#//but he has over the top evil cartoon villain down perfectly. Especially the laugh

[majordomo-zazu]

David Oyelowo > Chiwitel Ejiofor 

[gh0stiegirlie]

Synopsis: You have been a pro-hero for the past three years, and a damn good one too (although, you don’t think so). When you and Ground Zero are assigned on a stakeout case together to capture a member of the Dark Akumu, which is currently Musutafu's most threatening Villian League, it changes the entire course of your career-- and your life.  

Length: 1.6k words

a/n: YOOOO the bitch is back better than ever after two years, and super into my hero academia. this is going to be a multiple parter series, so I hope this is a great lil pilot!

                                                                                                 pt. 2 -> 

The feeling of civilian eyes analyzing your every move is nothing new; You are a pro-hero, after all. However, the feeling of Ground Zero glaring daggers into you as you enter the sheriff’s office is a new-- and rather unsettling --experience. 

“Welcome, Ether.” Sheriff Chie greets and gestures for you to take a seat in her office’s beaten-down spinny chair. “I have a very special case for you tomorrow night.”

“I’m all ears,” you shift awkwardly in the chair, trying to get comfortable. The number of times you and other heroes have sat in this shitty chair and listened to the Sheriff explain a convoluted plan to capture a villain was innumerable. Although, you guess the number is in the hundreds. At least. 

“We’ve had a lesser-known pro-hero go undercover, and they were able to join the intermediate group of Dark Akumu. They’ve disclosed that during pro-agencies weekly wrap-ups with their heroes this Friday, they will be attacking several meetings. But, they can’t attack without supplies.” she continues pacing around her office, although she has nowhere to go. Her office is an inadequate size for the amount of time and effort she puts into her job, and every hero here knows she deserves a bigger space for her ideas of grandeur to fester-- and a raise in her salary, too. But since pro-heroes are the ones publicly capturing villains and doing the true “labor”, you’re the ones who receive the fame, glory, and money. Police officers no longer receive the credit they deserve, and some even believe they're no longer necessary. But Sheriff Chie is an example of why the police industry is still breathing within the tight confinements pro-heroes wrapped them in; they love representing and protecting the quirkless people of the world, and society needs that. Even if it doesn’t realize it. “Tomorrow night, the Dark Akumu will have their leader's right-hand man, Youkai, collect a shipment from a smaller underground group.” She slams her hands down on his desk with enthusiasm and points at you. “That’s when you and Ground Zero come in.”

You push yourself away from the desk in shock. “Katsuki Bakugou?” You exclaim, spinning around in your chair to face the door. You stare out the small window into the police department. “I haven’t spoken to him since high school…” you trail off, remembering his bitterly cold gaze from a few minutes ago. It looked like he was trying to ignite an explosion inside your intestines. After a few moments of reflecting, you turn to face Sheriff Chie. “Why us?”

“Your powers aid each other well,” she responds simply. “The two of you will stakeout until both parties arrive for the trade. The combination of your compatible powers with the element of surprise,” she grins, “you two will be unstoppable, and capture Youkai in a matter of seconds.”

“It’s a great plan, Chie, really. All your plans are.” you begin, “But I think you’re underestimating our foes here. Yeah, they only have one villain collecting the supplies, but still. This is currently Musutafu’s most threatening villain league. He's not going down without a fight. And by fight, I mean a full-on battle.”

The Sheriff scoffs. “You underestimate yourself, Ether. Ground Zero holds more confidence in you than you do,” she explains with a wink. You turn away once more, so she can’t see the pink blush encompassing your cheeks. 

“You know Bakuguh—uh—Ground Zero and I haven’t spoken since U.A. Even then, we scarcely interacted. Except for a brawl or two.” You twirl a piece of h/c hair that fell out of your high ponytail. “It’s true that our quirks complement each other. So how come we’ve never been paired up before? Why now?” You question. 

Chie simply replies with a shrug. “There’s never been a need for two of the most powerful modern heroes to pair up; Now there’s a demand for that exact role. And you two have been selected to fulfill it.” You shift in your chair uncomfortably and avoid Chie's imploring brown eyes. She puts a hand on your shoulder. “Cmon, Skylar. I understand you have a… difficult past with Ground Zero, but I’m asking you as a protector of people and as your friend to please try and look past that. At least for one night. The city needs you. ” Sheriff Chie pleads, and she’s right. You hang your head in your hands before running one through your hair. Then, you spin around with perfect posture and a humbling smile on your face. You respectfully nod your head at Sheriff Chie.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. You’re right. I’m sure Ground Zero and I are old enough to move on from our past together and instead focus on our future. Thank you.” 

The Sheriff's proud grin is contagious, and you can’t help but smile in satisfaction with her plan. As you are about to leave the office, Chie stops you. “Before you go! I want to talk to you as your friend, not a sheriff.” You walk over to her desk and lean in close. “Hero Ground Zero was also somewhat… displeased, when he heard you were his partner. Just... Try not to fall... deeper, into his bad side. He'll lure you in, but you have to be smarter. And you are.”

“But... does he even have a good side?” You joke, and Chie chuckles.

“I know, right! With every passing second he spent in my office he looked more and more like an angry balloon ready to pop. I think his head just holds tons of hot air that he can only release by yelling at someone or punching something.” 

“It felt like he spent all of high school searching for a reason two do one of those things! Someone could walk by him the “wrong way” and he would get offended.” You laugh, holding tightly onto your aching sides.

These are the moments with Sheriff Chie you cherish; the one when you two aren’t head sheriff and pro-hero, but Chie and Skylar. Normal people, normal friends. 

After laughing over Ground Zero's unnecessarily aggressive attitude towards literally everything to the point of rolling around her modest office and bumping into shelves and knocking down paperwork, you decide it’s time to leave. You hug on the way out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at three pm sharp. I’ll briefly explain the mission again, and you two will be on your way shortly after.” You nod, and as you walk away Chie calls out from her office, “Oh! And we’ll be providing some spicy food!! The least we can do for our favorite heroes.”

You giggle and shake your head, sending a quick wave in Chie's direction as you continue to the exit. Before you leave, you glance at the spot Ground Zero was sitting in earlier. All that remains of the hero is a minor burn from his butt, presumably after growing impatient from sitting down for too long. Surprisingly, you smile at the thought. Ground Zero must not have changed much since U.A. While part of you dreads working alongside that hothead of a hero, another half appears eager to see what he's like as a pro.

It has only been a few years since you graduated with Bakugou and the rest of class 3-A at the age of seventeen. You're only twenty one now, but you feel like you've lived through three lives since high school, not three years. While the school had prepared you well for the fighting villains part of pro-hero life, they hadn’t prepared you for the physical and emotional consequences. As mentioned, you're barely twenty-one, but you're a regular at the doctor and chiropractor. You bare a heavy burden of having to execute everything perfectly all the time; no room for casualties. Because of this stress on saving every person, along with all your brand deals and sponsorships, you hardly maintain a life outside of work. While you love what you do, you miss meeting with friends at a coffee shop in the morning only to shop at the mall until midnight. You miss cuddling up with your Midnight plushie at 10 o’clock and watching superhero documentaries till the crack of dawn. Now, you are the one protecting those friends lounging around in coffee shops and malls, and the hero starring in documentaries. You truly love it all; You love digging your nose deep into Chemistry books and studying chemicals to create new toxins. You love protecting essential workers from the terrors of those who use their quirks for evil, and consequently beating the shit out of those people. But sometimes, you wish you were another bystander.

As a kid, you watched in awe as the heroes fought tirelessly, day and night, to always flawlessly beat the villain. But actually doing that, especially without complaints, is more difficult than you ever comprehended.

You park your Toyota Supra outside one of your perks of being a top ten pro hero. Currently, you live in a 1286112000.00 yen mansion and recently bought a 5358800000.00 yen estate. You were to begin moving next week and considered holding a little gathering at your new home in Tokyo as an excuse to hang out with your pro-hero 3-A classmates.

When you lock the front door, that’s when the isolation consumes you. Vast linoleum halls and long vinyl walls form a repetitive, meandering maze in your home. The only company you have are the halls that are starting to fill with donation boxes. There is one similarity between you and this house you are preparing to abandon; You both are empty on the inside. 

You shuffle your way onto your velvet sofa and turn on the TV, ensuring to avoid the news. While mindless cartoons play in the background, you take out your phone and read every Google result for Ground Zero.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Thor: Ragnarok review

Thor has had the worst track when it comes to the MCU. His first outing was an okay-at-best adventure that took place with a cast of boring, unfunny humans instead of on Asgard where cool shit happened. When you start out your trilogy with someone like Kenneth Branagh directing and even he can’t make it cool, you know you’re in trouble. Then we come to his appearance in The Avengers, where he does decent but still gets outshone quite a bit by the rest of the cast. Then we get to Thor: The Dark World, one of the worst superhero films ever made… the less said about it the better. Then comes Age of Ultron and Thor’s overall role is negligible, especially with his weird cave dream sequence which doesn’t amount to too much. All of this build’s Thor up as one of the least-interesting Avengers, which is a damn shame, because Chris Hemsworth plays the role with such charm and enthusiasm, it’s sad to see his efforts go to waste…

...And then comes Thor: Ragnarok, and it blows all that bullshit out of the water by doing a soft reboot to the whole Thor series. Sure, the bullshit before is still canon, but Thor got dumped by his human girlfriend so we don’t need to put up with those fucks anymore, the movie takes place mostly in the cosmos which were the best parts of the other Thor movies, and best of all we have a director who knows what we want to see and gives it to us with cheesy 80s and Jack Kirby aesthetic: Taika Waititi. More than anyone before him, he seems to really GET what makes Thor so cool in the first place, and what makes comic book movies cool in general. The other Thor movies are naught but a whimper to this film’s epic Led Zeppelin metal scream. But how? How did this film fix the fatal flaws of the films that came before?

First let’s give you a rundown of the story: It has been two years since Thor has left Earth. His girlfriend has dumped him, he has found no Infinity Stones, and as soon as he returns to Asgard he finds out Loki has hijacked the throne and hid his father, Odin, on Earth. And just when things don’t seem like they could get any worse, Odin dies and releases the wicked Hela, his firstborn child who was banished long ago for being an evil bitch. She makes it to Asgard and starts trying to dominate everything, while Thor and Loki end up on the planet of Sakaar… though Thor is stuck fighting in gladiator battles while Loki, who through temporal bullshit showed up a week earlier, has sucked up to the grandiose ruler known as the Grandmaster and landed himself in a cushy position. Soon enough Thor is up in the gladiator arena against his old pal, the Hulk, and from here Thor tries to figure out how he can get back to Asgard and whoop Hela’s ass. Can the mighty Thor manage this impossible feat, or is Ragnarok finally upon him?

The reason this movie works so well is that the film has moved away from dull Earth settings and into cosmic realms with a heavy 1980s sci-fi and Jack Kirby influence. Earth was not a very interesting setting for a character who is supposed to be a mighty physical god; the earlier films never really played to his strengths, as evidenced by the main villains being meek and unimposing in comparison to a swaggering viking like Thor. This is not much of a problem here, where all the foes Thor matches up against are more than able to measure up. Over the course of the film he does battle with the fire demon Surtur, his evil death goddess sister Hela, and of course the not-so-jolly green giant himself, Hulk. These are foes that actually give Thor a realistic challenge, and while there are obviously still scenes of Thor fighting mooks, there are actually antagonists that can put up solid fights themselves. It’s a real breath of fresh air!

Speaking of the characters, and continuing on with how moving away from the structure of the old film’s was a good thing… the previous supporting casts of the Thor movies were one of the greatest weaknesses. They were good actors (and Kat Dennings) in awful roles. But in THIS film, we get a supporting cast worthy of Thor! Gone is the dull Natalie Portman and the horrendously unfunny Kat Dennings characters that have bogged down the films in the past! Say hello to the new supporting cast of characters, with the badass Valkyrie and the charming goofball Korg! Valkyrie is an awesome, badass, worthy partner for Thor, who has a solid backstory and good characterization for her first film. Korg is just an absolutely lovable doofus; played by Taika Waititi himself, he exists mostly to add a bit of levity to the proceedings, which is easy to do as he is a hulking rock monster with a very soft, pleasant voice. These two are highlights of the movie, worthy newcomers and allies to Thor, and I hope they pop up more in the future. The interactions they could have if they meet up with the Avengers would be astounding.

Of course, we also have villains to take into account here, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Not in terms of quality mind you, because the performances are all well-done, it’s just that the villains tended to be underutilized. Hela is the chief example; yes, she has plenty of scenes where she’s badass, Cate Blanchett is perfect as her, and by fucking god that scene where she kills all the valkyries in flashback is one of the most gorgeous scenes I’ve ever seen in superhero cinema. But she’s a bit underutilized and barely deals with Thor until the very end of the film after their brief meetup. Still, she gets some cool fight scenes, so it does even out a bit, I just feel she deserved some more attention, especially with her interesting backstory. Surtur is quite a victim of this problem too, as instead of serving as a big bad, he’s relegated to a plot device after his defeat in the opening – a plot device I shall not reveal any spoilers on. Needless to say, he’s cool in his appearances, but he could have done a lot more. Thankfully, these two characters could possibly return, as their final scenes do leave things a bit open-ended.

But there is one antagonist who I can heap nothing but lavish praise upon: The Grandmaster. This is Jeff Goldblum dressed in the gaudiest clothing imaginable just… Jeff Goldbluming it up. He is absolutely perfect, hilarious, delightfully weird… it is everything I could have wanted from Jeff Goldblum in a Marvel film. There is not a single scene he’s in that’s unenjoyable, and I can’t wait for him to show up again so he can potentially interact with his equally scene-stealing weirdo brother, The Collector. Benicio Del Toro and Jeff Goldblum weirding it up onscreen together… It would be the stuff legends are made of. But yes, Goldblum, he’s a highlight of the film.

Now on to the returning characters: Odin is okay. Anthony Hopkins does a great job playing Loki pretending to be Odin, but his death scene is a bit rushed when taken out of context of the Thor series as a whole. It starts so near the beginning and wraps up the arc from the previous Thor film so quickly I just ca- oh, wait a second, Thor: The Dark World sucked ass, so why do I care if it’s stupid plot points get thrown out the window? Then we have Loki, who here just goes through the heel-face revolving door so many times it’s hard to really tell whose side he’s on at any given moment. As usual, his interactions with Thor are fantastic and enjoyable; they really do feel like bickering brothers who deep down do love each other, and Loki also gets some of the most hilarious moments during the Thor vs. Hulk gladiator fight. He’s solidly done, and Tom Hiddleston also gets a few scenes where he gets to ham it up, which is a big plus.

And then we have Doctor Strange, in a very brief cameo appearance that builds off the stinger of his film… and this scene is fucking awful. It’s supposed to be some goofy, lighthearted jokiness but it’s just so forced, awkward, and shoehorned into the film; it’s clearly only there to beat you over the head with the fact this movie takes place in a shared universe with other heroes. To be perfectly frank, the entirety of Thor and Loki’s trip could be cut out of the film with zero effect on the plot. It is just utterly irrelevant fanservice. The joke about Loki falling for thirty minutes though, that was funny, and it almost makes the scene worthwhile. Credit where credit is due, I laughed.

And now, the big one: Hulk. This is Hulk’s absolute best film appearance yet. He talks, he gets some personality to him, he gets good chemistry with Thor, and all his fight scenes are a blast, finally pitting Hulk against worthy foes (hey, he and Thor both finally get to fight people who are a good match)! And if you think Hulk’s the only one getting in on the fun, Banner shows up too and gets in on the fun; after two years stuck in Hulk form, Banner is a bit loopy, and gets tons of goofy, manic lines and great chemistry with Thor. Ruffalo is at the top of his game here; let’s see him keep this up in his next appearances.

Every fight scene is awesome, the score by Mark Mothersbaugh is awesome, every time “Immigrant Song” kicks up it’s the absolute peak of awesome… there’s nothing about this film that doesn’t scream “AWESOME!” Okay, well, there are a few things, as I’ve mentioned, but the pros heavily outweighs the cons. The awesome 80s Saturday morning cartoon sci-fi aesthetic fits Thor like a glove, giving him an enjoyable identity rather than the gloomy, overwrought, and often half-baked tone that has plagued his films in the past. This is a Thor film worthy of being a Thor film, and while I can’t say this is Marvel’s best film yet (I still like the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Civil War more), this is easily top ten best Marvel movies material, and one of this year's finest superhero films, and this is a damn good year for superhero movies! This one gets a recommendation for me, especially if you love throwbacks to the awesomely trashy and cheesy 80s sci-fi of the 80s… and boy fucking howdy do I love that shit.

This is science fantasy at its most fun, and I pray to all the gods of Asgard that Taika Waititi gets to keep the reigns of Thor for the foreseeable future. This man knows how to show us a good time; let’s let him keep doing it for a while longer. We need a bit more making up for the first two crappy Thor films, y’know?