manifesting behind you. You had felt it this morning too, when Alastor appeared behind you, and when he shadow warped you back to the hotel. So naturally, you call out to him with your body turned away, hoping to catch him off guard as he's likely planning to do the same.

"Hello, Alastor, fancy seeing you here," you say, still completely facing away.

"Well, hello to you too, darling. How did you know I was behind you?" he asks, surprised. Ha, got him.

"Lucky guess, I suppose," you reply, though in truth, it's more like centuries worth of experience and raised vibrations.

He hums at your response. "I actually want to ask something from you, dear."

"Shoot," you say.

"Pardon?" he asks, confused.

"I mean, go ahead. What did you want to ask?" you clarify.

"Ah, yes, of course. I need you to pick up some fresh cuts of meat from the butcher for me tomorrow. I'll write down the address for you," he says, snapping his fingers, and a notepad and pen appear in his hand.

Your eyes widened at that. Conjuration—wow, it's like this guy got all the cool powers Hell can offer.

"Okay, but why do you need me to get it for you?" you ask skeptically, raising an eyebrow at the demon. This felt like a trap, or at least like it wasn't just for the purpose of getting a slab of meat.

"Well, you certainly ask a lot of questions, dear. Don't you know curiosity killed the cat?" he responds as he leaned forward, now invading your personal space, inches from your face.

"Yes, but satisfaction brought it back," you quip back at him, not even flinching at his closeness.

At that response, you see Alastor getting visibly irritated. Antlers elongate, his smile stretches to unnatural lengths, and his eyes darken, pupils changing to radio dials.

"It would be in your best interests to do what I tell you without question," he warns, smile turning into more of a snarl.

You stand there unfazed; you've certainly seen scarier displays than some deer man throwing a tantrum. He might own your soul, but you're not going to let him walk all over you.

"Sure, whatever you say," you shrug, as you turn away from him and back to your sandwich, still unamused at his antics.

He returns to his normal form, slightly confused by your lack of fear. Then he turns to pick up the notebook and pen and scribbles something on the note. Tearing the page off, he hands you the paper.

"Pick it up by 9 and put it in the fridge. You don't need to worry about money; it's already paid," he instructs.

With that, he melts into the shadows, leaving you alone in the kitchen.

You eat the sandwiches you made as you take your piping hot tea up to your room. You reach your door, placing your hand over the place where the sigil is. Focusing your energy, you unlock it in mere seconds. As you close your door, you turn towards your altar, placing some dried lavender in your tea, preparing the drink for the spell. Taking the bundle of dried rosemary, you use your magic to light a small purple flame to burn it. You take the bundle and cleanse your room, your bed, your cup, and yourself. Then, you take the little spoon and mix it clockwise, drawing in the energy you're manifesting. With that, you begin your incantation.

"Somnia cosmica, nunc decerno;

Evigila, anima mea libera.

In somnis amplexu, conscientia video."

With that, you start sipping your tea. A foggy, cloud-like energy surrounds your mind, and you begin feeling incredibly tired. You chug the tea down, already feeling its effects.

After a quick bath and your nightly routine, exhaustion overtakes you. You slip into your cozy king-sized bed, dressed in your red sheer nightgown with fluffy furry trims, and you fall asleep within seconds.

As you drift off, you anticipate the journey ahead, eager to discover what you're truly capable of.

[gaygoetia]

Background Details in Helluva Boss S1 E3 - Spring Broken

Not so many background details in this one, probably because half of it takes place in the human world but here are some bits and pieces I noticed:

1. The Office Building Car Park

There are lots of fun little easter eggs in the office car park, mainly in the form of graffiti.

The words "Why won't you love me Valentino?" are scrawled on the left-side wall, presumably in reference to the Overlord of the same name in Hazbin Hotel, though it's unclear who might have written it. It's signed with the initials SH but I haven't been able to think of anyone from either Helluva Boss or Hazbin Hotel that might refer to (so if you have any ideas please let me know!)

On the same wall there's a huge sign saying "Buck you Flitzo" and on the opposite wall there's graffiti saying "I.M.P is a scam". Clearly (and unsurprisingly) Blitzo has pissed someone off, though of course there's no way of knowing if these two messages are related or whether they've been written by the same person.

There's also a billboard in the background advertising Holy Water "now with 32% more piss".

2. Loona's Compact Mirror

Loona's compact mirror says "Strong but Sensitive" on the back, possibly referencing the scene in the pilot where Blitzo tells Moxxie she's sensitive and she shouts "YES, I AM!"

3. Verosika's Tattoo

This is technically a foreground detail rather than a background one, but we can see that Verosika has a crossed out heart tattoo on her arm. It's not 100% clear what it says due to the looping font and the big X through it but it clearly begins with B and from the number of letters and the context of the show it most likely says "Blitz". This is interesting because it suggests she must have had pretty strong feelings for him at one point and her and Blitzo's relationship may have been more serious than either of them let on.

4. Blitzo's Horse Thing

Blitzo's thing for horses is particularly prevalent this episode, with tons of visual references to it and a couple of verbal ones too.

There are horse drawings all over the place, horse graffiti on the office exterior, a horse toy/figurine in the car and suggestions for horse names on the office whiteboard. In the same episode Verosika calls Blitzo out for stealing her car and credit card to buy horse-riding lessons.

That's it for episode 3 but you can see all my other Helluva Boss background details posts here.

[bykalopsia]

agito 47-51 notes (i initially had a celebration inside these parentheses. no. my "wooooo!" has been rescinded.)

do we not think episode 48 is a little too late to introduce new characters so we can have new rounds of "oh they ran off to do agito things without explaining, aw man" misunderstandings. like nothing against these girls they're both cool and i am not opposed to their plotlines outside of this. (<- words said by the utterly clueless and deranged)

that was the only thing i had written before i committed to just finishing and then writing this up. i miss being so hopeful for the ending of this show. what the hell.

i literally don't even know if i want to dignify this by taking the time to complain about it.

tldr: the ending spent way too much time on shit i couldn't give a fuck about (hikawa/police bureaucracy/omuro) and next to zero time on the shit that actually mattered (the overlord doesn't even get a proper confrontation, ryou magically shows up to the final battle when the last time we saw him he was literally in the ocean, we don't see if kana ends up actually coming to terms with being an agito or not, risa's death is so unceremonious, i could literally go on)

i want to say that i really could have loved this show if it had more time at the end (because i *did* really enjoy most of the back half of this season, even leading up to the ending). there was a LOT i liked about it (gills really resonated with me, i enjoyed the religious theming and the cosmic level the overlord and the apostle were working on, i really enjoyed the role of the apostle, the process by which people became agitos was super intriguing, hojo was really my perfect flavor of bitch, i LOVED mana). like. the building blocks were THERE! and then so much time was wasted on procedural motw whatever and humor that only landed half of the time for me. at the end of the day i know it's a kids show so it generally probably needs to have those lighter moments but the first half of this show moves so fucking slowly because of that so i can't help but be bitter at the lost time.

simply the fact that at the final episode they had 22 minutes to: dismantle hojo's unknown protection g3 squad, fight and defeat 2 els, defeat (or at least put into submission? since he visits the apostle and goes "idk man i'm gonna fuck off for now") the overlord, and establish a WHOLE ASS TIMESKIP?? like typing that whole list out made me upset. why did we do this.

i know i'm spoiled bc i think kuuga's episodes leading up to 48 are so fucking good (notice how there are multiple episodes in that case...) but this was so crazy.

overall, i don't think agito was horrible. it doesn't stick the landing for me but there are parts of it that i enjoyed a lot. i still don't have a lot to compare it to so i'm not going to rank or grade it or anything (other than stating the obvious and saying i liked kuuga more?)

also last note risa and ryou were so cute i was actually really sad... ryou really never got taken out of the wringer....... ougggghhhhh

idk if people actually read these notes but if you have been i hope you enjoyed my rambling! onward to ryuki!!!!

[missdawnandherdusk]

the lakes

Draco Malfoy X Reader

Request: @youareinllve​: Imagine spending summer break at the Malfoy manor and you realize that this is the first time in a while that draco seems like a kid again, with no pressure from his family or Voldemort or the death eaters, just draco, your draco again, just having fun in a lake. (also see the lakes)

A/N: So I think this is the softest thing that I’ve ever written in my life and that’s saying something (especially for those of you who have been around for a while). It also has brilliant cadence, so if you can, read it aloud: it’s that much more enchanting if you can. By no means will this always be how I write, because it is more poetic than prose, but I don’t mind doing it now and against especially with a muse like folklore. Let me know what you think! Seriously, I thrive on y’all feedback/comments/reblogs.

There were few days that I could call my own. The days when no one expected me to sit this way, talk that way, act perfectly. I could be young. I could be free. I could be loved. I could be with him.

There were few days that I could call him my own. The days when no one expected him to walk this way, speak that way, act like a Malfoy. He could be young. He could be free. He could be loved. He could be with me.

There were no tight-fitting robes. There were no school uniforms. There were no hours spent on hair and makeup. There was no time wasted in reflections. There were no side eye glances to steal.

There was the lightness of cotton. It was sundresses, cuffed trousers and flowy shirts. It was wide brimmed sun hats and bare feet. It was the softness of grass and the strength of the stones and comfort of earth.

It was his smile. The way it met his eyes. The way it called me in.

Into that cold water. That crystal-clear water. The water that matched the shade of his eyes.

 ~

Meet me at the lake,

Yours, Draco

~

That’s all it would take. That was when I knew the day was mine. When I knew he was. It was a trip to Windermere. To the wood skirting around his large suffocating manor. It was meeting him at the lake, where our days went to live and die.

“Took you long enough,” I’d tease as he passed the first few trees, his eyes scanning the foliage for me.

“Not all of us can apparate yet,” He’d jest back, taking my hand.

The warmth of his hand in mine matched the smile on his face. The sharp points of his cheekbones and jaw meeting the soft curves of his lips and eyelashes. The grass struggling to grow in the speckled light beckoned us forward. Our shoes, coats, and griefs left under a tree where our initials were carved. Sunlight filtered in golden and green through the trees lighting him softly.

Draco would take my hand and pull me close. His hands would rest on my waist as his nose nuzzled against mine in the calm lighting. Our breaths and the rustling of leaves were the only things heard. The only things that mattered to listen to. His lips would be soft and alluring on mine—just as his smile was.

The shock of the chilled water would elicit the most irresistible laughter and shouts of joy. The squishy earth beneath my toes would have me draped over Draco’s shoulders, just to avoid the prickling feeling. My dislike of the sensation would have him laughing yet again, and perhaps he’d roll his eyes at my ridiculousness. But he’d never complain. Instead he’d hold me or draw me deeper into the water.

The lake. The deep water. As soon as we could dive beneath it, our worries were gone. There was no war looming. There were no evil overlords. No heroes. No ransoms. There was no good versus bad. There was no sides. No houses. No prejudices.

There was me. 

There was Draco.

There was the hum of insects. There was the swaying of wisteria. His smile pressed against my skin.

“I love you,” He’d whisper. “More than anything,” 

“Never more than I love you,” I’d reply.

The enchanted water of that lake would take us to the banks. The outcropped rocks surrounded by flowers that were free to grow. That grew despite the adversity that it faced. The blanket would be soft under my touch as we carved a little square of the wildflowers to call our own.

Draco’s eyes would watch the distance, gazing upon the peaks of the mountains. Being with Draco seemed to make everything hurt less. No matter what it was, he had a way of soothing all of my worries and strife.

“How do I love thee?” He’d quote as I lay beside him watching the blueness of the heavens above.

“Let me count the ways,” I’d muse back, propping up on my arm so that I could catch a glimpse of the grey that his eyes held.

“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach,” The words would tumble from his lips with practiced ease, with the same grace as the breeze persuading the grass to waver.

“I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.” My words would barely be heard above the babbling of the lost brook as the sun would stretch out its last efforts of warmth and guidance.

Draco would sit up then, tucking my drying hair behind my ear in a feeble attempt to tame it against the will of the wind gods that accompanied us.

“I love thee freely, as men strive for right.” An air of melancholy would haunt his words as shades began to seep back into our Eden.

“I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.” The gentle reminder would ward off the ghosts of who we were supposed to be as a smile would be mirrored on his face as it was mine. Again, we were free.

“I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.” Draco would become theatrical at these lines, feigning distress and he draped over my lap. A laugh would fall from my lips and onto the perfection of his features.

“I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints.” My fingers would dust over his cheek, drawing down his jaw, to trace the pink of his lips.

“I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life,” His grey eyes would vow this to me. Each and every day that belonged to us he would declare these words.

“And, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” I’d promise back.

As the sun gave into his sister for the night, there was no escaping the world that demanded us back. The world filled with grief and sorrow.

The truth was: Draco and I didn’t belong in that world. The world of heroes and villains. The world of happily ever after’s and storybook endings. We weren’t made for rumors and gossip. Our love didn’t fit in newspapers or hushed conversations.

We belonged to the poets. To the sad prose. We belonged to the orishas of that lake and the wood and the flowers and the earth. Thousands of nymphs and naiads for us to be in the comfort and care of. The fae that would welcome us and protect our love. Our love that grew deep roots and beautiful flowers with no one around to spoil it.

Those were the days that we’d set off without our beloved to the lakes.

.

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[goose-books]

goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

I.

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

[sisterofiris]

Greco-Anatolian contacts in Late Bronze Age texts, or: was there a historical Trojan War?

(This is the abridged - though still long - version of a presentation I gave during a seminar. If you’re interested in more details or sources, feel free to message me, or check out the bibliography.)

Did the Trojan War really happen? It’s a hot topic among Classicists, and has become even more so over the last 150 years. Archeological excavations in north-western Turkey, as well as the discovery of Hittite civilisation and decipherment of Hittite cuneiform tablets, have provided apparent support for the existence of Troy and the reality of a conflict over it between Greeks and Trojans. Anyone interested in the subject has probably heard the following evidence:

a large city, corresponding to Homer’s descriptions of Troy in the Iliad, was unearthed at Hisarlık; this city existed for over 3000 years and, most relevantly to our topic, suffered a major destruction around 1180 BC - a date corresponding to the traditional time frame given for the Trojan War (around 1250-1200 BC)

Hittite sources mention a city in the same region - north-western Anatolia - named Wiluša, which strongly parallels (W)ilios, another name for Troy in the Iliad

they also mention another city in the same area, Taruiša, which could be the Hittite equivalent of Greek Troia (Troy)

in a treaty Wiluša concluded with the Hittite empire around 1280 BC, an underground watercourse is mentioned; the archeological site also features an underground watercourse, therefore this site and Wiluša could be one and the same

in the same treaty, the king of Wiluša is identified as Alakšandu, the Hittite spelling of Alexander; this name has been linked to the Trojan prince Paris in the Iliad, who is also known as Alexander

the same treaty refers to a deity named Appaliuna, which can be read as Apollon, a major deity of Troy in the Iliad

Hittite texts speak regularly of the kingdom of Aḫḫiyawa, located in or beyond the Aegean Sea, a term which echoes the name for the Greeks in the Iliad, Akhai(w)oi (Achaeans)

a letter from the Hittite king to the king of Aḫḫiyawa mentions a conflict their lands had over Wiluša

Many people, from Classicists to archeologists to documentary makers, have sought to connect the dots between these elements and answer the question with a yes: there could have been a Trojan War. This is certainly an easy deduction to make. However, many of these argumentations (not all, of course; I’m not throwing everyone under the bus here, but it’s a common trend) present a serious methodological flaw. That is, they take what I like to call a “murder mystery” approach.

The “murder mystery” starts with a question: did the Trojan War happen? Arguments in favour of and against it are then sought out in the available sources. Since many arguments in favour of it are found, it’s assumed that the original question can be answered positively: the Trojan War could have happened (or, as less critical people affirm, did happen). The problem with this approach is that it treats a fictional account (Homer’s Iliad) as a hypothesis to be proven or disproven. But an epic isn’t a corpse in a mansion to be investigated until the culprit is found; it’s not even an eyewitness account. Even just treating it as something that can be proven is being biased in favour of it being at least somewhat trustworthy. Using the Iliad as a starting point also gives the central role to a narrative written 500 years after the supposed events, while sources contemporary to those events are treated as supporting evidence - not as the subject we should be delving into in the first place.

So what should be done? We cannot discuss the historicity of the Trojan War without tackling, well, the history surrounding it. In other words, and this may seem counter-productive: we need to forget about the Trojan War, to establish instead a general picture of Late Bronze Age contacts between Greeks and Anatolians along the Anatolian coast, and especially around Wiluša. Only once we have put the above “evidence” back into its context will we be able to discuss the Iliad.

So here we go - let’s use Hittite sources to find out how Greeks and Anatolians interacted in the Late Bronze Age. What kind of presence did the Greeks have on the Anatolian coast? Were western Anatolians always Hittite allies? What was the ethnicity of Wiluša’s inhabitants? Did Greeks and Hittites ever do battle? It’s all under the cut.

Setting the scene

Before we build our puzzle and see if the Trojan War piece fits into it, we need to confirm that we’ve actually got the right puzzle. This requires four proofs:

That the archeological site at Hisarlık was called Wiluša in Hittite sources;

That this site fits Homer’s description of Troy;

That Wiluša and Taruiša are the Hittite equivalents of (W)ilios and Troia;

And that the Hittites knew and interacted with the Greeks.

I won’t go into too much detail here, as these questions have been extensively discussed over the last century (if you’re curious to know more, see the bibliography). Nowadays, most experts agree that all four are likely true. While Hittite geography is still debated in many areas, the localisation of Wiluša is close to certain thanks to campaign routes detailed in royal annals, combined with archeological data from western Anatolia. Unfortunately, no written texts (except for one seal) were found at Hisarlık, which could have given definite proof of the site being Wiluša - but it’s still highly likely. Meanwhile, the Iliad contains enough geographical and topographical descriptions that its setting can be narrowed down to a very specific area, which also happens to coincide with the site at Hisarlık.

Linguistically, Wiluša being the equivalent of (W)ilios - attested in the Iliad as Ilios, but the presence of an initial digamma (w sound) is proven by the word’s metric rhythm - and Taruiša being the equivalent of Troia is perfectly plausible. So is Aḫḫiyawa for Akhai(w)oi (same as (W)ilios; the term is attested as Akhaioi but had to originally contain a digamma). The localisation of Aḫḫiyawa in or beyond the Aegean Sea, and its obvious might in Hittite texts echoing the mighty archeological sites of Late Bronze Age Greece, confirm this further. As one of my professors once said: either Aḫḫiyawa was not Greece, which would mean one powerful kingdom (Aḫḫiyawa) left traces in Hittite texts but none in the archeological record, while another (Greece) left archeological traces but no written ones... or Aḫḫiyawa was Greece, and therefore the Hittites knew the Greeks.

It should be pointed out that we don’t know if Aḫḫiyawa referred to all of Greece, or just to a part of it. Was it the Aegean islands? Pylos? Mycenae? The whole Peloponnese? Linear B texts found at Bronze Age archeological sites in Greece don’t give enough information about the political structure of the time for us to be sure. It’s clear that each city-state was governed by a king, or wanax, but we don’t know if the Hittites were only in contact with one of those kings (which would make Aḫḫiyawa a small, local kingdom) or if all city-states belonged, temporarily or permanently, to a coalition ruled by an overlord (who would be the “king of Aḫḫiyawa” mentioned in Hittite texts). Considering how uniform Late Bronze Age Greek culture was, how similar its archeological sites are and how the dialect in all Linear B tablets is identical, and considering how the king of Aḫḫiyawa was powerful enough for the Hittite king to view him as an equal, I would lean towards the coalition hypothesis - but this is yet to be proven.

The early 14th century: a Greek sword and a Hittite vassal

Let’s begin our study with the first text in which Wiluša is mentioned. This would be the Annals of Tudḫaliya I/II (we’re not sure if he was the first or the second Hittite king named Tudḫaliya), in which he describes a campaign he led against north-western Anatolia. Several city-states there, including Wiluša and Taruiša, had joined into an anti-Hittite coalition known as the Aššuwa coalition - Aššuwa being the name of the region. Tudḫaliya defeated them in battle and returned to the Hittite capital, Ḫattuša, along with spoils and captives. One of the spoils from this campaign was found in an archeological dig: it’s a sword in the Late Bronze Age Greek style.

It’s hard to determine whether the sword was forged and used by a Greek person, or whether it was an Anatolian imitation, but either way, it shows that north-western Anatolia was in contact with Greece. Moreover, it would imply that both peoples were on good terms. At the very least, they were trading partners; at most, Greeks and Anatolians - including Trojans - may have fought against Tudḫaliya together. The presence of Greeks in the area is confirmed by a much later letter, which mentions a marriage alliance between Greeks and Anatolians during this period. Could it have been in Wiluša? Did Greek and Trojan royalty intermarry? The letter in question is fragmentary, so we can’t know for certain, but as we will see later on, this hypothesis is not at all far-fetched.

But not all contact was positive. The Indictment of Madduwatta, a slightly later text, stars a Hittite vassal king named Madduwatta who ruled somewhere in south-western Anatolia (we’re not sure where, exactly) and who got into conflict with a Greek nobleman. This man, Attariššiya, tried to kill Madduwatta multiple times, to the point that Madduwatta had to ask the Hittite king for help. Most interesting is the mention of a battle between Attariššiya’s forces and the Hittite king’s, in which one general from each side was killed.

So here we have evidence of an actual, armed conflict between Greeks and Hittites. However, this was not part of an “official” Greek conquest. Attariššiya is only identified as a “man of Aḫḫiyawa”, not a king, so his interests in Anatolia were probably personal and had nothing to do with "official” policy (though he may have had unofficial support from the Greek king). He may have wanted to secure a trading post or even set up a colony; archeological evidence shows that Greeks had been present all along the coast of Anatolia since the 15th century at least, mostly trading but also settling permanently. Attariššiya’s strategy was also clearly opportunistic, as was Madduwatta’s, since they later put their past arguments aside to raid Cyprus together (much to the horror of the Hittite king).

These two instances show that Greeks were interested in Anatolia in the 14th century, and tried to secure a foothold there through whatever opportunities presented themselves - marriage alliances, raids, or battles. Likely aware of the threat the Hittites posed, they were vested in getting them out of the area. This meant that, on various occasions, Greeks allied themselves with western Anatolians... and, possibly, with Trojans.

The late 14th century: a Milesian war and a Greek deity

This strategy continued through the 14th century, leading us to a western Anatolian king named Uḫḫa-ziti. Uḫḫa-ziti ruled over Apaša, later known as Ephesus, but seems to have had power over a large area which also included Millawanda, later Miletus. In the early reign of the Hittite king Muršili II, Uḫḫa-ziti allied himself with the Greek king and handed Miletus over to him. Miletus already had a large Greek population - in fact, it was the most Greek city of western Anatolia - so this decision may well have been a welcome one for the Milesians. Muršili, however, wasn’t so pleased.

In his Annals, he describes how he sent his army against Miletus and utterly destroyed the city. (This destruction can also be seen in the archeological record.) Meanwhile, Uḫḫa-ziti had taken refuge in the Greek islands, likely under the protection of the Greek king, where he finally died. This may have been the extent of the Greek king’s help, since his official troops do not seem to have taken part in the war. While Milesian Greeks most likely fought the Hittites, and other Greeks may have independently joined the cause, the war in Miletus was ultimately between Hittites and western Anatolians.

Still, this was a major defeat for the Greeks, who saw the city with the strongest Greek presence, Miletus, conquered by the Hittites. The message was clear: western Anatolia belonged to the Hittites, so the Greeks duly suspended their expansion efforts in the area. This led to more positive interactions with the Hittites, to the point that, when Muršili fell sick, the statue of a deity from Lazpa (Lesbos) and another from Greece were brought in to heal him. Maybe Greeks and Hittites could get along after all?

The early 13th century: Wiluša takes centre stage

Muršili’s conquests in western Anatolia ushered in a new age, featuring more contacts with Greece than ever. Some of those are explicitly attested - the 13th century has more mentions of Greece in Hittite texts than any other - but others were implicit. This is the case for the aforementioned Hittite treaty with Alakšandu of Wiluša. In the historical introduction to the treaty, Wiluša is described as having always been favourable to the Hittites, taking their side and supporting them even when the city belonged officially to another kingdom. According to this treaty, Wiluša would have had stronger links with the Hittites than with anyone else.

And yet the king’s name was Alakšandu - very, very obviously the Greek name Alexander. For him to have a Greek name, there had to be a strong Greek presence in the area. Could this be the result of the 14th century marriage alliance? If so, then there had been Greek blood in the Trojan royal family for over a hundred years. And even if not, there was undoubtedly some kind of Greek element in Alakšandu’s family.

This is further confirmed by the appearance of the deity Appaliuna, probably Apollon, in the treaty. The origin of Apollon is debated, and many scholars view him as an originally Anatolian deity. Either way, for him to appear both in Bronze Age Anatolia and in later Greece, he had to have travelled either from East to West, or from West to East across the Aegean Sea - and this required contacts between Greeks and Anatolians. Hence the question: was Wiluša really closer to the Hittites than to Greece, or was this royal propaganda to minimise the Greek presence in the area?

The 13th century also saw the rise in power of Greece. Miletus may have been given back to them under Muršili II’s successor, maybe in an effort to pacify relations between Greeks and Hittites, now both among the greatest powers of the time. Ḫattušili III, who ruled in the mid-13th century, implies that Miletus belonged to Greece in a letter known as the Tawagalawa letter, concerned with a renegade who had taken refuge in Miletus. Since the city was owned by the Greek king, Ḫattušili had to write to him to ask for the renegade to be extradited. The same letter features the most famous quote about our topic:

The king of Ḫatti, regarding the matter of the city of Wiluša over which we became hostile, has convinced me regarding that matter. We have made peace. Now hostility is no longer right between us.

This is the only mention, in the entirety of Hittite sources, about a conflict that directly opposed the Greek king and the Hittite king. But was it a war - or just a political disagreement, solved through diplomacy? Other disagreements between both kings are recorded, including one over some Aegean islands and to which kingdom they belonged. And even if there was a war over Wiluša, did it really happen in the mid-13th century, or was Ḫattušili referring to a much earlier event?

Unfortunately we don’t have answers. What we can say is that this conflict parallels the treaty with Alakšandu: both the Hittites and the Greeks were interested in Wiluša, and both sides may well have believed the city belonged to them. They certainly had good reason to invest their efforts there. Wiluša, being located at the mouth of the Dardanelles, controlled the trade routes to the Black Sea, and for two expanding kingdoms, the prospect of trade in that area must have been very attractive indeed.

The late 13th and early 12th century: the end of an era

The return of Miletus to the Greeks gave them a foothold in western Anatolia and coincided with a rise in their power. But at the same time, the Hittite presence in the area was slowly becoming more permanent, and in the late 13th century, the Hittite king managed to acquire Miletus again. From then on, he no longer considered the Greek king as an equal.

It’s very hard to tell what happened afterwards. No mentions of Greece survive in Hittite texts from the turn of the 13th century, and Hittite civilisation was destroyed within the first decade of the 12th century. Our only source for these final years comes from Linear B tablets found in Greece. These tablets, preserved by fire when the palaces where they were stored burned down, were not meant to be permanent: they only recorded lists of goods and personnel that had entered the palaces in the last few months before their destruction. Several of these tablets listed women from western Anatolian localities, and one group specifically is identified as “women from Aswiya”. Aswiya has been interpreted as the Greek name for Aššuwa - the region where Wiluša was located. (Incidentally, it may also very well be the origin of our word “Asia”.)

This tablet would indicate that the Greeks were still active in the region, either participating in slave trade or conducting raids and bringing back captives. It also gives us an idea of what goods they might have sought out in western Anatolia. Very few Anatolian objects were found at Late Bronze Age Greek sites, but the Linear B tablets could point towards imported goods being of a more perishable nature - that is, human workers, and since the women were most likely involved in weaving, textiles. These imports seem to have been ongoing right up until Greek civilisation itself came to an end, in the first couple of decades of the 12th century.

Back to the Trojan War

That was a lot of information, so let’s summarise. Greeks and Hittites interacted over the course of three centuries in the Late Bronze Age, as both civilisations were interested in securing a foothold in western Anatolia. While Hittite sources paint the region as always having been favourable towards the Hittites, reading between the lines shows that western Anatolians also had strong, often positive links to Greece. This was the case in Miletus, which had a sizeable Greek population, as well as in Troy, where the royal family itself had Greek ties.

The Greek strategy in western Anatolia was clearly opportunistic. Footholds were gained through raids and alliances with local kings - whatever suited the Greeks best at that moment - and outright war with the Hittites seems to have been avoided, for the most part. Once the Greek king acquired Miletus, he was considered equal to the Hittite king, but this changed with the Hittite re-conquest of Miletus after which Greco-Hittite relations ended abruptly and negatively. The Greeks, however, did not give up on western Anatolia until their own civilisation collapsed, at the end of the Bronze Age.

So what about the Trojan War in all this? It’s clear that the Iliad preserves the memory of the Late Bronze Age, between its city named (W)ilios/Troy, its Greeks wearing boar’s tusk helmets (discovered in Bronze Age Greek graves), its Trojan prince named Alexander, and its Greek kings using the ancient title wanax. Could the war itself have been based on a real event, too?

Currently, scholars are divided between two main hypotheses. The first is that there truly was a war over Troy opposing Greeks and Anatolians. This may have been the conflict that Ḫattušili III mentions in his letter to the Greek king, which would place the war at around 1250 BC. Alternatively, one could attribute the violent destruction of Troy around 1180 BC, attested in the archeological record, to the Greeks - perhaps as a last resort after having lost Miletus. The problem with this latter theory is that Greek civilisation itself was being destroyed by 1180: both Mycenae and Pylos, two major sites, went up in flames between 1190 and 1180. If the Greeks did attack Troy around that time, it would have been part of a migration seeking to establish themselves elsewhere, not as a concerted, strategic effort to expand an already dying kingdom.

The second main hypothesis is that the Iliad was inspired not by a single event, but by the many conflicts that opposed Greeks and Anatolians along the coast during the Late Bronze Age. The Trojan War may even have been a cross-cultural trope: a Hittite text quotes a song in Luwian (one of the languages of western Anatolia) about Wiluša. So both Greeks and western Anatolians may well have sung stories about Troy, and about wars against each other, eventually combining them into a single epic we know as the Iliad.

Conclusion: war... and peace?

The possibility of a cross-cultural Iliad, shaped by centuries of Greco-Anatolian contacts, leads us to the question of positive interactions between those peoples. This topic is just as significant as it is under-studied. Since most people are interested in the historicity of the Trojan War, many studies have focused on conflicts in the area, but as we have seen, Greeks and western Anatolians didn’t just fight; they were often trading partners, and even allies. Hittite sources depict western Anatolians, including Trojans, as having always been on the Hittite side, but this may not reflect reality so much as a pro-Hittite, anti-Greek bias - since Hittite relations with Greece were often tense.

(Side note: our bias towards viewing Greeks and Anatolians as enemies is also due to the way we’ve opposed Western civilisations to Eastern ones ever since Herodotus’ Histories. Most of my current research focuses on how Greeks and Anatolians interacted and saw each other before the Persian Wars, and it turns out relations were a lot more positive than you’d expect. Even in Archaic times, Lydians, Lycians, Carians and the rest weren’t “Eastern barbarians” - they were major trading partners, fashionable ladies, neighbours across the street, and even, in some cases, Mum or Dad. But I digress. Back to the Bronze Age.)

These positive interactions between Greeks and western Anatolians are also reflected in the Iliad. The Trojans aren’t depicted as barbarian foreigners, but as a people strikingly similar to the Greeks, who speak the same language and worship the same Gods. Many Greek heroes also have links to Anatolia, and vice versa: see, for example, the exchange between Diomedes and Glaucus in Book 6. The Iliad may even contain echoes of Hittite culture, such as Patroclus’ funeral which is strikingly similar to royal Hittite burial rites, or the name of king Telephos which has been linked to the Hittite name Telepinu.

In fact, Greek mythology in general is rife with Anatolian elements. There is enough material on the topic to write an entire book, so I won’t delve into it here, but suffice to say that Greek culture soaked up external influences like a sponge. Until recently, this was thought to be the result of the Orientalising period (8th-6th century BC), but it seems more and more likely that this cultural exchange dates back to a far earlier time.

So was there a Trojan War? There could have been - but maybe that’s not the right question to ask. Maybe we should be looking, instead, into a Trojan Ambiguous Relationship motivated by several centuries of shifting political alliances along the western Anatolian coast, and leading to significant cultural exchange. Or even - who knows - a Trojan Peace.

Bibliography

Bachvarova M., From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic, Cambridge 2016.

Beckman G., Hittite Diplomatic Texts, Atlanta 1996.

Beckman G., Bryce T., Cline E., The Ahhiyawa Texts, Atlanta 2011.

Bryce T., « The Nature of Mycenaean Involvement in Western Anatolia », Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 38 (1989), 1-21.

Bryce T., The Kingdom of the Hittites, Oxford 2005.

Cline E., The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2013.

Cline E., 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilisation Collapsed, Princeton 2014.

Collins B. J., Bachvarova M., Rutherford I. (ed.), Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbours, Oxford 2008.

Güterbock H., « The Hittites and the Aegean World: Part 1. The Ahhiyawa problem reconsidered », American Journal of Archeology 87 (1983), 133-138.

Kraft J., Rapp G., Kayan İ., J. Luce, « Harbor areas at ancient Troy: sedimentology and geomorphology complement Homer’s Iliad », Geology 31/2 (2003), pp. 163-166.

Kraft J., Kayan İ., Brückner H., Rapp G., « Sedimentary facies patterns and the interpretation of paleogeographies of ancient Troia », in: Wagner G., Pernicka E., Uerpmann H. P. (ed.), Troia and the Troad. Natural Science in Archaeology, Berlin/Heidelberg 2003, pp. 361-377.

Latacz J., Troia und Homer: Der Weg zur Lösung eines alten Rätsels, Stuttgart 2001.

Mellink M., « The Hittites and the Aegean World: Part 2. Archeological comments on Ahhiyawa-Achaians », American Journal of Archeology 87 (1983), 138-141.

[noragami-ru-manga]

Calamity bears human face

These are my thoughts on the first half of 87-2. Spoilers ahead!

I really, really liked the second part of chapter 87. Adachitoka still refuse us Yukine’s entire past, but maybe that’s for the best. If what we’ve been shown so far causes this many emotions in the fandom, I’m scared to think what would have been if they revealed everything at once. But… this post isn’t about Yuknie. Not because I don’t like his character, but because I really want to discuss the first 10 pages of the new chapter.

As I expected, we got some of Father’s flashbacks this time. Except they were about the part of his life that had Yato in it, probably several years (?) after Sakura’s death.

Yato not wanting to kill people isn’t that strange, since he started “slacking off” because of Sakura’s influence, and we know that by this point Hiiro would take initiative whenever Yato wouldn’t put his heart in performing Father’s jobs, as shown in chapter 47. Interestingly enough, when Yato suggested that Father should kill people himself, the former answered that he “was killing gods, at least” – implying that he didn’t kill humans with his own hands.  Father’s words about killing gods do sound sinister but as we’ve already seen and will see later in the chapter, not all gods are warriors like Bishamon, Takemikazuchi and Yato himself, so I wouldn’t be too intimidated by this phrase.

His line about the uselessness of killing gods without killing people though … The idea is obvious and logical, so I don’t see the point in developing it further, but even now I think that Father did not choose the most efficient way to do it. Even if Yato stayed under Father’s total control, one god of calamity doesn’t seem to be that big of a threat on a global scale, contrary to whatever Nora has to say later in the chapter.

The thing that caught my attention on these pages is Father’s words about shrines. Yato already revealed before that someone would always tell him he didn’t need a shrine, that someone being Father. Up to this point I simply thought that this was needed to cultivate Yato’s fear of being forgotten – if he doesn’t have a shrine, it’s all the more easier for him to disappear without any chances to reincarnate. The idea that Father actually thinks that shrines are useless somehow never crossed my mind, although now that I see it on paper it makes total sense.

And since Yato raised the question, I’ll take it from here. He said he didn’t understand why did needed to destroy humans if life would be boring without them. I’ve always asked this question in regard to any character whose end goal is total annihilation – what’s the point? Sure, Father isn’t aspiring to be an evil overlord as to ask him a question “who are you going to rule over if there’s no one left”. But his goal, apparently, is killing all gods and also all humans so that old gods can’t reincarnate while new ones can’t appear. But what exactly is he going to do if he succeeds? Die while feeling the satisfaction of revenge accomplished? It’s just so hard to understand someone whose views  are so different than your own.

I wish I could say that the small local kami that attacked Yato proves that Father’s words about shrines are wrong, but what happens next actually corroborates his statement. Partially.

One the one hand, the villagers’ prayer was heard, and the local kami attacked Yato for destroying the village. But Father just crushed her. So in the end, the kami wasn’t able to so anything about these humans’ problem, so yeah, their wish wasn’t granted.

This scene also demonstrates that yes, Father can actually kill gods. The more important thing about it though is that Yato sees it. We have already seen just how much Yato used to fear death for the majority of the series. However, knowing that Father has the ability to kill Yato by forgetting him is one thing; but witnessing him kill a kami just like Yato really drives it home. And it’s all the scarier how Father simply intercepted Yato’s weapon – he just summoned Chiki, who moments earlier was in the boy’s hands. Just look at Yato’s face, you can see the terror.

And Father didn’t really have the need to kill that kami. What could they have done with a chopstick anyway?  Maybe he god mad at this kami actually answering people’s prayer, disproving his point. Or maybe he just hates the gods so much he couldn’t stand even seeing one of them, so he just had to kill them.

(BTW, does anyone know what’s with the blindfold? I’ve tried looking it up but never found anything).

Nora and Hiyori’s dialogue is my favorite part the chapter, there are just so many things to unpack here. First, “Father would praise the god called Yato”. Is it just me, or is Nora jealous? We saw in Yato’s memories that Father actually praised both his children. Then again, we also saw that he punished Nora when he wanted Yato to behave. Considering that Yato grew increasingly reluctant to kill humans, and Nora had to take the lead and finish Yato’s work, this kind of jealousy is unsurprising. Nora was Father’s right hand girl and supported him all the way, but between the two of them Yato would receive more attention.

“But at some point, Yato started mourning the deaths of other people”.  Yeah, we know at what point – Nora must be referring to the time when Sakura was still alive. I’ll just throw in a couple of pics from chapter 47 to remind you why Yato started mourning people.

“When calamity strikes, people always become more devout”. This must be one of the most powerful quotes in the entire manga, because it encapsulates one of the foundations of the Noragami universe. Gods exist to grant human wishes, but who would have more reasons to pray – someone who has it all, or someone who’s in trouble? Remember the main reason why people start seeing the Far shore and things that relate to it.

Of course humans would turn to gods if they can’t solve their problems themselves; that’s the reason they exist. I’ve already mentioned it in the post about memory and memories – the idea of a being that isn’t bound by human constraints, is immortal and can help out when there’s nothing else left takes shape of a person, and that’s how a god is born. Although there’s another reason, too – people hope that if calamity is sentient, you can bargain with it. That’s how people started worshiping Tenjin – not to ask for something they don’t have, but to beg him not to take something they already possess.

It may be that, by sending Yato to obliterate villages, Father was hoping not just for thinning out people, but for a somewhat different reaction from them.

“That boy loved people”. This line is just so heartwarming. And Hiyori already said it before. She saw Yato’s past and how even back then he tried to help humans – like making snow shoes for people in need. She understood him and accepted him.

I don’t really have anything to add to Father wanting “to do something” though. I’ve already said before that Father is done with being the game master and wants to be an actual player. Apparently, he is waiting for Yukine to discover GGS completely before summoning him as a weapon.

The line about natural disasters having human faces caught my attention before the chapter was even translated.  When people die because of natural disasters, it’s horrible, but there’s nothing you can do about it. We can say that “we need to build sturdier houses/dams/etc.”, “we need to take better precaution measures”, and we try, but you can’t possibly predict everything. But in a world where the sun, the moon, the lightning, etc. are personified as gods, a.k.a “have faces”, not only there’s a way for someone to direct their wrath at those faces, but there’s the question of why these sentient elements of nature do these things that hurt humans.

Let’s look at some of the examples of gods harming Nakatsukuni, the world of humans.

Chapter 7 – Bishamon cuts down a grove to get to Yato

Chapter 8 – Kofuku’s vent releases a horde of ayakashi, which results in rising crime rates in Tokyo

Chapter 60 – Bishamon causes a local hurricane to locate Father

Chapter 66 – Takemikazuchi transforms into lightning to fight Yato

The gods harmed the world of humans, but it wasn’t for fun. Bishamon was guided by her thirst for revenge both times. Kofuku was helping her friend. Takemikazuchi became angry because his guide was hurt. All of them felt very human emotions. Except, since they are gods and their power surpasses that of an average human, the result of their outburst is a dead grove, rising crime rates, a damaged school. They aren’t actually trying to purposefully hurt humans but for those who suffer from these actions that’s hardly a consolation. And like I said, it’s one thing when you don’t really have anyone to blame, because the wind that destroyed your house doesn’t hear you, and another, when that wind has a face.

I think that when Father sent Yato to destroy villages, he hoped that the calamities would make people turn away from the gods. After all, people don’t always become more devout during trying times, sometimes they turn away from religion, which is what happened with Father himself. There’s a phrase going around the Internet – it was allegedly written on the wall of a Nazi concentration camp by a Jewish inmate: “If there is a God, He will have to beg for my forgiveness”. I don’t know how true this story is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s real.

And even with all this in mind, I still don’t understand Father’s logic. Suppose he doesn’t destroy all of humanity, but does manage to kill all gods. I don’t think it would change that much. Amaterasu, for example, is depicted as the sun incarnate, but… if she’s killed forever, will the Sun go out, too? I understand that I’m going off the rails and into the cosmogenic myth territory here, but I can’t help it. If there are no gods left, but the forces of nature continue to destroy human lives, then Father’s actions hardly change anything. (Look at me, trying to find a reasonable explanation for an unhealthily long revenge plan). Also, don’t forget that gods of other religions canonically exist in Noragami – what is Father going to do about them, I wonder?

As for “someone” being killed by the Heavens, I’ve recently made an assumption that the pock-marked girl’s death could have been a payment of sorts to bring Father back from the dead. I made this assumption knowing that Father’s words in chapter 60 imply that gods were more involved than that. What Nora said here about Father hating attributing gods’ actions to natural disasters makes it obvious that the girl died because of one of such catastrophes. I’ve looked some more at that page from chapter 60, and I still don’t see any visible damage on the girl. However, Adachitoka emphasize a skeleton lying in a field near a dead tree. Also, I’ve turned the page upside down to get a better look, and now this skull haunts me.

Was it a drought, a famine that killed her? Or the smallpox? If these are her remains, why didn’t Father bury them? Who then helped him return from Yomi? We know it was a soul summoning, after all. So many questions that are yet to be answered.

However, even if we didn’t get all the answers yet, these ten pages did reveal a lot.

-          Nora knows Father’s backstory, but not all of it. Apparently, it’s a thing so painful that Father can’t tell everything even to his most devoted supporter.

-          Sakura’s influence on Yato was even stronger than I thought.  It’s possible that Father changed his course of actions and started giving Yato jobs that involved punishing criminals soon after the scene we saw in this chapter.

-          Father, apparently, thinks of himself as some kind warrior of justice while ignoring the fact that he does as much harm as the gods, and that he is a calamity with a human face.

 P.S. that page with the human faces of nature absolutely rocks.

[afterspark-podcast]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Transcript

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Intro Music]

O: Welcome back to the madness of King Bay or the second live action Transformers movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

S: And our second anniversary episode!

O: [laughs] Yay?

S: I sounded way too perky for that.

O: [laughs] As with the first live-action film if you like Revenge of the Fallen then this may not be the episode for you.  But we'll be back soon with G1 episode 41!  So please join us then.

S: Mm, Revenge of the Fallen came out in 2009, still starring Shia LaBeouf and still directed by Michael Bay-

O: It is- [laughs] Yeah, I know, pity.  Uh, it is frequently considered the worst of the live-action films which is concerning that both Age of Extinction and The Last Knight have even lower ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

S: That takes some doing.

O: Right!?! [laughs]

S: Uh-huh.  Technically, even Dark of the Moon has a lower audience score than this one, but a higher critic score.  So, um... make of that what you will?

O: Basically, what we're saying is until Bumblebee came out the uh, series hit its peak with its first movie [laughs]

S: Mm-hm.

O: But!  Let's get started today by talking about our initial experiences with this particular film.

S: I don't think I saw this in theaters, and I found it really unmemorable.  Uh, aside from there being a few characters that stood out that I still enjoy, but they're very few and far between.

O: Okay, so if you remember in the last- the previous [Bayverse] episode?  I didn't remember where I saw the first movie.  I remember EXACTLY when I saw this movie because I watched it in theaters for a bachelorette party.  Personally, I found the concept of watching a manly action film for a bachelorette party to be fucking hilarious, and I still do!  But I really wish it had been for a better movie. I don't remember having much of an opinion on it when I watched it, but I also didn't watch the third movie in the series until literally the last couple of years when I was blazing through a fuck ton of Transformers media.  So, I clearly didn't care enough to see the continuation in theaters or even rent or borrow it until well after had been released.

S: We begin, yet again, with narration from the one and only Peter Cullen!

O: According to our opening scene uh, you know, the last movie is not the first time that Earth had been visited by Cybertronians.

S: Ah, shocking!  We are shown some craggy mountains populated by ancient humans with spears.

O: Said ancient humans come across a huge Cybertronian installation of some sort and a bunch of Cybertronians.

S: Mm-hmm.  Ominous.  And then there's a weirdly ancient Egyptian or alien-esque Cybertronian with a staff that's apparently in charge.

O: Several humans are squished, and presumably they're all destroyed before we move on to Shanghai, China in the modern day.

S: Oh, will this be relevant?  Who knows!

O: Maybe!  Maybe!  Maybe.

S: We see the Autobots and the military guys from the last movie now working together to hunt down the remaining Decepticons.

O: The combined group is named N.E.S.T.  Short for, “Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty.”

S: Oh, that's a mouthful.

O: It is, so hence ‘N.E.S.T.’

S: Yeah.  There have been some additions to the Autobot roster.

O: Which for simplicity's sake we're going to talk about them now, because they don't really do a lot-

S: Yup.

O: -in the movie.  And they do show up (kind of) in that last section but again, very few of them even have lines.  I- I think aside from Optimus, the character with the most lines might actually be Ironhide?

S: Yeah.  Um, Sideswipe, not a lot of his personality from G1 or any other iteration for that matter is carried over in this, unfortunately.  Instead of being a Lamborghini he's apparently decided to channel Tracks and is instead a Corvette Stingray.

O: And yet, still no Sunstreaker to be found, much to my frustration.

S: Jolt, a new character who's not in the movie except at the very end and he has very few fleeting shots in between and has no lines despite his bio saying he's come to Earth to join Optimus’ group in the last two years since the first movie.  He seems to use electric whips. [makes whip noises]

O: [laughs]

S: And ah, promptly dies in the Dark of the Moon prequel comic.

O: So he never really does get to do anything.

S: Yeah.

O: So then we have Arcee, Chromia and Elita One.  They are referred to as the ‘Arcee Sisters,’ or if you want to get really confusing, the ‘Arcee Twins’!?

S: [laughs]

O: Even though there's three of them-- at some point.

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, but instead of, you know, their- them being referred to by individual names.  Apparently, they were written as one entity and while it depends somewhat on what real- related media you're looking at, the three of them are commonly portrayed as a multi-component Transformer much like Reflector.  They have very little personality, and they do very little in the movie.  Their alt modes are all motorcycles.  Arcee is pink or red, depending on the toy, Chromia is blue, and Elita One is purple.  Their robot modes sort of resemble Thrust from Beast Machines as they have no legs and function like weird sentient unicycles.

S: Yep, and then there's Skids and Mudflap.  Oh boy, where do we start with these two?  Well, uh, first, there's definitely someone out there who could have given a better breakdown on this than two random white ladies.  Uh, awkward… sorry.

O: Yeah, just in advance we are both white women, we do not know what we're talking about here from a personal perspective.

S: Yeah, so we're just going to sum it up with an extremely uh- in an extremely generalized way.  There was a lot of backlash for these two characters due to them possessing a number of racist african-american stereotype- stereotypical traits that at worst point to the people involved being racist in their own regard, or at best, really not thinking through how this was going to come across to the audience.  They've been referred to as comic relief in the same vein as Jar Jar Binks at several points.  Which is I think a good comparison for our purposes, and unlike the other five characters we just rattled off, these two will feature somewhat prominently in the movie so we'll talk more about them as they pop up.

O: At least kind of in vague sentences because as we said, none of the characters really do very much in this movie.

S: Yeah…

O: Even the ones that are in there for the bulk of the movie, don't do very much in this movie.

S: Yeah.

O: And then our returning Autobots from the first movie are Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide, and Ratchet.

S: Mm-hm.

O: We see N.E.S.T. surround a construction vehicle that transforms into a huge ass robot mode and begins wrecking shit.

S: Yep.  Things go boom and everything's extremely orange and blue regarding the lighting and environment.  The second car Decepticon is spotted nearby and he tries to evade N.E.S.T. but is almost immediately bisected by Sideswipe.

O: We don't even really get to see his robot mode either- like, he sort of vaguely transformed I think, to like, crash through a building and then was- turned back into a car and was immediately killed by Sideswipe.

S: Yup.  Optimus is fucking airdropped from a plane-

O: [laughs]

S: Uh, to take on the construction vehicle Decepticon.

O: I- I'm pretty sure they just really wanted that shot of a semi driving off a damn plane.

S: Yeah.

O: Which I mean, okay, fair, it's a cool shot but still.  Uh, so then we see Optimus transform midair deploying some parachutes that have the Autobot logo on them... for some reason.

S: Is branding that important to the Autobots or their allies?  Plus, uh, someone's gonna need to go collect those later.

O: I wanna know why he landed in the middle of a highway- in robot mode!

S: No one here seems to think critically about any of this stuff when they're effectively undercover.

O: Apparently not.

S: I mean how many people with cell phones are taking photos and video of this? TONS!

O: Tons!  That becomes somewhat relevant later.

S: Even though people are still being evacuated.

O: Well, yeah- it said people were being evacuated but then to all these- all these shots that happen here, you still see a bunch of cars on the road.

S: Yeah.

O: While this is all happening.

S: And people still in their homes.

O: Yeah!

S: Optimus catches the rogue Decepticon who tells him menacingly, “The Fallen shall rise again!”

O: Hey, if it gets me out of this movie faster I for one welcome our Fallen overlord.

S: Unfortunately, we've got like, another two hours to go.

O: [sighs] Fuck.

S: And now in a completely different movie!  Sam is getting ready to leave for college.

O: His parents are having very different reactions.  His dad can't seem to wait for him to leave, while his mom is tearing up at every little thing that reminds her of Sam.  Apparently, his dad's got plans for his room, and I'm thinking, “Man cave- how creative.”

S: Ah, he wants his personal theater system, I guess.  After being hugged by his sobbing mother, Sam comments that, “You see this Dad?  This is how you're supposed to react when the fruit of your loins goes into- out of the cruel world to fend for himself.”  Okay, god that is such a cringe line.

O: I don't want to think about the fruit of that man's loins.  I don't want to think about that man's loins at all, okay!?

S: Neither do I, that's why it's so cringy.

O: Yeah- yeah, thanks- thanks for that Sam.

S: [sighs] We are treated to an awkward moment when Sam's dad spanks his mom on the butt as she walks away.  Sam is disgusted- I guess he is our audience surrogate in this moment.

O: His dad then tries to play it off as, “It's like a coach,” and NO that does not make it better! [laughs]

S: That actively makes it worse!  Sexual harassment is not okay.  Sam is apparently the first Witwicky to go to college.

O: I have questions.  Again, what the fuck does Sam's dad do that allows them to have this huge house that didn't require a college degree at any point!?  Who knows!  Uh, the Witwicky’s have apparently got another dog since the last movie, uh, so just another thing to add to this movie-- dog humping.

S: Lots of dog humping, in their dog condo.  It's kind of unsettling.

O: I don't know why they thought that this needed to be in the movie, but here we are.

S: Mikaela calls Sam, intending to break up with him- she is the most emotionally mature person in this movie.

O: Yep, pretty much!  They talk, uh, Sam insinuates that they're going to be entering a long-distance relationship while he's at college.

S: While they're talking, Sam pulls out an old ripped t-shirt.  His D-Day shirt as he refers to it.  Which is apparently, the shirt that he was wearing during the battle in Central City from the first movie.

O: This is important!  This is a plot point!

S: Yeah, we also have to assume that he has never washed the nasty shredded clothes from that day.  Because, I suppose, he wants to hold them and relive the memories of being chased by giant alien robots that wanted to murder him.

O: [laughs] No clue.  Uh, Sam does try to convince Mikaela to move near the college he's going to, but she refuses.

S: Her father's been released from jail since the first movie, and she insists on needing to take care of him.  That should not be poor Mikaela's responsibility, but she is the most responsible person in this movie as I said.

O: Well, and I get it, right?  Like, her dad just got out, presumably she has not seen- really been able to live with him for years.  She's both worried about him, and probably wants to spend time with him.

S: Yeah, that's fair.  Convenient plot device is convenient, as a sliver of the AllSpark falls off of Sam's shirt while he's on the phone to Mikaela.

O: It seems to zap Sam and then he drops it.

S: When it lands on the floor it burns its way through the floor and into the kitchen bringing a bunch of kitchen appliances to life.

O: They all attack Sam.

S: How did they get ammo?  Does just being brought to life just give them ammo?

O: Uh, dear god, why does one of these things have a penis?  That's my question.  Furthermore, why is it shooting things OUT OF ITS PENIS!?!

S: Because... Michael Bay.

O: I had- yeah, that's all I got, man.

S: Bumblebee bursts out of the garage and begins shooting at the little Decepticons, saving Sam's sorry ass yet again.

O: Maybe Bee should be trying to smash them instead of shooting at them?  They're on the front lawn at this point so all I can think is- their neighbors have to be able to see this!

S: I thought this was in the back lawn, but I'm not sure.

O: I- they're outside, he's no longer in the kitchen.  He's trying to shoot Decepticons outside the house, it probably is the backyard, but I don't know.  Sam yells at Bee to get in the garage.

S: Way to micromanage your giant robot bodyguard slash friend. [sighs] Again, it's like- you'd yell at a dog or something.

O: [laughs] Bad Bumblebee, bad!  Of course, Bee smashed out of the garage, uh, despite having a perfectly good door in front of him and then re-enters through the hole he had previously made.

S: Sam's mother is not happy about the surprise kitchen renovations, but Sam's dad calms her down by telling her that the government will pay for it all.

O: I'm so glad to know that this is where my taxes would be going to in this universe.

S: Well, it's definitely worse than some of the other things that it could be going for.

O: [sighs] I suppose that's true.

S: Sam's mom is like fine, but I want to pool and a hot tub!  And I quote, “And I'm going to skinny dip, and you can't say shit about it!”

O: And quite frankly that woman's put up with a lot of stuff, I- I respect- you know as long as she's got a good fence- her right to skinny dip in her own yard. [laughs]

S: Yeah, they need that privacy fence.  Sam goes into the garage to tell the audience, I mean uh, Bee, uh, how Bee can't come to college with him.

O: For reference, ignore the bit in the last movie where Bee talked because that's just gonna be ignored for like, three freaking movies.

S: Yeah.  To calm Bee down he says, “You'll always be my first car!”

O: Not even, you're my best friend- you're my first car.

S: “Congratulations Bumblebee, you're my possession!”

O: Pretty much!

S: Oh, that's creepy.  Sam gives the AllSpark shard to Mikaela for some reason, because Mikaela shows up at the end of all of this.

O: Right, you know like, everything has exploded, Mikaela's out there looking lovely with a bouquet of flowers.

S: Yep, instead of calling the Autobots or giving it to Bumblebee, nope it is given to Mikaela for safe keeping.  Well, I mean she is the most sensible person out of the civilians?

O: Everyone here?  Yeah, it's not that it- can't make it that- it's not that I don't think Mikaela can keep it safe.  She manages to do so quite swimmingly through this movie, but it's rather… not that she can use it at all, and it could potentially be dangerous for her to have it on her person!

S: Yeah.

O: And Bee is right there!  It's not like he couldn't give it to Bee and tell Bee to take it to the Autobots.

S: Yeah, like, that would be, uh, a lot more sensible.  Though if they'd done that it might have been put in with the other... another thing that happens later in the movie.

O: [laughs] True.

S: Anyway, they smooch, words are said, and a somewhat sappy 2000 era love song plays.

O: Meanwhile, no one seems to notice the toy remote control truck that's being controlled by no one.

S: A remote controlled truck that is somehow communicating with outer space, and somehow this character will be vaguely important

O: Shush!  My boy is here!

B: [laugh]

S: Ah, Soundwave shows up and takes over a surveillance satellite.

O: I'm sure I've mentioned this before at some point because I know I've said this multiple times, at least to Specs, but yes, I actually like the Bay version of Soundwave.  He's not in the movie much, but having him take over a satellite and spend the rest of the movie gathering intelligence and sending troops out? *chef’s kiss* Feels very in character, keep going baby.  His design is still garbage... just like everybody else though.

 S: And his voice sounds very nice.

O: That's because it's actually Welker!  He's allowed to be in this movie, doing a sizeable chunk of the speaking Decepticons even!  This is not a G1 similarity I necessarily expected, but I do find it hilarious.  Apparently, he also did the voice for Soundwave in a bunch of other language dubs too, which while interesting... I have to question why?  It's not like Soundwave's voice would have necessarily sounded the same in those other languages in the original G1 dub.  It just sounds like an odd decision?

S: Money.

O: Money.  I- kudos to him for attempting it at least?  But I still don't know why they did it.

S: Back at the N.E.S.T. headquarters, we see Mudflap and Skids uh, shenanigans, and they're unloading dozens of bodies!   Presumably, soldiers that died in Shanghai, uh- that's, uh, welcome to the morbid stuff that they don't spend any time on it at all.

O: Uh, why Sideswipe silver?  You had one job movie, one job.  Sideswipe is a little red sports car this is like, his defining characteristic- surely this was doable!

S: I don't think anyone involved in making the movie was a very big fan of G1 or wanted to maintain, you know, artistic integrity with regards to that.

O: [sighs] Yeah, I know, what am I saying?  I think the actual reason is I've heard red is harder to film?

S: Oh, that might be right.

O: Like- but- [sighs] I don't- it could be, because I want to say- I'm sorry if I'm incorrect- I want to say that's actually the reason Optimus’ color scheme got changed around quite a bit?

S: Mm.

O: And why he's got more blue on him.

[According to TFWiki: “When Optimus's design was first revealed, many fans of the Generation 1 series objected to the flames seen on Prime's body. When asked in an interview why he put the flames on, Michael Bay claimed he liked them because it was "cool". It was later revealed on a special featurette on the DVD that the flames were added because, apparently, red is not very good to film on camera, so Bay chose a blue truck but used the flames so that when Optimus transformed, the layout would result in maintaining his iconic red chest.”]

S: So, a jumped up government official shows up at N.E.S.T. headquarters.

O: And I think we all know where this is going.  Uh, this will be our bureaucratic bastard for this evening.

S: Yeah, you know, the wimpy suit who keeps getting in the way of the ARMY men and their REAL job- AMERICA!

B: [laughs]

S: Sorry, um, and here we have a lovely shot of Optimus transforming.  It's like some nice rotating thing.

O: Okay, get the robot transformation porn out of the way, next!

S: [sighs] And the bureaucratic weasel confronts Optimus on why haven't the Decepticons left the planet now that the AllSpark is destroyed, like they thought they would?

O: Optimus seems to take the opinion that Daddy Prime knows best.  Weasel's not super happy about this, but Optimus does say the Autobots will leave Earth if asked.  Neither of these groups are handling this super amazingly.  (Yes, even Optimus.)  Both sides have a point, if they'd stop trying to wave their metaphorical DICKS around and actually talk from a position of respecting each other's expertise, I'm betting this would go a whole lot better.

S: Probably.  The N.E.S.T. members back Optimus up.  Our only returning characters here are Lennox and Epps, both played by the same actors from last time.

O: Though I did not realize this at first.  I totally thought Epps was played by somebody completely different, and I'm gonna blame the writing because Epps is not given a lot of things to do here.

S: He was a very memorable character in the first movie.

O: Yeah.

S: Yeah, and uh, anyway back to college!  College away!

O: Sam's apparently going to Princeton, on the government's dime no less!

S: Oh god, he does absolutely nothing with it in later films.  Again, we're assuming due to the filming locations that Sam lives in Southern California or thereabouts so we're a bit surprised to realize he actually decided to go to college on the other side of the country.

O: It certainly doesn't come across like Mikaela is a priority in his life.

S: Yeah.  I mean seriously, he could have gone to school in California there's plenty of good schools in California.

O: Yup!  But uh, are you ready for some booze and boobs?

S: [sighs] We're introduced to Sam's roommates.

O: The only one that will actually play much of a role in the plot will be our buddy, Leo here.

S: I hope you're being sarcastic.

O: I mean- I mostly mean that he's there.

S: Well, no, I meant with the buddy bit.

O: [speaking while laughing] Uh, yes, that was sarcasm.

S: Yeah.  Uh, Leo runs a conspiracy theory website called The Real Effing Deal which is currently scrambling to get a- footage of the fight from Shanghai.  Uh, from earlier in the movie up on their site.

O: Which again, is ABUNDANT!  Because Optimus landed in the middle of a highway.

S: Yup.

O: Anyway, they're trying to do this until another person, Robo-Warrior, one ups them and gets the footage up, I think on a different site, first.

S: Yeah.  Sam does his best to play cool and blow Leo and his friends off because it's all, “Fake.” [laughs]

O: Also, I'd like to take- take a moment to note the era accurate Naruto poster decor among the sea of boobs.

S: Yeah.  Leo makes a comment that he and Sam are poor.

O: Alright!  Sit down and buckle up because this legitimately pissed me the fuck off.  So to rant for a moment, let's go back down the checklist of Sam's white fucking privilege, shall we?  He lives in a big house in a nice neighborhood.  In what we are assuming is Southern California, which is not a cheap place to live.  His parents have enough time for leisure activities and in fact, go on vacation in Paris after dropping Sam off.

S: Yup.

O: His dad bought him a car in the last movie and yes, he was very much implied to be being a cheap ass at the time, but at no point is there any indication he couldn't have bought Sam a nicer car.

S: And the car that he's driving when he like, jerks him around on what type of car he's going to get him, it looks like it's a fancy expensive car so...

O: That's also true!  Speaking as someone who grew up in a lower income rural area, and I say this not even remotely being the worst off in that area.  Our floors were rotting out, every time we had a heavy rain we had to run to the windows with towels because so many of them leaked, and more applicable in this situation- my family did not have the money to save up for college for me, or any of my siblings.  Yes, I realize the government is apparently paying for his tuition, but that just proves my point even more, because Sam's gonna come out of this with no student loan debt!

S: Yup!

O: So poor my fucking ass!

S: Uh-huh.  Sam's mom shows up in his dorm room high is a goddamn kite because she apparently bought and ate some brownies from the bake sale not realizing that they were weed brownies.

O: And she's just gonna be a punchline for the next several scenes, sorry.

S: Yeah.  To just list a few of the things that his high as a kite mother does: She talks about him losing his virginity loudly, and kind of at length to various women in the hallway.  [nervous laugh] And in the surrounding environs, mentioning that his car is a talking robot, tackles a dude for some frisbees, and petitions Sam's dad for sex on the campus green.  Considering how much she ate it's very likely she will need to go to the hospital because her knees may attempt to kill her.

O: Uh, then we cut the Soundwave, apropos of nothing, uh, ejecting Ravage into space.  Look, I get him for 10 seconds I'm going to fucking enjoy it.

 S: Ravage’s design here is very prominent with the pointy bits and teeth.

O: Rawr. [laughs]

S: And he lands near a US military base and runs over to a pipe sticking out of the ground and basically- uh, ralphs up a bunch of itty-bitty bots?

O: Into the pipe.  Uh, you know.  So I’m just saying uh, Soundwave’s baby had babies, this clearly makes Soundwave a grandad.

B: [laugh]

S: All the bots fall down the pipe and once they're at the other end meld together to form a new bot that is...gah.

O: He's interesting!  At least, visually, in that he is basically flat, so he can be borderline invisible when he's looking head-on at something.

S: He looks like a knife raptor.

O: Uh, this thing's name is Reedman and he doesn't show up except in this one scene.  Uh, he also brings our ‘Decepticons voiced by Frank Welker’ count up to three after Soundwave and Ravage.

S: Reedman?

O: Reedman, yeah!  I looked at the wiki!

S: [laughs]

O: I looked at the wiki, and I was like, “That's a terrible name!” but that's the name!

S: I am judging whoever named that character, so hard.

O: [laughs] Aren't we just judging the entire movie?

S: Oh yes, but…Reedman?

O: Fuck if I know, man.

S: Another piece (aside from Sam's piece) of the AllSpark is being held here so, uh, Reedman gets to work stealing it.

O: Alarms begin to go off and several military guys arrive at the bunker and shoot at our knife raptor.

S: Ravage begins firing at the base to distract them.

O: I'm very amused he's got his tiny little hip missiles too!

S: Meanwhile, back at the plot we're all absolutely dying to continue- cough, cough, no, cough.

O: [laughs]

S: Sam's been dragged to a college frat party by his roommates?

O: It looks like a frat party.  I don't even know why they want to bring Sam uh, they don't even seem to like him.

S: Eh, they want to have someone less cool with them so that basically they can be like, “Hey, look at that lame guy, we're much cooler.”

O: Well, Sam is definitely the least cool person in the area right now due to mommy shenanigans.

S: Yeah, while at the party Sam is missing his first video call with Mikaela.  God, you are such a sucky long distance boyfriend, Sam!

O: Right!?  You had one job!  So we see Mikaela getting ready, taking her hair down and talking to her doggo while getting her computer set up.

S: Sam's- uh, promptly begins to spazz out by the uh, snack table and draws strange symbols with food.

O: These symbols are Cybertronian and the AllSpark fragment has helpfully downloaded a bunch of stuff directly into Sam's brain.

S: [sighs] We've upgraded from they want the glasses to they're going to want the brain, aren't they?

O: Something along those lines, yes!  Quite frankly, again, I think they can have it. [laughs]

S: One partygoer notices Sam's new hobby and saunters over to seduce herself to him.

O: [laughs] Uh, blondie's name is Alice, and don't worry we'll get to see her panties later because what the absolute fucking fuck Bay!?!

S: [sighs] Bay, why- why'd you hurt me so? [sighs] There's a discussion about girlfriends and Sam says, “kind of,” in regards to having one.

O: Kind of?  KIND OF!?!  Sam, you dick waffle!

S: [sighs] The quintessential jock yells, “Who drove the freaking yellow Camaro!?”

O: Sam’s Bee senses tingle, and he leaves the party.

 S: Bee is waiting outside on the lawn, or possibly the bushes but…

O: In that general vicinity! [laughs]

S: Yeah, but Alice follows him down and hops into Bee's passenger seat.

O: Bee attempts to communicate to Sam that this woman is ~baaaad news~ using various voice clips and songs.  And this would have been a really interesting bit if Bee did have his voice back and he had to communicate with Sam like this because he's doing it in front of Alice!

S: Yeah, like, that would have been interesting and a neat way of utilizing his past experience to communicate.

O: Yeah, because I- I don't know remember if we've talked about this super much but there- there's nothing wrong with Bee still relying a bit on that because it is kind of funny and entertaining to see.  It's- just make it so he has to use it in scenarios with other people around?

 S: Yeah, god, he could do so much with musical lyrics.

O: Pretty much!

S: Alice seems to know something is up, as Bee makes her as uncomfortable as physically possible as he can, including spraying her with a icky yellow liquid and slamming her into the dashboard.

O: She exits in a huff before Bumblebee takes Sam to a graveyard where the rest of the Autobots are waiting.

S: So that was night.  Now we are inexplicably in the daytime, I think?

O: Morning.  Early morning it looks like.

S: Yeah.  Optimus tells Sam the last piece (or as much as he is aware) of the AllSpark was stolen and attempts to convince Sam to remind the other humans why the Autobots are necessary and why they're trying to use a college student for this is a big question.

O: I don't know- and Sam says no, because he's just a normal college student.  I don't understand this, I feel like I would jump at a chance like this?  Like, dude, does it have good health insurance?  Does it have a pension?  Yes?  Sign me the fuck up!  But I want to ask, why the heck didn't Sam tell the Autobots here about the fragment he gave to Mikaela!?

S: Because he's a shitty little baby- I mean, obviously.

O: Oh, [unintelligible].  Then out in the middle of the ocean in a different movie… Over the Laurentian Abyss, which is where the dead Cons were dumped in the last movie.  Several Decepticons have stowed away on what looks like a cargo ship.

S: The fact that it's going directly over where they need to go is uh... they probably hacked it.

O: Wouldn't shock me.

S: Yeah, so who the Decepticons are is absolutely unimportant.  The only recognizable one is Ravage.

O: And I think only one other one will actually get named.

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, so they all jump off the ship and into the water, and I have to you know, bring up- they specifically said they dumped the dead bodies into this trench because of the pressure and cold in the last movie.  So, why are all these Cons just perfectly fine with a little skinny dipping?

S: I mean, maybe it's just supposed to keep- I don't know, whatever self-repair systems the dead ones have from working and it doesn't do shit to like, perfectly fine robots?  I don’t know.

O: They were using cold as a weapon against them in one though. Like, against Bee.

S: That's absolutely true, but I mean, if cold didn't [did] do anything to them how would they operate in space?

O: I don't know, but they clearly had Megatron on ice.

S: Who knows... yeah.

O: And he got frozen in the Arctic!

S: Yeah, I know, the entire thing is garbage.  It may be- maybe water- maybe frozen water is their kryptonite?  God. [laughs]

O: Welcome to Earth! [laughs]

S: Why didn't they dismember the Decepticons, or incinerate them?  Or you know, take important parts, crush them, destroy them or whatever.  Like, throw them in 100 different places- that would work a lot better than this!  Run them through a trash compactor or something, before they dump them down into the Laurentian tre- Abyss.

 O: I’ll tell you exactly why.  Uh, because the government put out a bid for trash removal and the lowest bidder won.

S: The government does stupid things, many times. [sighs] We see a military sub monitoring this area, reading the five Cybertronian life signs.

O: They reach Megatron and a little doctor bot (whose name is Scalpel), starts uh, poking around at his corpse.

 S: [sighs] He shouts about his need for parts, and one of the nameless Constructicons is offed.  The parts and the AllSpark fragment are all shoved into Megatron.

O: So Megatron's back.

S: Yup.

O: And yet, still voiced by Hugo Weaving so I don't care.  No offense, Hugo Weaving.  Uh, get back to me in two movies.  Also notice they didn't kill Ravage here, because I'm entirely convinced Soundwave would end them.

S: Probably, because I mean, they did like- the little doctor boss specified, “Kill the little one!”

O:  It- to- pointing to a random Constructicon.

S: Yeah.  Fun bout of bad continuity, the radar shows the five life signs, as Ravage and Scalpel are both too small to show up, and then uh, when they come up they have six life signs but uh, you'll remember they had to kill a Constructicon down there.  So uh, it should be this same number, even with Megatron in tow.  Or maybe they brought the other Con- Decepticons back to life, I don't know?

O: I don't think so, we never see them.  They could have brought Blackout back to life, but we'll get into why they didn't later.

S: I mean maybe they brought uh, shoot- Scorponok?

O: No, Scorponok never died in the first movie.

S: Oh… well… yeah.

O: He just- they got his tail like-

S: Oh, that’s right.

O: The- the army guys cut off his tail but then he disappeared.

S: Oh, that's right.  Mm.

O: Megatron's apparently salty enough at humans though, in general, to smash through this- the military sub on his way up, so all those people are dead now.

S: He'd do that even if he wasn't feeling salty, you know that.

O: Oh yeah, he's a bastard, but you know.

S: Uh, Megatron flies to one of Saturn's moons where the Nemesis is being uh, well, it's parked and is used as a base by some of the remaining Decepticons, which includes our old buddy Starscream.  And he knocks Starscream around for taking over the Decepticons while he was ‘away’.

O: You know, while he was literally fucking dead. [laughs]

S: And so we are introduced to the Darth Sidious to Megatron's Darth Maul.

O: Including liberal use of the word ‘disciple’!

S: [sighs] So much sighing.  This is the Fallen whose name we will not find out in the movie itself because it would be really fucking confusing to have Megatron, and his master, Megatronus, running around.

O: Also, um, a bunch of little baby robots in pods?  On the wall.

S: Robot eggs.  So many robot eggs.

O: But no really, I'm not sure we can explain that any better than we just did- so just roll with it.

S: Yeah.  Anyway, the Fallen isn't shown to have an alt mode in this, but once you see him you do realize he was the Transformer that was shown at the very beginning of the movie while Optimus was monologuing.

O: And as kind of mentioned previously, he looks vaguely like the queen from Alien, but you know, with eyes and a huge staff he fights with.

S: And less arms and no tail.

O: Yeah.  Apparently though, only a Prime can kill the Fallen.  Don't ask us how the fuck that works!

S: I guess only a Prime can kill a Prime?  Because wasn't the Fallen a Prime?

O: Yes, he was considered a Prime but I don't- I still don't know how the mechanics of that work is what I'm getting at.

S: Is it just a weird cultural hangup?

O: I- I don't know!  That's what I'm saying, it's never explained!

S: I know, I know.  This will get weird in a bit.

O: [laughs]

S: It will! [sighs]

O: But they're like, “So if we remove that one pesky remaining Prime we’ll be off scot-free!” [laughs]

S: Yep.  The Fallen explains that the AllSpark cannot be destroyed it can merely be transformed.

O: Everything transforms on Cybertron, but right now the AllSpark is currently living rent free in Sam's head.

S: And I think he wants some goddamn rent, but I think we all want some goddamn rent for having this living rent free in our heads.

O: [laughs] Right!?!  Bay, you should pay us for watching this movie!

S: [sighs] So, the Decepticons are going to go after Sam (again), kill Optimus, or at least make another attempt at it (again), and presumably somehow use Sam's brain as they AllSpark.

O: But then Starscream walks in holding a dead robot baby, waving it around and saying they need more Energon or all the hatchlings will continue to die.

S: Well, someone apparently… uh.

O: I just don't know why this is here. I'm sorry, I don't- I don't know why they felt the need to have Starscream motioning while holding a dead baby!

S: [laughs] Being a very bad nurse maid-

O: Yes!  But now it's time to go back to school.

S: I already want to hit someone in this class well, multiple someones.  Sam is setting it in on his physics class.

O: With the absolute creepiest, filthiest, fucking professor I have seen in a good long while.

S: Ah, innuendos, a god complex, this man is so many sexual harassment lawsuits, and a restraining order waiting to happen.

O: This is not appealing!  Who the fuck does this appeal to?

S: I don't know but I'm ace, so I'm possibly not the best person to ask.

O: Is this a straight woman thing!?  Where the hell are we gonna find one of those this time of night?

B: [laugh]

S: Sam starts freaking out like he was uh, doing at the party, writing equations, and stuff all over the board.  He basically gets up, and bowls his way into- up to the front of the class and basically shows up the shitty professor.

O: Uh, Bulkhead did this in Prime, I'd like to personally nominate Bulkhead as our main character instead of Sam.

S: Oh yeah, Bulkhead would be a much more fun character.  Sam is promptly kicked out of the class uh, because showing up the professor and also the fact that the dean is apparently there.  So he's been- that professor has been like this while the dean is there.

O: Yes, so, uh, obviously he's sleeping with the old lady too, is what I'm getting from this.

S: That's creepy, it's even worse!  I mean, this is a female dean.

O: Yeah, female dean not just a random like, male dean, I mean an older female dean!

S: [sighs] Oh god.  Sam calls Mikaela mid freak out, and realizes that the AllSpark has caused his little problem.

O: Uh, so he asks her to bring the AllSpark fragment to him on the East Coast.  Uh, by the way I would just like to take a moment to tell you this very important information, Mikaela's dog's name is Bones.

S: Uh, the little remote controlled truck Decepticon, who we regret to inform you is this universe's version of Wheelie, uhh, is stalking around the garage where Mikaela is.

O: Wheelie, uh, clearly hasn't gotten the memo on you know, Mikaela taking out a Decepticon with a power tool in the first movie, decides to be a dumbass and say, “You're hot, but you're not too bright,” as he attempts to steal the AllSpark fragment.

S: The fact that Wheelie has some sort of metric for human um, attractiveness is honestly, really concerning.

O: Just a little bit.

S: [sighs]

O: Uh, predictably though, Mikaela fucks him up with a welding torch, including taking out one of his optics.

S: Wheelie begs for mercy from the Warrior Goddess.

O: At last Mikaela is given a proper title.

S: Uh-huh, and then Mikaela shoves him in a box and hops on a plane.

O: Metal box, I feel like it's important it does actually hold him.

S: Yeah, a metal box, and hops on a plane with him and the AllSpark.  And honestly this feels like something that she couldn't successfully do after 9/11.

O: Which is hilarious, because this was definitely filmed after 9/11.  So we just have to go with she's so sexy that she was able to get the big metal box on the plane without having to go through an x-ray.

S: Except that everything that goes on the plane when you check it should go through x-ray…

O: I know, I know!

S: Or-

O: Boobs!  The power of boobs!

S: Never mind that the power of boobs should not, you know, somehow affect the people that do not get exposed to the boobs.

O: See- see this is why uh, this movie would have been stopped in its tracks if one of the TSA agents had been a woman- a straight woman.

S: Or one of the people who sorts stuff or- because like, just imag-

O: It looked like it was her carry-on.

S: Now I'm just imagining that the people, because like you know how they sometimes go and randomly open bags to go through the contents? [laugh] I'm just imagining someone doing that and then there being a major freak out because out comes a stupid remote controlled car that’s yelling at everyone.

O: [laughs] Yeah… yeah.

S: Uh, then we cut to a short segment showing that all the Autobots are heading to locations on the East Coast as the rest of N.E.S.T. mobilizes.

O: But wait!  Decepticon pretenders are afoot at Princeton!

S: That's not ominous at all.  Sam is in his room going nuts and writing stuff on the wall.

O: Uh, and then Alice pushes her way into Sam's room and attempts a rather forceful seduction. 

S: She straight up picks him up and tosses him on the bed.

O: Which really should have been his first clue that something was very wrong!

S: Yeah, because Alice is not uh, portrayed as a…

O: A big woman.

S: Yes.

O: She's very slight and conventionally attractive.

S: Yeah, so she gets on top of him, and then we get the most awkward shot of Decepticon panties as the metal tail comes out from underneath Alice's extremely short dress.

O: Thanks for that Michael Bay.  I always, always wondered what brand of underpants Decepticons were wear, given the chance.

S: [sighs] She kisses Sam, apparently with tongue, and Mikaela walks in and is understandably pissed.

O: Alice asks if she's his girlfriend and Mikaela just says, “Ex,” and walks out, and I'm just like, “Yes, girl DRAG him!”

S: And meanwhile, Leo is sort of fluttering around in the background.

O: Yes, uh, because Alice pushed past him to get into their dorm room.

S: Sam attempts to follow, but Alice is 99% done with his dumb ass.

O: Uh, she attempts to strangle him with her suddenly very long and metal tongue.

S: Ah, that has apparently been places I do not want to think about.

O: I do not want to think about any of this, yeah.

S: Yeah.  Sam is able to escape, and we see Alice transform into a very obvious robot.

O: Sam, Mikaela, and Leo run into a nearby library where Sam and Mikaela begin having a whisper argument.

S: They're busy whisper shouting this entire time.  Alice catches up and smashes through the library, still chasing them.

O: I'm surprised this thing still has hair in robot mode.

S: Hair?  I mean its still got boobs!

O: Bay, what the fuck!?

B: [laugh]

O: So they hop in the car, Mikaela saves both their butts by hot wiring it, and slamming Alice into a lamp post before running her over again with the car.

S: Where was Bumblebee during all of this?

O: Uh, he was actually with the Autobots a few- the other Autobots a few scenes back, so he's definitely not here.

S: Yeah unfortunately Sam and company don't get very far and are captured by Grindor who picks them up like, so you know those uh, claw machines-

O: [laughs]

S: At grocery stores?  Grindor basically does that and then he carries them off, like- they’re his claw machine loot.  Nearly losing one in the process.

O: I mean, truely, they kind of are.  So, uh, you- to- get- you know how I just mentioned that they definitely couldn't have brought Blackout back to life?  That is because Grindor looks exactly like Blackout, but he's not Blackout.  Because Blackout died at the end of the last movie, and we totally thought he was Blackout and he's even listed as Blackout on some of the toys and a good chunk of promotional material, but- but he's a different character.  I don't know why they did this.

S: I don't know they wanted to keep the trademark in use, maybe?

O: [groans]

S: For the Grindor name, because they used it- I think, in anime- Armada.  I think they used it in Armada, so this was probably just blatant patent-

O: It was bad though. [laughs]

S: Oh yeah, I know.  Or um, trade- name trademarks?  I don't know.

O: But he makes a Decepticon number four voiced by Welker.

S: Mm-hm.  So, the car is dropped into some kind of warehouse where Sam is confronted by the now very alive Megatron.

O: Who's definitely holding a grudge against Sam for the whole ‘killing him in the last movie’ thing.

S: Yep, Sam is laid out on a concrete slab and Scalpel gets to work.  Starting with shoving a metal squid down Sam's throat, uhh…

O: No, no, no!  No, no, no, no, NOPITY, nope, nope, nope nope!

S: Yeah, this is uh, pretty gross and I don't like it and I don't think anyone else likes it either.  A metal squid uh, exits his mouth and projects images of what's in Sam's brain. [groans]

O: But!  This is apparently not all the information in his brain, as Scalpel definitely intends to remove it from his head.

S: Sam is saved just in time by the Autobots.

O: I want to know how Megatron even got into this warehouse.  There's not any like, big holes that we can see or anything, aside from the one Grindor- when Grindor dropped the car through.

S: Yeah, there really don't seem to be any openings big enough for him that we can see.

O: Okay, just going to assume mass shifting in this continuity for no good reason, okay.

S: Either that or he did the stupid ‘I'm a contortionist’ through the door, which seems way more respect for the -

O: [laughs] Robot limbo!

S: That seems to be way more uh, respect for the integrity of this building than Megatron should feel.

O: Yes!

S: Ah, so, um, Leo and Mikaela escape in Bee while Optimus takes Sam.

O: So they're separated, and Optimus has to fight Megatron alone.  And Megatron turns into a tank for a split second!  I didn't even realize this version of him could BE a tank!

S: Yeah, he's a multiformer?

O: Apparently!

[In the background crowd noises are heard as the hosts begin speaking like sports announcers.]

O: But now, it's the match of the century here at the Forest Fighting arenaaaa!

S: It's Megatron versus Optimus tonight, folks!

O: The Warlord himself versus Optimus Fucking Prime! [laughs]

[A wrestling bell rings in the background to signify the start of the match.]

S: Optimus gets a good right hook in.

O: Right before being tackled by Megatron!

S: Is that legal?

O: Hell if I know!  It's giant robots, it's all the same amount of legal!

S: Oh!  He's got the tree!

[The crowd increases in volume.]

S: Optimus has got the tree!

O: What a hit, you know that one must have hurt!

S: And now it's a sword fight?  They both are up and swinging away!

O: It just turned into a three-on-one match, folks!

[The crowd begins booing.]

S: Oh no- no, Optimus- Starscream and Grindor have joined the fray!

O: Wait, somehow a human's gotten into the arena.

S: Starscream and Megatron are chasing him down.

[The crowd increases in volume]

O: But Optimus has intercepted them and has taken them both on!

S: Starscream has been tossed out of the arena- out of bounds, out of bounds!

O: Optimus has gone through a tree!

S: Now the Cons are all just taking turns hitting him.  You hate to see it folks, you hate to see it!

O: Optimus is eatin’ dirt!

S: But he's back and now dual wielding blades!

O: Grindor’s lost an arm!

S: Megatron’s taken a good one to the kneecap.

O: And hit to the face!

S: That's it!  That's it for Grindor!  Hook, line and sinker!

[The crowd roars.]

O: Oh, he must have a splittin’ headache!

S: Or at least he would if he still had a head.

O: But Optimus is distracted before taking the blade to the chest!

[A wrestling bell sounds to signify the end of the match.]

O: That's it!  It's all over!  Optimus is down, I repeat- Optimus is down!  Megatron's the winner!

[Applause and the crowd noise fades out]

O: No really, Optimus is dead now, because Bay wants to make us feel things.

S: Except very badly, and unfortunately, this Optimus didn’t back up his brain on a floppy disk.  And I mean there is no pathos here!

O: Of course somehow during all of this no one ends our suffering by squishing Sam accidentally or otherwise.

S: [sighs]

O: [laughs]

S: The rest of the Autobots drive up just in time to see Optimus body.

O: Where the fuck were they!?!

S: Being useless.

O: Yeah, that checks out.

S: Megatron and Starscream flee and land on a skyscraper in the middle of a city, and then argue about what to do next.  And we cut to Soundwave doing what he does best, remotely managing resources.

O: Which in this case means tracking Sam's parents down in Paris as they enjoy some fine parisian food, and prank calling them.

S: Yeah, his mom is not impressed about the heavy breathing.  Such as it is.

O: We then see several Decepticons, including The Fallen, fall to Earth taking out several air carriers and buildings as they land.

S: One of these Decepticons captures Sam's parents.

O: The Fallen sends out a tv broadcast basically spelling out that he wants Sam turned over to him in order to spare the rest of the planet.

S:  Ah, the news story is shown, letting us know that worldwide the number of casualties is in the ballpark of seven thousand, and well, that's not as horrifying as it came across initially, but mmm…

O: Just seven thousand, for the entire world?  I, for one, welcome our Decepticon overlords.  In case you're watching this in the future, we're recording this at the tail end of 2020 and we live in the US.  That's literally less than 30% of the US’ current Covid death count at this point- eh- while we were researching this episode.  It's probably more now.

S: Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Bee, and the Twins are hiding out in, and around some abandoned buildings.

O: Leo's upset, but Sam tells him to suck it up because he's involved now.

S: A helicopter dumps Optimus’ body over at N.E.S.T., and that was not a respectful handling of a dead body.

O: To be fair, he is very big, and the humans are very small, and that was not an Autobot helicopter.

S: Yeah, but that was effectively a world leader.

O: Yeah, Ironhide is upset and uh, begins to get antsy with his guns.

S: Mr. Government Weasel shows up and shuts N.E.S.T. down.  Lennox gets upset when he realizes the US government is planning out to hand Sam over.

O: And they're right to consider it!  You should (theoretically speaking) hand over one person if has the possibility of stopping a massive amount of death!

S: The problem is it wouldn't stop the massive amount of death, and it would just let them basically strip mine the planet because the Decepticons- the name starts with deception.

O: Fair, but the only ones who would know that are the Autobots and possibly members of N.E.S.T.  From the perspective of government officials, who do not have this information, it makes sense.

S: Yeah.  Skids and Mudflap clue the group in on trying to find someone who can read the Cybertronian text the AllSpark downloaded into Sam's brain.

O: Leo has decided to join them on their uh, “adventure”.

S: In quotation marks.  Which is probably uh, for the best because he knows a guy who might be able to help.

O: Remember the rival internet guy from before?

S: Guess who's back from the first movie, and it might not be your first thought!

O: That's right, Agent Simmons from the first movie, who is no longer- is a no longer an agent, is Robo-Warrior.

S: I feel like the tech guy from the first movie would have probably made a better Robo-Warrior.

O: Yeah, I do too... I do too.

S: [sighs] So, Sam and company arrive at Simmons’ mom's deli, or possibly his deli that his mom works at too or something?  I don't know it…

O: It's not very clear.

S: Yeah.

O: Uh, come to find out that Simmons has held on to some old Sector 7 documents.

S: Not just some, uh, he stole a lot of shit from Sector 7.  Like, enough to fill like a sub basement.

O: [snorts] Uh, now Mikaela pulls out Wheelie, who has been in tow in the metal box.

S: Uh-huh.

O: Uh, smooth talking him into helping them.

S: Wheelie also can't read the writing from before, saying that it's in the ‘language of the Primes’ and that they need a Seeker.

O: I had completely forgotten they referred to these guys as Seekers until we watched this again.  I kind of had a ‘what the fuck’ moment.

S: Same.  Seekers, in this continuity are ancient Cybertronians that had been tasked with traveling the galaxy, looking for stars to use as energy sources for the AllSpark.  This is a little bit of a hint, hint, hint, for uh, something that might happen later.

O: In a convenient coinkydink, some of Simmons’ old documents show several of these Seekers in their alt modes.

S: Wheelie is able to identify an SR-71 Blackbird in the National Air and Space Museum as a Seeker.

O: So off the gang goes to Washington DC.

S: Outside the National Air and Space Museum, Simmons rips off his pants, revealing the Sector 7 thong to the audience... and then turns around so we can get the view from every angle.  That’s-

O: No, no, no.  I did not need to see robot balls.  I did not need to see hairy man balls, and I certainly did not need to see hairy man ass!  I'm not even sure why he did this!?  I assume he changed pants but I don't know why he did that right here, in a parking lot, in front of everyone!

S: For the pain, I don't know.

O: [laughs]

S: And thus, they come up with the most amazing scheme to get into the museum as it's closing.  Leo's being a coward and Simmons intimidates him a bit.

O: Oh god!  That man is pressing his man meat against that man's meat!

S: [sighs] Inside the museum, Leo comes out of the bathroom with his pants… mmm, like, down around his ankles, looking for toilet paper.

O: Why did they want to do this to me?  I am feeling personally attacked by the quantity of hairy man I am seeing in this movie!

S: Why are they doing this to us?  It’s not just to you-

O: Why are they doing this to everyone!?! [laughs]

S: Yeah.  The security guard escorts Leo back into the bathroom, chastising him about how this is a family museum.

O: Yeah, the only one guy doing their job here is the security guard, okay?

S: Yeah, and [he] attempts to hand them toilet paper over the top of the stall.

O: Leo then zaps him with a taser and the man falls to the ground.

S: Of course Leo manages to uh, taze himself with the taser too and falls down, kind of by the guy, and is unable to move.

O: Simmons comes in and drags Leo, still twitching, out of the bathroom.

S: I am hoping that his pants are up, but god who knows with this movie-

O: I don't think they were when he started dragging him. [laughs]

S: God, why?

O: Oh, there was butt- his butt cheeks were ALL over that floor.

S: [sighs] So, they run through the museum and find the correct jet, and then Sam uses the AllSpark fragment on that jet.

O: You would think that perhaps, perhaps, before using an AllSpark fragment to wake a Cybertronian up you might check his goddamn faction badge first but, NOOOO!  It’s only after the jet begins to transform they notice the goddamn Decepticon symbol.

S: We are introduced to easily what is not only the best robot character in this movie, but quite possibly the best character in the movie, period.

O: Meet Jetfire!  He's old, he's cranky, he's a delight, and he's got a pretty sweet looking beard.

S: Yep, and a cane made from his alt mode’s landing gear.  You know, for extra old man points.

O: Now bit of a tangent, but in G1 you will remember Skyfire.  Our big sweetie pie scientist.

S: Starscream’s ex, you can't forget that.

O: Can’t forget that, and also frequently utilized as a taxi service by the Autobots.

S: Well, Skyfire is often named Jetfire instead, depending on the continuity.  You know, name stuff is weird...

O: Yeah, and- but this Jetfire doesn't have too much in common with our big old scientist, I just wanted to point out that he was clearly referencing him.  Um, but the one thing he does have in common and the most important thing to the idiots we're following, is that he is a Decepticon defector.

S: Mm-hmm.  Jetfire attempts to fire at a large door to get outside but is uh, having some uh, ‘performance issues’ with his equipment.

O: [laughs] Uh, he is able to get outside, so our party follows him um... into Arizona.  And yes, we know that movies often have to be shot at other locations, or fudge locations and make certain events work.  But I find this one particularly jarring as they are clearly in a desert with mountains off in the distance which does not line up with the geography around Washington DC.

S: Yeah, considering that it was what, a swamp?

B: [laugh]

O: Definitely not a desert with mountains!

S: Yeah, ah, this part was actually filmed at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, or The Boneyard, in Tuscan, Arizona.

O: Jetfire gives a speech about how being an Autobot or a Decepticon is a choice.

S: An intensely personal choice, even.  And Wheelie's like, “Holy shit it IS!?!”

O: And proceeds to start humping Mikaela's leg, charming.

S: [long drawn out sigh] So many sighs.

O: [laughs] I don't understand all the humping in this movie Bay, I really don't.

S: Juvenile male humor?

O: I guess?

S: Guys think humping shit is funny, somehow?  I don't know. [sighs] Jetfire shows his uh, senility a little bit talking about his parents.

O: “My father?  Why he was a wheel!  The first wheel, and you know what he transformed into?  Nothing!  But he did so with honor- dignity, damn it!”

S: And that is a direct quote-

O: [laughs]

S: Straight from the man himself!

O: He's a delight.

S: [sighs] Sam pulls out a knife and begins carving the uh, Cybertronian symbols into the ground.  I mean, where- where'd he get the knife?  I have questions.

O: Thong man?  Probably?

S: Disconcerting- disconcertingly, yes, that is probable.  Um, Jetfire blabbers off about the Dagger's Tip before generating a space bridge, and teleporting everyone to Egypt with uh, very little warning.  I mean the only warning he gives them is, “Hold on or you'll die!” to the nearby squishies

O: I also feel like we need to preface, Dagger's Tip as in a location, not talking about the- the knife Sam is holding.  Realize that might be a little confusion without- confusing without context.

S: Yeah, and are Bumblebee and the Twins… are also here?

O: The Twins are also here translated- trans- translated?  Transported.

S: Okay, because yeah, they apparently showed up after they they exited and mass translocated to Arizona. [sighs] Life is weird in this movie.

O: Yeah, so uh, then Jetfire informs us that once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away… The original seven Primes had arrived on Earth to build a device called a Star Harvester which can create Energon by destroying suns.  Wait, seven!?!  Did they just pick a number at random!?

S: Probably.  I don't think whoever it was making this movie cared about the lore that was in other parts of the series.

O: At least seven is also a prime number…

S: Yeah... I mean, heck, I don't remember if they had a different number in [the] Cybertron [tv series]?  Because Cybertron I think, did have a list of Primes.

O: I think the number’s are usually 13.

S: Yeah, but it's just- I don't remember when that number came up-

O: Mm- that’s fair.

S: If it was before or after this.

[Okay, this is mildly confusing, (as Transformers lore often is) but the rough concept for The Thirteen has been around since 1999, but was really only solidified in 2004-2005 into specifically, Thirteen Primes.  All that being said, even if that wasn’t established in the first movie, it certainly would have been by the time they were creating the sequel. Also, several adaptations of this movie do have thirteen Primes, not seven, and designs had been created for 12 (non-Fallen) Prime heads, so who knows what the heck happened with this behind the scenes. ~O]

S: Yeah, and while they had a rule about not destroying suns that supported life, the Fallen decided that the humans sucked, and tried to turn it on anyway because-

O: He's a dick! [laughs]

S: He was basically the equivalent of a pissy house proud lady who, with a- whose house had a mouse infestation and he wanted to demolish it anyway but… The humans are the mice in this metaphor.

O: [laughs] Uh, the Primes tried to fight him but were unable to actually defeat him.

S: Considering that only a Prime is supposed to be able to defeat the Fallen this is somehow extremely disappointing.  So they took the Matrix of Leadership and sealed it in a tomb made of their own bodies.

O: The Matrix of Leadership is a reoccurring McGuffin in the Transformers lore, but for some inexplicable reason in this continuity it is basically just a ‘key’ for the Star Harvester.

S: Well, I think it also has some other purposes, considering what they end up using it for later… but yeah, it's primarily just the horse- blah, the Star Harvester key.  Jetfire conveys that Sam needs to find the Matrix of Leadership or they're all fucked.  I mean, what happened?  Did turning on Jetfire completely destroy the AllSpark fragment or is it just... dead now?  Could they use that to re-awaken Optimus body?

O: I mean yeah, you would think right!?  Because like, they- they did- they- that's how they brought Megatron back but nobody thought of this!

S: I mean didn't they already have a thing that they could have used to just, wake Optimus up?

O: Maybe?  I don't know.  I don't know.  Moving right along!  Um-

S: I want answers!  Sorry...

O:  We're not gonna get ‘em.  And then presumably, they leave Jetfire in the desert because he needs a good long nap after generating a whole ass space bridge.

S: Well, he basically tells them to get lost before any Auto- before any Decepticons show up.

O: Yeah, because assumably he's gonna take a nap.

S: Yeah, I mean- I think another Decepticon does show up at some point in the novelization, but who knows. I think grandpa beats his pants- or beats his ass.  Sam reaches the conclusion that if the Matrix of Leadership can activate the Sun Harvester then maybe it could reactivate Optimus, like some sort of robot activating skeleton key.

O: Seems like a bit of a reach, but alright.

S: No one knows what's going on here, so I guess, sure!  Let's run with it.

S: They stop by a nearby village allowing Simmons to contact N.E.S.T. and somewhat covertly tell them that they need to bring Optimus’ corpse over to Egypt.

O: [laughs]

S: [sighs] Oh, this is going to be so many… ugh, so many problems.

O: Soundwave is still able to figure out what the fuck they're saying though, and deploys the Decepticons to the same location that Simmons had given N.E.S.T.  You know, do you think his back hurts?  You know, from carrying his entire faction?

S: Probably, but I mean, he's in space so there's not much weight up there right now.

O: [laughs] Probably lessens the feeling a little bit.

S: Using some gibberish about the ‘three kings’ and also, astrological knowledge, Sam is able to figure out where the Primes’ tomb is and uh, the group heads towards the mountains of Petra.

O: Lennox's group has also brought the government weasel with them along on their ‘Definitely Not Transporting a Giant Robot Corpse’ mission, and then they fool him into jumping out of the plane.  So they can carry on without interruption.

S: Slightly less jumping out of the plane and slightly more uh, fooling him into opening the damn parachute that uh, they got the man to wear and then he gets swept out because--

O: It was a parachute. [laughs]

S: Moving plane, open door, there goes the- there goes the parachute.  Oops!  So much wind.

O: And it really might be one of the funniest scenes in the entire movie.  It also reads entirely too close to something our DND group would pull.

S: Oh yeah, yeah.

B: [laugh]

O: Ask our DM!

S: Oh, any one of our DMs.

O: Any one of our DMs, but I'm particularly talking about when my poor husband had to DM.

S: Yeah, I'm thinking about the ‘whale’ incident.

[My husband regretted that our party had the ability to summon large creatures and portals on that day. ~O]

So Sam and company arrive at Petra.

O: For the non-documentary nerds among us, uh, Petra is an ancient city in Southern Jordan.  While it does contain more structures than the treasury (which is what I think they show here) uh, this is probably one of the most famous.  You may recognize it as the resting place of the Holy Grail in the Indiana Jones movies.  And as we were watching, I had a minor panic attack at the giant robots possibly breaking things.

S: Oh, and the giant robots definitely break things.  The Twins fight, and hit a wall or a fresco.  Revealing a hollow area behind it with uh, very noticeable giant robot bits.

O: [laughs] Then Bee takes aim at the wall and I have another panic attack.  Though to be fair, he's got very good aim and only makes what is arguably a very small hole.

S: Through the giant robot bits.  Sam enters the new hole in the wall and finds the Matrix of Leadership on the floor.  I guess, cradled in the hands of the Prime corpses?  Which- this is super morbid!

O: [laughs]

S: When he picks it up, uh, it crumbles into dust.  So, Sam does the only thing he can think of, he sweeps all that dust into his sock.

O: Time to go resurrect Optimus with dirty sock dust!

S: Is it the sock of destiny?

O: It is now.

S: I guess it awakens giant robots, but leaves buildings standing.

O: [snorts]

S: All the while uh, he talks about there having to be some sort of reason for everything that's happening.

O: Uh, to quote a much better character, “It's possible to commit no mistakes and still lose,” so Sam you're full of shit.

S: Yep, back with N.E.S.T. uh, they yeet Optimus’ corpse out of the plane and I believe Optimus has parachutes again here?

O: Probably.

S: I mean, if he doesn't that is just so much corpse desecration.

O: [laughs] And it seems like we arrive back where we started in the first movie, as it looks like they're back in that little desert town where the fight with Scorponok took place.  You know, they just- they're just gotta destroy it again.

S: And if that's not that same town it looks extremely similar.

O: Starscream begins firing on Sam and co as they head to the rendezvous location with N.E.S.T.

S: [sighs] The group splits up in order to draw the fire away from Sam.

O: Leo, Simmons, and the twins head off. Bee heads off in another direction, and then Sam and Mikaela head towards Optimus’ location on foot.

S: This seems like a bad allocation of resources but, ohh-kay.

O: [chuckles]

S: N.E.S.T. also spots Starscream, but he has released an EMP burst, cutting off all their communication.

O: Government weasel however, has landed safe and sound and is able to reach (and annoy!) the N.E.S.T. headquarters.

S: Yep and N.E.S.T. uh, headquarters is frustrated that weasel can contact them but they can't contact Lennox's group.

O: Simmons group stops uh, once they realize Starscream has stopped following them.

S: Megatron and Starscream (none too gently) land on the Great Pyramid.

O: God damn, more defacing world heritage sites?

S: Well, the Egyptian authorities would definitely have um, a case against them for this.  Because you know, they they charge people with doing dumb ill-advised things on the pyramids

O: I dunno how you're gonna get money out of Megatron but, alright! [laughs]

S: Eh, I'd go with the blood from the stone thing, and literally selling off materials from his body, but who knows?  That's also very morbid.  Um, Megatron orders an attack and Devastator forms out of more than the requisite number of constructicons from G1.

O: And Devastator makes our last Welker voiced Con for the day, bringing our number up to five-

S: And it’s-

O: -out of 12.

S: And spoiler alert uh, Devastator looks nothing like G1 Devastator, and also this is in like- the same location that Simmons and Leo are at.

O: Yep.  Sam and Mikaela though are continuing their march towards N.E.S.T.  All the while trying to avoid Decepticons, and thus hide in one of the nearby houses.

S: Ah, I like the lighting in the scene, the lighting is very nice.  So one wall is mostly structured from uh, glass bottles.  You know, provides some very nice ambient lighting without the need of electricity.  It just- it's very pleasant.  It's a very pretty look

O: Then we get a really nifty scene of the Decepticons looking for them that's basically, one big long continuous shot of it going out of a hole Sam is looking out, going around the scene and then going back through I think, the keyhole?  For the door to the house they're in.

S: Yeah, that sort of continuous shot's very nice.  You don't see those very often.  Sam catches a tiny Decepticon bug that comes through the hole, leading to them being found, and the house's roof being ripped off by Starscream.

O: They attempt to escape.

S: The Twins uh, begin to fight Devastator, while the combiner tries to eat everybody with his horrifying trash-compactor-crusher mouth.

O: Mudflap is eaten, but doesn't go down easy and punches his way out of Devastator's mouth.

S: The Decepticons reveal that they are holding Sam's parents hostage.

O: But they're all saved by the timely arrival of Bee.

S: Ravage is killed when Bee rips his entire body off his spine??

O: How does Ravage keep ending up in two pieces in these things?

S: I think technically he might be in more than two pieces, but ughhh...

O: Meh, I'm just saying- there was the spine in one hand, and the rest of them in the other hand, at least from my memory.

S: I know, it's just- god, unfortunately this feels a whole lot like shucking an ear of corn.

O: [laugh] Oh, god- yeah... yeah... yeah.

S: [sighs] I'm sorry for that image.

O: Sam uh, tells Bee to take his parents out of danger once they- he- they've gotten them away from the Cons.

S: Uh, Sam's dad argues with him in what we're assuming is supposed to be a counter to his no caring attitude about Sam going off to college in the movie.  One of the only positive things is his dad's care- for his dad's character is that he does seem to want to take care of- take care of his son.

O: Pity doesn't show more.

S: Yeah.

O: Okay, tangent, but you may have noticed we're being less descriptive about things that are happening at this point in the story.  That's because we basically hit a point where the remainder is a gigantic action scene and not really much else.

S: Yeah, it's a whole lot of punch, punch, switch scene, punch, punch, switch scene.

O: Yeah, so-

S: Shoot, shoot, shoot.

O: We're trying, but if something doesn't really make sense it's because stuff is swapping and not a lot is happening.  Oddly enough this movie is actually a good example of why you should keep things simple, from a storytelling perspective.  And yeah, I know if you examine the basis of this movie's plot it is pretty simple, but instead of just, you know, actually going from point a to point b there's just a ton of waypoints kind of getting in the way of the action that’s actually happening.  Uh, like, “Oh well, we'd better go over to this set for yet another action sequence!”  Nothing that's happened in the last 30 or so minutes has really mattered to the overall plot because it's just action sequence, action sequence, action sequence.

S: Yup, dirt, explosions, running, falling down.

O: Rinse and repeat.

S: There is nothing of substance here.  Speaking of pointless, it's back to Simmons for absolutely no reason.

O: Uh, Megatron's been on top of the Great Pyramid doing nothing this entire freaking time and now he chooses to shoot down a helicopter.

S: I don't think he's even been monologuing.

O: Yeah, he hasn't!  He has- that's what I mean, nothing!  He's not even doing anything interesting!

S: Simmons takes the radio from the pilot of said downed helicopter and follows after Devastator as he heads toward the Great Pyramid.

O: American Army porn.

S: And Air Force.  And Navy, [sighs] probably?

O: [groans]

S: Sam and Mikaela are spotted by Ironhide and the three Arcees.

O: Two Arcees are downed by some Cons after their one speaking line in the entire freaking movie.

S: Devastator begins climbing the Great Pyramid.

O: Is Megatron waiting up there for Devastator?!  Is- is it just too much work to wreck the pyramid by himself?

S: He's got all of these lackeys, he wants the lackeys to do shit for him.

O: Oh, lord.

S: Simmons follows and contacts the Navy.

O: Okay- okay, the only thing I can think of here is that they needed Simmons to do something.  Otherwise, why the heck do they call in military reinforcements then call in yet more military reinforcements!?

S: More American Army porn.

O: [sighs] Devastator demolishes the top of the pyramid.  Yes, yes, destroying more history, yes, yes.

S: Yet more American Army porn!

O: And then Megatron chases Sam and Mikaela as they approach N.E.S.T.

S: After many, many, MANY, explosions, Sam and Mikaela reach Lennox.

O: Who's like, “You'd better have a good reason for us to be here!”

S: “I got a sock full of dust!”

O: [laughs] Yes, you do Sam.  Yes, you do.

S: [sighs] Jetfire shows up, taking out a Con with his cane.

O: Then Scorponok, you know, from the first movie, immediately shows up just to stab Jetfire and ruin all of our days.

S: You know, his triumphant return after disappearance in the last half of the previous movie.

O: And now for the moment you- we-

S: [sighs]

O: We've all been waiting for!

S: Ugh… [unintelligable]

O: Do you want me to do it?

S: Yes, please.

O: Simmons says, “I'm directly below the enemy scrotum.”  Why would you say that?  Why would you say it like this?  Why wouldn't you just say, “I am directly below the enemy”!?  Why did you feel the need to add the word ‘scrotum’ to that sentence!?! [laughs]

S: The enemy's anatomy should not be that important, but I guess Bay thinks balls are important- er, hilarious.

O: Important and hilarious.

S: God.

[I am furious that we didn’t know about this clip until AFTER we did this episode, but yeah, this exists.  Bay was SO proud of this joke. ~O]

O: Uh, Devastator comes to pieces after being hit by an experimental Navy railgun from the ship that Simmons has been contacting.

S: Yeah, back with Lennox and company, Epps proves yet again to have one of the best lines in the entire movie.

O: They throw some smoke grenades to provide a target for the Air Force.

S: Unfortunately, this smoke's just a teensy bit too close to the party.

O: Epps responds with, “It wasn't my best toss, okay!?”

S: [sighs] In the ensuing chaos of the airstrike, Sam runs ahead to try and get to Optimus and Megatron appears out of the smoke to shoot him.  Or to dramatically close in on him, I guess.

O: Megatron gets pushed back by some of the N.E.S.T. covering fire and nyrooms away very awkwardly.

S: Except, what's this!?  Sam's dead.

O: [loudly] WOOOOOOOOOOO!

S: Mikaela's not so happy about this though.

O: Uh, sad music plays.  Dialogue can be heard faintly as Lennox and the N.E.S.T. crew begins CPR.  His parents show back up... again.  For what purpose exactly?  I think this would have read just fine with Mikaela just being the only one sad about Sam.

S: I don't know.  If this is their attempt at pathos, but it kind of sucks.  I mean, I know that the audience is supposed to feel bad that this guy's dead but-

O: I don't! [laughs]

S: They did a terrible job of making me care, but now is the moment where Mikaela tells Sam that she loves him.

O: They had a whole thing about this earlier in the movie we really didn't go over but they were having kind of an argument on who should say, “I love you,” first.  Blah- blah- blah- blah-

S: Ah.

O: But now, a window into Sam's psyche.

S: What, you mean it's not just going to be boobs, boobs, and more boobs?

O: No- no the seven Primes appear in a vision to Sam.

S: Oh god, does this make Sam a Prime?  I really hope not…

O: Oh my god!  One of the Primes is voiced by Bulkhead!  And by Bulkhead, I of course mean his voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson.  A man with a huge filmography that I guarantee you've heard at least a dozen or so things that he has done, if not more!

S: The Primes tell Sam that he is worthy of being a Prime.

O: Bulk, why do you have to hurt me in this way, and by extension, EVERYONE?

S: The magical sweaty sock dust reconstitutes into the Matrix of Leadership.  And, I mean, I'm kind of concerned that some of the remaining sweaty sock dust is now blowing away, or maybe this sock will be some sort of horrifying museum relic.

O: Considering what he did with his shirt, I wouldn't be surprised.  Um, but I don't really care, because this just means the movie is getting closer to its inevitable conclusion.

S: Fair.  Sam then takes the Matrix and stabs it into Optimus chest.

O: Stabby stab?  We bring him to life by giving him another stab wound?  Magical stabby stab?

S: I think this is how you get robot zombies.

O: Good thing nobody had any Dark Energon on hand.

S: Or the Hate Plague.  Of course, the Matrix is immediately snatched up by the Fallen.

O: Because we want to have our cake and eat it too.  We need to bring Optimus back to life and also to get the giant sun stun gun going too.

S: So, the Fallen activates the Star Harvester.

O: High levels of shut up and die reached as the Fallen finally reveals some amount of fighting prowess with a bitchin’ anti-gravity staff.

S: Yep.  Jetfire, who has been sort of hanging out this entire time having a giant hole in his chest, sacrifices himself to upgrade Optimus so that he can go fight the Fallen.

O: Jetfire, buddy, sir, you deserved better.

S: He did.

O: Here's one of the few scenes where Jolt is visible as he helps Ratchet get Optimus battle worthy.

S: Yeah, um, the electric whips were somehow needed for this for some reason, somehow.

O: Optimus, having gained the power of flight, begins to fight Megatron and the Fallen.

S: But not before destroying the Sun Harvester.

O: Megatron's face is badly damaged as Optimus moves on to the Fallen and rips off the Fallen's face saying, and I quote, “Give me your face!”

S: Then Optimus rams his hand through the Fallen's chest and uh, rips out and crushes the Fallen’s spark.

O: Starscream, being the sane one here, suggests that he and Megatron flee.

S: Megatron, considering that he is dealing with both a head injury and a missing arm from the elbow down, takes Starscream up on his offer.  The Fallen having been defeated, Optimus returns to the ground and shrugs off all of Jetfire's parts

O: [You] couldn't have kept anything?  The gun?  No, nothing.  Was it a frame thing- did you miss the slimmer frame, Optimus?  Just be honest here, you know.

S: I mean, maybe he considered it kind of morbid having like, corpse parts on him?  I mean that would be-

O: Fuck if I know.

S: That would be kind of morbid, but yeah... it feels like it's just showing disrespect to Jetfire's sacrifice. [sighs] Then we move back to Sam and Mikaela, interspersed with shots of N.E.S.T., the Navy, Simmons, etc.

O: Ah, yes, soldiers, brothers in arms, kissing!  Soldiers, brothers in arms, KISSING!

S: [laughs] Sorry, sorry I was just- like, my brain put those together at first and not what it actually was.

O: [laughs] I mean, to be fair, that would probably be a more interesting movie!

S: Yes.  Optimus thanks Sam for saving his life.  And I have many questions Optimus.  Did you have- what did you see Optimus?  What did you see?  And we end with an Optimus monologue about the two races working together in the future.

O: Ohh, Optimus, you’re- you're just going to be discarded in two movies, sweetie.  Um, don't trust the US Military, we do not have a good track record.

S: Yup.  Linkin Park, much like the first film what plays us out as the credits roll.

O: And thus, we are divided from the rest of the movie.  A New Divide if you will.

 S: Oh, is that a name drop?

O: It's the name of the song. [laughs]

S: Or title drop, yeah.

O: [laughs]

S: Alright, so what's your take?

O: Wow, I really don't like that movie.  The last 30 minutes- hour- whatever, felt like an eternity where the only thing happening was explosions, and robots maybe punching each other and I just didn't care about anything that was happening?  The early part wasn't really much better, but at least the characters, you know, were talking to each other.

Um, the writing overall isn't good for like, dialogue and again, some of the events just kind of feel like why did this even need to happen?  And I do think it's worth mentioning that this was filmed during the 2007 writers’ strike.

Additionally, regardless of how bad I personally find the dialogue, I still have to give props to Peter Cullen's performance of Optimus.  Even the first time I saw this movie, I was sad that Optimus died.  And keep in mind at the time I didn't know anything about Transformers, aside from seeing the first movie.  I feel like Cullen puts a lot of heart to his performance of Optimus, and I really can't think of a time where it's felt like he's phoned it in and I really do appreciate that.  Even here, even with the, “Give me your face,” line.

What did you think, Specs?

S: Well, I don't have nearly as much to say as you did.

O: [laughs]

S: Um, I liked Jetfire.  The SR-71 Blackbird is a very neat plane, and I mean, I liked it before this movie came out.  So, I liked him for more than one reason.  But he was cranky, and delightful, and a jet, and the best part of the movie.  Everything else was just kind of painful.  Yeah.

O: Yeah, I think that's fair.

S: Yeah.  I mean, I liked Mikaela too, but...

O: Yeah, she- say goodbye to her because she's not gonna be in the next movie.  This is the last one with Mikaela in it.

S: I think she got the better part of the deal.

O: [laughs] Pity we can't make as graceful as an exit.

S: Yep.

O: But that's it for us now.  Uh, we will be posting another episode.  Uh, where we go into more detail on what we personally would have wanted to see in this movie.  But we know this is running along as it is, and I think based on our estimates this should be around the same length as last year's episode so we're gonna split it.  We are also aware that you personally may not care about us trying to you know basically fanfic- fix this so…

S: Mm-hm.  Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links we may have mentioned.  You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter @AftersparkPod (all one word).  And various other locations by searching for Afterspark Podcast, such as AO3, iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube, just to name a few.  And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, Youtube, or AO3.

O: As always, thank you so much for listening.  Happy (probably belated by the time this is posted) holidays to everyone.  2020 has been a hell of a rough year, so please stay safe and we will be back with more normal episodes soon.

S: Toodles.

[Outro Music]

S: Sam grabs out a knife and begins carving the Cybertronian siblings into the ground um, I mean, where did you get the knife?

O: You mean symbols?  You said siblings.

S: [laughs] God- oh god, I can’t talk!

[pinelife3]

What’s this Pizzagate in the heart of nature?

The big tech story in Australia last month was Facebook’s decision to restrict people and organisations in Australia from sharing or viewing news content on Facebook. This was in response to the Morrison government’s proposed Media Bargaining legislation which is basically a Murdoch-serving law to try to get tech companies to pay media organisations for news content hosted/linked/displayed on their sites and, most galling of all, share details of their algorithms with Australian media orgs. The idea that Facebook would have to notify NewsCorp every time they want to tweak their algorithm is patently insane. So I admire Facebook’s petty, dramatic manoeuvre: “if the way we share news on the site is such a problem then fine, no more news for you”. After all the fuss, the Australian government agreed to amend the Media Bargaining legislation - evidently with terms more agreeable to Facebook, meaning news has been restored to Facebook down under. 

One of the key responses I saw expressed in relation to Facebook’s initial news eradication was concern that disinformation would be able to spread more easily on the site - and that people wouldn’t be able to rebut disinformation with factual news articles.

So far as I can tell, the proliferation of disinformation online wouldn’t matter if people didn’t believe it. And most especially, if people didn’t want to believe it. After all, the web is full of persuasive writing and people who want to convince you of things - for whatever reason, conspiracy theories just seem to be very alluring. So rather than trying to protect people from their own stupidity by hiding disinformation... maybe we could look at why people are so credulous in the first place. Deep state? Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams? CIA Contra cocaine trafficking? The great replacement? Pizzagate? 

I’m going to class conspiracy theorists into three categories of my own making:

I believe: well meaning, uninformed people who have been fooled or duped. The fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield which started the vaccines cause autism conspiracy was actually written to support a class action lawsuit. Wakefield knew the results in his paper were not true: in addition to his conflicts of interest, he had falsified data. The paper was eventually debunked and retracted but the conspiracy had its roots and has continued to grow. I think a lot of the people who believe that vaccines are dangerous are parents who are just worried about their kids - and also want to protect other kids from a threat they believe to be real. Why is one debunked article more persuasive to people than a million proving the efficacy of vaccines? It is literally beyond reason.

It suits me to believe: people motivated by self-interest who adopt a conspiracy theory to support their larger world view. Their self-interest could be anything from their own ego to gun rights. The conspiracies around the Sandy Hook Primary School shooting are interesting because you can see a clear motivation for people to subscribe to that theory rather than the truth. If you’re a keen gun-owner, arguining that the shooting was a hoax to generate anti-gun sentiment and thereby allow the Democrats to pass harsher gun restrictions is neat and comforting. No one could argue that the events of Sandy Hook weren’t inhumanly terrible  - so the only option is to argue that they didn’t happen at all. Plus, in this worldview, no kids are getting hurt so you can sleep easy knowing you have seven semi-automatic weapons in the house.

I need to believe: the world is disorganised, scary, unknowable. Ocean deep, sky vast, dark impenetrable - and meanwhile our skin is so thin and delicate. So. Wouldn’t it be comforting to think that there’s a race of reptilian overlords that control the planet by whipping their tails against a complicated system of levers and pullies? That would explain a lot of the chaos in our world. Or maybe the problem is an elite coterie of Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles? If only we could defeat those accursed pedophiles then life would be peaceful. Luckily, Q and a septuagenarian reality TV host are here to save us. 

Across these categories, there are two unifying features: 

Rejection of widely accepted truth 

Investment in the conspiracy

As a comparison with the conspiracists above, here’s my take on a conspiracy: I think it’s quite probable that Epstein didn’t kill himself. I think that some powerful, shadowy entity took him out to protect itself. But I’m not obsessed by this idea. It would not surprise or upset me if this was officially confirmed - similarly crazy shit happens all the time. I haven’t devoted my life to revealing this truth. I guess I fit into the “I Believe” category: all official information says that Epstein took his own life but my scepticism of the unusual circumstances around his death and Epstein’s powerful connections leads me to doubt the official information. The difference is I don’t do anything about it. I don’t really care if I’m right or not - I’m not that invested in the conspiracy.

And that’s why it seems ludicrous to me that Facebook should be tasked with combatting the conspiracy theories spiralling across our culture. Simply being exposed to bad information does not radicalise you, does not conjure an investment in the conspiracy. If a normal person reads something creatively wrong or misleading they discard it from their mind. If it hits a chord with them, they may adopt that opinion themselves - see: astrology, Armie Hammer as cannibal, tarot cards, essential oils as serious medical treatment, etc. But the evolution from agreeing with a thought to militaristically insisting that the rest of society also agree with it is an abnormal progression. That strange impulse runs deeper in people than their Facebook timeline.

Most people have fears for the planet or believe there are major issues plaguing humanity - and we never do anything about it because it would be mildly inconvenient or because it’s too hard to care about every issue under late capitalism: 

"But sorting my recycling is boring”

“Yeah yeah fast fashion is problematic but H&M is just so affordable" 

"Of course I hate R.Kelly! But ‘Ignition (Remix)’ is my jam” 

“At least they have suicide nets in the Foxconn factories now”

“I only buy free range chicken thighs because I care about animal welfare”

“I retweeted that thing about anti-Black racism. Yay racism solved!”

There are probably lots of people who believe in conspiracy theories but are ultimately apathetic about doing anything: they can’t be bothered talking about vaccines and politics all the time, can’t be bothered going to a protest, can’t summon the interest to care much. So what’s interesting then is that across the three categories of conspiracy theory belief (I believe > It suits me to believe > I need to believe), what a person believes in, and perhaps even the reason for the belief, doesn’t create any impetus to enact real world change. On both the left and the right, the impulse to do something about an issue is rare. Do you think conspiracy theorists, like the left, have a problem with performative activism? 

Imagine that you agree that Sandy Hook was a false flag, that ‘they’ hired crisis actors to publicly grieve as if their pretend children had been murdered... do you then get in your car and drive overnight to Sandy Hook and start harassing those crisis actors at the pretend funerals? What do you call someone like that? The hero of their own story.

Just wait!

In their worldview, QAnon are unironically trying to save us from pedophile cannibals. Given what conspiracists believe to be true, they are acting in good faith and doing the right thing. If you believed this shit, you’d be upset too. The fact that they’re doing something about it is kind of admirable: they don’t want our babies to get autism from the measles vaccine, they don’t want a deep state to manipulate our democratic governments. It’s existential for all of us - we just don’t agree on the threat. 

Can you imagine how electric the riot at the Capitol Building must have felt for the people who led it. Brave, romantic, a grand gesture: it was like their Storming of Tuileries. Remember this day forever! 

Modern conspiracists are actually similar to the sans-culottes in terms of being avid consumers of propaganda and inflammatory reporting. Disinformation and stirring rhetoric are not new - but shouldn’t people today be less clueless than 18th century peasants?

Why are there are so many people who believe things which are untrue? They exist on this planet with us but interpret it so differently. These questions really are existential: an ancient, echoing maw pointing to the heart of human nature. The struggle for a more perfect world, whispers about where the danger comes from at night, arguments about how to protect ourselves. 

Has there ever been a society where people didn’t have differing views on how best to shape the world? It’s the central conflict of human existence: epic, older than language - and now we want Facebook to fix it?

[transformersmr-hq]

So who is Overlord in your au?

Short answer: A Decepticon murder enthusiast and Tarn’s colleague/rival who calls him a pompous [CENSORED]. If TFMR is a game, then he’s probably one of those super difficult hidden bosses lurking in super obscure part of a bonus stage. Other than that, I don’t know.

Long answer:

I haven’t really think about what position could Overlord possibly have in TFMR-verse. The fan cont was initially designed to be “12 robots goofing around on Earth” thing, so I really didn’t give much thought about anyone who isn’t immediately close to any of TFMR’s main cast. (In similar fashion, I also have no idea who Ironhide, Sideswipe/Sunstreaker, Impactor etc are).

However, it appears that I did write some vague bits about him some time ago. According to one of the scrap notes I wrote, here’s how TFMR Overlord is like. Please keep in mind that it’s only a raw concept that is likely to have been written by half-asleep-and-freshly-out-of-shower brain, so it makes hardly any sense.​

Not long after Allspark possessed Megatron, the artifact decided to share some of its creative power with its new host. And since Megatron was still in the belief that he could somehow use the power of Allspark to finish the war asap, he accepted it. Thus, Phase-sixer project began.

Megatron tried to give his soldiers some of the Allspark's power, hoping that it could give them huge stat buffs just like how it happened to him. He had to choose the toughest and strongest among his troops, because the power of Allspark is nothing an average mortal could take. There were very few candidates to begin with, and there were even fewer survivors after the project is over. (Astrotrain and Blitzwing were one of many who wanted to volunteer, but thankfully they were turned down because their frame wouldn't withstand the process.)

Overlord was one of them. At first, he was just a common thug who joined the Decepticons just because he wanted to punch someone. When he successfully underwent the phase-sixer program, he got fully intoxicated with his new strength and upgraded into the most violent piece of murder machine in the Cybertron.

After seeing the states of phase-sixers he had created, which was basically a super strong psychopaths that he could barely control, Megatron decided that he would better shut down the project and never ever tamper with Allspark's chaotic power. The only reason Megatron let them live was because he had a war to finish and was in desperate need of something good. When the war would finally over, he would have either put them in a rehab program, or in case of Overlord, remove from the universe for good.

[b-listbadboy]

Castlevania Season 3 was disappointing

(Spoilers for Castlevania Season 3, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s out now on Netflix. I suggest watching that first before reading this review)

I won’t say it was an awful season by any stretch of the imagination but man was it a drag to get through.

Almost nothing of significance happens for the majority of the season and the things that did happen felt extremely off and weird. 10 episodes, 25 to 30 minutes each, and every single one except for the fucking TWO LAST EPISODES were spent dicking around with a mystery that had little to do with anything from season 2 beyond a really out there twist that I’m sort of iffy on. Top that off with a lackluster arguably stupid ending to leave us off on a needless cliffhanger, and that’s the magic remedy that will leave me feeling pretty damn frustrated.

The best parts, in my opinion, were with Isaac’s massive undead crusade he was waging throughout his journey for revenge, and Trevor and Syph’s interactions with each other as well as with the little villagers. Isaac’s arc going from a servant of Dracula to slowing evolving into the master of the damned felt genuine, intriguing, and badass! I really wish he was the next main villain instead as it makes sense thematically. He carries out Dracula’s nihilistic views of humanity in a similar but now more direct way and that can lead into something really intriguing. However, for some reason, this season left him and his whole journey on a back burner, and virtually everything else that is implemented into main villain role fell flat on its face execution wise.

For example; The new vampires of this season are Camilla’s three other empress sisters, and while they do have a plethora of personality at the very least, that kind of comes at a cost of the main threat being extremely diluted. We go from this hurting sympathetic undead overlord with the power of an anchent GOD, to a couple of wicked sassy sisters who just wanna eat people forever? It’s a bit lame of a progression from what we once had, we know Vampires like to eat people that’s nothing new or exciting. There’s no real twist to it besides it being “led by women in the dark ages” and granted that makes sense here since it IS the dark ages, but come on we literally just had arguably the BEST adaptation of friggin’ Dracula! This shouldn’t be all they got moving forward from that.

Now, I have ZERO issue with the main antagonists being female or even two of the four sisters (not by blood don’t worry) being a lesbian couple. I hate that I have to emphasize this, hell I often defend Cinder Fall in RWBY more than anyone in the fandom at all despite her issues as a complex and sometimes flat out badly written character. However, The four of them in this season have the most basic of plans that it seems arbitrary status quote fluff at best. It felt like just because it’s Castlevania, we HAVE to have the vampires as the villains. Even though in the games the Belmont’s were literally fighting werewolves, dragons, skeletons, and the GRIMM REAPER??

Therefore, the sense of urgency and tense calculating plans of ‘survival vs extinction’ is completely gone. And yknow in a way, I can kinda initially SEE that working in a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” esque plot. Yknow, with Alucard and the gang go around cleaning up Dracula’s leftover horde only for Isaac or even Camilla to have this huge vengeful comeback of dominance? But there’s no one exactly “striking back” or even taking any kind of immediate initiative after Dracula’s death. It’s been MONTHS after the whole event and no one seems like they really care about that world changing event from the last two season’s. Everything is fine and dandy, no one has a single worry in the world! How enthralling...I miss Godbrand 😑

Besides the plan the four empresses have as well as Issac’s revenge, which I hope will both be more explored in season 4, no one really has any goal to warrant THAT kind of length of a season. This is more of a Netflix problem that I have with most of their shows and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like watching them. Almost every singe show Netflix produces now, feels the need to overstuff itself with needless filler that gets us really nowhere until the very end where it SUDDENLY all comes together. But because of the nature of binge watching and considering how Netflix wants to desperately keep their subscriptions in fear of intimidating competition, they make these shows 12 episodes long with HALF HOUR OR MORE amount of filler content that’s supposed to satisfy us cause it’s “cute”?! No, stop this shit! Granted, Castlevania wasn’t nearly AS bad as the live action shows, but honestly, what exactly was shown to us that couldn’t have been reduced to like 5 solidly paced episodes focused on one or two plot lines ONLY like before? It worked perfectly back then, why change what ain’t broke?

As much as I don’t like the immediate rush of Trevor and Syph’s out of nowhere sexual relationship, I didn’t overall mind it too much since they still somewhat felt consistent. Their characteristics play off very nicely with one another and it’s pretty easy to see the chemistry between the two....HOWEVER I’M STILL GONNA COMPLAIN ABOUT IT SO HERE WE GO!

I get that they were setting them up as an endgame ship of the series, there’s no denying that, but they start fucking for what feels like (to the audience) two days after and I think that’s a bit ridiculous! Even if Alucard states that it’s been at the very least a month worth of time since the events of Season 2, there’s no real physical signs showing that statement to be true. Hell, Trevor’s beard and hair remains the same despite a HUGE passage of time where it would naturally grow out to indicate said time passing by. But both him, Syph, Alucard, and damn near everyone else looks the exact same as last season. So for all I know it could have been like a week since Season 2 and that to me doesn’t feel exactly earned. The Season 2 finale didn’t explicitly leave off Trevor and Syph officially a couple, they felt more like partners in crime more than anything else. Not to say that there wasn’t any chemistry there to develope INTO a relationship GRADUALLY, but going from a little spark of interest to the immediate jump of them sleeping together naked all comfortably as if they’re a goddamn married couple is a STRETCH! Even Trevor himself thinks so too so don’t jump down my throat about not being immediately swooned by the shipping fanservice given to us. I don’t dislike them as a couple at all, in fact I think their dynamic is cute! However, I would have also liked to have this couple feel natural and earned. They most certainly do not feel earned this way, at least to me.

Oh god, then there’s this out of nowhere sexual tension between Alucard and his new two recruits from another region hinted at in the previous season? Mind you, Alucard was doing literally NOTHING throughout the entirety of Season 3. Yep, literally the ONE DUDE WHO BASICALLY KILLED DRACULA gets about fuck all story progression afterwards out of the three. But what they DO give him are these two new vampire hunting student’s who look identical to one another (no racial they just literally look like fraternal twins) so I assumed they were either siblings or a couple, which makes it REALLY WEIRD WHEN THEY BOTH FUCK ALUCARD OUT OF NOWHERE?! I’m NOT making this shit up I promise! What makes even less sense is that it was really just a ploy for them to steal the Belmont knowledge of killing vampires to show to their people who have been enslaved. Which of course ends with them being killed so it really makes this entire conflict in his character damn near pointless besides “sad vibes check”, but here’s the thing...why didn’t they just keep doing training with Alucard?? There were virtually no downsides to having him teach you how to kill Vampires to save your village from being enslaved, he was teaching you both very well and gave you like the eternal knowledge of how to kill literally EVERY MONSTER and even let you live in the castle FOR FREE, food and wine included! What was the turning point for them to want to kill him all of the sudden? Cause he’s a vampire?? THEY FUCKING KNEW THAT ALREADY!!! Why was is suddenly not a problem at first but then coincidentally a problem now? If they wanted to use this to somehow depict this notion of “Oh my dad/Dracula was right humans are the worst” mindset, trust me, it was better conveyed with Isaac. These twins side plot not only made no sense, but also felt unjustified for Alucard to be an emo boi. I get that it’s supposed to be symbolic of him going through the same issues that both of his parents went through, but none of that really showed how bad human’s are. Just that those two twins didn’t think things through apparently. So the point of Alucard having this odd character convenience shift feels by the numbers cliché, and most importantly CHEAP.

It really makes no sense to me why they’re adding so much of this filler for such a long time, especially with some of this filler being oddly sexual. I don’t mind honest depiction of sex between consenting adults of course, but it just felt so misplaced and awkward at parts where it showed itself. I felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfic of Castlevania instead of the actual show itself! Granted, Season 2 had somewhat of a similar dilemma but the lull in between was still showing the character specifically doing things to further the story along. Towards the end, it gave us a way more satisfactory closure of that saga with Dracula that felt natural and well earned. This season however, felt like they were scrambling with different ideas here and there and didn’t know which to go with. Alucard training new recruits in his castle, Trevor and Syph figuring out an estranged (and BORING/GENERIC) cult of Dracula’s plan, Camilla setting up an army with her fellow sisterhood of evil vampires to gain ultimate power, Hector surviving captivity by using his wit and charm, Isaac raising up the dead for revenge on his deceased master, a new character introducing an all new world to the lore of Castlevania as we know it, all of these interesting concepts and ideas that could easily make up for a good season alone! And instead of focusing on one or two ideas to develope into something natural, they ended up saying “FUCK IT! Fucking I dunno what to- WE’RE DOING ALL OF IT I DUNNO!” and mixed the whole thing in a blender of different flavors that don’t necessarily blend together well enough for a tasty satisfactory meal. It just ends up being a mesh of okay at best, and gross at worst.

IN CONCLUSION, Castlevania Season 3 had a rocky start, an okay middle, and a kind of cool end. There was definitely some cool and exciting ideas implemented in here, but not enough to warrant that lengthy amount of time that Netflix seems to love to give to most of their TV shows. Sometimes less is more, and all that shiny cool glitter isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be gold. I’ll give this season a 5/10. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it certainly could’ve been a lot better.

P.S. “Who Do Ya Voodoo” from Dead Island is Isaac’s new theme song, you can’t convince me otherwise.

[dgcatanisiri]

Looking over the Sequel Trilogy as a whole... I figure that the way that polarization has worked in just about everything these days, people will dig in their heels either way, but... The Last Jedi really only works in isolation.

Which is a problem for what was movie two of a trilogy and movie eight of a saga.

More long-winded ramblings behind the cut.

Characters repeat beats, learn lessons that they already knew in TFA. It doesn’t properly set up things for the finale - the ONE thing it sets up is Kylo Ren as the leader of the First Order, but then that plot point really just gets Palpa-jacked. Otherwise... I’ve brought it up repeatedly in my critical posts of the movie, there’s not really a sense of hope at the end of the movie, not for the characters we’ve supposedly been emotionally connecting to throughout it. 

TLJ only broadly follows up on TFA, despite picking up almost right afterwards. Luke Skywalker went missing but left a map... to a place where he was waiting to die, alone and forgotten. Finn was critically wounded and left in a coma... then wakes up right away, right as rain. Meanwhile, the guy who got a scar in that same fight gets the emotional weight. Poe sent BB-8 into the desert with the vital intel, knowing that he’d be taken captive by the First Order, tortured and killed, because the mission was more important... then needs to learn the importance of sacrifice from Holdo. Rey becomes determined to reach out to and redeem Kylo Ren... the guy who she watched kill Han Solo, his father, her mentor, and critically wound the first person who came back for her, which was her driving motivation throughout TFA, to return to Jakku because she was waiting for her parents to come back for her.

Also this?

This is not the body language of a woman who has met her great true love and wants to save him from himself. This is a predator stalking her prey as she moves in for the kill. That is not intent to fuck, it is intent to kill. And that? That was the last meeting she had with Kylo Ren - a meeting she had every reason to believe would be their last, considering that Starkiller exploded a short time later.

Which is the OTHER big problem within TLJ’s narrative - the First Order is effectively the Empire in it, having infinite resources to throw at things. BUT the First Order was a fringe group in TFA. They were the scattered remains of the Empire who, in secret, managed to develop a planet-buster. This was their big move. But TLJ frames them as already controlling the galaxy. 

Trying not to get sidetracked, but that’s why the whole Poe-Holdo thing pisses me off. Based on the First Order of TFA, Poe made a sound tactical call in destroying the dreadnaught, depleting the First Order’s limited resources - that ship had to have thousands of FO soldiers and officers, a powerful siege weapon in its own right, and that’s the kind of mission you use bombers FOR, if they couldn’t handle that, they couldn’t handle any other kind of mission and should have been scrapped for parts. It’s just that TLJ treats the First Order as the Empire at its prime, with the infinite resources of a galaxy-spanning organization built on the bones of a thousand generation Republic, not the scavenged corpse of the Empire.

Starkiller’s reveal in TFA was like saying that some fringe political group got a nuke. TLJ says that, within the space of HOURS, that fringe political group took over the galaxy.

That’s another reason I dislike how this trilogy at large (not just TLJ, though that was where it grabbed my attention) portrays hyperspace travel as virtuously instantaneous, it makes the galaxy WAY too small.

In the end, this is also a story about heroic failure. Like, this is the most downbeat movie of the whole franchise in my book - even Revenge of the Sith feels more hopeful than this, because that last scene, of Owen, Beru, and Luke, looking out to the binary sunset... We have the context for those characters. We know that this is the start of hope, for the characters we care for. The end of TLJ? It ends on some kid we have no connection to staring up at the stars, with our heroes, the last hope against the encroaching Empire First Order all packed in to a beat up weed van. This movie presents the bleakest situation, because that’s all the hope we have, and it’s bitter at best.

All of this, ALL OF IT... The Last Jedi fails to connect to the movie that preceded it. Not only that, though... It also kept its main characters separated. None of the characters we’re supposed to care about are interacting with one another, they’re all in very isolated plots. This makes it hard to connect to their emotional arcs, because they’re not connecting or impacting one another. They spend TLJ isolated throughout the story, off doing separate things. Considering that much of TFA was Rey-Finn, and then TRoS features so much time with the trio, that REALLY stands out, and does so poorly. The core relationship of the previous movie is missing, and the successive movie takes it as a given. That’s a problem, a problem caused by TLJ.

The way I see it, Rise of Skywalker did the only thing it could with the pieces given to it by TLJ, it acknowledged them, but also moved on from them quickly. Because TLJ is not connected to the things that came before it, it hangs in isolation, and to try and make it fit detracts from the work you’re doing in the successive story, which now has to act to basically be a fast-paced part 2 AND a concluding part 3, all at once, because you wrote a standalone and called it a sequel.

Had TLJ existed as its own separate thing, this prospective trilogy that is supposedly in the works, a Star Wars Story movie, a mini-series, something like that, it’d have been better for everyone involved, I think. Unfortunately, that’s not what it was. And that makes it a painful and awkward addition to the saga. I’m not saying that Star Wars can’t be unconventional, that it can’t deconstruct itself, that it can’t reexamine things. But it needs to be done in the proper place.

Part two of an ongoing narrative is not that place. This part two discards and ignores character arcs established in the prior film, and really makes no effort to set up a successive film - again, TRoS is basically doing the work of telling part two and part three in the same film, because hey, stormtrooper rebellion, Jannah revealing that other stormtroopers have broken ranks, breaking the reins that hold them... This SHOULD have been established in the previous movie.

Like, if you cut Canto Bight, you really lose nothing of value to begin with, and if you replace it with an infiltration sequence featuring Finn and Rose, you gain a wealth of character development. But TLJ effectively shoved Finn aside - shoved TFA’s male lead, shoved the black man out of the position - for Kylo Ren, for a white guy. 

I imagine that JJ Abrams wanted to do more with Finn (considering he championed for Finn and John Boyega specifically), but he just couldn’t fit it all into the movie as it is - I’m already hearing rumbling that his initial cut of the movie was like three hours, almost an additional hour of film. Which sucks but... I mean, considering the cut down probably happened on orders from the Disney overlords, I figure he couldn’t do or say anything about it.

This trilogy has been very much a disaster on a writing level - trilogies should not be written entirely on the fly, with each film done by different writers. It should have been a singular writer, even if the directors shifted. As it is, I think that TRoS did the best it could with a lot of higher-up handstringing.