#this all takes place before Moon Knight no. 30 (RIP)

[age-of-moonknight]

“Case 005: ‘The Prodigal Son’” Avengers Inc. (Vol. 1/2023), #5.

Writer: Al Ewing; Penciler and Inker: Leonard Kirk; Colorist: Alex Sinclair; Letterer: Cory Petit

[2460nodone]

Trophies

Title: Trophies Category: Plays/Musicals » Les Misérables Author: AliceInSomewhereland Language: English, Rating: Rated: T Genre: Drama/Romance Published: 05-19-13, Updated: 05-19-13 Chapters: 1, Words: 3,671

Summary: They meet on their respective fields - his, baseball, and hers, soccer - and it changes everything. Enjonine modern AU for the Fic War on tumblr! Oneshot, rated T for language.

originally written for the e/e fic war and posted to ffnet. prompted with “soccer AU, baseball AU” by tumblr user samthenardier.

Chapter 1/1

He's not quite sure when he first noticed her.

Perhaps it was the weekend Courfeyrac hit the ball out of their diamond, and, as he played in the outfield, she reached him first to return it. He hardly paid her any mind, only nodding in thanks. She was clearly just as busy as he, covered in dirt and soaked with sweat, her shin guards smeared with grass stains.

Perhaps it was the weekend that it rained. Bahorel and Grantaire, playing on his team that weekend, were highly distracted when the women with whom she was playing declared their match to be shirts versus skins. She seemed to be the chief in insisting that it be the girls who played as skins, against the shirted boys.

The boys on his baseball team couldn't help but stare as the girls stripped, their shorts rolled low on their hips and clinging to their thighs in the rain, their tops bare, save for their soaked-through sports bras.

He noticed that she and her friends were frequently shooting glances in the direction of the baseball diamond, delighting and giggling when his teammates and opponents fawned over them.

Perhaps he noticed her the weekend that it was so hot they almost had to cancel – she, again, was shirtless, but this time her sports bra was soaked with sweat. They watched as she poured cold water over her face and head and shoulders – his teammates with hunger and desire, he with disinterest.

Perhaps it was the weekend he saw her running to their diamond, soccer ball under her arm and her hand entwined with another girl's, one with dusky skin and dark hair. They sat in the bleachers, watching and cheering and laughing. It was quite distracting. Afterwards, he watched as she made a beeline to Marius, just as Joly and Bossuet appeared to be racing to talk to her friend first.

He paid her little to no mind, though he did notice when she wasn't there sometimes, especially because his baseball team (and often their visiting competition) and the eternal pick-up soccer game that she participated in often went out for drinks together after their respective games were over. It seemed oddly quiet when she wasn't there, rare though that was, but it also irritated him when she was there, because she spent the whole damn time mooning over Marius and trying to get that freckled fool to pay attention to her.

He never bothered to interact with her; in fact, he didn't even know her name. Nor did he try to learn it. Whenever she came into his peripherals, he merely acknowledged her mentally as "Marius' Shadow."

However, everything changed when he was leaving the park one day, and came across her corned up against a tree, an older man who must have been her father screaming in her face as she cowed. When the man hit her across the face, he lost it.

He dropped his things, and suddenly he was next to her, then in between her and the man, then shoving the man away and shouting things that he didn't remember later. They tousled briefly, resulting in a bloody nose on his face and a black eye on the old man. The man stormed away, screaming and cursing at them.

When he turned, he didn't even have time to react before she slapped him sharply across the face. It left him momentarily dumb; he wasn't sure whether to pinch his nose to stop the bleeding or hold his smarting cheek. Then she was shouting at him.

"I don't want your help! I'm not some sort of damsel in distress that needs rescuing from some bourgeois knight in shining armor!" She shoved him, though it was hardly strong.

Her lip was bleeding and was starting to swell from where the man hit her.

Ten minutes later, he was in the dugout, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Hey," a voice said behind him, startling him. He turned, and there she was – fat lip, messy dark hair, long, thin legs and a torso hidden by an oversized jersey. She held a plastic bag in her hand.

He just sniffed blood, trying to keep it from running down his face more, and stared at her. He was hardly forgiving; if she resented his interference, he wouldn't interfere. He had a bloody nose and probably a black eye (try explaining that one at work tomorrow), all because he was trying to help her. So as far as he was concerned, they had no reason, especially now, to interact at all. He wanted nothing from her.

"Sit down," she ordered. Her tone surprised him; it reminded him of how his mother or his teachers would talk to him as a child. He wondered where she picked it up. Then he sat.

She put the bag on the bench beside him, digging around inside. From it, she pulled gauze, an ice pack, hydrogen peroxide, and band-aids. Without a word, she began mopping up the blood on his face.

"I'm sorry I slapped you," she murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on the blood that was still gushing from his nose.

He shrugged.

"It was my dad. It wasn't the first time," she told him quietly. He wondered why she was telling him this; from the look on her face, she was wondering the same thing. Then, "I'm Eponine. Eponine Jondrette."

He regarded her for a moment, and she finally met his eyes. They were a beautiful, bright brown, flecked with gold, but were dark and angry from the memories that were undoubtedly cycling through her mind. He looked at her lips; dried blood had trickled onto her chin, though she hadn't seemed to notice.

"Enjolras," he said. "Gabriel Enjolras."

Eponine's lips twitched into a small smile, then she got back to work on cleaning him up.

When she was finished, she threw the first aid supplies into her backpack. "I'll buy you a beer," she offered, "as a thanks – and an apology."

*

He's not quite sure why he kissed her.

It was several months after the day he fought her father.

They were heading off to the park together. His league's season was over, but he and his friends still met each weekend for pickup games. She had wormed her way into his friend group, and they had invited her along, eager to teach her how to play baseball. In return, she was going to teach them a little bit about soccer.

She met him on the corner near his apartment – it was more convenient for her to cut through his neighborhood to reach the park, as she lived a few blocks away.

"We need to run to my place," she said when he found her, not bothering to greet him. "I would've gone alone, but my phone was dead and I didn't want you to think I was ditching you.

Though they lived relatively close together, there was a marked difference between his neighborhood and hers. His was more affluent – he was a lawyer, the only son in a wealthy family, and therefore, his apartment was large and well decorated and safe.

Eponine's apartment, however, was one room of a giant, sketchy-looking complex. She joked that this was where the meth-heads came to die.

He worried for her safety.

Inside, however, she had done her best to make the place comfortable. It was colorful, but tasteful – very bohemian, but it worked because it was so Eponine.

She had hung curtains to separate her small bed from the rest of the room, and disappeared behind them for a few moments.

When she reemerged, she beckoned him over. "Enj, these are my soccer trophies from high school. I was being scouted for college, being offered scholarships and even full rides, but then I blew out my knee."

He hadn't known. He knew she was good, but not that she could have started in college. Nor did he know that her knee had ruined her opportunity to get out of – well, out of this life. It broke his heart; she could have truly been something quite incredible. She was smart, she was driven and talented, but lacking the resources to rise out of the life she so despised. To have come so close, only to have an ill-timed physical issue rip her chances away – he couldn't even imagine.

"That sucks, Ep, I'm so sorry," he told her sincerely.

She smiled warmly, though he could see a touch of bitterness in her eyes. "Whatever," she shrugged, "I have all these crazy trophies for my trouble!"

And she did. There must have been more than 30 of all colors and sizes, from participation awards to tournament placements to MVP's.

"My collection would totally kick your collection's ass," he teased, nudging her with his elbow. "I was given a partial scholarship to play in college. I wanted to go pro. I didn't have time for anything else, not even girls. My entire life revolved around baseball and school."

She looked at him. "What happened?"

He stared straight ahead at a trophy she had won her sophomore year of high school for most valuable player. "My priorities changed," was all he said. He could hear the hardness in his own voice; out of the corner of his eye, he saw her searching for something on his face before she turned back towards the trophies. He cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said, reaching out and touching a medal, "all my trophies are at my parents' house."

"I like having mine home with me," was Eponine's soft reply.

He looked at her. There was a faraway look on her face, an absent smile on her lips. "They help me remember a time when I was happy." She seemed to be talking to herself now, and he wondered if she remembered he was there.

He couldn't take his eyes off her, all of a sudden, and he felt something building inside of him that was foreign and, if he had to admit it, a little frightening.

When she turned to him, a questioning look on her face and an inquiry forming on her lips, he kissed her, swallowing whatever it was she was about to say. She responded immediately against him, and he pulled her body flush against his instinctually when her lips parted against his.

*

He's not quite sure why he slept with her.

He had never been with a woman before.

And she was vulnerable; he couldn't shake the feeling that he had taken advantage of her.

Marius and his girlfriend, the perfect, blonde Cosette, had gotten engaged.

Eponine had showed up at his door, in tears and completely inconsolable. So he ordered pizza, and ran to the liquor store around the corner for a bottle of Jack.

Three hours later, she was straddling him on his couch and kissing him wildly, half the bottle abandoned on the table behind her.

The whole experience, as intoxicating and wonderful as it was, was like being with a hurricane. It was wet and strong and dangerous, but he loved every second of it.

When he woke the next morning, she was in his kitchen, dressed in one of his t-shirts, making breakfast.

She kissed him good morning.

*

He's not quite sure when he fell in love with her.

They were out all night.

It was a warm night, in the middle of spring, a summery breeze sweeping through her hair and toying with the hem of her dress as she skipped around him.

Eponine didn't want to go home, and had talked him into staying out with her all night and going down to the docks to watch the sunrise.

"I've never seen the city when it sleeps," she had said.

They weren't together, per se, but Marius was married and Eponine was putting him behind her and now whenever she saw Enjolras she kissed him. He didn't hate it.

They had sat on the docks, swinging their bare feet inches above the water.

She grabbed his hand, humming a song into the wind. She was being strange; it was that mix of happiness and sadness that he'd learned to associate with her. Like she's almost ready to be happy, almost ready to let go of her problems, but she just can't.

She took his hand as the pre-dawn sky turns purple.

She kissed his cheek and then his lips when it turns pink.

When it turned orange, its bright glow lights up her face.

When the sun broke free of the water, she laughed. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

And that was when he knew: he'd fallen for her.

*

He's not quite sure why she wouldn't let him save her.

Eponine was stubborn, and always refused his help. He frequently reminded her that it was his job to help people, that it was his calling, but she would just snap at him that "a calling is a thing for entitled bourgeois boys," and that those he was "called" to help did not always want it.

When her little brother died, hit by a car in the middle of the night, he was not sure she'd ever come back to him.

She pushed him away. Stopped seeing him, stopped meeting him for baseball or soccer, stopped coming to his games and stopped showing up to her own. She wouldn't even answer her calls. Nor would she talk to any of her other friends.

Musichetta, her soccer friend, and Joly were dating, and even Musichetta had not heard from her in weeks.

When he finally saw her again, her face was gaunt. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and hadn't eaten in weeks. Her already thin frame clung to her bones, her cheeks were sunken in, her hair was dirty and unkempt, and her hollow eyes had dark circles.

He didn't know how to save her, but for god's sake he tried.

*

He's not quite sure why she left him.

It isn't fair – that's the only thought that's cycling through his mind right now.

He's been sitting in this chair for, well, he doesn't even know how long. His friends keep coming to check on him, but he barely hears them. They can't say anything helpful anyway. They don't know.

All he can think of is her, of those precious moments by her side, as he stares straight ahead.

Directly in front of him is her casket. And he can't take his eyes off it, off her lifeless body laying there for those attending the wake to gawk and cry over.

He can't cry, he can't eat, he can't feel. He briefly wonders if this was how it was for her when little Gavroche was killed, and if that was the straw that broke the camel's back in her life.

He wonders, much more extensively, why he couldn't save her. He was always reminding her that saving people was all he wanted to do. He just wanted to help.

Why hadn't he been able to help her?

It was a sunny afternoon. They were sitting on the stairs of her fire escape. She was under his arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Not everyone wants to be saved, Enj," she told him. "Not everyone will let you."

"As long as you let me save you, that's fine," he replied.

She said nothing for a long while. "It might be too late for that," she whispered, avoiding his gaze.

And it was. It was far too late.

She was gone.

The only woman he had ever loved, ever cared for, ever had time for, was dead.

This was a woman who had opened up an entire new world for him, and he would never see her again.

He's not sure what comes next; now that he's lived in this world of hers, he isn't sure if he can live without her.

When he's angry at her, angrier than he's ever been before, he curses her name, screaming at her ghost for leaving him behind, for ruining his life.

He hates her; she destroyed everything about him, everything he was, and left this empty shell behind. He was fine before - he didn't know what he was missing, and ignorance truly was bliss. He was settled in his life. But then she appeared in it, and turned it upside-down.

He tries to breathe.

Azlema, her younger sister, walks up to him.

She wraps herself around him, and he lets her, squeezing her tightly. She, of course, knew Eponine too (in a way that his friends didn't), and just as he lost the love of his life, she lost her older sister - and her baby brother. So she understands.

"She loved you, Enjolras," Azelma murmurs, her voice shaking with emotion and thick with the tears that spill from her eyes. "I know she never told you, but she told me. She loved you, and she would've wanted you to know."

He cries.

*

He's not quite sure how he picks up the pieces.

It's been forever, but it's also been no time at all.

His nights are cold and lonely, and his days are torture.

Grantaire has moved in with him, though perhaps that wasn't the best decision on the part of his friends, as the other man is so full of anger and sadness himself that all they do is spend their time drinking.

Combeferre seems to catch on, because then he comes to stay, too.

Suddenly, he's forced to eat the food Combeferre has cooked. He's forced to look at Grantaire's artwork and give his opinions, he's forced to go to work and do a good job again.

He's forced to look at her photographs every day (but that one he does to himself), too. In them, she seems happy. She's bright and beautiful and alive. God, she used to be so alive, even when she was miserable, even when she was depressed. She could be in the worst mood, but being around her was like being in the middle of a beautiful storm.

He misses that.

Eventually, Courfeyrac convinces him to come play a pickup game.

It feels good, being back on the diamond. The power of the ball as it flies from his hand, the feel of the wind in his face as he runs from plate to plate. He especially likes being at bat, because smacking that fucking ball into oblivion is suddenly the most therapeutic thing.

And then the game is over and his friends leave and he's slamming his stupid bat into the ground, raging in the middle of the field, screaming at her at the top of his lungs and undoubtedly causing quite the scene.

He collapses, and then someone is there – Jehan, perhaps? – speaking to him, trying to calm him.

But what does it is Eponine.

No, she's not there, of course, but he sees her team playing soccer on the next field. Or maybe it's a different team, he isn't sure if her friends play here anymore.

He looks up into the overcast sky, closing his eyes to the clouds, and can almost hear her laughter carried to him on the wind.

He goes home, pulls out the trophies he took from her apartment and those he took from his parents' house. He places them in pairs around the apartment, wherever they fit - his next to hers and hers next to his wherever he can find the room for them.

"They help me remember a time when I was happy," she had said that first time he kissed her.

And she was right.

There they were, once again – playing baseball, playing soccer together, just like when they had become friends. This time, however, their endless games were in his apartment. But looking at their trophies together was, for some stupid reason, extremely comforting. It made him feel like she was there, in these dumb objects she had been so proud of.

He sees her in them. They make him think of her. And he misses her, he does, but she would want him to be okay.

She would want him to keep on playing, because she wasn't able to.

And that's exactly what he's going to do.

Fin.

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 45-50

This is the “Soldier of Fortune” arc.  I thought there was a song by this title and there is!    Give it a listen.

This opens with a flashback to Pip Bernadotte’s childhood, where he finds out his whole family is a bunch of mercenaries.    His grandfather confirms it, and I should point out that Grandpa Bernadotte is the most mercenary-looking dude I’ve ever seen.   He’s wearing a friggin’ beret while he tells Pip about how his dad died in some war to raise money while Ma Bernadotte was pregnant with Pip.   Was Pip’s mother a merc too? 

I guess my point is that this whole scene feels really stupid to me.   Kid Pip grew up among mercenaries, but he’s literally the last person in town to find out about it.  How do the kids at school know?   Are the Bernadottes that well-known?   I always assumed mercenaries tried to keep a low profile.   Then again, they are entrepreneurs, so maybe the kids in school found ads about the Bernadottes in the phone book.  

Even so, was Pip’s family trying to keep this a secret from him?  Because Grandpa sure wasn’t.   Not with that beret he’s got on.   It’s like he’s been waiting Pip’s whole life to tell him, so why didn’t he mention it before?  You’d think he’d want to raise the boy to follow in his footsteps, the same as Pip’s dad.  Did Pip’s mom not want him to grow up to be a mercenary?  It just seems like she should have known that wouldn’t work out.  

Anyway, Grandpa Bernadotte waxes philosophical about killing people for money, which doesn’t seem like much of a justification.   Pip was very upset about the whole thing, and I don’t think Grandpa said anything to make him less upset, and then we flash forward to the present day, where Pip’s a mercenary.

I mean, what was the point of that flashback?  Pip was horrified to find out his family kills for profit, and then at some point he got over it and joined the family business.   Why didn’t the flashback show us that moment instead?  It seems more relevant.  

At any rate, I feel like the flashback is overlooking the true point of Pip’s character arc.  He starts out a soldier of fortune like his father and grandfather, but by joining up with Hellsing he’s now fighting for a much nobler cause, ridding the world of unspeakably evil monsters.  He still seems to look at it like just another job, but it’s still important.  His defense of the Hellsing mansion is a lot more heroic because he’s fighting against daunting odds with very little hope of surviving to see another sunrise, let alone his next paycheck.  

Back to the main story, when Millennium’s forces invaded London, they sent a company to the Hellsing HQ on the outskirts of the city.   Zorin Blitz was tasked with leading this group, but she was ordered to hold off on attacking until the Major gave the word.   The Major then fired rockets at the mansion, only for Seras Victoria to shoot the rockets down... and Zorin’s zeppelin.   Now, Zorin is trying to lead a ground attack on the mansion, except Pip has turned the entire yard into a minefield.   

Seras disapproves, but Pip doesn’t care.   In this sort of conflict, he and his men, the Wild Geese, are at a complete disadvantage.   Vampires, even the weaker, artificial vampires of Millennium, are faster, stronger, and harder to kill.  He hints at some sort of vampiric ability to read an opponent’s movements, too, which might have something to do with that whole “third eye” trick Seras and Alucard use.   Against all of that, landmines are a sensible precaution, since they’re powerful enough to kill a vampire in one shot and don’t rely on a human operator with killing intent. Seras can gripe, but if Hellsing had used mines back in volume 2, the Valentine Brothers never would have made it inside.  Pip clearly read up on that debacle, since it must have taken weeks for his men to bury all these mines.

The landmines do kill a lot of Zorin’s troops, and the Wild Geese lay down heavy fire from the mansion to keep up the pressure, but Zorin won’t give up so easily.   She uses he powers to create some sort of zany illusion, where everyone sees a giant Zorin Blitz attacking the mansion.

So what the hell is Zorin Blitz, exactly?   I thought she was a vampire, but reading this manga has revealed that Rip Van WInkle is a werewolf, which led me to suspect Zorin is a werewolf too.   But the manga is silent on Zorin being one or the other.  I check the Hellsing Wiki, but it contends that both women are vampires, and the term “Werewolf” just refers to the group of officers in Millennium.   This group includes literal werewolves like the Captain and Schrodinger, but not Blitz and Rip.   

Maybe it doesn’t matter that much, but I find it a little silly to call all four of those characters “Werewolves” and then only two of them are really werewolves.   Clearly, all four of them are a cut above the Major’s other troops, and none of them show any interest in drinking blood, or any other vampire-exclusive traits.   On the other hand, this whole battle takes place under a full moon, and none of them seem to be affected by it.    Unless the Major chose this particular night to launch his offensive because he wanted them all to be at full power.   Maybe Zorin couldn’t do this illusion thing otherwise.

Anyway, the Wild Geese see this giant woman slashing at them with a scythe, and they all panic.   Seras sees it too, but she somehow intuits that it can’t be real.   Then she sees Alucard, who reminds her of her third eye.   I’m not sure if this is a flashback or Alucard is using telepathy to coach her from the deck of the H.M.S. Eagle.  

Either way, Seras uses her third eye and not only sees through the illusion but lines up a shot on the illusion-caster.  But it only grazes Zorin.   It disrupts the illusion, but it doesn’t end the threat.

And even though the illusion is shattered, it still distracted the Wild Geese long enough for Millennium troops to enter the mansion.   Seras manages to shoot them down, but there’s more where that came from.

Because the Nazi bastards figured out a way past the mines.   They just threw a bunch of knives on the ground and played hopscotch to get across.   I guess this means they can only get in one at a time, but it’s still bad news for the good guys.

So Pip adjusts his tactics accordingly.  He and his men will regroup and hold up in a defensible location, while Seras roams the building to take the fight to the enemy.   I guess the idea is to divide Millennium’s focus.   They can attack the Geese or watch out for Seras, but not both.   For some reason, Seras calls Pip “sir”, like he’s in charge, and maybe that is appropriate in this situation, but I thought Seras was in charge of their training.  

Then one of the Geese pats her on the butt and Pip steals a kiss.   I’m not sure what the hell this is about.   I guess they were trying to lighten the mood before they go to face certain death, but if my life depended on some vampire girl killing all the bad guys before they can rip me to shreds, I probably wouldn’t sexually harass her, or do anything else to tick her off.   But that’s just me.

Pip seems resigned about their chances.  He’s confident in Seras’ ability, but there’s only one of her and like... 30?  Let’s say 30, thirty Nazi Vampires heading their way.  If even one of them gets past Seras, the Geese will all die horribly.   But they took this job and the risks that come with it, and besides, there’s nowhere for them to run anyway.    He seems to accept the situation with a mercenary sense of honor.   Like, a mercenary should expect to die in some unwinnable battle, and they shouldn’t complain about it, since it’s the nature of the business. 

Anyway, it doesn’t go well.   The nature of the comic doesn’t really make it clear how the Wild Geese are operating, but I get the impression that they’re doing sort of a fighting withdrawal concentrating their forces as they give ground.    But they suffer a lot of casualties in the process.

This leads to the Geese holing up in the big conference room where Integra met with the Royal Order of Protestant Knights before the Valentine Bros. attack.   One guy panics and wants to bug out, but Pip reminds him of what I said a minute ago.   They’ve got nowhere else to go, and they all got into this for the action, so they should stick to their principles, even in the face of death.

There’s this one guy from “B-block”, who I guess was covering a certain hallway, but B-Block got cut off before they could join the others in the Round Table room.    Zorin Blitz decides to have some fun with him, so she uses her weird powers to make him see himself back home, with his dead daughter.  

This seems especially cruel, because it’s not like Zorin needed this diversion to kill one dude.   She’s just really sadistic.

Meanwhile, some other Millennium guys are eating the Wild Geese they already killed, and one of them shows off his ability to tell blood types just by taste.   It’s this really sick moment, but at the same time it humanizes the characters, which is a weird thing to say when discussing Nazi vampires, but you know what I mean.

Then Seras blows the dude’s head off, which is extremely satisfying.

So Seras is holding up her end, and growing more resolute with each kill.   She’s really improved a lot since the last time she was in action.    Yeah, these Millennium vampires probably aren’t that much tougher than the vampires she killed back in the summer, but there are a lot more of them, and they’re trained soldiers on top of that, and she doesn’t have Alucard backing her up like she did before.

By now, all that’s left of the Wild Geese are in this barricaded room, and they’ve run low on silver bullets, which means even the few shots that don’t miss will have almost no effect.   Pip is determined to hold out, confident that Seras will save them, but...

She runs out of bullets before she runs out of enemies to kill.   When she arrives to save the day, she’s still has to go through Zorin Blitz.

But Zorin doesn’t see this as a problem, and she uses her freaky mind powers on Seras, forcing her to relive memories of her days at the orphanage.    Yeah, Seras was an orphan, remember?   Alucard asked Walter about her parents a while back, and Walter said they were both dead.  How did they die?

Well, Zorin Blitz is about to find out...

[gofancyninjaworld]

Meta: What rough beast slouches to be born?

Right, webcomic chapter 125 has raised quite a few questions about cyborgs and I purposely left it aside. Until now.  I’m sorry for the length, but I’m only allowed one ‘readmore’. :(

What we knew

Many moons ago for us, 9 or so weeks ago for them, Genos showed up at Saitama’s doorstep like a refugee from another world, telling a tale of destroyed towns, rampaging cyborgs, and desperate revenge quests.   It’s seemed rather far-fetched, particularly as not much has happened on that front.   Over the course of the story, we’ve had little bits of independent corroboration about the veracity of his story.  The town that he was born in was definitely erased from the map.  Yes, a cyborg is wanted in connection with the incident. 

But where is that guy? Does it have anything to do with the powered suit-flogging cyborgs seen early on the series? Does it have anything to do with the ‘glimpse behind the scenes’ chapter the manga offered us with Drive Knight (but no context as to how that glimpse fitted into the wider story)?  Come to that, where are all the cyborgs?

To start with, there are a lot of cyborgs of various sorts in OPM.  Quite a few moons ago, I wrote a bit about them, drawing a distinction between those who used parts to replace lost function and those who looked at it as a change of identity: “Is the Organization a Claw Analogue?”

 Chapter 125 has been surprisingly good about confirming some of what I surmised about cyborgs, but it’s brought some very good additional information!  On we go!

There are cyborgs; and then there are Cyborgs

Our ambassador through the world of cyborgs is new Neo Hero recruit Koko (Solitude), who modified his body for the world of cyborg fighting, only he was a little too successful and no one would bet on him.  We see him scanning various people and passing commentary on them.

The first to give him serious pause is Webigaza, who lost six months of life to getting her body modifications done -- no wonder she’s pissed off that her rival has self-destructed in the interim.

Koko is shaken by her having 71% of her body modified.

obsessive determination is terrifying to look at

Percentage body modification of the sort Koko is used to seeing, 30% maximum, you can do right here right here and now.  It’s equivalent to losing a leg and most of the other. Here and now, we can also do brain implants to control tremors or fits or some neurological conditions,  replace part of the heart, spine fusions, quite a few bits and pieces.  The sort of modifications Koko is used to seeing are very functional ones that make sense for someone looking to get an edge in fighting for money.  They’re also along the lines of what we’ve seen with One-Shotter or Death Gatling.

If you lose and replace all four limbs, that's 50% of your body modified. While quadruple amputees unfortunately exist IRL,  I don’t know if anyone has had the kind of money, physical fitness and pure grit to do that.  Nevertheless it’s not technically impossible. 60% sounds about right before you're now looking at breaking into the more vital parts of your body.  The point at which the risk involved just can't be justified in terms of restoring function or health. I’m emphasising that because I’m going to come back to this point.   He’s shaken because modifications that extensive aren’t about simply gaining an edge; they’re being willing to exchange serious bodily harm for serious power.  It says a lot about who Webigaza is.

Within the Hero Association, I think we do know a hero round about that 60% mark.  Jet Nice Guy comes to mind.  He sports an armored exterior, powerful artificial limbs (which will need internal reinforcement to not just rip up his body), but his innards are all human. After the way he started to bleed out after Nyan slashed him, I realised that the reason it looked like intestines when the Deep Sea King ripped him open is because they were... >.<  Sorry, dude. 

the worst of both worlds -- too modified to have an easy life, still too weak to deal with the real monsters that exist

Scary enough, but then the security staff come in to stop the kerfuffle that Koko and his buddy, Mars Leo, were causing.  Koko scanned them and was stunned into horror:

as disciplined and ruthless a pair of killers as you could never hope to lay eyes on.  Definitely not frothing at the mouth, these two!

These two have modified themselves so extensively they’re almost inhuman. 94, 95% body modification is equivalent to having only 3.5 - 4.2 kg of live mass left assuming an original live mass of 70 kg.  And, if the similar naming convention didn’t tip you off to it, it’s around the sort of hyper-extensive modification we see Genos having. [See under the readmore for a first-principles estimation I did a long time ago.]  Maybe Drive Knight too if he’s a cyborg.   What kind of power have they exchanged their human bodies for?  What kind of people are willing to do that to themselves? Koko is very sure that he does NOT want to know.

When he tells you who he is, believe him

That’s dating advice often given to ladies overlooking obvious red flags  but it goes with great force in OPM. ONE has characters tell us who they are early on, even if it doesn’t mean anything to us for a long time. 

And he’s had Genos be a particularly straightforward and truthful character.  He doesn’t always interpret things correctly, but he says it exactly as he sees it.  Looking at the way the high percentage cyborgs we’ve met thus far either be very inhuman looking or completely disguised as regular human beings,  he’s chosen an appearance that puts both his humanity and mechanical nature on display.

Something that the chapter has brought up that I've kept saying to people on the Discord and on Reddit: there is no medically justifiable reason for Genos to have a body as modified as he does.   Which Genos TELLS US for fuck’s sake.  His giant wall of text is a synopsis, no more and no less.

When he says that “...I asked Professor Kuseno to perform a procedure to modify my body. Then I was reborn as a cyborg for justice...”  (Viz)  “...I begged Dr Stench (sic) to transform me into a cyborg and I was reborn as a cyborg who fights for justice...” (Boon scanslations, who copied verbatim whoever did the webcomic version). It’s nothing to do with health.  Feel free to have whatever headcanons you like, but please don’t confuse them with the story.

But it doesn’t end there.  I look at Destro and Erimin and realise that there’s another perfectly truthful statement that’s been staring us in the face.

Genos knows. Why would he ask a mechanical engineer who uses a wearable battle suit and pilots armed drones to modify his body, let alone modify it to such an insane degree?  Because he knows that Dr Kuseno knows how to build cyborgs like the one who destroyed his town.

We don’t know if Destro and Erimin have any responsibility for the destroyed town, but someone of their ilk does.   Which brings us to a third nakedly truthful statement. When Genos talks of not believing that he could be defeated by anything other than the rampaging cyborg, he’s not anticipating winning because he’s suicidal.  It’s because he’s aware that if he’s throwing rock, so too is his enemy: mutual annihilation is the best he can hope for.

At least until he met Saitama. And started to hope for not mutual destruction, but victory (check the difference in chapter 108 of the webcomic).

a world away from the attitude of mutually-assured destruction he started with.

Stepping away from the text a bit, it casts a different light on why he’s been so desperate to learn from Saitama. Learning Saitama's secret is his balance-breaker. He wants something other than rock, that is guaranteed to smash whatever rock his enemy might throw.    But that’s not all there is.   As Garou said, once he discovered Blue Fire’s flamethrower, once you know how a freakish weapon works, you know it.  Any edge a new weapon might give Genos is liable to be studied and replicated  (see how quickly Dr Kuseno was able to reverse engineer and adapt the principles of G-4′s curving energy beams).   But Saitama’s strength is unphysical: no matter how closely you inspect his body, you can never relate the physicality of Saitama’s body to the power he can generate.  That unphysicality, that’s what Genos wants too.   It also puts in context why he’s been so fascinated by psychic power and wants to learn it if at all possible.

neat trick, I’ll take two!  Genos dodging G4′s beams in chapter 38, and putting the principle of them to good use in chapter 120

And finally, since in his world, knowledge is literally power, it gives yet another layered reason Genos is so determined to keep anyone else from becoming Saitama’s disciple.  If they learn his secret too, then the advantage he seeks will be lost.  (that it doesn’t work quite that way for Saitama is a fact for us to enjoy and for him to find out).

Nothing is as scary as a human being

Nothing is as scary as a human being is one of the things that Reigen says to Tome on occasion. It’s in full force in OPM.  Monsters may be strong, but they all live in the now.  Only a human being could have put together the Monster Association.   When it comes to cyborgs, their abilities may be inhuman but their thoughts, imaginations, morals and appetites are all 100% human.   It’s a terrifying combination.

There’s something I missed when I likened The Organization to a Claw Analogue. In Mob Psycho 100, the protagonists are children and they're fighting an organisation made up of over-grown children -- adults who have refused to grow up. In One-Punch Man, the protagonists are adults and the bad humans in the story are very much adults too.   With calculated cruelty and depravity to match. When The Organization bares its claws for real, this is going to get so brutal.

If Genos has not been standing still, then neither has his enemy.  From the manga, even if we hold Drive Knight blameless and independent of all this mess, his besting Nyan told us that cyborgs can indeed come crazy-strong and highlighted how much more work Genos had yet to do. It also highlighted how very clever and calculating cyborgs can be -- well, they’re human, duh!  If I was worried for his prospects then,  in the webcomic, Genos is nowhere near as psychologically, physically or emotionally ready as his manga version is.   And the guys who look to be his enemies aren’t going to be cutting him any slack.   They’re very real.  They’re not mad.  And they’re closer than he ever imagined.

Fighting monsters is barely adequate preparation for whatever it is that’s to come.

Whenever Genos gets dragged into whatever it is those cyborgs are up to  -- or runs into it, since he claims he’s still hunting the rampaging cyborg -- ‘rough’ doesn’t begin to describe it.

Extra Stuff

Edited from an answer I gave on Reddit to the question of how much of Genos was still organic about 2 years ago.  It’s unexpectedly relevant!

Short answer: by mass, under 10% , assuming he would have weighed  approximately 70 kg. By function, quite a bit.

 The long answer.

I’m going to write this starting from what is most readily observable and readily inferred to the least. In appreciation of this being a work of fiction that treats physical laws lightly, I too am taking a more-or-less approach and will keep technical terms to a minimum. I'm also not a medic and I don't play one on TV -- assume generous hand-wavium. Items in {curly brackets} are incidental notes you can skip.

Level 0: Canonically observable.  The least controversial observation is that Genos does have an organic brain. Genos does not live in a lab, but is able to live largely independently, including being able to eat whatever he likes with no ill-effect. Not just that, but he lives an active and hard-fighting life that appears to do him no permanent harm (I will return to this in a few paragraphs).  What can we take from this?

Edit: There is also ONE’s initial settings for Genos, which I quote here from the Hero Data Book

ONE: There's no need to visit Dr. Kuseno's place every time when his wrist break down, because he got his own spare parts at hand. Dr Kuseno's Lab is there In case for a big reparation job, a drastic upgrade or an examination.

It’s tempting to think that because we see that he definitely has a brain that’s all there is – the brain in a jar phenomenon, so to speak. Something a lot of people miss is that the spinal cord proper isn’t optional either -- it’s a core part of the central nervous system.  Spinal cords are a lot shorter than most people think they are, averaging 12 inches long for women and 15 inches for men.  The rest are nerve processes that can be cut and will regrow (within limits). We’re also happy to allow for nerves and their endings -- there must be an interface for the prosthetics so they're under the fine voluntary control that we see. However, that’s not all that there can be. The Cartesian mind-body duality is completely wrong when it comes to physiology. Our brains are intimately bound with our bodies and our bodies with our brains. So what does one need?

Level 1: Perfusion. This is the most obvious one. Without a blood supply providing oxygen, glucose and removing waste products from our brains, we have 4-5 seconds of consciousness available, 2-3 minutes in which we can escape brain damage and 8-10 minutes in which not to die. So, number one is a reliable blood supply.  Absolutely necessary therefore are a means of generating the various blood cells, perfusing and distributing them and disposing of damaged cells (red blood cells have a lifespan of 1-2 months). While not as acutely important, a self-sustaining blood supply is also the basis of a functioning immune system.  It's a bit of an oops moment when your super-killer cyborg catches a cold and dies.

Accordingly, bone marrow is essential as a source of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells. A suitably reduced blood vessel and lymphatic vessel system is also needed to run the blood where it needs to go. {An awesome feature of living beings is that new blood vessels will be recruited to where they need to go and redundant branches pruned back, a process known as vascular remodelling}. A reduced liver and possibly spleen will be needed to appropriately destroy worn out blood cells. At least one functional kidney, in the role of producing the hormone erythropoietin, without which red blood cells will not be formed. Not essential: a heart and lungs, which he definitely doesn't have. How much blood is needed?  I’ll come to that answer once we’ve tallied how much body is needed.

Additionally, since part of perfusion is getting rid of metabolic waste, a liver and kidney will be absolutely indispensable.  

Level 2: Homoeostasis. A living organism has a very narrow range in which its internal environment, such as oxygen saturation, temperature, pH (acidity or alkalinity) amongst other things can vary without harm.

There are around 40 or so hormones, the signalling molecules that keep us going as functional concerns, regulating such things as blood pressure, salt/water balance, available energy, sleep cycle, body temperature, mood, immune system... the list goes on. Each has a stupid number of secondary functions and interacts with others in a ludicrous number of ways (note highly scientific language). Their levels vary and change on the order of seconds to hours. It's a good job that the main organiser of homoeostasis, the hypothalamus, is part of the brain. {Incidentally, this is why a brain-dead cadaver cannot be kept ‘alive’ on life support indefinitely – everything falls out of sync and eventually to pieces.} To do this artificially is to have your cyborg never leave the lab: if you're not constantly monitoring and adjusting levels, then they will die. Fortunately, as mentioned, a living, functional brain has the control network needed to keep everything working without the extensive and expensive effort. Just add air, water and food (in that priority).

At this point, we've already met most of the organs needed to maintain homoeostasis in their capacity of maintaining a blood supply. We need to add some bone, not just to serve as a niche (living environment) for the bone marrow and its stem cells mentioned previously but as a source and sink for minerals, the adrenal glands and the thyroid gland. Finally, one must not forget pancreatic islets -- or it'll be for nothing as he goes into a diabetic coma.

Level 3: Energy.   Speaking of food, a brain needs essential fatty acids for turnover and lots and lots of glucose for energy. It’s entirely possible to supply nutrients as total parenteral nutrion (TPN for short).  People whose digestive systems have completely failed get individually formulated TPN solutions, which requires that they spend several hours a day feeding it into their blood supply. Not something we see Genos do.  And yes, you heard it here: not everyone poops, but everyone sure as hell pees.  While a brain only weighs about 1.5 kg, it uses up about 500 calories a day as glucose, so 700 ish calories a day should suffice for all the needs of his live mass. This bears no relationship to the amount of food we see Genos put away on occasion. Why hasn’t he wrecked his liver in a matter of weeks? The answer would appear to lie in the artificial digestive system Dr. Kuseno has given him which turns food into biofuel. It must be patched into a feedback loop which allows it to only supply what’s physiologically necessary at any given time. Lucky for some!

Level 4: So how much body does that add up to exactly?  Nothing says you have to keep the necessary organs and blood vessel network the same size. With only a 1.5 kg brain to support, many can be shrunk a good 50% if not more. A total living mass of 7 kg would be quite feasible. We know from organ-on-a-chip experiments (and from unfortunate people who have lost part of their organs) that provided the essential architecture of the tissue is respected, they will work fine. Nothing says you have to keep them in the same place as the original organs were -- you can encapsulate it all in a can and shorten the nerves serving the organs to a more rational, manageable length. It's nice and compact and can be protected as heavily as the brain is.

Now we’re in a position to answer how much blood Genos has. There are about 70 ml of blood per kilogram of body weight, so at ~ 7 kg, we’re talking about 500 ml of blood. For comparison, the typical 70 kg person has 5 litres of blood. Why does this matter?  Because it allows us to answer a question many may be curious about: how often does Genos get hurt?

The answer is: Almost Never. With so little body, and with most of that body consisting of aptly named vital organs, even small injuries can turn catastrophic in no time.  Genos will bleed out with around 150 ml of blood loss, which is less than half of what is donated in a typical blood donation.  Horrible and dramatic as the smashes he gets into are, it’s more akin to a Formula 1 race car tumbling end over end and catching fire, only for the driver to walk out unscathed.  His cyborg parts are replaceable and can be sacrificed to protect what’s irreplaceable if need be.

[askeletonintheclosetfic]

The one with a bloody knife

*blood, gore, and smut warnings*

November 30, 1986.

The past couple of days have been a complete dream come true for the Black Moon camp. Between the two of us hanging out with all of the guys and all of them being so kind to us, I've completely forgotten that the King of Hearts exists. We're in Connecticut right now and it's pouring rain outside at the moment. Just something about gazing out of the hotel window while Ceecee's in the shower, looking out to the pitch black sky as the rain is streaking over the window pane and there's nothing more than the golden street lights to glean over them. Not even the little desk lamp next to me can give them some highlights.

We're going to New York City tomorrow and Ceecee and I can hardly contain our excitement! We love New York and the guys from Nuclear Assault told us they'll introduce us to the crowd if they must.

I finally got close to Joey last night after our show in New Jersey.

The past couple of days I've brushed elbows with James and had breakfast with him and Lars, the latter of whom always gave me a good morning kiss once he saw me, and as a result the two of us have bit of a friendship going, but Joey seemed to back off for a little bit. I barely saw him in Poughkeepsie and they left before the two of us and Metallica piled into Nuclear Assault's van again to make the drive back here to New England.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the letter Frankie wrote to me. And I thought that might have had something to do with it, like maybe Joey and Frankie are both purposely avoiding me. But that makes no sense, though.

And then I actually bumped into Joey after Anthrax's set. Literally bumped into him.

Ceecee and I earned swag and stuff at every venue we've been to so far, and our guitar cases have been overflowing with said stuff. Since we're on the road, we have no permanent space for all of this, so just when we're about to settle into the room, we have to leave and go to the next one. It's all so quick and transient that Clara actually confessed to me that she's surprised everyone manages to keep themselves sane this whole time.

But because our cases are so heavy now, the three of us had received the help of the guys from Overkill as we made our way out of the theater. It was this cozy little venue with red and gold trimming all around the front lobby so even though it was quite cold outside, the whole place felt warm and comfortable: we brought even more warmth to our set which I feel the people there in New Jersey loved us for, perhaps more than our music.

Clara had her cane extended out right in front of her and Bob had his hand rested upon her shoulder to ensure she could find her way to the door. They were underneath the heater vent in the ceiling when I almost lost my balance from the dead weight on my back. I staggered about to catch myself.

I fell on something soft, and I looked up to find it was Joey.

"Damn, easy there," he told me as he clasped onto me to keep me from falling to the floor. His fingers crept over my shoulders: I could feel his thumbs right on my chest. I raised up to look into his big brown eyes and at the smooth bridge of his aquiline nose. I finally had a moment alone with Joey.

"You okay?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I assured him.

"Chris!" Ceecee called out from behind us.

"I'll catch up with you guys," I told her. She then flashed me a mischievous grin before she and Clara ambled out of the hallway with Overkill. The last thing I heard before the door closed was the sound of the rain on the pavement out there.

"What you wanna do?" Joey asked me once I brought my attention to him.

"Oh, my God, you are so cute, it's annoying," I scoffed at him.

"Wow, great singer and I'm cute?" he teased me. "By the way, I wanna keep thanking you ladies for coming with us."

"It's either that or staying there in Sea-Town with that serial killer coming after us."

"It's gotta be quite the relief to be all around the Northeast." He gave his inky black curls a little toss which showed off his neck. I hoisted the guitar case back over my shoulder: I didn't care if it was weighing me down a bit. I stood there with Joey in a lush red and gold corridor in New Jersey. I looked down at his hips and his thumbs tucked under his belt loops.

I raised my gaze back up to his face.

"Like what you see here?" he teased me.

"The darkness all around us, bringing us together," I whispered to him.

"You wanna... give me a bit of poetry?"

"Give me your warm flesh, and give me your earthly fire," I said on the spot. "Give me a single reason and know that I've taken your gloves. Without a light in the hallway and without a hallway in the mind; slide in between me and the cold of the void."

Joey ran his tongue along his bottom lip. "Go on."

"Lay me down to feel the leather—" I eyed the smooth sleeves of his jacket. "—tie me down and lock the door, and touch me 'til sunrise on all quarters and hit me 'til midday on all sides."

He glanced down at his chest, and I looked right at that low neckline of his shirt.

"There's no heat—of breath and there's no sear—of pain, even as you shake beneath me and the salt hangs over us."

I could hear him breathing harder as I moved in closer to him.

"No one can ever know the way you've touched me," I whispered into his dark lips, "or that I've caressed you down, even as the mark is made. But lo, darling—" He closed his eyes when I said that. "—know that I'm forever yours, carved into each other's skin, the mark—of the Black Knight."

"Kiss me," he pleaded. I brushed my lips against his: chills ran down my arms and my spine. I rested my fingers upon his chest. He felt soft, even with his slender build.

I had my first kiss, and with Joey, the sexy bachelor no less. I pulled back and gazed into his eyes once more. He stared into mine.

"Our parents can't know about this," he whispered to me.

"Especially with all of the murders around us."

"They could murder the both of us if we let the cat out of the bag."

"We could end up in bags ourselves." I dropped my gaze back down to his chest and his stomach.

"That'd be a shame," he pointed out.

"I couldn't be able to feel you," I whispered. Something caught his eye and he tilted his head to the left to check it out. His eyes enlarged and he looked as though he was holding his breath.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"Chris, don't look now, but—" I couldn't help it. I turned to look.

Blood dripped down the side of the wall across from us. My heart hammered inside of my chest as I found out it was oozing out of the vent in the ceiling. Right where Ceecee, Clara, and Overkill had stood a mere few moments earlier.

"There's blood. Blood everywhere." I looked to the right to find even more blood running down the wall down the corridor from us.

"You have to kiss me," he whispered to me; his voice was husky and delicate, a far cry from the soaring powerful shriek I had heard over the past few nights.

"Here?" I demanded.

"Yes. Please. Please, Christina—I'm begging you, Mama."

I pressed my lips onto his again. Even though blood and the feeling of death surrounded us, I never felt closer to Joey than in that moment. The dead weight of the guitar case pressed against my back so I pressed my body against his. We were making out as blood trickled out of the vent and the trimming of the corridor over our heads. I never imagined I would make out with a boy in such a morbid setting.

He clasped his hands to the sides of my face.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," he told me in a hushed voice.

"Let's," I agreed with him. I led him out of the corridor as even more blood fell out of the vent to our left. Even with the heavy weight on my back, I managed to run with him right behind me. We hurried out of the venue as a few police men wrapped in black cloaks passed us to the side door there.

"There they are—" I heard Lars' voice to the right of us. Joey put his arm around me and ducked his head away from the pouring rain. We caught up with all them congregated there at the sidewalk. Frankie offered his umbrella to us; on the other hand, Charlie offered to take my guitar case off of my back. I stretched my arms to give Ceecee and Clara both hugs, and then one to Joey himself to feel his softness yet again.

"Bastard mutilated one of Metallica's stage hands," Scott told us.

"Who?" I asked him as I moved my hand away from Joey's side.

"The King of Hearts," Clara filled in; there was a soft thud behind us. I turned to find two of the police men tossing things to each other. Since it was raining, I guess their hands were slippery.

"He followed us over here to the East Coast," Ceecee added. "Dan from Nuclear Assault said he stabbed that poor guy and ripped his heart straight out of his chest." Thud.

"When did it happen?" Joey asked her with a mortified look on his face.

"No idea," continued Ceecee. "Dan poked his head out of the window up there—" She gestured to the second level of the venue behind us. "—and told us to call the cops—" Thud. "—and then Clara and I remembered you and Joey were still in there."

Thud. I felt Joey put his arm around me. He called me "mama" in there as the blood was coming down around us.

"What do we do?" I asked them.

"Blend in," replied Frankie. Thud.

"Since we're hopping all over the Northeast, he's having a hard time catching up with us," said Clara as her dark lenses peered off into the darkness.

"Hartford's out of the way," said Danny. "Pretty out of the way, too—" Thud, thud. "He'll be in the City first before we're done. And then we're going to the Big Apple afterwards, and then into Canada."

"It's New York City," Charlie assured me, "—it's big and foreboding. He'll never find you ladies."

I have to take Charlie's word for it, and I still have, even now as writing this entry and looking back out the window again. I can't help but have an unsettling feeling within me. He's out there somewhere with that knife in hand. He's out for my blood and out for it in such a way that he's willing to kill anyone to get to me.

[kkrazy256]

Transformers The Last Knight spoiler thoughts

Here are my notes for the movie. I have to go back soon to watch it again for technical details/film minor purposes. But these are my super unprofessional opinions. Mostly me screaming about my robot children.

Enjoy? :’D

  -entire beginning (the random kids, Izabella and Mark’s appearance) was a bit weak. Starting in medias res without explaining. 

- Though watching Bee drag Santiago’s ass around while he was shrieking was A+ 

- Hyped up Izabella yet after first part of movie, she was barely in it. Moner’s an amazing actress, she’s gonna go places. I hope to see her around some more. She’s adorable, I get slight TFP Miko feels from her, sneaky child (especially towards the end when she sneaks aboard and is like yeah idk how I got here lol)

- Sqweeks the new BB8, a good child. 

- nice team Prime exposition in the junkyard. I wish there was more of this type of interaction , showing that the robots are more than just bloodthirsty walking metal. 

- Man the fucking tension between BB and Crosshairs, just rolling around in the dust, fucking make out already. 

- Drift is my temperamental son and I love him.

- Baby dinobots are literal puppies and Cade sorta just adopted a ragtag team of jittery orphans and I’m emotional.

-STARSCREAM MY DARLING *SOBS*

- BUDLIGHT HARHAR

- nice Tessa and Cade family moment 

- Hound is mah boi, a gentle giant 

- Military is like “that voice…it’s Megatron” but this is Welker’s first time voicing Megatron (not counting Galvatron) so XD but yes to Frank Welker finally getting the job as Megatron.

- wtf is megatron doing, did they really give back a few criminal decepticons for two CIA agents. Him on his throne was YES. The lawyer scene was pretty funny. But they don’t explain how he turned from galvatron to megatron again. When did he contact Quintessa?

- DECEPTICON SQUADDD GOOD SHIT GOALS

- My treacherous friend- GOD DAMN Megatron should’ve kept starscream’s head and just had fun commentary all throughout the movie. Imagine tho ((SHIT WHAT WOULD  STARSCREAM DO…FUCK UP THAT’S WHAT… STORECREAM THIS IS YOUR FAULT OH WAIT YOU DEAD…SCRIMSCRAM YOURE USELESS)) 

- DRIFT’S ALT MODE IS FUCKING GORGEOUS LORD HAVE MERCY

- Cogman is already badass, rip Crosshair’s fingers.

- It felt like two separate movies the moment Cade left for London. The joys of Bayverse script quality

- Anthony Hopkins sure travels fast

 - they totally put Simmons in for the hell of it, he wasn’t necessarily needed. But who cares Easter eggs, it’s been a while buddy, how’ve you been.

-UNICRON??? OHHHHHHHHHH

- Vivian’s clothes and boyfriend problems, enough with the forced romance already. At least her mother and gaggle of old ladies wouldn’t have minded if she chose a girlfriend apparently? Wow wouldn’t that have been nice. She’s going to date that one cute gal on her polo game team and Cade’s saving himself for OP CLEARLY

- The watch that killed Hitler - international treasure

- is that an Aston Martin?? all of Anthony Hopkins cars made me super fucking jealous. That was pure car porn and I loved it

- Cogman is MVP

 - MOVE BITCH GET OUT THE WAY

- Optimus got turned real quick. He has less screentime than Megatron rip my father- almost every moment of him and Quintessa was already in the trailer. And they kept pushing his storyline aside in favor of the humans like honey no. Show me more conflict and torture on his side, so there’s progression in him being “brainwashed”, that seemed almost too easy, it’s insulting. Quintessa got so little screentime, it made her seem less intimidating. 

- She slapped the evil red paint into him hell yeah. Clearly she did the same to Megatron. I wanted to see that lmao. Why the hell was megatron working for her in the first place. How do you have so much shit happen yet give us nothing

- Wait so…does Cybertron have rocket boosters how is it moving towards Earth so fast…cool

- they under used all the robot characters, pushing so much history and exposition on the audience through human perspective when they had a plethora of robot characters that could’ve explained their past. So much potential but no steps are taken. Like Bee was around WWII but he doesn’t say anything when they’re discussing it like hello? Could’ve used Hot Rod better too. He’s a good boy, let him do more.

- drift and crosshairs have basically no role towards the end except to play pilot and they’re barely on screen even then. Whyyyy. They shined the most during the junkyard scene in the beginning.

 - Andd we have to watch Vivian stare at Cade’s nipnops for a full minute and listen to cringe-y forced romance

 - Cogman I love you. He ain’t having none of Cade and Vivian’s romance bullshit. I want him to be my sushi chef.

- Its like the TRF can’t fucking decide what their goal is. They’re too afraid to shoot Cade. Half the time they’re the “bad guys” half the time they just go along with what’s happening with a huge question mark on their face. No real explanation on why Lennox and Epps are there.

- Nemeis Optimus doesn’t even sound that different from regular Optimus lmaoo, it’s just rah I will kill you all!! Just a regular old day in the life of bayverse OP. *Puts on sunglasses* just chill, sit down, relax, stop screaming.

- Puts staff in boobs subspace. TIT POCKETS GOOD SHIT

- Wow Optimus snapped out of it real quick. But his scene with bumblebee was one of the most heart warming in this movie. Bee’s voice asdfghjkl;

- I am your oldest friend, BITCH YOU HIS SON

 - Every time he said nemesis prime, I cringed and laughed

 - WOW Megatron stole the staff from OP’s TITS 

- Optimus getting his ass kicked by the knights and megatron was the highlight of my day. He’s so small compared to them and just fuck yeah my sadistic needs

- yes he stabbed/ripped a face again, we need to talk about your face ripping fetish

- OPTIMUS RUNNING HOLY SHIT LOL I WANT THAT GIF'ED I WANT ALL THE ROBOT RUNNING TO BE IMMORTALIZED

 - Megatron uses HEADBUTT. Effectiveness? To be determined.

- megatron is once again playing secondary villain, interacts with Prime for a total of thirty seconds before blasting off again. Wow nice seeing these two ex husbands interact 30 seconds out of a three hour movie wow. You know what they could’ve done? Shown more of Quintessa Optimus and Megatron interaction like how would Megs and Op treat each other when they thought they were on the same side like WOW THAT WOULDVE BEEN COOL YKNOW

- When will Megatron get to be the main villain again. Let the old man be dramatic. 

- SAY HELLO TO MY FRIEND BUMBLEBEE. HAH. SAY HELLO TO MY SON BUMBLEBEE. This is the corny shit i come to see!!

- quintessa also went down real quick but she’s got some cool shit planned. She’s Asian!!?? I love her she’s beautiful.

- So there was less action/explosions this movie. Most of it came from the humans/car chases and their poor Ospreys getting murdered. There was really only the decepticons squad attack and the final battle which I felt was pretty underwhelming compared to the usually drawn out fights in the other four movies. Don’t know if this was a plus or a negative.

- every time they mentioned unicron I was screaming. 

- now Unicron and Primus are literal neighbors hey wassup this will only end well.

- it was a shit show from beginning to end but a decent blockbuster mind numbing experience I guess. Did I enjoy it tho? The first time I watched it, I was in the moment. The second time? Oh my god did it fucking suck so hard. The story-telling was absolutely terrible and inconsistent.

- they gave me 3D glasses but there was barely a difference from watching without. I watched it without the glasses. Waste of an extra 10 bucks.

- I need to be more professional in note taking OTL

Final Movie Rankings

1. Transformers 1

2. Dark of the Moon

3. Age of Extinction

4. The Last Knight 

5. Revenge of the Fallen 

[igot7idiot7]

Senior Year

Chapter 10: It’s Almost Halloween

Ch.1 // Ch. 5 // Ch. 9

Wonwoo x Reader x Mingyu

Genre: slice of life

Words: 1056

Warnings: theres a lot of cussing but its funny cussing this time

Summary: It's almost Halloween. All my friends are wondering what they're gonna be.

A/N: haha sorry i took forever rip ily. also sorry its hella stupid, i couldnt pull some funny shit out of my ass this time around. but eh i like halloween so lmao enjoy

Sunday, October 30, 2016

    Mingyu danced through the halls of Party City. His smile reached ear to ear, and his eyebrows wiggled as he looked through the costumes. The bright lights made his hair glisten with every step he took. 

    “Listen, I all I wanted to do was hand out candy. I didn’t sign up for this Gyu.” You had your hand on your hip as you sipped down the mocha he bought you. He had drank his hot chocolate in under a minute, complaining about his burnt tongue immediately afterwards. You didn’t have any sympathy for him. 

    “At least he bought us coffee.” Wonwoo brushed passed you, a smirk starting to spread across his lips. “Besides, we could wear matching costumes. And get free shit at Starbucks and some other places for it.”

    Mingyu nodded vigorously, “That was exactly the plan, Y/N.” He looked at the wall of all the costumes that were pictured. It went from sad excuses of cats to elaborate zombie nurse costumes. Nostalgia hit you hard when you saw a little girl with a beaded Cinderella crown and white gloves that were too big for her small hands. Back in fifth grade you dressed up as Cinderella and Mingyu and Wonwoo both had to be your prince charming. You refused to let it be any other way. You giggled at the memory and the girl who waved at you with a princess wave and a smile plastered on her face as her mother dragged her away.

    “What did Jimin say him and his girl were going to be?” Mingyu turned to Wonwoo. 

    “I think he said they were going to be a pirate and mermaid… Or was that someone else?” 

    You moved to look at the fake blood that was out for sale. “No that’s right. Jinyoung said he was going to be Margarita Guy from Jurassic World, Joy was going to be a clown or something.” 

     Wonwoo snorted loudly, “I bet that will go over well.” He picked up a latex Chucky doll mask and held it up to his face. 

     “Attractive.” Mingyu rolled his eyes looking back at the assortment again. You snatched the mask from Wonwoo’s face as he pouted. “I want to be something funny this year. Last year we did scary.” Your mind drifted back the vampire costumes Mingyu brought you last year. The long black wig was itchy and the lace on the cape scratched the back of your legs. It was everything but comfortable. He however, believed it was the best costume you had worn yet, but that was probably because your butt looked good in the skimpy dress you were forced to wear. 

    You pulled out a pirate cutlass and Wonwoo a lightsaber. He started to make the noises and thus an ‘epic’ battle began. He had tried to jab your side but you were quicker than him. The two plastic weapons hit each other a few times as you both tried to take a play fight to the death seriously. You made your way around a rack that held weird hats and lightly hit his neck. “Jedi versus Pirate? I’m afraid to say the pirate outsmarted you. I had some hope that you would’ve been smarter than a drunk, though. I guess I was very wrong.” You smirked at him as he stuck his tongue out at you. 

     “Oh shut up.” Wonwoo took your plastic sword and his lightsaber back to their designated racks. He returned laughing as he pushed up glasses. 

     “Will you two be mature for like three seconds please?” Mingyu turned around with a large wizard staff in his left hand, a cowboy hat on his head, and glasses with the eyes falling from springs. 

     You grabbed onto Wonwoo’s shoulder to keep you from falling on the floor. “You look like a dumbass,” your ribs started to hurt from laughing so hard. 

     “Are you saying I wasn’t one before?” His shoulders dropped and a fake frown replaced his smile. 

      Wonwoo patted his friends shoulder lightly, “You’ve always been a dumbass, you just look like one with this get-up on.” He lifted the hat off of Mingyu. “Also, there is no way you are getting me to look that much like a fuck-wad sorry.”

     “Then what do you suppose we dress up as?” He placed the glasses on a nearby shelf. “I doubt you could think of anything better Mr. Jedi Knight.” 

     “Hey that would’ve been a great idea!” 

     “To you maybe”

     You looked at the wall one more time. If the two married couple don’t stop arguing, you would just say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles, but you had hopes that the wall would have a better idea. 

     “But hear me out- Y/N as Leia, me as Luke, and you as Han Solo. Literally you two could kiss and no one would get all pissy because we weren’t following the story.” 

     Your hope started to fall as you couldn’t find anything of remote interest. 

    “Woo, I’m not dressing up as Star Wars characters, I literally said I wanted to do something funny.”

     “Or maybe Rey, Finn and Poe suits your interest more?”

    Mingyu crossed his arms, “Y/N, tell him you don’t want to dress up as Star Wars please.”

    You turned your head slightly, “Sorry Won.” 

     “HA! I told you!” He smirked at his elder, you only turned on his heel to stand next to you looking at the wall. Nothing popped to you. It was all stuff you’ve seen or done before. Finding a new and creative costume was hard when it came to the three of you. As you decided to turn around your eye caught hold of a costume hidden at the bottom of the wall. 

    “What if we dressed up as Sailor Moon, Mercury, and Mars? That way you two can fight like you always do and I don’t have to kick you guys to shut the hell up.” You looked at them as you reached out to stop the employee walking past. Pointing to the costume she rushed out to grad the three costumes for you and the boys. 

    “You know I can’t say no to you, Y/N.” Mingyu smilled widely. 

    Wonwoo looked you in the eyes, “I’m going to kill you November 1st, just remember that.”

    “Great so it’s official!” 

Chapter 11