#behold my first ever animation haha

[mintywolf]

"Come back to bed, darling."

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @velinxi​

Hello! I’m Xiao Tong Kong, better known as “Velinxi.” I’m the creator of the webcomic Countdown to Countdown and have been doing freelance artwork since I was a teenager. I love telling stories with my illustrations! Tumblr was where I first got my start as an artist, specifically a small fandom artist as a hobby… and now I’m somehow here! When I’m not trying my best to stay awake in front of my tablets, I’m usually cooking, gaming, or sleeping. Sometimes all three, in my dreams.

Check out our interview with Velinxi below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

Yeah! I’ve basically been on track to become an artist since I was a child. I went to a middle school with an emphasis on arts and a high school specializing in it. I went to SVA briefly for computer arts but dropped out to pursue freelance and webcomics after my first year.

Over the years as an artist, what or who were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

My biggest inspirations growing up were Yuumei and Shilin Huang, two titans on DeviantArt back in the day. They still inspire me today, but the list of inspirations has grown exponentially over the years, including artists, movies, entire art movements, etc.

What was your thought process behind the creation of your webcomic, Countdown to Countdown?

Well, Countdown to Countdown started as a passion project back when I was 15, in high school, and pretty depressed. I just wanted to draw whatever story I thought was cool, inspired by my favorite media at the time. There was a very loose beginning and outline, but I was truly just writing as I drew the story. That’s why I had to stop the comic in 2018 and restart from scratch the year after. Now, the story has a set story and a clear outline. It still has similar roots, characters, and themes of neglect, abuse, and escape—but I think the story is a lot easier to follow now. It’s got an artstyle I can actually keep up with in the long run. The origin of why CTC exists also remains the same: I simply wanted to make a story I wanted to read for myself. Which happens to be about two dumb boys with superpowers navigating a hostile world that wants them dead or caged—together.

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Oh, all the time. It’s part of the process. Personally, though—I just have to draw through it. Every month on my Patreon, I have my patrons vote on a theme I have to draw by the end of the month, and I try my best to make it as interesting as possible. I draw quite a few—tens even, of doodles or compositions for each of these themes to try to make something that tells a story while still being aesthetically pleasing and clear. I think pushing myself like this helps with art block, really. I also do remember to take breaks and simply consume other media I like! It gets the inspiration juices flowing.

Advice you would give to an aspiring creator?

If you do one—your first webcomic should be a short, fun, messy thing. It’s not often you can get it right the first time, but you’ll certainly learn a lot through sheer experience. This goes for a lot of things in art, to be honest.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

3D Animation. I briefly learned it at SVA, and I think that’s enough of that tech for me. I accept that there are some things that are truly beautiful if done right, and I am too simple and lazy for it.

What is your goal for the rest of this year?

Get Countdown to Countdown book 2 finished! And live HAHA

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@yuumei-art on Tumblr, still! They’ve been a huge inspiration for digital artists and storytellers online for years. I have no doubt that many digital artists of my generation have been influenced by them, and they’re still here, making beautiful art and stories. It’s a thing to behold.

Thanks for stopping by, Velinxi! If you haven’t seen her Meet the Artist piece, be sure to check it out here. You can also follow her for more amazing art over at her Tumblr, @velinxi!

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Danny Phantom doesn’t want to be king.

And the Observants also don’t want him to be king.

Frankly, very VERY few people want him to be king, dead or alive.

But opening the sarcophagus, even if it’s closed NOW, disrupted some magic protections. Until those can be fixed, summoning spells need to be answered by SOMEONE. Not all of summons, just like—once a month or so. Because if they don’t let that power outlet happen, all of those summon magics build up and suddenly Pariah Dark reigns again. Answering the summon basically dispels the built up magic, like opening a dam.

Again, Danny doesn’t WANT to do this either, but everyone else involved is a bad choice. He won’t even be named prince, because THEN that implies he COULD be king. He needs a title, of some kind, a position in the court, no matter how tenuous, so he can do the thing. Something where no one in their right or even WRONG mind would think to try to kill him for the position or try to marry him or something equally annoying to deal with.

So.

He becomes the Ghost Court Jester.

He even gets a fancy little outfit upgrade when he’s summoned, all black and white bell hats and shoes, a stupid little ruffle collar and black parachute pants, even face paint with a tiny dot of glowing neon green at the tip of his nose. The works. Better yet, if he hasn’t been ‘unsummoned’, his human form is just the exact same costume with swapped colors. He can change into his normal outfits, but until that circle has been disrupted, the next summon, or the next full or new moon, he’s stuck into the outfit when he first transforms from either form.

The Phantom Jester, which is a title more intimidating than Danny appears to be if we are to be honest, cracks jokes and never, EVER takes the summons seriously.

“Listen, I just had to get my hours in and it’s the last day of the lunar month, you got lucky I came at all.”

“I got the position by virtue of not wanting to go to Time Jail for a crime I technically didn’t commit and technically probably won’t but, well, eyes are the beholder of the grudge or something else equally cryptic to make you mad.”

“Is this a slumber party? … do you have cake? Bummer. Well, enjoy the bleeding walls then.”

“Whether I help you or not is entirely dependent on how well of a run down you can give me on this book I have to read that I have not at all touched.”

“Explain the reason in three sentences or less. I suggest less. And if it’s stupid I’m hitting you—oh you think this circle can contain me? Haha. It won’t.”

“Is that chicken blood? Why?? What did the chickens do to you?”

There are props in his costume but he literally never knows what he’s gonna pull out of his sleeves. Danny can’t even do a balloon animal and knows exactly zero card tricks, which would be more of an issue if the cards weren’t the size of a dinner plate. He barely even juggles and he’s honestly probably just utilizing his rarely-used telekinetic powers, but he does give people flowers if they haven’t been a total jerk. And if those flowers are like, rare and have seeds for propagation, well… he literally wouldn’t know. No, really, he doesn’t. He gets summoned by at least two ecology departments and he has no idea why, I mean, if he had a nickel—

He also had pies and is NOT afraid to use them.

[thenamessparkplug]

haHA ive DONE IT really not sure why but i suddenly had the urge to animate something immediately and low and behold i actually finished it somehoe and yknow what YEAH this is the first animation im actually PROUD OF sure its messy and not the smoothest and im sure i made 100 mistakes but comparitively this is the best ive ever done

also i fucking had to simplify wander's design, sorry but im not animating BUG WINGS (so silly but a NIGHTMARE to draw) and wisteria ON A VERY ACTIVELY MOVING PART (ear)

process + stats under the cut for funsies:3

# of frames: 57

fps: 12

# of layers in firealpaca: ~285 layers (definetly more)

length of animation: 7.01 seconds

time taken: ~7-9 hours (spread over about a week)

character used: Wanderlust (Wander)(he/xe/zhey)

song: The Chapel by Madilyn Mei

times i nearly crashed firealpaca with my obscene layer count: 3

[scatterpatter]

I'd like to personally thank the Aligned Continuity of TF for not only indulging my silly what-ifs but having actual canon content of exactly what I had in mind

Like

Okay so I was sitting here like "Hehe what if I made a transformers OC" and then "Hmmm what would their alt mode be? I love love love trains but there isn't any particular model I had in mind. ... Haha what if I had an OC that transformed into a cyber dragon"

And at first I felt silly because yknow most Transformers transform into vehicles. And then I thought "Hey I mean they turns into animals in Beast Wars and Beast Machines right?" And then I realized "Well Skylynx exists and the Dinobots and in TFE they can take non-vehicle alt modes so like surely being a dragon can't be THAT farfetched right?"

AND THEN I looked into TF Wiki for info about Skylynx as a starting point and LO AND BEHOLD I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE PREDACONS IN THE ALIGNED CONTINUITY. LITERALLY AN ENTIRE RACE OF CYBERTRONIANS THAT HAVE DRACONIC ALT MODES. MY GOODNESS.

So I'm already having a good time. But I also realize it's like- they're kind of an extinct-but-not-really species that only really exist from being CNA clones thanks to Shockwave. Cool and all, but I started wondering.

So I started playing with the idea that like. Idk. Maybe this theoretical OC of mine was originally a different type of bot (maybe a Seeker? I like flying bois) and then got experimented on in some way shape or form to become more Predacon-esque, not unlike how Blitzwing became a Triple-Changer nor how the Jettwins became Seekers in Animated. So I was content with that. AND THEN I FOUND OUT THERE ARE LITERAL CANONICAL CHARACTERS IN THE ALIGNED CONTINUITY THAT ARE BOTS THAT GOT EXPERIMENTED ON WITH PREDACON CNA. ARE YOU FOR FUCKING REAL.

Getting into this fandom was a MISTAKE they just indulge me on everything I could ever want

[rainstorms-little-creations]

Holy hecc it's been nearly 2 weeks since i made an original post

That's because i've been procrastinating due to my lack of motivation :D

Anyways i have another oc to show y'all. They don't have a name yet so i've just been calling them Future Boy. Behold, him✨

(click for better image quality)

Future Boy is a character in the same universe as my other OCs Edith and Agnes. As the name suggests, he is from the Distant Future™. The Distant Future™ in this case is approximately the 24th century where the earth has become destroyed beyond repair. Biodiversity is but a distant memory and the air is so toxic and polluted that one must wear a gas mask to go outside. The billionaires and trillionaires live on a newly terraformed Mars with clean air and the most advanced technology whilst the rest of humanity wither away on the shell of a planet that used to be Earth.

Ever since the day he learned of what the earth used to be, Future Boy has spent his life dreaming of living in a world where climate change never wrecked his planet. Technology has advanced so much by now that time travel is now possible. Future Boy manages to steal a time machine and transports himself to the past. He lands in the 21st century where he meets a scientist who is on the brink of inventing time travel herself. In a fight where the scientist attempts to sieze Future Boy's time machine, the two accidentally end up activating the device which sends them to the year 1892. Future Boy and the scientist somehow manage to lose the time machine and it ends up in the hands of Edith and Agnes, two Victorian #galpals.

The scientist and Future Boy are now stuck in 1892. The scientist lady essentially threatens him into either finding the time machine or building a new one so that she can return to her time. By now, Future Boy has gotten what he wanted. He traveled back in time and got to experience the earth before its decay. But they are not yet fully satisfied, they wish to travel back even further to when humanity was just another group of animals in nature, perhaps even further. Before their species had any impact on the planet that they knew would eventually lead to its destruction. But Future Boy can't do that without the time machine, so they continue to search day after day with no idea that the device has basically been within his reach the entire time. (By that i mean that edith and agnes, who have the machine, live in the same town that future boy and the scientist are currently residing in).

So yeah that's the backstory/context for this character. I haven't designed the scientist lady yet, but once i do i will be posting about her. Also that little red alarm clock that future boy is holding in the drawing is the time machine. I suppose i should make another design for him where he's wearing 1890s clothing since he's living in that time now. The only name i've come up with for him is Neo, idk futuristic names are hard ok. I guess i could just google some names and pick which one i like lol.

Anyway i think this whole story and these characters would make for a really fun webcomic. I think if i just keep the story simple enough, it should be good for my first comic. I would like to have some help with that though haha.

I'm gonna go sleep for 17 h now bye bye /j

[patxhwrk]

could i ask for some reversed au for scaramouche, childe, kaeya & albedo? 👀 i love ur writing its so good

Hey! Thank you so much! This is my first time doing a reversed AU, and I wasnt there during the first part of Genshin (i started around the first Lantern Rite), so Scara's and Albedo's may be a bit shitty, but I hope you like it!

-ˋˏ✄— Reversed AU !

ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: Reversed AU ! You are the character, they are the player !

Characters: Albedo, Kaeya Alberich, Scaramouche, Tartaglia

Pronouns: they/them

.navigation. // .genshin impact masterlist.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Albedo | Kreideprinz

He started playing the game at the very beginning

It was intriguing, how could he not?

The beginning was normal, fun, exciting

Then they mentioned a chief alchemist somewhere along the way and his reaction was something like:

"Oh? A person of alchemy? This would be intriguing..."

He likes alchemy, after all

A few days — or had it been months? — had passed, and the new 1.2 update had been released, alongside a new area in Mondstadt called 'Dragonspine'

Lo and behold, the chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius had turned out to be the new 5 star character, Y/n!

He wasn't smitten at first, only interested

They had many similarities to him

They came home the first 30 pulls on their banner, and Albedo was elated!

After a while of doing the event (getting a bit mad at Reckless Pallad for being a damn idiot), he started enjoying and (though unknowingly) liking Y/n

You bet he finished the event just to get the sword to r5

He farmed their artifacts well and made them the best support ever, occasionally using them as a DPS too

The moment your sibling had been introduced, the first thing he thought of was how she was so similar to Klee, and how your relationship with her was similar to his and Klee's

Haha he wished for them too, got around 70 pity though

Talks to Klee about you and your sibling, and to no surprise, she likes you and your sibling too!

A bit sad about the death flags around your character, but he knows he can't do anything about it just yet

He smiles so fondly whenever you do the idle animation with the twig

When he found out you were an artist, he wss even more elated!

Hey, when did his social media accounts turn into a Y/n fanart page?

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Kaeya Alberich | Frostwind Swordsman

Probably didn't start playing when the game was released, but somewhere near the beginning

The first part was nice, he thought

The little drunkard bard reminded him of one of his drunkard musician friends, and the brunette with the red bunny reminded him of one of his coworkers

Got to the point where you fly over Mondstadt chasing after Dvalin, and then he gets back to the ground and—

Oh? Who's this? Why do they make Kaeya's heart do the badump badump?

Swoons at your voice like holy shit

Was very happy you were a free character, but got very pissed that it meant you were not in any other banner, was so rare to get, and disliked being used by others in domain

Ok so what if Y/n is a free character? They deal 10k+ normal atk damage piss off >:/

Gives you the best build ever, for every type too

Pysical dmg dealer? 10k dmg. Cryo DPS? 20k DMG with a 60k crit.

When the Serenetea pot was released, he made an altar for you and put you in his bedroom :)

Insults your sibling

Why does your sibling remind him of Diluc?

Reads your lore, cries, disses on your sibling and Diluc, repeat

Doesn't matter who's in the team, he will find a way to add you in

Defends you so much on co-op like "just because they're a f2p 4 star character doesn't mean they're shittier than your 5 star whaled character >:/"

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Scaramouche | Baladeer

Honestly I don't know what possessed him to play the game when it was released

Boredom? Curiosity? Was he being held at gunpoint?

Either way, he just skimmed through the beggining, boredly reading dialogue until the very first event happened

Wasn't very interested at first, didn't like the astrologist and was a bit annoyed by — how was her name spelled again?

You showed up a bit after, standing over a guy on the ground

The character seemed a bit normal at first, polite (which kind if irked him) so he completely ignored them

Yada, yada, yada, they're talking about astrology and the meteors and—

"Hi!"

There you are again.

"Sounds interesting... Mind if I join you?"

The astrologist quickly took the screen once again, brining the traveller and the princess away in a ball of hydro

Oh? How interesting...

As soon as they were gone, your façade dropped, revealing to him your true intentions

Oh, he was intrigued

Then their introduction was revealed

Y/n, huh? The 6th Fatui Harbinger?

Then your agents showed up, one of them stepped a bit out of line, declaring how they would make haste of a mission unassigned to them and—

"...Are you deaf or just stupid?"

That hit straight onto Scaramouche's heart

After the event, Scara just kept waiting for another reveal, but months and months past and you were no where in sight

Until the 2.0 update, at least

Inazuma, your nation of origin

Maybe he'd get lore about you

Purely plays the game for you now, waiting and waiting

When you finally show up in the quest, he's weak in the knees

Calls you his favourite menace to society

Always wonders, are you shorter than him?

Legends has it he's still waiting for your banner till this day

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ Tartaglia | Childe

I'm not entirely sure when he'd start playing, but it's before your first banner

Played the game because he found out Scaramouche liked a characer in it and wanted to diss on that character

He was a bit too late for their first appearance, but that's fine

He'll keep playing either way

He finally reached Liyue, where he arrives and there's alot of people around this lady

Aaaand there's the Geo Archon, falling from the sky, presumably dead

His mission was to sneak away, so he did just that, very skillfully

Finally reaching a cutscene, he stretched his limbs and watched

"Hey buddy— hold still."

Huh? Who was that? A new character?

They jumped up from the back of the stairway, hydro blades casting a rainbow effect to the screen as it met sun rays

They fought off the guards and holy shit—

That was— You were—

He's speechless

Continues the quest, and when Paimon mentiones something about doting on you, he's all like "YES"

You're rich? Ok, he would spoil you rotten, doesn't matter

His heart skips a beat at your laugh because it's so adorable like—

When your banner came out, he may or may not have whaled haha

Gives you the best artifacts, triple crowns you, you're always his main DPS

Y/n profile, Y/n namecard, "Hey buddy— hold still" signature, you name it

Cries at your deathflags because he won't let his skrunkly, his scrimblo, his lil bufoon die

"Mihoyo Hoyoverse let me into the game, I'll protect them!"

You're a family person? He's a family person!

Adores your little sibling, reminds him so much of Teucer

"You have many siblings? I have many siblings! We both have so much in common we should just get married alrea—"

Calls you his favourite piece of shit

Or, his full nickname for you, "my favourite piece of shit haha /hj I love you what's your ring size—"

—PATCHWRK !

[thanksjro]

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

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

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

Haha, I doubt it.

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

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

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

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

For loving his child.

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

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

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

No. Not at all, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if women are property to be owned.

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

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which made me groan aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

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

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

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

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

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

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

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

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

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

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

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

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy doesn’t count.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For about 20 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We still have another hour of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

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

Repeatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

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

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

In tow.

In tow-

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

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

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

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

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

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

What a mess.

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

COMING SOON:

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

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

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

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

[mysticprofessoralienhumanoid]

A Daminette Penpal AU - Continuation

Continuation  of this post

@ab-unreachablevoice @startouchedqueen1318 @lovemidnighteclipse12 you asked, I deliver.

Now, I want all of you to know this AU was made in a spur of moment. I’m totally winging it rn.

So obviously before the akuma class goes to Gotham, the months of texting have to have passed.

For Damian, those months are hell, because not only does he have to hear Jon’s gushing about his awesome penpal, but he has to endure Lila’s lies and her stories that keep only getting more ridiculous as the time passes too.

And it better be fucking worth it, because you have no idea how close he’s to flying to Paris and finally putting his assassin’s skills into use.

I mean, look at this!

Lila: HI Damian!!!! ❤💖💕💋💞

Damian, cringing at his phone: Yes?

Lila: How r u????

Damian, who absolutely hates when someone types like that: Have been better

Lila: Would u like to maybe video chat???? I could tell u about my trip to Achu !!!!!

Damian, a little shit���: Did “u” know that using more than three (3) exclamation (!) and question (?) marks means “u” may have a personality disorder? Maybe that’d explain the amount of lies “u” like to spew so much.

(Oof-)

[Message read. This user is offline.]

I’m convinced that if Damian knew how to use gifs, he would 100% use a lot, and I mean a lot, of cat gifs (honestly, animal gifs in general).

Lila: Hi Dami!!!! (She doesn’t learn, okay.)

Damian: I hope you can understand the message.

She can.

Lila: Hi dami. Can I call u Dami???

Damian: No.

Lila: I had so much fun this weekend Dami!!!! I went to Brazil Turns out Chris Pratt is filming a new movie there. Anyway, he recognized me and we started  talking. His so much fun!!!!!! 🥰🤩😍😍🎉🎉

Damian: Fascinating. Please do not  tell  me more.

Damian: And it’s “he’s”, not “his”.

Heh.

Lila: Hiii Damiii

Damian: I literally hate you so much-

[Message not sent]

Lila: Dami????

Lila: ....

Lila: Um, Damian? U there????

[Message not read]

You have no idea how, much fun making these is-

Oh, and imagine, just imagine, if Lila told him about situation in Paris.

Lila: Sorry for texting you so late, damiboo. Got caught up in an akuma attack.

Damian, who by now is replying just to humor her (plus his father forced him): A what?

And then Lila starts explaining the situation in Paris. Of course, she adds a few stories about how she was akumas’ target or how she helped Chat Noir (weirdly she doesn’t talk much about Ladybug). It’s that one of really rare times she’s not lying (well, not that much). And how Damian reacts to it?

Damian, Done with Lies™: Do you ever stop lying? Because this, all of this, is absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

Cue Lila wishing she didn’t bullshit as much as she did Damian was just a little more gullible

Anyway.

I don’t know if you remember, but in the first part I said Damian ditched Lila for Marinette (but let’s be honest, wouldn’t we all?).

To clear things up, I kinda wanted the GA students to accompany their penpals throughout their time at school. It’d be nice, right?

So the scene is:

The principal has just announced that GA students have to keep company their penpals while they’re at the GA establishment. Lila’s feeling victorious, this is her chance to get her claws in Damian and his money- I mean, to get to know her lovely penpal. Yeah...

Lila, walking up to Damian, while trying to appear sexy and shy at the same time, and failing at both: So, shall we?

Damian, ostentatiously glancing at her before going to Marinette: Bye

Now, to spice things up, I decided imma get them caught up in a rouge attack/attacked by a rouge.

So somewhere a week in their stay, akuma class is held hostage by one of the Gotham’s criminals.

Because this is Gotham, y’all. You can’t be in Gotham and NOT get attacked some way or another. It’s impossible.

[Choose your villain. I have badass Marinette though, so we all know the winner here]

The moment it starts, Damian slips away and changes into Robin.

Meanwhile:

The class is screaming and panicking.

Lila is probably in the middle of a panic attack.

Marinette’s assessing the situation before striking.

The moment Robin arrives, he gets to witness Marinette, the sweet cinnamon roll Marinette, kicking ass and taking names. Adorable. He thinks he’s in love (and he so is).

Bats come. And they’re met with the dude dealt with and trembling in fear of a petite girl with pigtails, who’s standing next to him and a lovestruck Robin staring at said girl.

A sight to behold, truly.

Also, what if Damian accidentally texts Lila instead of Marinette after the attack? And Lila is so happy, because she thinks her plan’s finally working. But ohoho, does Damian have surprise for her.

Damian: Are you sure you’re okay? The attack was really dangerous, You’re sure you’re fine?

Lila, thinking ‘yes, fucking finally. Almost thought you have no feelings’ : Oh, it was so scary !!!!!! 😱😰😨😨😨 [just hella lot of emojis. She seems like that kind to me] I was absolutely terrified!!!! I’m just glad that it’s all over. After the attack Robin came up to check up on me. He even flirted with me, i think he likes me... Too bad I already like someone else 😘😘😘😘😘😘

Lila: But don’t worry, dami!!!! I’m a little shaken up, but overall okay.  But if you want to we can facetime so you can make sure I’m not injured ;*

Damian, having to physically restrain himself fro throwing his phone against the wall: ...

Damian: Fuck.

Damian: Wrong number.

Lila: ಠ_ಠ

---------

And of course I’m involving Twitter. Who do you think I am?

At first it was one of of his siblings who posted a post about how he’s seething at his phone, probably his penpal texted him something again.

But do you seriously thing Damian would pass such an amazing opportunity?

Haha.

No.

He immediately posts his follow up and it goes downhill from here. He adds shit ton of tweets about her, making Lila famous (and she doesn’t even know she is).

People don’t know whom to pity more; Damian, for having a horrible and lying penpal, or said penpal, for having an enemy in the Ice Prince of Gotham?

The hashtags #IcePrince’sPenpal #PenpalNightmare #MenaceOfAPenpal are created and are trending every day.

Many say it’s the most active he’s ever been.

---------

Lila is not stupid in this, okay? A pathological liar and a manipulator, yes, but for that you need brain and she has one. Much to Damian’s surprise. And yeah, sometimes she lets her imagination get the best of her, but she’s cautious enough and has proof to often back her up. 

She knows she screwed up. Her penpal doesn’t believe her and isn’t scared to call her out.

Due to him bluntly uncovering her lies, some of the classmates see through the blinds she’d put on their eyes and get suspicious of her.

If you have mercy on them, make them come to Marinette and apologize.

...

Yeah, I’m not doing that.

The class sticks to Lila’s version of every story and they don’t believe Damian is THE Damian Wayne, even when a fricking limousine drives up to the school and a butler comes out of it.

---------

Random notes and ideas that don’t really have any sense or anything tbh, but I had them so there you go

About the attack, obviously the school has to inform the parents, right? But, if you're salty enough, you can, oh i don't know, make bustier and/or Damocles not inform them thus creating even more problems for them in the near future. (Yes, i hate bustier and damocles with passion, they’re enablers and Damocles is a gold digger tbh)

*

One day the french class is at a random restaurant (I’m honestly tempted to put them in Red Robin just for my own entertainment) when the Wayne brothers come in. They recognize them and Lila sees the opportunity, so she goes up to them.

Lila: Hiii Damiii!!!! [Yes, I know this is a real life conversation]

Damian, just done with her: Ugh, not you again.

Tim just kinda glances at her and decides she’s not worth his time.

Jason: What the fuck do you have on your head?

Dick: Oh, Damian, is this your crush or the penpal you despise so much?

Damian: The latter. And i do not have a crush

Lila, who totally stopped listening after she heard “crush”: That’s me!!!!

[Silence]

Damian: Marinette’s over there. Let’s go.

Lila:  ;_;

Yeah, it sucks to be Lila.

[I thought I posted this a month ago. I didn’t. What the hell]

[gralunaisland]

For the anime ask: 7, 37 and 39 (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)

My dear frend always has my back （人´∀`*）

Anime Questions

7) Have you ever watched an anime in one sitting?

Tbh I don’t have the greatest memory, but one I’m pretty sure I binged all at once was Cells at Work, a kind of educational anime that’s on Netflix about a red blood cell doing her part in a human body. :D Its season 1 only has 13 episodes, and I was hooked! Stayed up all night finishing it.

Honestly, it’s kind of a dumb thing, but I tried watching it with subs as I usually do with anime, but I just couldn’t get into it so I stopped before finishing the first episode. Then a while later, I saw my brother watching in dub it as he exercised, and lo and behold the main actress is none other than Cherami Leigh, otherwise known as the English dub voice of Lucy Heartfilia!! Her voice is so nostalgic for me so I then watched it and loved it. Maybe that’s a stupid reason for watching it but oh well TvT. (Oke that wasn’t even a part of the question sorree)

37) Name a popular anime you love

Kimetsu no Yaiba (aka Demon Slayer ofc)!!!

Oh my gosh I love it so much. I didn’t watch it until late last year though. When it first came out and everyone was talking about it, I just thought it was being overhyped and was turned away by the obsession. Now that I’ve watched it though, I totally understand the obsession.

The reason I finally decided to watch it was because I saw a TikTok where cosplayers of Zenitsu and Nezuko and some others were being really goofy, with Zenitsu flinging himself at her or chasing her down and whatever. Before, I’d thought it was just a really serious anime, and I’m not too big into those. I like action and suspense and tragedy a lot, but I didn’t want dreary. But with that TikTok I realized it actually might have lots of humor! And I loooove humor.

I seem to have really terrible reasons for watching animes, but I’m just glad they motivated me to watch them somehow haha

39) Is there an anime you wish was more popular?

I’m not really sure there is. Popularity of things really doesn’t determine something’s value for me, and I find some really popular things overrated and overblown quite a bit. That’s not what the question is asking ofc, I guess this sentiment kind of helps to answer it.

I guess the things to gain from an anime being more popular is to be able to talk about it with friends more or see more fanart, but I find the animes I watch have a sufficient fanbase.

A manga I’d wish to be more popular so I can gush about and see more fanart is Eyeshield 21 though, and it’s also an anime though I haven’t seen it. :D

Thank you for the ask ヾ(＾∇＾) /

[t0wnspersonb]

Just wanted to let you know your writing is AMAZING. dunno if you take requests or not but if you do I'd love one of protective kuroo, kind of like the akaashi fic you did! I know you just did a kuroo one (which was also amazing, I loved it) but I'm a kuroo girl so i can't get enough haha

Thank you so much for the kind words! I am taking requests on top of the other stuff I’m writing:) everyone is low key a Kuroo girl and if someone disagrees with that they can fight me lmao just kidding! But here you go! I hope you enjoy the story:)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You hummed softly to yourself as you watched your legs swing back and forth, the bench you were sitting on kept your feet off the ground.

 You looked around and sighed softly, Kuroo was running late. 

 It had been a long time since you guys had gone on a date, he was busy preparing for the Spring Tournament, and you were busy with your extra college prep courses.

 So when he had suggested going to the amusement park that recently opened up, you definitely couldn’t refuse. 

 You were waiting in front of the entrance for Kuroo to arrive, considering he was the one who had bought the tickets.

 “Y/n!” you heard the familiar voice of your boyfriend call out. You looked up to see him waving an arm in the air, smiling at you. Behind him you saw Kenma grumbling to himself as he stuffed his hands further into the hoodie he was wearing.

 Your lips twitched in amusement. That was probably why he was late.

 “Hi Kenma!” you said brightly once they reached you, wrapping the second year in a tight hug.

 “Hi Y/n.” he mumbled quietly, softly returning the hug. 

 “Oi! Why does Kenma get a hug before your boyfriend?” Kuroo grumbled, an annoyed expression taking over his features.

 “Because Kenma wasn’t the one who was late.” you retorted, sticking out your tongue. 

 He huffed angrily and reached a hand out to grab you away from the setter, only for you to slap his hand away, continuing to cling to the pudding haired male.

 “Damn you Kenma!” 

 “Be quiet Kuroo.” Kenma sighed. “I didn’t even want to go. You dragged me out of the house.”

 “That’s because if I didn’t you’d be stuck inside all day playing video games. It’s good to have fun once in a while.” Kuroo stated simply, finally pulling you away from his teammate and into his arms.

 “Playing video games is fun Kuroo.” Kenma shot back, taking out his phone. “Besides, isn’t this supposed to be a date? Why would you have me tag along? You and Y/n haven’t spent much time together recently.” he glanced up looking between the two of you.

 You had forgotten about your annoyance towards Kuroo for being late now that you were wrapped up in his arms. Right now you were incredibly content as you leaned against his tall form.

 “It’ll be fun Kenma! I haven’t seen you much either. Let’s go enjoy the park together!” You said happily.

 You had known the two boys since you were in middle school, and quite frankly once you had started dating Kuroo you kind of expected Kenma to be there half the time. They were a package deal, and you honestly didn’t mind, sometimes preferring the quiet second year’s presence more than your boyfriend’s.

 Kenma sighed in defeat and trailed after you guys as you made the way to the counter to hand in your tickets.

 Once you guys were actually inside the park Kenma seemed to have perked up just a bit.

 You talked animatedly towards Kuroo about what you wanted to do for the day. Your hands intertwined together as you spoke.

 You hadn’t noticed the soft gaze that came over the tall third year. Kuroo couldn’t help but to stare at you. It had definitely been too long since the last time you guys got to be together. He missed you terribly. He missed the ridiculous facial expressions that came over your face when you were talking, he missed the way you pouted whenever he teased you, he missed the way you would play with your long hair whenever you were nervous. 

 Fuck, he just missed you entirely. He felt guilty about how busy he was with the volleyball club, feeling like he was being a terrible boyfriend for neglecting you for so long.

 But you understood completely, you knew how important volleyball was to him and you just wanted to be able to give him unconditional love and support. 

 Plus, those extra courses were brutal. While you loved spending time with Kuroo, you also knew how incredibly distracting he was during homework. So you were grateful for the time apart to get everything done.

 “Do you guys want food?” Kuroo asked, staring at the food stalls. You guys had finished riding the thrill rides, and playing most of the game stalls at the park. 

 You were having a wonderful time, and there were those rare moments where you saw Kenma smiling to himself, he had the most fun playing the stall games, and he was actually pretty good at it. He had won the majority of the prices that were now in your grasp. Much to Kuroo’s distaste. 

 But Kuroo had won you a black cat plushy. Despite the frustration he felt at only being able to win you the small stuffed animal, the look on your face was worth it. 

 He had never seen anything more beautiful; the way your eyes lit up and the wide smile that stretched across your face. It was definitely worth it. Especially when you declared that the cat’s name was going to be Tetsu. 

 While Kuroo went off to go get food, you and Kenma found a place to sit. “You’re really good at those shooting games Kenma.” You stated, sitting across from the quiet male.

 He looked up at you from his phone and smiled slightly. “It’s not that hard, it’s just like some of the video games I play.”

 “I suck at video games.” you sighed, frowning slightly. “Tetsuro always makes fun of me because of it.”

 “I know.”

 “Don’t be mean.” you pouted. Kenma laughed slightly at your expression before closing his phone and standing up. 

“I’m going to the restroom real quick, are you going to be okay by yourself?” Kenma asked.

 You waved him off as you settled down into your seat. You would be fine, this was an amusement park afterall. Nothing bad ever happened at these kinds of places right?

 You were wrong.

 You were definitely wrong about that statement. 

 It had only been a couple of minutes of being alone before an arm draped over your shoulders. 

 You stiffened and looked to see a guy around your age sitting next to you. His friend sitting  across from you.

 “What’s a cute girl like you sitting all alone for? Did your boyfriend leave you?” he teased. 

 You frowned, shifting your body away from the male. “No. He went to go get us food.” 

 “Where? I don’t see him.” his friend said looking around halfheartedly. “Why don’t you come hang out with us?”

 You glanced around to see that people weren’t paying attention to the uncomfortable situation you were in. 

 And Kuroo and Kenma were still gone…

 “No thanks. I suggest you leave before my boyfriend gets here.” you said dryly, crossing your arms over your chest. A hard expression covering your face.

 “Oh come on, don’t be like that.” the one that was sitting next to you cooed, shifting closer to you and grabbing your chin. “We can show you a real good time…”

 You flinched away from his touch, fear and annoyance overtaking your body. 

 While you didn’t tolerate being talked to this way, it was still incredibly scary considering that you were outmatched right now.

You ignored the feeling of dread sinking deep within your stomach and was about to start telling off the two males when a tray full of food was slammed down in front of you, causing you to jump in fright.

 “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my girlfriend?” 

 You had never seen Kuroo so pissed before. His cat-like eyes were piercing as they glared down at the unwelcomed males. His expression was dark and angry. 

 It was a frightening image to behold.

 Behind the angry and towering male was Kenma. His eyes watching the two males with a calculating expression before flickering over to you, walking from around Kuroo he stood next to you, carefully pressing his hand against your elbow and tugging you gently away from the table. 

 Kuroo’s eyes briefly moved to yours checking to make sure you were okay and not hurt before moving back to the males that were beginning to look frightened.

 Kuroo’s confrontation finally brought other eyes to your area, the people around you looking on which made the harassers even more nervous.

 “Do you two losers usually go around touching girls that don’t want to be touched?” Kuroo asked coldly, this caused an eruption of whispers to take place around you guys, older adults getting ready to step into the situation.

 “How about I show you guys a good time…” he said darkly, cracking the knuckles of his right hand.

 You have never seen boys run away as fast as they just did. 

 You released the breath you had apparently been holding during that encounter. You watched Kuroo’s expression go from dark and cold to loving and worried as he turned his attention to you.

 “You okay doll?” he asked gently cupping your face. 

 You nodded softly. “Y-Yeah. Let’s eat. I don’t want this to ruin our day.” you smiled slightly.

Kuroo stared at you for a moment before nodding slowly. He shared a pointed look with Kenma but didn’t press the matter further.

 You were definitely not okay.

 **********

 All too soon the day had ended. You and Kuroo found yourselves outside of your house.

 “Do you want to come in? My parents won’t be home until later tonight.” you said quietly.

 “Oya? Are you trying to seduce me Y/n-chan?” Kuroo smirked leaning down towards you.

 You flushed brightly, slapping his chest. “Shut up Tetsuro. Do you want to come in or not?”

 He laughed loudly at your embarrassed face. “Fine. Fine.”

 You rolled your eyes as you guys stepped into your house. It wasn’t the first time Kuroo had been to your home, he immediately made himself comfortable as he went upstairs to your bedroom.

 “I feel gross. Will you be fine out here if I go shower?” you asked, setting down the prizes you had gotten at the park.

 Kuroo dismissed you as he picked up one of your comics you had laying around, making himself comfortable on top of your bed. You rolled your eyes as you left to the bathroom after grabbing a change of clothes.

 Kuroo felt his phone buzz in his pocket. 

 Don’t leave Y/n alone tonight. She definitely wasn’t okay after what had happened. Kenma texted.

 Kuroo frowned and glanced towards the closed bedroom door, he knew that you weren’t okay. If he was being honest, the rest of the day he was waiting for you to break down crying.

 Kuroo knew that you were a strong person, that was one of the many things he loved about you. But a situation like that, would leave anyone frightened. He noticed that too, the way you would jump slightly at his sudden touch, and the way that you would glance around worriedly.

 Of course he wasn’t going to leave you alone tonight. Before that had happened he had planned on coming over anyway, he wanted to spend as much time with you as possible, and considering that tomorrow was the weekend, he thought it was the perfect time. 

 Kuroo didn’t notice you walk in until you plopped yourself on the bed, drying your damp hair.

 He smirked slightly as he took in your clothes, your soft legs were exposed due to the shorts you opted to wear to bed, and his familiar volleyball shirt hung down your body.

 “Did you steal that?” he teased, setting down the comic book. “I was wondering where that shirt went.”

 “Nooo…” you said, averting your eyes. “You left it here.”

 “Lying doesn’t suit your sweet face doll,” Kuroo drawled out, sitting up from the many pillows on your bed and clasping warm fingers around your wrist. “Who knew that my girlfriend was a thief.” he smirked and yanked you into his lap.

 You fell into him with a loud ‘oomph,’ your face squishing against his hard chest, and then you melted against him.

 Sighing softly to yourself, you shifted against him comfortably, straddling his hips as you wrapped your arms around his muscular shoulders, your head laying against his chest.

 Kuroo’s hands rested on your upper thighs carefully, thumbs rubbing gentle circles into the skin.

 You both were quiet for a moment, just appreciating the comfort and warmth of being in each other’s arms.

 “You know, you don’t have to act tough around me right?” he said suddenly. “I know what happened earlier freaked you out.”

You stiffened and relaxed against his chest. Kuroo just knew you too well.

 “Yeah.” you said quietly. “I just didn’t want you to worry… and I didn’t want to ruin the day…”

 You remembered the way that guy had touched you so casually, and despite the shower you had taken, and the way you had all but scrubbed your skin raw, you still felt gross.

 Kuroo sighed, pushing you back slightly so he could stare at your face. “I already know that you’re a crybaby. Kenma does too. You’re forgetting that we’ve known each other since we were kids.” he said bluntly.

 You huffed angrily at his statement and whacked his chest with your palm, causing a wide smirk to appear on his face. “I’m not a crybaby!”

 “If you’re not feeling okay, it’s okay to tell us,” he finished, ignoring you completely. “It’s okay to tell me, because I’m always going to take care of you. Yeah?”

 The sincerity in his voice and the gentle expression on his handsome face caused you to blush. Your eyes moved away from his and settled on staring at his chin as you tried to get your racing heart under control.

 Your fingers played with his hair at the nape of his neck. The way you felt about Kuroo was indescribable, the admiration and adoration you had for the third year volleyball captain was too much. It felt like your heart was about to explode from how much you just loved him.

 “Thank you Tetsuro.” You said finally meeting his gaze. “I love you a lot.” you confessed.

 He smiled gently at you, pressing a warm kiss to your forehead. “I love you too.”

 It was quiet for a moment as you rested your head against his shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent.

 “If you want to thank me properly, you should take off your shirt. Well actually it’s my shirt.”

 ....

 “Shut up Tetsuro or I’ll tell Kenma."

[thestrangeprophet-blog]

The Muse and the Soldier

The Muse and the Soldier

·       f/reader x Levi Ackerman  

·       No NSFW

·       HC storyline

·       I do not own the rights to any of the characters

·       PLS support the actual Attack on Titan anime

 You open your eyes and take pleasure in the feel of the morning breeze coming from the window. Breathing in the air which carried the aroma of those special blue flowers potted downstairs in front of your tea shop. Seems you have left all your pencils across the desk and the drawings plastered to the walls from the night before had fallen again. You pick up the drawings and admire the one yet to be finished. It is of a regular customer you normally see when they come back from a scouting mission. Piercing grey eyes in contrast to his fancy dark undercut. Levi Ackerman. You always wonder how he has the time and will to keep up with his hair. After laying his portrait neatly on your desk, you ready yourself for another day brewing the finest tea you can in hopes of seeing Levi for another bout of his favorite tea.

The Captain and Commander Erwin were frequent visitors to your tea shop because Levi had always recommended it. For one reason or another, the tea you brewed satisfied him beyond what he would brew himself with what he had. Erwin had thought the same as well and it brought you enjoy your tea could be held to such standards. As a fellow tea lover, the subject of tea was never a boring conversation with Levi, no matter how short or blunt it was with him. Sure, most people see it as something more along the lines of hot leaf juice. It’s more than that and Levi understood it though it went unspoken.

Captain Levi came alone today and took his usual seat. It was rather unusual but you carry on and bring his favorite. The teapot whistles and steams like Titan smoke with the lingering scent of black tea that trails through the wind. As you set his cup in front of him and pour his tea, you notice he seems lost further in thought than normal. You finish pouring his tea and hesitantly ask if there is anything else you can do for him. He takes a second to come back to this moment and raises his head ever so slightly. His hair still covering those captivating grey eyes. Releasing an exhausted breath, he asks of one thing of you.

Levi: I- If it’s no trouble to you… will you sit with me Y/N? Even just for a moment?

Y/N: That’s a bit of an odd request, Captain. I’m surprised you even remembered my name. But sure! Anything for my best customer.

Levi: You don’t have to address me as Captain. J-just Levi will do… and thank you.

You sit in the chair across from Levi where Erwin is normally seated discussing the next expedition and plans you have for Eren and the cadets of the 104th Cadet Corps. As of in this moment, this is simply two human beings sitting together enjoying tea. Just sounds of the breeze against your ears and the softened sips coming from across the table at the lips of the man before you. Levi’s cheeks are flushed with a gorgeous rosy blush. It seems he wants to start a conversation but has no idea where to start. Its adorable how a man with a reputation for being such stone cold badass could be flustered over tea. You strike a smile in his direction and find your own way to start a conversation he could initiate. Call it encouragement if you will. The sketchpad and pencil you keep handy finally get put to use. The pencil scratching against the paper caught Levi’s attention though he kept to his tea. He watched as he appeared on the paper before him in awe.

           Levi: Hey Y/N, is that supposed to be me?

Y/N: Oh, uh yeah haha! I figured you weren’t much in the mood to talk so I didn’t want to bother you while you were enjoying your tea.

Levi: You are a woman of many talents I see.

Y/N: I wouldn’t say that much.

Levi: N-nonsense. I come here to enjoy the tea you brew perfectly and the singing you think I can’t hear. Didn’t know you were so skilled with a pencil as well.

Y/N: I usually never have the time to draw during the day Levi.

Levi: Can I request something? I’ll pay for it.

Y/N: No need to pay me. What can I do for you?

Levi: I need you to draw someone for me. I don’t really know them too well, but they have a face I could never forget.

Y/N: Oh I wonder who this special person is! Could you describe them for me?

Levi: Well, they’re around the same height as me maybe a bit taller. They have long black curly hair that glistened as though it was a fire at sunset. Brown eyes like fresh honey in the morning and glistened with a hopeful shine I envy. They wear some rather dark clothing year round even when its hot outside. Their nose is slightly hooked and cheeks soft and red. Their lips glistened and they look soft to the touch. And even though they don’t think it looks very nice, they have a scar across their left eyebrow. I’m not exactly sure how they got, but they always try to cover it behind their hair yet it still finds a way to see the light. Their jawline is soft and looks like it could rest perfectly in the cups of your hands.

Y/N: Wow Levi, I didn’t realize you had a way with words.

As the form you forge is refined from guidelines to distinctive features, the person he is describing truly is a sight to behold. You may not have the colors to use but you understand the value of what those colors are which are just as powerful. Levi sits across from you amazed at your skill for a second time until you’ve finished your work. You hand him the final sketch and you already know he just asked you to draw yourself but play it off. He takes the drawing into his hand and holds it up so you and the drawing are in view with each other.

Levi: As beautiful on paper as you are in person. Tsk, your hands are even a work of art on their own.

Y/N: If I may say I’m rather flattered you’d ask me to draw myself just for you but you aren’t very good at making your flirtations subtle. Unless you weren’t trying to be subtle in the first place.

Levi: Oi its not my fault you decided to pull a journal out of nowhere while we’re drinking tea together!

Y/N: You are one hundred percent correct Levi. Really for a man who exudes such confidence, I’ve never seen you even stutter let alone get flustered over tea. Its cute.

Levi blushes even more and looks away trying to play it off. He already knows you’ve got at least one finger wrapped around him. No one really talks to him like that besides this Hange person he mentions. They sound like an interesting character from the way he describes them. You would love to meet them one day when they aren’t experimenting on Titans. For now, your gaze remains fixed on Levi’s profile as he tries to regain his composure. You would not have assumed he was even interested in such trivial things other than being a clean freak.

You are aware of Levi’s reputation but just getting to sit with him in such an intimate setting gives you a next level view of him. The clean undercut and soft flowing hair was just asking to have someone’s fingers run through it and embrace the feeling of each strand even if it meant making his hair just a little messy. Each group of strands followed the path of the wind as leaves blew from the vines. His jawline was as sharp as the blades he carried to cut down titans like butter. His hands, though they bore the weight his fallen comrades and the destined purpose to eliminate and survive, seemed delicate under the rough calluses of combat. But his eyes. Those damn grey eyes. They pierced right through me whenever you got the chance to see them yourself. All of the things they saw, and the feelings kept behind them like a locked door. There is so much pain rage behind those you wonder when the last time Levi got to see something outside the realm of horror outside and within the walls.

           Y/N: Levi?

           Levi: Yeah Y/N?

Y/N: When was the last time you’ve ever had a chance to relax and just lay low for awhile?

Levi: Can’t say. I don’t think I’ve given myself a damn break but I can’t afford to. I don’t exactly have anything else to do.

Y/N: Hmmm. Let’s change that. Make sure you make yourself available tomorrow at sundown. Come back to the shop and dress casual. I know somewhere we can go. I’ll even grab an extra book so you can out those hands to work other than killing Titans and jotting down whatever it is you do write for your paperwork.

Levi: B-but I c-can’t just abandon my po-

Y/N: Shush. In case you haven’t noticed you don’t have any missions scheduled for at least another week. Plus business around here is slow. We could both use a little time for ourselves. Even if its just a moment.

Levi: *blushing even more* uh- ok. I guess it wouldn’t hurt. You didn’t have to act like such a brat about it.

Y/N: If you weren’t Levi I would throw this lukewarm teapot of tea all over you

Levi: *Smiling ever so slightly* hmp I uh… I guess I could see you doing something like that. Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow to pick you up. I’m curious as to where this place is anyway.

Y/N: Alrighty then it’s a date! No ifs ands or buts. You got that Levi?

Levi: Loud and clear.

You’re leaning over the table to make sure Levi knows where he needs to be. You’re close enough to him you can smell the scent of the tea you made him mixed with just the scent of him. You’d kiss him right then and there if you really wanted to. Looks like he had the same idea but you pull away because you weren’t in that much of a rush. His lips were parted as they awaited your lips to meet his. It was thrilling seeing him even a little desperate for you but making him wait was even better. As much as Levi felt he couldn’t abandon his post, he couldn’t say no to you. He’d been working up the courage to talk to you for as long as he has been coming to your shop. Though he wasn’t the one to ask, Levi appreciated that you were the one to take the lead in making plans to accompany each other on a date. You’d been waiting for the opportunity to even be in this position. Now that it’s here, you make plans to make the date an enjoyable one that Levi would also like. Good first impressions are still pretty important. Especially if you want to make a good impression for Levi.

           Levi: Tsk, its almost sundown. Id better get back to the brats at HQ.

You grab his hands and ask him to wait just a little while longer.

Y/N:  Well if you’re going to be leaving, at least let me give you some extra tea and a meal to take back with you. It’s the least I can do for agreeing to going on a date with me on such short notice.

Levi: Tsk make it quick please.

Y/N: Don’t rush me. I’m being nice to you. I usually don’t just give out free tea and meals to anyone you know.

Levi: I’m sorry. Thank you. I- I uh really appreciate your generosity.

You hand Levi the tea and meal you made just for him. You touch hands for a moment and get goosebumps for the first time in a long time. You blush just enough that Levi notices as well and gives a small smirk. You exchange that smirk with one of your own.

           Levi: Thank you again Y/N. I guess I’ll see you soon.

           Y/N: You guess?

           Levi: I will see you soon.

Y/N: Much better. And by the way, you have a very charming smile. I wish I could see it more often. It suits you almost as much as that cold gaze you’ve always got equipped.

Levi: I never really gave it much thought what that looked like. I’ll pick you tomorrow. I promise.

Y/N: You’d better if you know what’s good for ya hahaha! I’ll see you tomorrow, Captain.

END

Comment if you’d like a Pt. 2!

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[0ryza13]

Can I just. Take a second here? To appreciate, for the entire internet to see, this quality development.

(To preface: I am not saying that the quality of the actual show was bad at first, I am purely speaking about the animation here.)

Season 2 (same quality as season 1, and I found this first)

It's kinda clunky, and you can really tell that they're just playing HALO and moving the controls a lil so you can tell who's talking when.

Then there's season 5.

They're doing the same thing, but the quality is higher. The HUDs of the helmets reflect light, just little things like that. There might be a bit here and there where they actually freeform animate some of it instead of just "playing HALO and moving the characters heads".

Moving on to season 9, the Freelancer stuff. They had to get creative with this season, since the usual method was Not going to work for the badass Project Freelancer fights.

You can really see the jump in quality starting to happen here. But to get the extra motion and details on things like natural movement throughout and people occasionally taking off their helmets and actually having faces underneath with expressions and stuff, they had to cut back on fine details on the armor and backgrounds and the like. It's a massive quality jump, but there's still some improvements that could be made.

Next: season... uh I think 10? Yeah.

It's really loosening up here, there's fight choreography, there's things happening simultaneously and in the background, the camera moves around for dynamic perspective, it's pretty quality. But they managed to keep armor detail and stuff too! This came at the cost of all natural movement all the time and people's faces showing (conclusion of that arc notwithstanding).

Next up, season 12 (this is when I got caught up with the show the first time, and thus I stopped shortly after and I'm just recently getting back into it, as you do).

(First of all: eat shit, Felix, haha!)

(Second of all:) This looks. So. Natural. (Aside from the framerate of the gif itself. Sorry bout that.) Look at it. It's great. Obviously there's still tiny details you could nitpick, but overall? Holy hell. But no helmets come off at all ever. There's an in-universe explanation for that, but yeah. Think that went towards having a larger cast and Hella Plot. And the s13 finale animations. Anyway.

And then jumping from that to the most recent stuff (bc i haven't actually seen the stuff in between and don't want to spoil myself, but I ran across the intro to the new stuff on YT and that's what got me back into this): Behold, Red Vs Blue Zero. Apparently gifs of this don't exist yet, so have a still frame.

The HD. The detail. The colors. The natural poses. The movement is just as natural, throughout the entire episodes from what I've seen, rather than alternating between higher quality and the (previously) usual "we're playing HALO and bobbing our character's heads so you know who's talking" method used for most scenes.

Apparently the quality for the intervening seasons 14-17 that I haven't seen slowly but steadily tick up into what you see in Zero.

I just keep getting stuck on this every time I think about RvB lately. It's just so incredible to me. Hope sitting through my post was either enjoyable or not horribly annoying.

[silhouettica]

Disclaimer: image shown above is not mine; source is linked to the image.

____________

It’s been a long time since I’ve written an anime review, but this one is too well-deserved to pass up.

I tend to have a love-hate relationship with the sports-shounen genre in the manga industry. On one hand, good quality stories have great characters, undeniably well-drawn images, and okay storylines... but--- technique-wise, there was just too much suspension-of-disbelief required to go on reading.

Take for instance, Kuroko no Basuke and the legendary Phantom Sixth Man who is capable of magically disappearing in court; or, there’s Prince of Tennis and the gravity-defying non-arc path that their tennis balls traverse -- OR do not traverse, as do those which avoid the Tezuka zone. Basically, most popular and long-running sports genre mangas have a tendency to go borderline fantasy in many elements, or otherwise tend to sport some rarely-seen-in-a-thousand-years genius to spice up the story, which is understandably unrealistic (after all, this is fiction we’re reading). But perhaps, after almost two decades of watching anime and reading manga, my personal preference is now leaning towards the comfort provided by the slice-of-life genre, and against typical expectations, there’s that lingering desire to taste the slice of life in a sports manga...

Enter: Haikyuu.

Haikyuu was already a famous anime when I heard that it revolved around volleyball. When I heard that, the first question that occurred to me was, How much plot can be formed around such a sport as volleyball? Don’t get me wrong -- I’ve only ever been involved in two fields of sports: one is track and field, and the other is volleyball, so I at least like the sport. But since we’re used to being exposed to mangas centering around basketball or some martial arts, a story revolving around volleyball was foreign territory. But it was already famous, and with fame comes expectations --- thus, for fear of suffering from failed expectations, I deferred, or more like skipped out on Haikyuu.

But, well, with FB Watch capable of being a demonic source of temptation, Haikyuu showed up in my Watch Feed, and poof! - I was hooked. Manga was finished in less than a few weeks, and episodes repeatedly watched on FB (still ongoing, haha). In my personal list of top mangas, it has far surpassed even One Piece. It’s that good.

What’s so attractive about Haikyuu is that above being refreshing character and plot-wise, it was also obviously painstakingly created with so much attention to detail, in terms of the technical aspects of volleyball. I mean, just watch the videos contrasting Haikyuu to real-life volleyball matches - there’s almost no difference to be seen. The accuracy is admirable. In this regard, suspension of disbelief is very minimized --- well, except for the repeated overtime in matches; but if they stuck to the usual 15 or 25pt matches, we wouldn’t have much screentime to make a viable story, now, would we? So it’s an understandable adjustment to accommodate for the sake of cultivating the story.

Beyond this, Haikyuu boasts of a roster of interesting and complex characters littered throughout the storyline. Honestly, I can’t hate any single one of them. Your heart would go out to every character in every team. It’s amazing how the mangaka depicted each character differently, with all their bias and flaws, besides their refreshingly non-OP strengths, all combined to portray each individual’s humanity. And gah, when they’re made to mix together - the rapport between and amongst such variety of personalities is just fascinating to behold. And then comes character development - whoosh. How one person’s evolution affects the quality of a team’s mixture is another feast to behold. So much respect for this mangaka for bringing to life such abundance of quality complex characters. Seriously. Shounen x Sports x Slice of life + epic ups and downs + epic ending arc (MOST SATISFYING ENDING TO SPORTS GENRE EVER).

This is plain epic.

At first glance, any reader/follower would be drawn to the main characters - there’s Kageyama, Hinata, Ushijima, Oikawa, etc., all those OP-level players (or at least potentially so, for Hinata). 

Well, Hinata is the main character, as the story is dominantly affected by his actions and skill development. Watching his character growth is a treat, in and of itself. Seriously. Hinata may be boke at times, but isn’t really stupid. He’s just less-skilled than others (understandably so, given his lack of experience), but he more than makes up for it with his bottomless enthusiasm. And that innocence... Kawaii~. His love for the game is just contagious. Freakin’ want to buy a volleyball just to start playing on my own.

Kageyama may be called a genius setter, but really, he’s far from being the complete package. And he’s one of the more complex characters that really steals your heart. Like Hinata, he just overflows with love for the game, but his innocence is of a different level. After being shown his blindspot, he tempers his snobbishness, and literally BEGS for help --- I mean, look how he bows to Tsukishima for help in acads, or towards his senior Oikawa, in order to improve in volleyball. He’s mostly snobbish only towards those who don’t do their best (besides being just plain socially awkward). But he’s a very good kouhai, and it’s especially touching how he and Hinata paved the way for Asahi’s attack against Date Tech. I appreciate that he’s not so OP-level that he didn’t need anyone to improve -- he was helped by their coach, he was helped by Oikawa, there’s his senpais guiding him somewhat, etc. He’s not the Echizen-type who can learn on his own. He has so many blindspots, but he listens and asks for help once he’s shown that they exist.

There are a wealth of other characters worth mentioning, but recently, when I think of relating to the characters, what I easiest to resonate with are Yamaguchi and Ennoshita. Tsukki is another runner-up, being one who’s overly phlegmatic, with a defeating inferiority complex, but with a taste for vengeance... Bokuto’s answer to his existential question on why they play volleyball was very insigtful --- you don’t enjoy volleyball probably because you suck in it. HAHAHA. Isn’t that true for all of us - how we superficially hate some things when actually it’s because we just aren’t good at them. But at the very least, Tsukishimi Kei has so many qualities that puts him above others, it’s hard to compare oneself to him. On the other hand, there’s Yamaguchi the one-trick pony and Ennoshita the returning quitter. Sometimes I think of quitting when the academic “training” gets tough, but coming to think of Yama, I’m reminded that this is my one sword. The only reason he enters the court is as a pinch server - apart from that, there’s nothing else. So if he gets cold feet and settles for an easy serve, he forfeits the right to enter the court. If he lets go of the jump float serve, he has nothing else. Similarly, there’s Ennoshita who actually quit the team, but returned because the comfort became uncomfortable... I dunno if I’m the only one who’se quit in at least one point of my life, and took an easy way out or through something, but Ennoshita’s lesson is true for all of us - we’d regret quitting. Quitting is a no-go.

Anyway, I can’t describe all the other characters, else, this would be too long. But it’s just so amazing how Haruichi Furudate was able to create so many complex characters, each with their own backstories (okay, unrealistically, no sob stories here since this isn’t a drama) and no antagonist to hate, but the story was was just so complete and wholesome. I mean, take the Nekoma team, for one - they’re supposed to be Karasuno’s biggest rival, but they’re the ones who gave them a fighting chance to improve. Sportsmanship really dwells high on this one. Bokutooo, that once-spoiled ace... Oikawa, that snobbish great king who only recognized Kageyama as his junior when talking to Ushijima... The side characters who made up each respective team’s coaching, managerial, and cheer squad... There’s just so many personalities to admire and be thankful to the author for.

Haikyuu is truly a story about volleyball --- it’s not a story about inter-high, it’s not a story about high school; rather it’s a story that explores the different aspects surrounding volleyball - from childhood, as between friends, to high school and inter-high competitions, to the coaches and managers and trainings behind the scenes, to (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!) in-house vs. beach volleyball, to a professional career and international competitions. It’s really volleyball in different seasons of lives of a variety of people.

One poignant fact is that for most people, playing sports would be limited to high school. After inter-high, teammates would separate and a new team will be formed, year after year. That’s why it’s so precious how (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!) the manga showed the fanatic-highchoolers-turned-professional players being watched by their previous volleyball teammates and competitiors --- something I’ve never seen in other sports mangas (which mostly had to do with players getting some injury, going to rehab and recuperating, and so). Previous teammates faced each other as competition, and previous rivals became comrades. It’s just. so. epic.

Anyway, thank you,  Haruichi Furudate-san. May the anime remain top-notch in quality. Viva Haikyuu!!

[carmenxjulia]

Showrunner Duane Capizzi did an informal Q&A session with some fans in a CS chatroom. There are several question askers, all marked by name. Get some insider knowledge on the show, after the break!

Duane Capizzi:

Just checking things out! Feel like I'm poking my head through a door at a party I'm crashing haha.

Fun to see everyone hanging out and talking all good things Carmen

Can't stay long - I should have taken the code name "Crimson Phantom"

Crimson Phantom - I like the sound of that (if it's not already taken haha)

Carmen:

It's an awesome nickname! Personally I'm more of a Scarlet Santa Rosa person myself- I love that little interaction with Jules and Carmen in the special

Duane Capizzi:

Scarlet Santa Rosa! Yes, that was really cute between them. Too cute in fact.

Coach Brunt had some names for her too if i recollect

Arden:

Lambkins

Wren:

Didn't Brunt also call her Monica Santa Monica once?

Mage:

Yeah in the Boston episode

Also Josie San Jose

Arden:

I personally prefer Fedora the Explora

Duane Capizzi:

Josie yes hahaha

I can't believe we got away with Fedora the Explorer! I thought that would be noted but I'm glad we did. So funny!

Carmen is amazing! She "owns" whatever she wears, doesn't she?

Carmen:

She definitely owns Carmen Brand Outerwear

Duane Capizzi:

I'll share another tidbit though (along the lines of Carmen being a love story where everyone is in love with Carmen).

It was important for obvious reasons that the show be (among other things) about female empowerment. And we wanted to celebrate fashion of course. But it was super important to me to not fall into the "male gaze" trap. That was something I imparted to the storyboard crew and directors. It's a fine line, I know, but I think we succeeded.

Arden:

You sure did. What I adore about Carmen Sandiego is how unsexualized all the characters were while still being inclusive to different body types and races

Duane Capizzi:

Well artists love to sneak things in! So it was a little rule I had

They were mostly great about it - in all the 32 episodes, I think I asked to change only two shots for that reason. Where I had to go "ahem"

"Outerwear" sounds so peculiar but I think that's what made it work. I kept changing it back and forth and sometimes I'm surprised to see/hear it in the show. For the longest time it was "Carmen Clothiers." Did I make the right decision? Sometimes you can rework things too much and lose sight - it happens!

The one shot that leaps to mind was Shadowsan carrying her fireman style at top of 202, as they were escaping through the tunnels. Her, um, fundamentals were just a little too front and center to not fall into the "male gaze" trap. Nothing awful! It was borderline. We just adjusted the angle a bit

Julia:

My favorite most definitely has to be her formal wear from the "need for speed caper"

Duane Capizzi:

I'd have to think about my favorite outfit or top five. All her evening gowns of course!

Maybe "witch." We couldn't make it red because it would not have been a very good disguise (plus, you know: "Scarlet Witch" haha).

But let's not underestimate her signature hat/coat - I continue to be enamored with how we updated her look from the old trench coat thing.

Arden:

Not me suddenly motivated to draw Carmen in a scarlet witch outfit

Duane Capizzi:

Then you have to draw Zack as Pietro!

(or Player? Only his fingers are speedy)

Arden:

Idea: what if player (or Shadowsan) was Pietro

Duane Capizzi:

Shadowsan IS Pietro. He's so quick you never see him move.

Wren:

Shadowsan's fight with Brunt where it went slowmo and he moved fast was so cool!

Duane Capizzi:

Hey, Shadowsan is quite the fashion plate too - am I right?

I love the outfits on the show. So good! So perfect! But, I'm not being very modest am I

I really love SS in the dark trench coat. So. Bad. Ass.

Carmen:

Any thoughts on the Fashionista memory thing?

Duane Capizzi:

Fashionista, sure! What do you want to know?

Carmen:

Give me a second-

Duane Capizzi:

Thank you for noting the aesthetics on the show! Much effort, passion and vision from all involved - Chromosphere, our directors, animators, composers, sound mixers - everyone gave it all they had, it was so inspiring for all involved.

Carmen:

Was there any significance to that specific memory- Carmen defending Julia in the Fashionista Caper- being chosen as the first memory she remembered when she went outside? Like, why that scene specifically over any others for example?

(referring to the finale)

Duane Capizzi:

Oh, that! To be honest, not from me: we were just trying to do the "swirl of confused memories" like we did with Gray earlier in the season. We wanted to show that the ACME device had jostled some old memories loose and that "the girl agent with glasses" was now taking root in Carmen's rush of memories/emotions

But that specific memory, not necessarily from my POV - it could have been any number of Julia moments, like their first meeting on the train (for instance)

The director Jos Humphrey must have picked it. It worked for me!

Carmen:

We all loved that it was that specific memory that was chosen out of all Julia and Carmen moments, the fact that she remembered defending her was an added emotional experience to the already emotional finale

Duane Capizzi:

Well let's talk about the original scene in 204! On the surface just a light fun episode, but so many things came together there: Shadowsan connecting with Player; SS getting his new clothes; but the key thing was switching Julia back from doing Chief's bidding back to Carmen's side. The episode was built around the moment that Carmen pulls Julia on stage with her (I'm not kidding). That was THE moment

Carmen:

We have MANY questions... we should probably set a limit

Duane Capizzi:

Ask away - I don't mind. Honestly, Carmen is my favorite topic! I've been living, breathing, dreaming Carmen for the last 5 years! I don't think there's much to say, I think it's all there on screen. But happy to talk about it because I love to

Cam:

I have a question, what about the color theory in Carmen Sandiego? What do you think certain colors mean as in, blue, yellow, green, and red.

we have our own ideas about the colors but it would be interesting to hear from your perspective

Duane Capizzi:

Color theory! Well chromosphere color scripts every episode (!). If those haven't been shared publicly yet remind me, maybe I can get permission to do so or have them do it. They are lovely to behold.

But basically Carmen = red (duh); Vile = green; Acme = blue. That's the simple version. We started talking about that early on.

color scripts = they do thumbnail art of key scenes to share mood/emotion

we tried to NOT use red for non-Carmen scenes; and scenes where she was significant the color red would be dominant or sometimes symbolically precede her (for instance).

If you google color scripts I'm sure you will see some come up. Try Pixar color scripts for instance. There's a great Art of Pixar book with their color scripts.

Arden:

Do you think Julia is blue or purple?

Duane Capizzi:

Haha, Jules definitely purple! Cute.

Mage:

You've just confirmed the whole color theory these guys have been working on for a while.

Duane Capizzi:

I was actually being funny - is she actually color scripted purple in the series? Wow, my mind might be blown

Garfield:

Now I have a question!

Julia has great admiration and respect for Carmen. Do you think Carmen has as much respect and admiration for Julia as Julia does for her?

Duane Capizzi:

I think Julia might just be a little infatuated with Carmen (even if she hasn't fully articulated how to herself - remember, the show may be sophisticated but it's still a kids show). But mostly Julia just knows/intuits/deduces Carmen's a good guy, pretty much from the beginning. I think the two have a connection that defies space and time in some ways - look at how much they work in tandem without being in the same scenes together much of the time. I love that!

As for Carmen, of course she respects Julia: she knows Julia "gets" her, and respects Julia's smarts and mutual love of history/respect for cultures.

I love how Chase is the ultimate buzzkill for whatever might be stirring in Julia as she's watching Carmen fly away in the Pilot. She's like, "whooaa ..." Then Chase falls onto the windshield. Hilarious!

Nina:

I was actually wondering if Carmen and Julia were meant to have opposing color schemes? With Julia's original outfit I mean

Duane Capizzi:

Oh, good question about Julia's original outfit: I'd have to think about that or ask Jos or Chromosphere. J's colors ARE sort of a drabber distant cousin to Carmen's, aren't they? I think mostly we just wanted "drab workaday" colors for Interpol, knowing that both of them would eventually be slicked up as ACME Agents.

Nova:

Devineaux is immune to injuries it is the only reason why he has lasted so long in ACME and Interpol

Duane Capizzi:

Devineaux, one of my favorite lines: "I did not know you two kept in touch."

Am I right?

SelinIndigo:

I have one question:

Will we ever know Carmen's given name? Also, if you don't mind when is her birthday in this reboot?

Duane Capizzi:

Carmen's given name: never say never! But for where our series ended, I thought it would just interfere. That's not how I wanted you to remember her. It would have just been a label and spoiled her mystique IMO

Player, however: we totally messed with you! "Mr. Bouchard."

Carmen's birthday?

Hmmm.

Maybe month and day but not year: would hate to date the show

I also don't like naming ages in shows because it just gets weird with timelines and such. Or can be.

Carmen:

I made a post about this a while back— how did Carmen end up getting Julia's apartment address? did she just text her for it or straight up ask? did she find out on her own in the least stalker-y way possible? I just have so many theories- do you have any thoughts on it?

Duane Capizzi:

The apartment in the IA special? Oh that whole story was like one big dream sequence ;)

Arden:

What does the wink mean? Does Julia even live in an apartment?

Nina:

Does that mean Carmen dreamt she gave Julia roses or-

Duane Capizzi:

We played things faster and looser for fun there

Okay, I just saw what time it is. Yikes! Time flies when you're having fun. Well THANK YOU EVERYONE (for loving the show, for building this site, for being you.