#Jon is working on another Lego set guys

[b4d-m3dicine]

I like him, I like that autistic man

[hanniiesuckle17]

Anything But Normal

A/n: this was such cute Idea I hope I did it justice. It’s been a while since I’ve written a comedy piece. There are probably spelling errors I’ll go back and fix them later. also I love Jon Favreau as Happy so I had to put him in. (i swear he is one of my favorite actors) btw this is not edited (i’ll come back and do that eventually)

Requested by: @tokiokiedokie​

Warnings: Cussing,(come on it's me guys), partial nudity.

Member: Han Jisung

Summary: When Y/n’s best friend goes through a drastic change he starts keeping secrets. Secrets that include him being New York’s one and only friendly neighborhood spiderman. Shit hits the fan when his new secret life is exposed and she gets dragged into it.

Genre: Spiderman!au, romance, comedy, friends to lovers!au, little bit of angst

There are only three things that truly matter in life. Good friends, good pizza, and a good story. So far I had two of those at the moment. Sadly I was lacking a good story. Our school newspaper had been quite dry despite my efforts to discover new and intriguing stories. 

“Stop sulking and eat.” My best friend said, shoving a piece of cheese pizza in my face. Jisung laughed when I bit the end before returning to look at my laptop. We were at our usual pizza place seated next to the window with the big bright red neon sign lighting up our faces. The sun set over the New York skyline making the moment almost perfect. If only I was writing an exciting article. Instead, I was putting together a riveting look into the school’s menu changes. 

“You know I invited you because I thought you were going to be good company.”

“Please. You invited me because Felix was busy with a stupid Lego project and no one else will eat pizza with you.”

“Whatever.”

Jisung and I weren’t the most popular people in our senior class. To be frank, Jisung was my only friend. So going out and eating pizza every other day at ten o’clock at night was often the highlight of my week. Having had enough of the lack of attention Jisung slammed my laptop closed and removed it from the already small table. “Hey! I didn’t save!” 

“That’s what Google Docs is for.”

He was right. I needed to stop working. I had been slaving over that stupid and boring article all week. He didn’t have to be such an ass though. “You are such a teenager.” I scoffed, watching him shovel yet another slice of pizza down his throat. “Oh, and you are such an adult!” The mocking tone of his voice threatened a laugh. 

“I swear you are God’s punishment for enjoying sex. Everyone’s libido just disappears when you are around.”

“Hey don’t ruin our date. I was considering sleeping with you tonight.”

He laughed when I threatened to smack him. It had been like this for as long as I could remember. Just me and Jisung. My parents had been friends with his before they passed away in a car accident. Now Jisung lived with his Aunt May and his Uncle Ben a few blocks away from me. 

I remember after the crash I would wake to a tap on my window to see an eight year old Jisung on my fire escape. Not wanting to bother his Aunt with his nightmares, Jisung had run all the way to my apartment and climbed the fire escape to my room on the sixth floor. I would open the window and let him sleep in my bed. My eight year old brain used to think maybe my bed was like force field keeping away the bad dreams about his parents.

“Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?” Jisung asked bringing me out of my thoughts. 

“Mr. Finoli asked me to take pictures of the science field trip so I’m going with you guys. Why?” A look of realization crossed Jisung’s face making him freeze. “Did you forget to ask May to sign your permission slip?”

“I forgot to ask May to sign my-...you can be a real ass sometimes, you know that?”

Laughing I pulled a ten out of my wallet and left it on the table. “Come on, you’ve gotta get your slip signed, dummy.” “I can pay, it’s no problem.” He said watching me pack up my stuff. “Nah, you can get the next one.” Bellies full of pizza, we left Tony’s Pizzeria and headed in the direction of Jisung’s apartment, his arm draped over my shoulder and talking my ear off about some random experiment they had done in Physics that day. 

The next day I woke up bright and early to meet the class at the New York Museum of Science. Camera bag on my shoulder and camera around my neck I stood outside the museum with about ten other students and two teachers. My tired eyes brightened when I saw Jisung step out from the subway, May right behind him.

I laughed as he wiped a kiss from his cheek before waving goodbye to her. His dyed blonde hair was messy and blew slightly in the wind. Jisung waved when he saw me and jogged over. His hoodie lazily hung off his shoulder and his shirt and jeans were somewhat wrinkled. “Don’t you look nice?” I couldn’t help but chuckle at his appearance. 

“Shut up.”

He laughed throwing an arm around my shoulder, leading me closer to the group. Soon the tour began and I busied myself with taking photos of the group for the paper and yearbook. Jisung followed the group, only half-listening to the teacher as he looked at other random exhibits. 

At around one in the afternoon, the group moved outside to have lunch on the steps. I sat off to the side with Jisung, his legs spread out across the stairs and his elbow rested on the step above us. It was refreshing to be next to him talking about absolutely nothing. Even if he stole my food. 

Eventually, we were all called back to resume the tour. I angled a shot of two students looking at a bug exhibit, but just as I took the picture Jisung jumped in the frame throwing up a peace sign and crossing his eyes. “Hey! Stop hitting me!” He yelled as I smacked his shoulder over and over again. “Look I’m just innocently observing the exhibit. Leave me alone crazy woman!”

Sighing, I pushed him away and resumed taking photos. As the group was moving onto the next room I noticed Jisung was missing. It wasn’t unlike him to wander off into a room he wasn’t supposed to just to look at probably like some DNA model or some other weird science shit. I could never get over the fact Jisung was super into science when he gave zero fucks about his other classes. 

“Jisung?”

“Ji?”

“Ji, we are moving on,” I said looking for him. My eyes landed on a semi-open door marked ‘Lab’. He wouldn’t. He did. Just as I started to walk towards the door, he exited with a goofy smile on his face. “Y/n! Dude, they have all these cool spiders and test tubes in there it was so cool! One of them bit me!” Like an excited three-year-old, he showed me his wrist where he indeed had a red spider bite. 

“Ooooooh! Take a picture!” 

He shoved my camera into my hands and held up his arm pointing to the spider bite making the dopiest smile. Knowing he wouldn’t shut up until I complied, I took the picture. 

“Let’s catch up with the group,” I said taking his hand and dragging him back to the class. When we reached the group a teacher looked over at us his brows furrowing. “Excuse me, Miss L/n, is your friend okay?” He pointed to Jisung, a concerned expression on his face.

“Jisung? There are certainly things wrong with him but he’s oka-”

My words stopped when I turned to look at my best friend next to me. “Ji- Oh my god! Ji are you okay?” His face had obviously paled and he looked dizzy. A thin layer of sweat lay on his forehead. 

“Hell yeah. I’m doing fine, baby.” His voice sounded drowsy.

“Miss L/n he is not alright. Does he have anyone who can come get him.” The teacher said pulling out his phone. I shook my head. May worked in the day and his Uncle Ben was on a business trip. “No, they are working.” 

He sighed and turned to me. Jisung was clearly getting worse by the second and was wobbling a little. “What about you? Can you take him home?” Jisung laughed and wrapped his arms around me loosely. “Fuck yeah, I’d her take me home.” 

“I have a test in my last period.”

“I’ll write you a pass and send it to your teacher. Take him home please.”

Nodding he typed something on his phone and returned to the group who had started to move once again. “Okay Ji, let’s get you back to May’s.” Slowly we started moving to the exit. Before we made it to the doors, Jisung practically turned green. He pushed away from me and burst towards the nearest restroom. 

“Jisung!” 

Ignoring the looks and yells I followed Jisung into the restroom and looked for the stall he was in. “Hey, lady get out of here!” A man standing at the urinal screamed. 

“Oh please. Get over yourself.”

“Ji?”

Following the coughing and gagging sounds, I pushed the final stall door open. Jisung sat on the floor his mop of blonde hair hanging over the toilet. I crouched next to him and rubbed his back gently. “Oh god, I hate puking.”

“Jisung everyone hates puking.”

“Yeah well.....your face likes puking.”

“Nice comeback.”

Feeling too terrible to respond, he just threw up the contents of his stomach again. When he seemed able to stand the two of us made our way outside and down the subway. Jisung leaned most of his weight on me as I slid my metro pass through the scanner. How I managed to get him through the turnstile and onto the metro I have no clue. Thankfully there was once last seat free for Jisung to sit down in. 

“Y/n, I don’t feel good.” 

“I know,” I said softly as he rested his head against my stomach. The train turned sharply making me hold onto the strap, not wanting to fall into Jisung. Soft whines and groans came from him every now and then. This was the worst I had ever seen Jisung. 

I listened to the stations being called out as I ran my fingers through his hair, hoping that would calm him down a little. We were only four stops away but more people were getting on the train. Jisung looked up at me a sick expression on his face. It changed when he looked at the passengers boarding the car. 

“Here, Ma’am. You can take my seat.”

“Thank you so much, young man.” An older woman said taking his seat as he got up. “Jisung, you feel terrible. Are you okay to stand?” He shrugged latching onto the strap next to mine, his face paling again. “I’ll be fine, it’s only four stops.”

Jisung’s eyes started to droop as the train started up again. His body began to act heavier than it was so he resorted to leaning on me and nestling his head between my neck and shoulder. I did my best to make sure he didn’t fall over.

“You two are very cute together.” The old lady said with a smile.

“Oh- we aren’t--” 

“You better hold onto a good man like that, sweetie. Handsome and kind. Those are hard to come by.”

Before I could respond we turned again, and I had to keep Jisung from falling in this poor nice old lady’s lap. I felt his skin burning against mine. Could this train not go any faster. Soon enough our stop came. I said bye to the old woman and helped Jisung get off the train and up the subway stairs. 

“Come on, Ji. We are almost there and we both know I cannot carry your ass.” 

Eventually, I made it up the stairs of his apartment building to the fourth floor and managed to drag him to his door. “Jisung, where’s your key?” Trying not to hurt his head I propped him up on the door frame. He laughed when I started searching through his pockets.  

“Y/n if you wanted to cop a feel just ask. That tickles.” 

“Jisung where are your fucking keys?” 

“Back pocket.” He said drowsily. I sighed and reached behind him. My hands searched through his jean pockets for the cold metal keys. “Having fun back there, because I’m sure enjoying it.” 

I suppressed the urge to punch him in the stomach out of fear he would vomit all over me. Finally finding his keys, I unlocked the door and threw my stuff inside, before lugging him in as well. Jisung leaned on the couch while I put my stuff on the table.

“Y/n it’s burning up in here.” 

“Jisung, you just have a temperature.”

“It burns like fucking hell! It’s too hot!”

Before I could stop him Jisung was shedding layers like a snake. He tossed his shirt somewhere in the small living room. He was sweating like crazy, his blonde hair sticking to his forehead. “Ji, come on let’s get you in the shower.” I started running a cold shower for him before rushing back to the living room to call May. It would only be a couple hours until she got home, but I should still let her know what’s going on.

While Jisung was in the shower, I grabbed some medicine from the cabinet. I had absolutely no fucking idea how to treat a spider bite. Antibiotics? Hearing the shower turn off I knocked before entering. Jisung had a towel wrapped around his waist and was leaning his head against the wall. “Y/n...”

“I’m right here, Jisung.” Cautiously I led him to his room and watched him collapse onto his double bed. Rummaging through his drawers I found some mostly clean sweatpants. “Ji, do you even do laundry?” 

“Y/n, I feel a little too fucking sick to do chores now.”

“I know. I know.” He slipped on the sweatpants and let me dry his hair. I wrapped his arms, covering the bite so it wouldn’t get more infected then it already probably was. Jisung’s temperature flipped like crazy. One minute he was burning up and the next he was freezing. 

A sigh of relief left my chest when I heard May call out in the apartment. “Y/n thank you so much for taking care of him.” She gave me a short hug before running to go get more meds. She would know better than I would, being an ER nurse. “Ji, do you want me to stay? I can call my parents and tell them I’m staying the night.” He slowly shook his head.

“No, it’s okay.” 

“I can stay really-”

“Y/n, I’ll be fine. You can go home.” 

He gave me a half-assed smile and squeezed my hand. There was no arguing with Jisung sick or not so I gathered my things and left. May promised to keep me updated and I told her I would have my phone next to me.

The walk back to my apartment seemed longer than usual. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jisung. When I got home, my parents greeted me before telling me they would be working tonight. My dad was a cop and my mom worked at a hospital downtown. It was rare they were even home, to begin with. Exhausted from taking care of Jisung, I rolled onto my bed and fell asleep.

This boy really texted me at five the morning telling me to meet him at his locker three hours later. If he wasn’t still sick I would for sure have throttled him. Except for the fact that Jisung didn’t look sick. Not at all. He looked perfectly healthy as he walked down the hall towards me. In fact, he looked...really....good. It pissed me off. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be sick?”

“Yeah, I got better.”

Jisung opened his locker like it was any other day and got his books. “What did you want to talk about?” He sighed and looked over at me. There was something different about him. Did his jaw always look like that? No. No jaw looks like that. 

“So this morning I woke up and like I felt completely fine. In fact, I felt the best I have in years. And this weird thing happened to me on the subway-”

Jisung’s words were interrupted by the sound of his locker closing, only the entire row of metal lockers rattled as his shut. “The fuck? Did we have an earthquake or something?” I asked looking around. “What? No. New York isn’t on a fault line.” Shrugging it off I turned back to Jisung.

“You were saying?” He seemed distracted now, looking at his closed locker. “Ummm.... I wanted to thank you for yesterday.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him. “Ji, you don’t need to thank me. I’ll always take care of you if you need me.” As I pulled away his hands stayed on my waist, which wasn’t totally out of the norm. Jisung was always a really touchy and flirty person. It drove me crazy sometimes, knowing that it was just his personality and not him acting on something else. 

“So this weird thing happened on my way to school this morning. My hand-” Again Jisung was interrupted. This time by the bell ringing for homeroom. “Hey Jisung, I’ve gotta go, but you can tell me at lunch right?” He nodded, his expression becoming more uneasy. As I turned his grip on my waist stopped me.

“Ji, I know you wanna tell me now but I have to go!” I said with a laugh. A nervous breathy laugh escaped his lips as he tried to pull away from me. “Well, you know how hard it is for me to keep my hands off of you.” Arching an eyebrow I chose to ignore his weird behavior and walked off to my homeroom. 

When the lunch bell finally rang I took my food outside to where Ji and I normally ate. However, he was nowhere in sight. As if he could read my thoughts, my phone notified me of a text from Jisung.

Lix asked me to help him with some Chem work. Sry I can’t eat with you :(

I sent him a quick reply saying it was okay. It wasn’t the first time I had eaten alone and it surely wouldn’t be the last. To no surprise, Chaeyoung and one of her friends walked by. “Have you seen that kid? What’s his name? Jihyun?” She said in her shrill voice. It was hard not to hear her conversation even from twenty feet away.

“No, I think his name is Jisung. Han Jisung. He is in my physics class. Kind of a dweeb if you ask me.” 

“Well, that dweeb filled out. He was probably just a late bloomer, but like all of a sudden, he got really hot. Have you seen his arms and his chest? Oh my god! A girl could die.” 

The girls laughed and continued to objectify my best friend. They were right. Jisung had seemed to have had a huge glow up overnight. His lanky form did seem more toned and his arms were much more muscular than I remembered. 

“Can you believe he still hangs out with that new junkie girl? Like, please. He could get any girl he wants now. Why stay friends with that waste of space?” 

“That bitch is so full of herself. Literally, no one even likes her.” Chaeyoung said laughing. Having heard enough, I got up and decided to go to my next class early. It didn’t necessarily bother me what she had said. Chaeyoung always liked to mess with me.

All my classes seemed slower than usual and Jisung was answering my texts. At this point in the day, we would probably be having a meme war or a stupid conversation ignoring our teachers, but my phone was silent. Not a single notification. 

By the end of the day, I was feeling totally depressed. English was my last class and thank god I had it with Jisung. No doubt he would be late though. He rarely ever showed up on time to class. But, as I walked through the classroom door I did a double-take seeing my best friend in his usual seat right beside mine. 

He gave me an innocent smile. This was strange. Jisung was never early. He looked...normal. I mean other than the physical overnight puberty storm. He slouched in his chair his long legs spilling into the aisle, not that he cared, and he twirled a pen between his long slender fingers. 

“Yo, wassup, cutie?” He said as I sat down. “You seem to be the talk of the school.” He shrugged and shuffled through some physics work he had on his desk. “You jealous?” That stupid smirk appeared on his mouth. “No. Just confused.”

“Okay, class. Settle down. We are going to be returning to our analysis of Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility.” 

I busied myself with taking thorough notes knowing Jisung would just fall asleep again or just play a random game on his phone. The teacher droned on making a seemingly not boring book a complete snooze fest. The lecture continued without end threatening to send me to sleep as well. Out of habit, I looked over at Jisung, except he was not asleep. Jisung was wide awake and he appeared to be listening intently. 

As if he sensed I was looking at him he turned and smiled at me before returning his attention to the front of the classroom. This was too weird. Where was my Jisung? Maybe he was still sick. That could explain the weird behavior, right? 

The harsh sound of the release bell brought me out of my thoughts. Jisung was already packing up his stuff. “Hey, you wanna stop by Tony’s on the way home? You can buy me a slice!” I said latching onto his arm. The girls were right. Jisung had filled out. Feeling myself starting to blush, I let go and looked back up at my best friend. 

“I can’t. I’ve gotta run some errands fro May and then Uncle Ben asked me to pick up dinner and some other stuff.”

“I can come with you?”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll text you later!” 

Without another word, Jisung raced out of the classroom. I knew Jisung pretty well and it was clear he didn’t want me around today. Alone-again- I rode the subway back to my apartment to be greeted by an empty living room. My mom had left a note on the counter leaving me money for dinner and saying Jisung was welcome to come over. “Yeah, well he’s too busy,” I said to no one in particular. 

It got dark pretty quick. All my homework was finished. I even managed to submit the stupid article on lunch menus. Eventually, I had nothing to do but stare at my ceiling. The news was getting pretty boring. After the whole Avenger’s fiasco, things had quieted down, and no interesting stories were in sight. By 11:30 I had given up hope Jisung was going to text let alone call so I did the next best thing. 

“Hi, May! Is Jisung busy?” 

“Hi, sweetie! Jisung got home about an hour ago. He said he was out with Felix. Should I tell him to call you?”

“No, no. It’s fine. You don’t have to tell him. I’ll talk to him later.”

“Okay, honey. Goodnight!”

Han Jisung you filthy little liar. If he didn’t want to hang out with me he should have just said so. Deciding I had finally had enough of this awful day I curled up under my covers and fell asleep.

Months had now passed and Jisung had started acting normal again. Well as normal as Jisung could be anyway. Our near daily trips to Tony’s had decreased to only twice a week and Jisung always seemed to be busy after school, though he made sure to text me back for fear of facing my wrath. 

“What do you think of this Spiderman guy?” I asked typing away on my laptop. Jisung lounged across my bed, the Saturday afternoon light casting a warm glow over his face.  He looked up from his place beside me. “Uhh...I don’t know. What do you think of him?”

“He seems a little childish and amateur, but he is a great story. Vigilante helping out downtown New York? That’s gold.”

“Childish? What do you mean childish? He’s professional as fuck. I heard he stopped a bank robbery the other day.”

“Yeah, and they found the criminals hanging from a lampost by their underwear.”

Jisung laughed and ran a hand through his blonde hair before looking up at the ceiling. “You’ve been talking about Spiderman a lot lately. What do you have a crush on him?” I scoffed, fingers flying across my keyboard. “Please. I don’t date children. Besides, I just think he is a great story.”

“You wanna order takeout?” Jisung asked reaching over me to get my phone. My dad was on duty and my mom was on call so Jisung had come over to keep me company. I did my best to pretend I didn’t notice how amazing he smelled as he leaned over me. “You know you should really stop eating junk food. You are what you eat.” I said distracting myself from how close he was.

“Well then if we are what we eat, I guess I would be fast, cheap, and easy.” 

Jisung winked at me, making my eyes roll. Jisung had grown at home in his new body and somehow he got even cockier than he was before. He groaned at my lack of response and instead let his head rest in my lap, giving him a good view of my screen. “Play with my hair, bitch.”

“Excuse me, dick. I’m working.” He laughed and unlocked my phone. I often wondered why he liked just sitting with me. I think I remembered him telling me once that he liked the sound of me typing. He said it had sort of a rhythm that only belonged to me. How he could pick up on that I had no clue. Like he had superhearing. 

“I ordered sushi. Don’t worry, I’ll pay.” Jisung said, adjusting his body slightly so he wasn’t at an awkward angle. I smiled continuing to write about our masked arachnid hero. “Please tell me you got boba too.” I sighed suddenly craving the sweet drink.

“Of course, baby. I’ve got you.” 

There was a moment of silence. Any minute now Jisung was going to break it. The boy couldn’t go three minutes without talking. “Do you think Spiderman is hot?” Jisung blurted out. 

“Jisung...do we need to have a talk?”

“What- no! Oh, what- no! I mean like do you think he’s hot?”

“The guy wears a mask; how am I supposed to know?”

He shrugged and played on my phone. “I don’t know. What do you think he looks like?” With Jisung’s mind, he wasn’t going to drop this until he got an answer. Saving my work, I closed my laptop and moved it onto the side table. “He’s probably like thirteen. I’m mean he is skinny enough to be a pre-teen.”

“No, like his face.”

“You are weirdly obsessed with this you know.”

“Answer the question already. I’m getting bored.”

I thought for a minute, my hand unconsciously moving to run through his blonde locks. What would spiderman look like? “He is probably just some random white dude. Dark hair, blue eyes maybe?”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer. The topic changed after that. Jisung told me about spending time with his Uncle earlier that day and we talked about his weird physics experiments. Soon enough, the food came and Jisung paid for it like he said he would. We spent the next several hours sitting in my bed eating sushi, drinking boba, and watching a drama Jisung insisted I ‘needed to see or my brain would explode out of my ears from being lame’.

After several episodes, my room was obscenely dark and my parents had yet to come home. My back rested against Jisung’s chest letting me feel the vibration of his laughs. “Hey, it’s late. You should probably head home.” He smiled when I made no attempt at moving or letting him up. “Do you want me to stay?” “Yes  please.”  He chuckled and pulled out his phone, calling his uncle and letting him know. 

Soon I began to grow tired, my head slumping back onto his shoulder. He poked my side, trying to wake me up. “Hey, go change for bed.” Sleepily, I nodded and shuffled out of bed to sift through my closet for a nightshirt. Jisung moved around getting comfortable while I changed. 

As I walked back over to the bed Jisung shut my laptop and placed it on my nightstand. When I climbed back into my bed he pulled me on top of him, wrapping his arms around my waist. It had been quite a while since Jisung had stayed over. It felt so nice just to be next to him, feeling the warmth radiating off his bare chest. The sound of his heartbeat lulled me to sleep. 

Jisung’s ringtone blared in my small room quickly waking me up. “Ji-” I said shoving my head under the covers. “I got it. Go back to sleep.” A quick glance at my clock told me it was two am. Who the hell was calling Jisung at two am? Jisung reached over me and grabbed his phone off the stand. He tried not to move a lot because my head still lay on his arm. “Hello?”

“Happy? What’s wrong?”

“Jisung tell the Disney dwarf to hang up. I wanna go back to sleep.” I whined, drowsily. Snuggling back into his chest, I reluctantly listened to him sleepily talk on the phone, Jisung not being fully awake himself. “Where am I? I’m at Y/n’s.....Yes....Yes, you can add the location to the list.” I felt Jisung run a hand through his fluffy hair and sigh.

“Mr. Stark said what? Yeah, yeah I have it in my bag....What now?....She’s gonna kill me....I can be there in ten.” Jisung hung up and started to get out of bed. “Woah, where the hell are you going? I need my personal space heater.” Jisung let out a tired laugh as he slipped his baggy shirt back on and rummaged through his bag looking for something. 

“I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”

“Jisung who the fuck is calling you at two am? What is so important that you have to leave?” I asked still not really awake and comprehensive. “Uhhh....my....internship.”

“Your what?”

“My internship.”

“Your what?” 

“My internship.” 

“Yeah-Ji- you keep saying ‘your internship’ like my half-asleep half murderous mind will understand what your saying.”

 “I got an internship with Stark Industries. They have uh... a problem....with some of the...code that I wrote....last week.” 

Jisung started slipping his socks back on as I stared at him in confusion. “When did you get an internship with freaking Tony Stark -You work with Ironman?!” He laughed and started searching for his shoes. 

“Y/n, go back to sleep. I’ll see you on Monday.” Then he left. I was alone once again in my room. A random siren went off in the distance and I just sat in bed. Suddenly, the police scanner on my dresser crackled to life. My dad had given it to me for my birthday a few years ago. 

We have a 647g Disorderly Conduct at 284 Hickom Av.

647g? Why bother calling that in at this time of night? That was just loitering. Sighing, I got up and walked over to turn the radio off. Another voice coming through stopped me. 

Disregard suspect has left the premise with another group of guys. Headed south down Hickom. 

South down Hickom street? What had my dad said earlier this week? Something about several high arms deals going down near there. If I could catch one in the act this would be a great story! Throwing on some pants and slipping on my sneakers, I grabbed my camera and put on my jacket. “Finally a great story!” 

Hickom Avenue was maybe about ten minutes away. The streets were pretty dark at two am, but it didn’t really bother me. My curiosity overpowered any fear I should have. My eyes scanned the area looking for any sign of the guys the scanner mentioned. Just as I was about to cross in front of an alley I saw them. Quickly I doubled back and pressed against the wall. 

“If I’m paying 4k for some lightsaber shit, I’d better get a demonstration, man.”

Carefully I peeked around the corner. Seven men stood in the hallway. Three were next to this heavy-duty van with blacked-out windows. This was definitely an arms deal if I had ever seen one. Which....to be fair...I hadn’t. But it was pretty clear. 

A guy with muscles bigger than my head pulled out a large weapon with green glowing lights. Quickly I pulled out my camera and started snapping pictures. They proceeded to fire this huge light cannon around the alley. Holy shit. This thing was powerful.

“Okay, you got a deal. I’ll take four-”

Let’s dance the night away,

Let’s  dance the night away,

Yeaaaahh

One, Two, Three! Let’s go!

“Fuck,” I whispered ripping my phone out of my pocket and struggling to turn it off. “Turn off, come on.” Finally, I silenced the phone and turned to see if they had heard. Instead my eyes met a broad chest only a couple inches away. 

Okay....think, think, think. Too busy panicking. Can’t think. Uhhhhhh......fuck. I followed my first instinct and threw a punch at the guy’s nose. His head did not recoil like it was supposed to. He just simply cracked his neck and glared down at me.

Okay.....instincts bad.

Before I knew it I was struggling against the man’s grip as he dragged me into the alley. “We’ve got a visitor.” He said throwing me onto the ground in front of all the other men. They sneered and inched closer clearly quite upset I had interrupted their little party. 

“Make that two. Hey, how are you guys doing?” 

All heads turned to the roof of the liquor store we were next to. My eyes widened. There was Spiderman. Complete with the red and blue suit and cocky childish attitude. “Who the fuck are you?” The buff guy, who now had his foot digging into my stomach, said.

“Bro....Come on. I’m Spiderman. You know. I shoot webs and kick ass.” 

“Isn’t he that guy from YouTube that did the flip on that building?”

“OH MY GOD, THAT WAS ONE TIME!”

The man scoffed and pressed further onto my stomach, making me wince slightly. “Scram, Arachne Boy.” The men around me laughed at I assumed the leader’s joke. The hero sighed and shook his head.

“See now I have to beat you up. You can’t just make fun of my name. That shit hurts, bro.”

“What the fu-” Before he could finish his sentence a web shot and grabbed onto his face and flung him into the side of the building. Soon a fight broke out. Trying to remove myself from the situation I crawled away as Spiderman fought all the men. 

“Ah!” 

A strong hand grabbed the back of my neck and hoisted me off the ground. “You aren’t getting away that easy, little girl.” The man sneered. A huge welt was on the side of his face from Spiderman’s attack. My airway’s started to close as he squeezed tighter. My hands tried to pull his fingers away and slapping at any place I could reach. Meanwhile, the last thing I would hear before I died would be Spiderman yelling something about Naruto running a dude into the next Millenium. 

As the edges of my vision started to fade, I heard another voice come closer. “Get your fucking mutant hands off her!” It screamed. I was dropped to the ground. Air filled my lungs as I took huge gasps. Looking up I saw Spiderman taking on the huge monstrosity of a man with nothing but his own two hands. 

“I was told never to play with guns. But I think today might be the exception.”

A web shot out of his fingertips and pulled the weird contraption into his hands. A bright light emitted and fired at the man, blasting him into the building wall. Within seconds Spiderman had wrapped up the villain in a little cocoon of sticky webs, keeping him secure. A quick look around told me he had already done the same to the others. 

The boy in the red suit danced around like a weirdo, while I sat on the ground. “Go Spidey! Go Spidey! Hell yeah! I made all of you my bitches!” I coughed still trying to get air back into my lungs. The white eyes on his mask widened. It must be some pretty advanced tech in that suit.

“Holy shit- Are you okay, Y/n...........I mean...wait-...random citizen I don’t know who means nothing to me personally. Are you okay?”

His voice weirdly got lower halfway through his sentence. Dazed, I looked back up at him. He offered me a hand up and gratefully I took it. “Thanks for helping back there,” I said, voice coming out a bit sore. He shrugged and puffed out his chest. 

“Yeah, I did kick some serious ass didn’t I?”

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my camera and started to walk away. “Wait! Where are you going?” He swung from a lamppost and landed in front of me the suit’s eyes widening and shrinking again. His suit must have facial readers or something. 

“I’m going home. I’ve got my story; I’m done.”

“Hey it’s not safe. Let me take you home. What would your friends say if you weren’t at school tomorrow?” 

Spiderman continued to follow me as if he were a lost puppy. I laughed when he almost tripped over a trashcan. “Okay, one- how do you know I’m a student? And two- I don’t really have any friends. People don’t like me at school.” He stopped in his tracks. 

“What do you mean- Are you getting bullied at school?” His words stopped me. He sounded genuinely concerned. By now we were halfway to my apartment. I simply stared at him as the old streetlights flickered and struggled to light up the sidewalks we were on.

“A couple people bother me, but I just ignore them. Look I’m gonna go home. Thanks for back there. You were a real hero.” 

He looked between me and my hand as I stuck it out for him to shake. Slowly he took it, his grip firm, but cautious. “You know, usually heroes get a thank you kiss for rescuing such a gorgeous girl.” I scoffed and pulled my hand away. 

“Sorry, Spidey. I’m not interested in cocky little shits who run around wearing masks.”

“Yeah well, you’d be surprised. What is your type? Bet, I’m still it.”

My eyes lit up thinking about him. “I guess I’m more of the boy next door type. They say you always fall for your best friend right?”

He blinked as if he was processing my words. What I thinking? A horny fourteen-year-old boy wouldn’t understand. “Night, Spidey. Thanks for the save.” Not letting him say another word, I headed back to my apartment. My apartment was still empty when I returned. My parents wouldn’t be back until after I left for school in a few hours. Reluctantly I went back to my bed, missing the space where Jisung lay only a few hours earlier. It was harder to fall asleep without him next to me.

My legs carried me as quickly as they could. I ignored the crazy looks from people on the street as I raced to May’s apartment. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I burst through the building’s main entrance. Knowing the elevator would take too long and it was probably broken again, I took the stairs up to the fourth floor. 

The door was unlocked when I ran into the apartment. “May? May!” I called, looking for her in the living room. Hearing small cries I turned to find her exiting the kitchen. With open arms, I let her hug me and cry into my shoulder. 

We sat in the kitchen in silence. Occasionally one of our cries would slip, but the emptiness would return. He wasn’t answering any of my calls. I was beginning to worry. May said they were together. Where was he? It had been hours since May had called me. The sound of the door opening made us both stand from our seats. 

Jisung walked in with heavy shoulders and blood on his forehead and smeared across his shirt. He had dried tears staining his cheeks. I had seen the footage of the shooting on the news with May, but the sight of Jisung standing before us made my heart break. 

I held myself back as May went to her nephew. They needed each other. I could wait. Whispers between the two were shared, most likely about her husband. She had already gotten a call, but hearing it from Jisung seemed important to her. After a moment she excused herself, saying something about wanting to go to bed. 

The two of us stood in silence. I had no idea how to comfort him. How could you comfort someone who just watched their uncle die? Jisung started to slowly move towards his room. Wordlessly, I followed. 

After I closed his door, I turned to find him staring at the walls small cries coming from his form. There were pictures of him and his uncle all over his room. Jisung sighed when I wrapped my arms around him from behind. He turned around so he could hold me to his chest. Hot tears fell against my neck as he cried. 

It felt like hours before he calmed down. Gently I led him over to the bed and sat him down. All he could do was stare at his hands as I grabbed a clean shirt from his closet and a wet cloth from the bathroom. There was no fight from him as I lifted the bloodied shirt from his body and put it in the hamper. 

Carefully, I lifted his chin and gently started cleaning the blood away from his face. I tried not to wipe away the tears that slowly ran down his cheeks. He looked broken-and tired like he hadn’t slept even before today’s events. My heart shattered when he finally looked me in the eye. 

“I’m not ready for this.” He whispered, more tears falling. 

Wrapping my arms around him, I let the clean shirt fall to the floor. “I know...” I tried to keep tears from falling from my own eyes. I concentrated on running my fingers through his hair and how tightly he held onto my waist. “You’re never going to be ready for it.” He cried even harder, making me want to scream for him. 

Slowly, I laid back onto his bed, holding him on top of my chest. “No one is ever ready for what you are going through,” I whispered. His body shook from crying and he buried his nose into my neck, holding onto me as if I were the only tether keeping him from floating away. “But, you are so strong. We aren’t faced with challenges we can’t overcome.” His breathing started to steady as my hand traced patterns on this bare skin of his back. “Sometimes I wish I was normal,” He whispered.

“Ji, you are anything but normal. And that’s okay. But for now...you can just be here. I’ll be with you. When you’re ready you can do whatever you need to. But...just stay here for now.”

He nodded and held onto me even tighter. I listened to his breath, gently rubbing his back and playing with his hair. When I knew he was asleep, I let myself do the same. Tomorrow would be another day. I would most likely have to leave and let Jisung and May grieve, but for now, I could be with him. Hopefully, that was enough. 

Early the next morning, I woke up to an empty bed. Jisung’s covers were loosely wrapped around me and his window was cracked open, letting a strip of sunlight in. Slowly, I sat up and rubbed my head. It was quite unusual for him to be up this early. Well, it was quite unusual for me to be up this early, but it was like my body had a sensor for when he was gone. I pulled my phone from the table and started to text him.

The sound of the window opening caused my attention to turn. I froze as I saw Jisung climbing through the window. “What the fuck!” He froze when he saw me. My eyes widened, taking the sight in. Jisung was standing before me wearing a familiar red and blue suit, a mask in his hand. 

“Y/n, I can explain...”

Was Jisung Spiderman? Was my best friend Spiderman? Holy shit! “Okay explain!” He simply stared at me, eyes wide. His hand came to scratch the back of his neck. His eyes avoided mine as my arms crossed my chest. 

“Jisung, might I suggest explanation protocol #38 for Miss L/n?”

“Oh my God! Friday, shut up! You aren’t helping.”

I watched as Jisung said to the AI apparently in his suit before he tossed the mask onto his desk. “You have an explanation protocol for me?” The look on his face showed that he knew he was in trouble. 

“See the thing is...I’m not Spiderman-...” He stopped when I glared at him. “Okay, I am Spiderman. This is my internship with Mr.Stark.” Without hesitation, I got up from his bed and started slapping his arm.

“This doesn’t even hurt, does it? You have superstrength. Oh my god, I’m going to fucking murder you.” An aggravated sigh left my chest. “So this whole entire time you have been swinging around the city saving people and doing flips on buildings and I was none the wiser?” I said turning back to him.

“That was one time! But...yes.” He stood awkwardly in his own room. “Look, I’m sure you have a lot of questions.” He gulped when my stern gaze turned back on him. “So, anything you ask I’ll answer.” 

“Who else knows?”

“Mr. Stark, Happy- the guy who is my supervisor-, and Felix.”

“FELIX?”

He flinched as my voice raised. Taking a breath, I calmly sat back down on his bed. He watched as I crossed my legs and turned off the sound on my phone. No way was I gonna let my parents interrupt this conversation. “How did you become like...this...” I asked pointing to his clearly toned physique.

“At first I thought it was just like another puberty thing. But, like puberty doesn't make me shoot webs out of my hands. I think it was that spider from the lab.”

“So do-...are all your...bodily fluids...like...webs? Like do you shoot webs out of everywhere or-”

“You wanna find out?” Jisung said with a smirk, coming closer. I did not hesitate to slap him. 

“You couldn’t think of a better name though? Spiderman, really? You couldn’t come up with something more aggressive?”

“Well, I mean...like - spiders are cool, okay!”

I could tell he was uncomfortable. Usually, Jisung always stood up straight and had some sort of a smile or smirk on his face, but he was truly nervous. He watched me expectantly, waiting to answer whatever questions I asked next.

“So when you said you were away on a company retreat for the weekend. That was actually you who was fighting Captain America and all that shit in Prauge?”

“Yes.”

“When you left that night, did you go to the arms deal?”

“Yes.”

“So, it was you who saved me.”

“Your welcome.”

“Don’t push it.”

Nervously, he let out a laugh. No matter how many questions I asked...he was still my best friend. I was proud of him. He was doing so much good. Don’t get me wrong I was still very pissed at him for not telling me. “You owe me pizza at Tony’s for the rest of the fucking year.” A sigh of relief left his chest and he wrapped me in a hug. 

“That’s fine by me. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t ask about the whole crush thing.” I pulled away to see that fucking smirk on his mouth. “I think it’s cute you’re in love with me.” He tugged me closer to his body, gripping my waist.

“Who says I’m in love with you?”

“Me.”

“You’re an asshole- you say a lot of stupid shit.”

“I’m an asshole, not a liar. There’s a difference.”

My breath caught in my throat when I saw his eyes glance down to my lips. I could practically feel my heartbeat pulsing through my entire body. It was true and he knew it. I was in love with him. “Well....what are you going do about it? Prick...” I said in a shaky breath. He let out a soft laugh, his eyes lighting up. 

“Kiss you....bitch.”

My heart went crazy as he pressed his lips to mine. Closing my eyes, I melted into his touch. This was definitely the craziest two days of my entire life. I never would have imagined I would have to comfort my best friend, find out he was a superhero running around New York, and then have him kiss me in his bedroom.

Jisung smiled as I kissed him back, draping my arms around his neck and threading my fingers through his blonde hair. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought kissing Jisung would be like this. Without his mouth leaving mine he pushed me up against the wall of his bedroom. He sighed when my teeth caught his bottom lip.

“Fuck...do you know how long I’ve thought about this?” He asked before returning to my lips. 

“Kissing me?”

“To be honest I’ve been thinking about more than that since I was thirteen.”

Ignoring my scoff, Jisung continued to attack my lips like he had found water for the first time after walking in a desert. His hands slid under my legs, making me shriek when he picked me up. In one swift motion, he turned around and threw me onto his bed, before hovering over me. “I love you,” He whispered, before placing a soft kiss on my lips. Slowly, he moved down to my neck, my hands running through his soft hair. Impatiently, I pulled him back to my lips. 

Our little makeout session was interrupted by the sound of Jisung’s phone ringing. He sighed and dropped his head onto my shoulder. “I have to get that,” He sighed and pushed himself off the bed, walking over to pick up his phone. My eyes couldn’t help but rake over him. Now, I could freely ogle how gorgeous his body was. I bit my lip, looking at the lines of his broad shoulders go down to his slim waist.

“Happy, now is not a good time.”

“Yes....among other things...” A blush flooded his cheeks as he looked back at me still laying on his bed. 

“Can’t Mr. Stark send someone else?”

“I’m not just going to up and leave.”

Getting bored, I got up and wrapped my arms around him. He tried to look over at me, but I just buried my face in his chest. Patiently, I waited for him to finished the call with Happy. Finally, he threw the phone onto his bed and kissed me again. “Do you have to go?” I asked against his lips. He pulled away another smirk filling his face.

“You want to go to Berlin for a week?”

“What?”

“Mr. Stark needs me in Berlin. Something about S.H.I.E.L.D and an Avenger thing. But, there is no way May will let me go. Especially after yesterday.”

“Why am I going?”

“Happy said I could take you with me, you know to convince May to let me go.”

I laughed and kissed him again. “Sure. I’ll go to Berlin with you.” He laughed and spun me around the room. “However, you are gonna be the one to tell my dad that we are going alone with no chaperone to a country where the drinking age is sixteen.” 

“Fuck.”

“Good luck, Ji.”

Requests are open, just send an ask my lovelies!

Masterlist

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Since Streaky is canon now (yay! :D), I'm wondering, does Streaky exist in the Cool Aunt Kara AU too?

Short answer: YEP.

Longer answer:

Karais not a pushover. She's not.

Shepromised the Danvers that Alex would be in bed by eight. And she is!

Physically.In bed.

...Notasleep, but...Getting there?

“Okaaaaay,have I told you about the time Thara and I—”

“Yes,”Alex chirps, nodding solemnly.

“Howabout that one time I saved Atlantis?”

“Youtold that one last time.”

Karasighs, scratching her head. “Right, okay.” Alex looks at herexpectantly. The deal was, Alex would go to bed, if andonly if, Kara could deliver asatisfactory bedtime story. Kara had hastily agreed, of course, buthad not bothered to read the fine print:

Ithad to be one Alex had never heard before.

“Um...therewas that thing with the batmobile and the tire pump—”

Alexhuffs.

“Youtold that one too!” she says, crossing her arms and frowning. Karaholds up her hands.

“Right,right, okay!”

“It'sgotta be new.”

“Iknow, I know,” Kara placates, “just let me...” she trails off,thinking. She lets her gaze wander a bit, hoping something in Alex'sroom might offer inspiration.

Shockingly,Lego bricks and Barbies don't really jog any exciting memories.

There'sBrian the Otter, lying at the end of the bed, but Kara's alreadyexhausted her cache of Atlantean stories, apparently. A couple ofbrightly colored Beanie Babies, a cheap, carnival-grade Odie andGarfield, won last summer by Jeremiah—

Karastares at the faded orange cat.

“...HaveI ever told you...” she starts, the memory falling neatly intoplace, “about the time I accidentally gave my cat superpowers?”

Kansas,some years ago...

Thesun had not quite set over the Kent farm. It remained perched low onthe horizon, casting everything in an inviting orange glow, thelengthening shadows tinged with violet.

Karaignored the picturesque scene as she trudged angrily towards thebarn, Jon's toolbox in tow. The tools inside clanked noisily witheach step, announcing her intentions to a few stray chickens who hadwandered over from the coop out back.

“Shoo,”she muttered to the nearest one, who just stared and offered a mildlyoffended squawk. None of the chickens cared much for her; probablyhad something to do with her noisy trips to the barn.

(And...there was that one time...with the...super sneeze...)

Itwasn't her fault, though. (The noisy tool box. The super sneeze...that was definitely all her.) It was the dumb pod that was theproblem, refusing to work properly. She approached the craft inquestion, letting the toolbox drop to the hard packed earth floor ofthe barn with a sharp KER-CLANK.

Shetugged the faded blue tarp aside, gathering the material up into acrinkled, messy bundle before tossing it away.

Dull silver metal caught the early evening sunlight, and the glarereminded Kara to trot back to the barn door, and nudge it closed.

Theywere quite a ways from their nearest neighbor, but. They weren't all thatfar from the main road, and the glare would attract attention.

Doorshut, the interior of the barn was decidedly more gloomy, all dullbrowns and dusty air. Slivers of orange and yellow light peeking out frombetween the wooden slats were enough to work by for now, but. Inabout thirty minutes or so, Kara would have to break out the lantern.

Sighing,she approached the pod again, this time clambering into the crampedcockpit. Her hands automatically moved to the controls, muscle memorytaking over from there as she cycled through the safety checks andflight monitors—all essentially useless now, given the current fuellevels.

Ofcourse, she wasn't interested in a joyride, so it didn't matter. Shewas more concerned with the on-board computer, and the knowledgestored therein.

AccessCode: Accepted. The messagescrolled lazily across the readout in the familiar, blockycharacters of Kryptonese. Kara smiled in spite of herfrustration—reading Kryptonian was so...instantand effortless. English always took half a second more.

Query?

Karasighed, pulling a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of herjeans. In smudged ink was a list of possible search topics that,hopefully, would lead her to something, anything on theon-board computer resembling an encyclopedia, or collection of...of...

Well.A collection of whatever was kept on the Sun Stones.

Thenew search terms she had thought up in the last week were just asnonsensical as the ones she'd come up with the week prior, and theone before that, and the one before that. She ran out of logicalinputs well within the first month of trying to extract everythingshe could from the pods—now she was down to the really weirdstuff that was almost certain to bring up absolutely nothing.

Andshe was right, of course, which meant she had to try and deal withthe darn Sun Stones again.

Ah,the Sun Stones.

Wayeasier to use than the dumb controls on the pod. In theory, anyway.

Shegrit her teeth as she climbed back out of the pod, stalking over tothe workbench where, tucked in a hidden compartment, wrapped in aboutfour layers of grease-covered drop cloths, were the six Sun Stonesthat had accompanied the El children on their journey from Krypton.

Everythingthey'd need to know, everything they'd need to survive.

Andunderneath the bundle of red-tinged prisms was the light array thatallowed the information to be read off the nigh-invisible groovesetched in the crystalline surface.

Thevery broken, entirely useless light array.

Sheset the Sun Stones aside, pulling out the pieces of thearray and setting them on the workbench, running her fingers over themetal casings and tiny, fractured parts.

Afterstaring at them for a while, she took a seat on the nearby stool, andstared some more.

Staredand thought. Ran over various solutions to the problem athand—solutions she hadn't yet tried a dozen times over.

Thetask was difficult for a number of reasons, but almost all of themcould be boiled down to the fact that Earth simply wasn't equipped todeal with this technology—all the tools at her disposal wereso...so primitive. Taking a wrench to this was a sure fire wayto cause even more damage. (Kara knew, because she'd triedthat and all she had to show for it was more broken pieces.)

Shesighed, reaching for the most intact portion—the housing of thesmall deltahedron core. That, thankfully, was stilloperational. The core emitted a bright, cheerful sort of blue light,and hummed almost imperceptibly. She was trying to find a way tojust...bypass all the broken bits and make due with the workingpieces, but. Without the actual light part of the light array,all she really had was an extremely efficient battery and...yeah. Anextremely efficient battery.

“Maybe...maybesomething with magnifying glasses?” Kara muttered to herself,pulling the deltahedron from the housing and blowing off a bit ofdust that had settled on the surface. The barn door behind hercreaked, and Kara turned, ready to tell the intruding chickens to getlost.

Exceptit wasn't the chickens, but rather, the large, orange tabby that hadtaken up residence in the hayloft.

“Oh,hello,” Kara greeted the cat happily. She much preferred hercompany to the chickens. “Want back up in the loft?”

Thecat didn't answer (she so rarely did) and instead trotted to one ofthe posts and rubbed her flank along the corner, purring noisily.Kara stood to shut the barn door, but before she could do so, threetiny kittens scurried inside.

“Oh,hey!” she exclaimed, grinning. “You've got a family!” shepaused, something clicking. “That explains the round stomach...Ikinda thought you were just. Overeating.”

Again,the cat ignored her, but the kittens...they took a keeninterest in Kara's presence, sniffing at her work boots, pawing ather feet for attention.

Shehesitantly granted their request, keeping the interactions to pettingonly—she didn't really trust herself to handle the tiny things—theylooked so small and fragile, and she...she was clumsy. And superstrong.

Theyseemed pleased, though, purring up a storm and mewling happily. Karafound herself delighted by the distraction.

“Youguys are so cute,” she remarked softly, “And way more interestingthan broken Sun Stone tech.”

Thesmallest of the bunch—another orange tabby with a random whitepatch on its side—meowed loudly in what Kara had to assume wasagreement.

Sheliked that one. A lot.

“Areyou guys hungry?” she asked, carefully standing. She was prettysure Martha had some sort of canned meat on hand. “I don't think wehave tuna, or anything. But. We might have that fake ham stuff.”

Therewas no cry of protest (not that Kara really expected one) soshe figured that would work. She briefly wondered if she should putthe Stones and array back in the workbench, but. She wouldn't be gonethat long.

“Beright back,” she promised, hoping they'd stick around a bit longer.They were a great distraction, yes, and infinitely preferableto angrily fiddling with the array all evening, but. Moreimportant than that...

Karawanted to show Clark.

“Whatwere the cats' names?” Alex wants to know.

Karapauses, mid-recollection, momentarily caught off guard.

“What?”

“Thecats' names,” Alex repeats, only slightly exasperated. Apparently,this is vital information that she needs. Right now.

“Well...therewas Streaky...” she frowns, trying to remember. “And Fluffy, Ithink? Or Fuzzy...no. Fozzy. And the other one was Kermit. Yeah.” She looksover at Alex.

She'sfrowning. “Those names are...okay, I guess.”

Karashrugs. “Clark likes the Muppets.”

Alex doesn’t pursue that line of questioning further. Instead, she has others: “Isthe light ray the one my dad fixed?”

“Yes.”

“Didthe mom cat have a name?”

“No,we just called her barn cat.”

“Howmean were the chickens?”

“Verymean.”

“Howdid the cat get powers?”

“I'mnot there yet.”

“Oh,yeah. You gotta finish it.”

“Yes,well. May I?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay,so. The SPAM...”

“What'sit?” Clark asked as Kara tied his shoes. Martha stood by, plate ofprocessed meat product on hand, ready to go.

“It'sa surprise,” Kara told him with a grin. Clark wiggled eagerly,reaching for his sweater, and tried to hurriedly tug it over his headwithout Kara's help.

Hegot a little bit tangled, the sleeves turned at an odd angle, but hemanaged to get his head through.

“Iwanna see!”

“'Kay.But you have to be quiet,” Kara said, straightening thesweater. Martha laughed as Clark covered his mouth with his hands.“And no peeking, either,” Kara made him promise, though shedoubted he'd be able to get his x-ray vision working properly. Hewasn't quite...there yet, in terms of control.

Still,she did want it to be a surprise, so she waited for Clark toagree.

Whichhe did, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster while still beingvery, very quiet.

Karachuckled, and took the plate of meat from Martha.

“I'llbe out in a minute,” Martha said, turning back to the kitchen.“Just have to finish up the green beans.”

“Okay,”Kara said, taking Clark's hand. The two made for the barn, and Karareviewed the rules.

“We'regonna be quiet, right?”

“Yes!”he cried.

“Shhh,”Kara said, and Clark nodded, this time whispering back, “yes!”

Satisfied,Kara opened the barn door and told Clark to take the plate (with bothhands!) over to the middle-ish of the barn and set it on the ground.She could see the mother still basically in the same place she'd lefther, and spotted two of the three kittens playing with some hay a fewfeet off to the side.

Clark'sface lit up when he saw them, and it was clearly a strugglefor him to walk slowly to put the plate down, but he managed.

“Stayquiet and still,” Kara instructed, knowing that he'd want to petthem as soon as they approached. “Let them eat first, okay?”

“Okay,”Clark once again agreed, watching with rapt attention as the catscame over.

Well,as most of the cats came over. Where was the third one?

Karalooked towards the loft and the stacked bales of hay, but saw nottrace of the orange kitten. It wasn't by the pod, either. Where—

Somethingclattered, and then a loud buzzing filled the barn. The catsbristled, and Clark clamped his hands over his ears.

Karafelt the color drain from her face, recognizing the soundimmediately.

Thedeltahedron.

Shespun on her heel and—just as she feared—the orange kitten hadbeen batting around the sphere that Kara had left out on theworkbench.

She'dknocked it to the ground, and Kara could see, even from several feetaway, that the outer shell of the core was cracked. Blue energypulsed and sparked...

Butworse than that?

Thefact that the dumb catwas still playing with it.

“No!”Kara yelped, rushing forward with super speed as the kitten raised atiny paw, and the core burned bright blue with energy. She grabbedthe kitten in one hand, the core in the other.

Bigmistake.

Thecore burned on contact, and for a terrifying moment, Kara could feelthe energy as it raced up her arm and into her chest. The kittenyowled, clawing from her grasp a split second before she dropped thesmoldering deltahedron.

Bothlanded on the barn floor, but only onetook off for the safety of the hayloft, her siblings close on her tail.

Clarkwas crying, surprised by the loud noise and worried something hadhappened to the cats, or his cousin, or both.

Andthat of course,brought Martha running from the house, as Kara hissed and mutteredunder her breath and wondered if she should apply cold water to the burn,or just stand out in the sun for a bit.

“Whathappened?” Martha asked, rushing first to Kara, and then to Clark,once Kara waved her off.

“Catsmessed with...with a thing,” Kara struggled to explain, still a bitrattled by the whole experience. Deltahedrons were some of thesmallest power sources they'd had back on Krypton, but geez...didthey pack a punch.

“Shhhh,shhhh, hey, it's okay, it's okay,” Martha was telling Clark, overand over. Kara nodded, forcing a smile.

“Yeah,I'm fine Kal,” and she would be, so it was kinda true. “I'm sorryI yelled, I was worried about the kitty.”

“IsKitty okay too?” Clark wanted to know, sniffling. Kara x-rayed thebales of hay, and saw the entire cat family, spooked, but otherwisefine.

“Yeah,”Kara told him, pointing to the hayloft with her good hand. “Theywere just scared by the loud noise.”

“Likeme?”

“Yeah,”Kara said again, and winced as Martha tugged at her hand to get abetter look.

“Whatdid you say the cat was messing with?” she asked. Kara sighed.

“Adeltahedron.” She hissed as Martha continued to inspect the burn.

“Well.I have no idea what that is, but I'm surprised it managed to burn you,what with your thick skin and all,” she mused quietly. “You tellme—do we treat this like a regular burn?”

“Idon't know,” Kara admitted. “I think it'll heal, but...” hereyes were starting to sting, because the burn was starting to hurt.“Um. Could we...?”

“Iceit in the meantime?”

“Yes,please.”

Atwhich point, Martha ushered both Kryptonians back to the house,though Clark protested a little—he wanted visual proofthat the 'kitties were good.' (His words.) And it was only Martha andKara's combined persuasive arguments that he finally acquiesced,allowing the trio to go back to the kitchen, where Martha procuredfrozen peas and some aloe vera for Kara's hand.

“Yousaid the cat gets superpowers.”

“I'malmost there, okay?”

Thecats were scarce after that, and Kara couldn't blame them. Sheherself was less than eager to return to working on the light array,as it would involve patching the deltahedron's shell.

Notexactly something she was looking forward to.

Herhand did heal on itsown, but not before she spent several hours whining about it.(Because it hurt andwhat a dumb thing painwas. She'd been without it for about four years and she didn't missit much.)

Clarkkept asking about the 'kitties,' (again, his words) and desperately,desperately wanted hiscousin to find them.

“They'renot in the hayloft, Clark,” she groaned after he asked for the sixhundredth time as to their whereabouts. “I don't know where theywent.”

“Findthem,” he suggested, and Kara sighed.

“Ican try,” is all she was able to offer.

Clarkwas not pleased.

Butat least he stopped asking after that. And Kara thought the issue hadbeen dropped.

Untilone afternoon, a few days later, when she returned home from schoolto find Martha scolding Clark in the living room.

“Clark,”she said, tone stern. “Did you do this?”

Shegestured to some scorch marks on the rug.

“Kittydid it,” Clark said with sincerity.

Karahad to stop herself from laughing out loud.

“NowClark,” Martha bent down, so that she was eye-to-eye with him. “Youknow kitties don't have special eyes like you do.”

“Theorange kitty does,”he insisted, and looked back at Kara, who had set her bag aside, andtaken a seat on the bottom most set of stairs in order to tug off hershoes. “The one Kara touched. It glowed blue!”

Andof course. Neither Kara nor Martha believedthis outlandish tale about a glowing blue cat with superpowers. Thatwould be ridiculous.

Marthawas getting ready to further interrogate Clark when Jonathan walked in from the kitchen, cleaning his hands on arag.

“Thereyou are!” he exclaimed, beaming at Clark. “I wondered where myassistant had wandered off to.”

Marthablinked.

“Hewas with you? Out in the barn?”

“Allmorning.”

Karaand Martha stared at one another for a moment.

“Clark...”Kara says slowly, “where did Kitty go?”

Kitty,as it turned out, went quite a few places. All they had to do wasfollow the trail of smoldering destruction.

“Thankgoodness she didn't go back to the barn,” Jonathan muttered,stamping out a small fire in a tall patch of weeds.

Thekitten certainly lookednormal, and perfectly content to nibble on some blades of grass. Butstray sparks of blue energy would occasionally arc up her spine, andwhen she sneezed, well.

Karaunderstood why the rug wound up scorched.

“So...so,”Martha folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head, staringat the cat. “Your...deltahedron? Is that what you call it?”

Karanodded. “Yes.”

“Yourdeltahedron...gave a kitten superpowers.”

“Idon't...think so,” Kara frowned and thought about the incident, andthe odd feeling in her arms and chest. “I think...Ihad something to do with it.”

“You?”

“Yeah,I...” Kara wasn't sure exactly how to articulate, nor could sheactually prove it,but. Hedrons didn't give people powers. They just...didn't.

Thefact that her weird alien DNA had been literally standing between thehedron and the cat, though.

Thatwas food for thought.

“Theenergy went through me, first. So...” Kara shrugged. “MaybeI...rubbed off on her.”

Jonathanlaughed, and Martha shook her head.

“Wellthat...certainly is something.”

Clarkgiggled in delight as the cat sneezed again, and sent up a spray ofsparks. Both Jonathan and Martha took a step back, while Kararemained seated in the weeds.

Thekitten shook herself, licked her paw, and promptly trotted overbefore curling up in Kara's lap.

“O-oh,”Kara exclaimed, surprised but also...not-so-secretly pleased. “Um.Hi.”

Thecat sneezed again, and Kara flinched, but the sparks didn't hurt. Notmuch, anyway.

Theydid burn small holes in her shirt sleeves, though.

“Wecan't let her wander off,” Jonathan surmised, taking a look at thepatch of smoking earth. “Last thing Smallville needs is a felinearsonist running around.”

“Sowe let her burn down our house instead, hmmm?” Martha asked with a smirk.Jonathan shrugged.

“Well...”

Asthey went back and forth, trying to figure out how to deal with thesuperpowered kitten, Kara thought about the deltahedron, and thecracked casing of the shell.

“Ithink,” she interrupted the two of them. “I have an idea.”

Karacarried the cat back to the barn; neither Jonathan nor Martha couldrisk being zapped by weird Kryptonian energy, for obvious reasons.(Those reasons being: injury, and/or accidental superpower acquisition.)

Clarkoffered, but Kara didn't trust him to keep a tight enough grip on thecat—or maybe, it would be tootight. Clark's powers were still developing, but even at this nascentstage, they were potent.

Shedid, though, eventually have to pass the kitten off to him in orderto work. She was less concerned, however, because Martha and Jonathanstood guard at the barn door, ready and armed with welding masks andrubber gloves, should the cat make a break for it.

“Holdon tight, but not too tight, okay? Be gentlewith the kitty,” Kara instructed, belatedly realizing that sheherself had managed to transport the animal without squishing it. 

It was a pleasant surprise.

Clarknodded, and the kitten settled comfortably into his small arms. Hereverently stroked her head, using the lightest touch he couldmuster.

Karasmiled, and retreated to the workbench, where she regarded thedeltahedron casing with something of a resigned air.

“Thisis gonna make it harder to fix, isn't it?” she hadn't noticed thatJonathan had joined her. She curled her fingers into a fist, pressingher knuckles into the surface of the workbench. It creaked a little, but didn’t splinter.

“It'lltake a bit longer, yeah,” she told him. Though...it wasn'tentirely...truthful. It implied that there was even hope of fixingit in the first place, and. What with the deltahedron no longer being stable, and the amount of materials she'd need justto put the brokenparts back together, let alone the whole system...

She...shejust knew. That she'd never be able to get it to work.

“ButI mean...” she looked at Jonathan. “It's...my fault the cat'slike this. I have to help her,” she said, and then, frowning,added, “and I reallydon't want her to burn down the farm.”

“Yeah,I think we'd all like to avoid that,” he teased her.

Shetook a deep breath, reached for the casing, as well as Jonathan's boxof tools, and got to work.

Thecollar was not pretty.

Weirdhunks of alien plastic stitched onto mismatched scraps of nylon, itlooked less like a collar, and more like a collection of junk, strungaround the cat's neck.

Butwhen the cat sneezed?

Thesparks were drawn to the Kryptonian material via a process that, evenif Kara could explainit to Jonathan and Martha, their human brains would have no frame ofreference for it. Earth lacked the necessary scientific terms todescribe it.

Neitherof them seemed too concerned with the 'why,' though.

“Justso long as it works,” Jonathan remarked, pleased to see the collardoing its job. “Now she can come in the house.”

“We'rekeeping Kitty?” Clark asked somewhat breathlessly.

Jonathannodded. “She already pretty much lives in the barn.” The catsneezed, and once more, the sparks leaped to the collar. “And Idon't think we want to explain...that. To folks.”

BothMartha and Kara shook their heads. No, they did not.

“Soshe stays!” Jonathan declared, and Clark shrieked with pleased laughter.

“She'llneed a name,” Martha told the two of them. Kara and Clark thoughtfor a moment, staring at the kitten.

“Ilike Kitty,” Clark said.

“Simple,straightforward...” Jonathan nodded. “No frills...”

Karawasn't so sure.

“Well...whatabout...”

“Kermit,”Alex guesses.

Karais once more forced to an abrupt halt, stumbled by the interruption.

“What?No!” Kara says. “Streaky. We named the cat Streaky.”

Alexpushes up from her pillows and leans forward. “How come?”

Karasmirks and points back to the pillows. Alex huffs, and lies back downas Kara re-tucks her in.

“Becauseof that white spot on her side,” Kara says. “Like. A littlestreak. So...Streaky.”

“Whynot Sparky?”

“Becausethat's...” Kara blinks. “...Oh, that's...that's actually...prettygood,” she mutters under herbreath, before coughing and continuing. “Erherm. Clark likedStreaky.”

“Well,tell Clark it's a weird name.”

“I'lllet him know.”

“Andthat Sparky's better.”

“Gotit.”

“Thanks,Kara,” Alex says, pulling up the covers and reaching for Brian theOtter. Kara helps bridge the gap a bit, bringing the stuffed animalcloser so Alex can grab him. “That was a good story.”

“You'rewelcome,” Kara says, and can't help sounding a little bit pleased.She leans over to turn out the light. “Nightlight?”

“Psssh,no, nightlights arefor little kids.”

“Right,sorry.”

Shebids Alex goodnight, giving her a quick hug before turning off theswitch and heading for the door.

“Um,wait...” Alex says. Kara turns.

“DoesBrian need the nightlight?”

“...Yeah.”

“Thoughthe might,” Kara says, stooping to plug it in. “Night, Brian.Night Alex.”

“NightKara.”

Fin

[ownerwhale0-blog]

A Definitive List of All the Upcoming Disney Live-Action Remakes

1. Mulan (March 27, 2020)

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After years of will-they-or-won’t-they, Disney confirmed in October 2016 that a live-action version of Mulan was in the works and that it was on the global search for a Chinese actress to play the title heroine. Niki Caro, who gave the world the gorgeous Whale Rider in 2002, will sit in the director’s chair for Mulan. In November 2017, Chinese actress Liu Yifei officially joined the cast as the title character. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a team of casting directors met with nearly 1,000 candidates in five continents. Liu has appeared in films including The Forbidden Kingdom, Outcast, and The Chinese Widow, and has been a brand ambassador for Dior, Tissot, Garnier, and Pantene.

Other cast members have since been announced, including Utkarsh Ambudkhar (Mindy’s brother Rishi on The Mindy Project) and Ron Yuan (Marco Polo). Per Deadline, Ambudkar will play a con artist named Skatch while Yuan will be Sergeant Qiang, second in command of the Imperial Regiment.

In June 2018, Disney announced that New Zealand actor Yoson An will play Mulan’s love interest, a military recruit named Chen Honghui. (Li Shang, he is not.) Rounding out the cast is Gong Li (who will play a witch), Disney alum Jason Scott Lee as a warrior seeking revenge (he's another villain), Donnie Yen as a commander and mentor to Mulan, and Jet Li as the Emperor of China.

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FYI: Disney’s remake is not to be confused with Sony’s live-action version, which promises production in China with a “mostly” Chinese cast.

2. Aladdin (May 24, 2019)

Sean Bailey, president of Motion Picture Production at Walt Disney Studios, told Vulture that director Guy Ritchie will bring a “highly energized” musical to the table with his remake of Aladdin and Jasmine’s love story. During the annual D23 Expo in July 2017, Disney announced the cast for the film: Canadian actor Mena Massoud will play Aladdin, with Naomi Scott taking on the role of Princess Jasmine and Will Smith portraying Genie.

Mena Massoud, your new Prince Ali.

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A trailer was released in October 2018, showing everything from the desert to the lamp, and of course, Aladdin himself.

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In 2015, it was reported that Disney also had plans for a prequel called Genies, but that idea seems to have returned to the lamp.

3. The Lion King (July 19, 2019)

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Jon Favreau, who most recently directed the live-action remake of The Jungle Book in 2016 (and is currently working on the sequel), was announced as The Lion King’s director in September 2016. Donald Glover joined as Simba five months later, and in November 2017, Beyoncé officially joined the film as adult Nala.

James Earl Jones will reprise his role as Simba’s dad Mufasa, while Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen will star as Timon and Pumbaa, respectively. John Oliver (Zazu) and Keegan-Michael Key (Kamari) round out the cast.

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On July 15, 2017 Disney screened the first footage from the live-action remake to a crowd of 7,000 during D23. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the clip included “jaw-dropping photo-real shots of African landscapes and many types of animals (including elephants and, of course, lions) and ended with the iconic moment in which Rafiki introduces an adorable young Simba on Pride Rock as ‘Circle of Life’ plays.”

A teaser trailer dropped in November 2018:

4. The Little Mermaid (TBA)

Don’t be surprised if Ariel breaks into a rap or two while combing her hair with a fork, because Lin-Manuel Miranda and Disney vet Alan Menken are set to write new songs for the film. Don’t worry, the classics will still be there, so you can still sing along to “Under the Sea” or “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” which by the way, is a great karaoke song. Sofia Coppola and Chloë Grace Moretz were previously tied to the project, but have since dropped out.

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Rob Marshall, who directed Mary Poppins Returns, has been attached to The Little Mermaid remake since December 2017. One year later, in an interview with Syfy, Marshall said it was still “way too early” to talk casting (despite rumors involving Zendaya). Of the film, he’s already “starting the exploration phase.”

5. Dumbo (March 29, 2019)

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Tim Burton’s remake promises a “unique family story," featuring a script from Transformers writer Ehren Kruger. Following months of rumors, Disney confirmed that Colin Farrell, Eva Green, Danny DeVito, and Michael Keaton will star in the film, along with newcomers Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins, reports Variety.

An official trailer was released in November 2018, five months after a teaser:

6. Snow White (TBA)

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La La Land and The Greatest Showman songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will create new tunes to accompany a script from The Girl on the Train writer Erin Cressida, so expect things to be scary and dark (or not, if you didn't think the movie was scary or dark enough). In March 2016, The Hollywood Reporter also revealed a spin-off movie called Rose Red, which will focus on Snow White’s estranged sister. It’s basically like reality TV but with a poison apple! According to THR, Rose is actually a “key player” in story, as she goes on a quest with Grumpy and company to break the sleeping curse and bring dear sis back to life.

7. Pinocchio (TBA)

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Nearly three years after Disney announced plans to make a live-action version of Pinocchio, Paul King, who most recently gave the world the Paddington films, joined the project as a director. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Tom Hanks has been in talks to play Geppetto.

On the non-Disney front, Guillermo del Toro is writing, directing, and producing a stop-motion musical adaptation of Pinocchio for Netflix, while Warner Bros. has Ron Howard directing Robert Downey Jr. in their own live-action remake.

8. The Sword in the Stone (TBA)

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Per The DisInsider, production for The Sword in the Stone begain in September 2018 in Belfast, Ireland, home to the famous “Titanic Studios,” where Game of Thrones was also filmed. This is no accident: Bryan Cogman, who was a writer and producer on GoT, will write the script for The Sword in the Stone.

9. Peter Pan (TBA)

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Jeremy Sumpter’s 2003 Peter Pan remake will soon have a successor if and when this movie ever gets off the ground. Pete’s Dragon director David Lowery is attached and promises a straightforward adaptation of the classic. Bonus: Though not a remake, Disney is also rolling out Tink, a live-action film based on Tinker Bell. Reese Witherspoon was announced to play the teeny-tiny fairy, but not much has been revealed as of late.

10. Winnie the Pooh/Christopher Robin (August 3, 2018)

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In November 2016, it was announced that Marc Foster (World War Z, Finding Neverland) was hired to direct Christopher Robin, a live-action film that will tell the story of Pooh’s BFF as an adult. The film stars Ewan McGregor as adult Christopher Robin, Hayley Atwell as his wife Robyn, and Jim Cummings as both Winnie the Pooh and Tigger (too). The film grossed some $197 million worldwide. Pooh remains an icon.

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11. Lady and The Tramp (2019)

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Per The Hollywood Reporter, Disney announced in March 2018 plans for a live-action/CG hybrid version of Lady and The Tramp, with Charlie Bean (The Lego Ninjago Movie) serving as director. The remake will be part of Disney’s upcoming streaming service set to launch in fall 2019, but no official release date for Lady and The Tramp has been announced.

The cast includes Justin Theroux (Tramp), Tessa Tempson (Lady), Janelle Monae (Peg, the wise-cracking pound dog), Benedict Wong (Bull the English Bulldog), and Ashley Jensen (Jackie the Scottish Terrier). The humans Darlin and Jim Dear will be played by Kiersey Clemons and Thomas Mann, respectively.

Bonus:

Cruella (TBA)

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Technically, this is not a remake as it will center on one major character (and Glenn Close already did a live-action remake in 1996). Nevertheless, Cruella is happening and will tell the backstory of the villainess who can't resist a good coat. Emma Stone was previously announced as the lead, which means she will probably get nominated for at least half a dozen awards.

According to THR, Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) has been in talks to direct the live-action film, which will be an origin story set in the 1980s (think punk).

Prince Charming (TBA)

It’s unclear whether or not the handsome prince here is from Cinderella or Snow White (maybe both?!?!) but know that the film will probably be good. Mandeville Films/TV, who most recently worked on Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson, will produce Charming.

Fantasia (TBA)

In 2015, Disney announced plans to make a live-action adaptation of Fantasia’s closing sequence “Night on Bald Mountain,” which featured an iconic winged creature who raised spirits from the dead. Think Maleficent, but scarier, because Fantasia is arguably the scariest Disney movie ever.

Source: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/movies/a9173730/disney-live-action-remake-list/

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

The Business of Being Nick Offerman in a Post-Ron Swanson World (Exclusive)

There is a BYOB restaurant in Chicago, indistinguishable from the myriad other brunch joints on the block, until you walk through the orange front door and are greeted by Ron Swanson's face. Everywhere. The walls are lined with Ron Swanson artwork -- pop art and oil paintings, carvings and cross stitchings, even an embroidered tissue box with his face on it -- underneath one of his most iconic quotes: "There has never been a sadness that can't be cured by breakfast food."

"Whisk, yes," Nick Offerman offers when I can't recall the name of the eatery. "They're very generous to me at that establishment." While he imagines he could get a free meal, the actor hasn't actually visited yet. "I'm kind of scared," he giggles. "I don't feel like I can be a normal patron in a weird bacon and eggs museum to my character."

It has been three years since Parks and Recreation -- the NBC sitcom in which Offerman played the surly, mustached, libertarian saxophonist -- left the air, but despite the "proliferation of Ron Swanson," as he puts it, the role didn't lead to the career boon you might imagine. "Across the seven years that we made Parks and Rec," he says, "my cache certainly went up considerably."

But the critical love, the memes and the freakin' breakfast restaurant in his honor leads people to assume certain things that just aren't the case. "They think Parks and Recreation was a huge hit, which it wasn't at all. We were always in danger of being cancelled," Offerman tells ET, seated in a suite at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons with one bright red New Balance sneaker resting on the other knee.

"We might have more viewers right now, on streaming services, than we did when we were actually airing," he adds, noting early seasons didn't factor in online viewership. "That leads people to believe that somehow I'm Jon Hamm or something, and I'm like, 'No. That's not how it was.' I'm very grateful that this character is so successful, but I haven't been offered Batman. Yet."

Not that Offerman has been lacking for work, following Parks and Rec with a run on the second season of FX's Fargo and voice work in animated fare such as Hotel Transylvania and The LEGO Movie. He's just aware of how many projects are in production at any given time and what percentage of that comes to him. "I'm not beleaguered by tons of choices, you know?" he says.

"The business is not beating my door down to try and get me in their projects, so, of the things that come my way, I recognize I'm incredibly fortunate that I can even pick between a couple," Offerman continues. "'Cause my rent is pretty much covered."

When discussing how he picks the projects he does sign on for, the actor frequently defers to his gut instinct. He won't say yes to anything that's not his "bag" -- which excludes anything too trendy "like zombie stuff." "Sometimes there will be a really funny script but there will just be like, a couple homophobic jokes and I'll say, nah, I don't want to be in bed with these guys. Literally," he lists off. And then there's the matter of making sure his schedule lines up with that of his wife of 15 years, Megan Mullally. "We have a two-week rule," Offerman explains, "where we never take a job that will keep us apart for more than two weeks. Which sometimes involves some pretty impressive aeronautical gymnastics."

But in the end, it comes down to following his gut. "And it's really worked out wonderfully," he grins through his overgrown beard, the dark scruff graying at his chin. Credit Offerman's gut for leading him to Ron Swanson, but also to many an indie gem -- his "bread and butter." His latest movie, the musical dramedy Hearts Beat Loud, ticks off all his boxes and then some.

Photo Courtesy of Gunpowder & Sky

Hearts Beat Loud, which opens in select theaters on June 8, sees Offerman play Frank, a record store owner, widower and single dad living in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood and dreading the imminent departure of his daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons), for college. When one of their father-daughter "jam seshs" produces a bona fide Spotify hit, the pair grapple with starting their band, called We're Not a Band, growing up and letting go.

"He was the only person we wanted," director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the script with Marc Basch, tells me, having written the role of Frank with Offerman in mind after working together on 2017's The Hero. "He's just the best. He's such a great human being and such an amazing actor and he has so much to give that I don't think audiences have seen. I could just feel that. He's hilarious but can be so sweet and open and I think he's going to surprise people."

"I've literally never had a role half this big," Offerman agrees. "It's funny, there are scenes with Kiersey and scenes with Toni Collette in this film that, when we were shooting them, I felt like a kid at my first dance. I would say, 'You guys!'" His eyes light up as he clasps his hands together. "'I've never had a scene where I'm just a vulnerable guy, like, trying to get a woman to love me! I'm 47 and I've never gotten to do this!'"

The paternal side of Frank came naturally to the actor. When Clemons arrived on set, "I started trying to be cool with her, which of course is super geeky and annoying to her," he laughs. "Our dynamic was established immediately where she's rolling her eyes but also laughing at me, and I was like, Oh! We're Frank and Sam!" The other muscles he was tasked with flexing -- revealing new colors of himself, performing music in front of an audience -- required more effort. But the experience coalesced into something magical. "I've seen the movie several times now and when Kiersey starts singing," he says, "I get goose bumps!"

"I secretly hope I'll stop getting acting jobs, at least for a while, so that I can go build another boat."

Next up, Offerman has a Parks and Rec reteaming, of sorts, as he and Amy Poehler host NBC's crafting competition series, Making It. The show has less of a connection to Ron Swanson than to Offerman himself, who has been pals with Poehler since their early improv and theater days in Chicago (hence, Whisk) and who has been crafty even longer, having learned to woodwork as a boy. Then there is more work on TV (Amazon's Neil Gaiman adaptation, Good Omens) and in movies (another LEGO Movie, the genre flick Bad Times at the El Royale). And then? Well, he'll follow his gut. But he isn't concerned.

"I don't worry about my career, as it were. I don't have ambitions. And I recognize that I'm very lucky that I don't have that actor stress of, Will I keep getting jobs?" he admits. "Because I have this woodshop" -- the aptly named Offerman Woodshop in East Los Angeles -- "and all I want to do is get to my woodshop. I secretly hope I'll stop getting acting jobs, at least for a while so that I can go build another boat."

What's stopping you from saying no, I ask, from taking a self-imposed break from acting?

"I love delivering some sort of medicine to an audience," Offerman replies without hesitating. "Whether it's through laughter or emotion or what have you, that's my favorite thing to do." He shrugs. "But if I couldn't do it anymore, I'm comforted to know I'd be very happy making chairs."

RELATED CONTENT:

Summer Film Preview: 27 of the Most Anticipated Movies of the Season!

How Toni Collette Survived 'Hereditary,' the Year's Most Terrifying Horror Movie (Exclusive)

Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman Are Open to 'Parks and Recreation' Revival -- With Beyonce

[gta-5-cheats]

Solo: A Star Wars Story Has Lots to Show, Nothing to Say

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Solo: A Star Wars Story Has Lots to Show, Nothing to Say

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Last year, George R.R. Martin – the author of A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels that have been adapted at HBO – said that of the several Game of Thrones spin-off ideas in development, not even one touched upon the period immediately prior to the current saga. “There would be no surprises or revelations left in such a show, just the acting out of conflicts whose resolutions you already know,” he added. Instead, Martin wants them to show parts of his universe that haven’t already been talked about.

On the other hand, the powers that-be at Lucasfilm – under Disney’s ownership – are more than happy to take the safer route and expand on events and characters we already know about, as it guarantees a financial windfall by drawing most if not all existing fans of the franchise. Partly thanks to Harrison Ford, Han Solo is one of the most famous characters in pop culture, let alone Star Wars. Telling his origin story, as the new standalone Star Wars film – Solo, out May 25 worldwide – does, is the definition of low-hanging fruit.

What makes that problem worse is that even before it starts, the big pieces of the puzzle are already in place. Owing to the original trilogy – now retroactively titled Episode IV, V and VI – that ran from 1977-1983, we know Han will meet Chewbacca, the two will then encounter Lando Calrissian, from whom Han will win the Millennium Falcon in a bet, with which he’ll make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. That’s not a lot of room to create a meaningful story – written by Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan – in addition to the fact there’s no stakes for our heroes.

  On top of that, Solo: A Star Wars Story is also dealing with a limited arc for a young Han, since he has to end up as the cocky and overpromising guy Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet in the Mos Eisley cantina. And that means the film can’t attribute qualities to him that you wouldn’t normally associate with him, even though he’s about a decade younger in this than in the original trilogy. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t try; Solo has moments where it pokes fun at his ill-advised bravado, but it’s still filling in the portrait of a guy who thinks he can do everything himself.

Solo: A Star Wars Story begins by introducing the pair of Han (Alden Ehrenreich, from Hail, Caesar!) and Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke, from Game of Thrones) on their homeworld of Corellia, who are in love and languishing in slum-like conditions. Years later, Han enlists in the Imperial forces, meets a criminal of dubious morals named Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson, from War for the Planet of the Apes), and then takes on a job for crime lord Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany, from Avengers: Infinity War). That sets Solo in motion and brings other characters into the picture.

What unfolds from there is a part heist and part Western film, as Han and Co. go about achieving their mission – it involves stealing something ultra-valuable and getting it somewhere else as quickly as possible – while making new friends and new enemies along the way. The former involves Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), the captain and original owner of the Millennium Falcon, and his first mate, a hilarious and outspoken droid called L3-37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, from Fleabag). There are bit part roles for Westworld’s Thandie Newton and director Jon Favreau (Iron Man) as well.

Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story Photo Credit: Jonathan Olley/Lucasfilm

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Like the previous standalone chapter Rogue One, there’s nothing about the Jedi and lightsabers here, and even less about the Empire or the Force. Similarly, all the new characters Solo: A Star Wars Story introduces are ultimately dispensable too, since none of them can show up in later entries. But unlike Rogue One, the film, seemingly with an eye on potential sequels – Ehrenreich has a three-picture deal in his contract – creates subplots that aren’t tied up properly by the end. It’s here that Solo even connects to the prequel trilogy from 1999-2005.

Unfortunately, there’s little justification for a second visit, when the first is rather unimaginative. Save for a few scattered moments, the film doesn’t grab you until an hour in. And though it’s got the makings of some unique action set-pieces, they aren’t handled in a way that would make them memorable. Even when the Millennium Falcon is being attacked by TIE fighters late-game, there’s no sense of the excitement that was apparent in J.J. Abrams’ 2015 soft reboot The Force Awakens, and Rian Johnson’s 2017 follow-up The Last Jedi.

Part of this stems from the botched handling of the production. The original directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie), were fired over four months into filming, after clashing with Lucasfilm execs including Kasdan over their directorial approach. They thought they were hired to bring their comedic flavour to Star Wars, but their heavy improvisational technique – the duo sometimes shot a dozen takes that weren’t always in line with what the script said – didn’t sit well with Kasdan, and they were replaced by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), who’s seen as a safe choice.

It’s a testament to Howard’s experience that he not only managed to keep the film on track for its scheduled release, but that Solo: A Star Wars Story feels cohesive despite being the product of two entirely different visions: according to a behind-the-scenes report, 70 percent of the finished film is Howard’s, with the rest being the work of Lord and Miller. But because Howard was hired last minute to simply bring the script to life, the film lacks an authoritative touch and ends up feeling like a by-the-numbers bland heist film.

Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra in Solo: A Star Wars Story Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

  Moreover, less than six months after Star Wars took some of its boldest steps courtesy Johnson – including a welcome dressing down of why trigger-happy hotshots can cause more harm than good – Solo is happy to play it easy. A few unexpected twists towards the end, and the work of its top-notch cast – Waller-Bridge is excellent and powers some of the film’s best moments, Glover is instantly charismatic and a scene-stealer as the trailers promised, and Clarke lands the note she’s asked to play, that of an intriguing yet enigmatic female lead – simply aren’t enough.

Despite how damning the preceding paragraphs may sound, Solo isn’t a bad movie per se. It’s just fine. The film will help buff up the encyclopaedia pages in a certain period, give Disney another chance to sell more Star Wars merchandise, and lays the groundwork for sequels leading up to Episode IV – A New Hope (“Star Wars” for the purists). But it never takes off in a fashion that would please its titular hero – John Williams’ iconic soundtrack is also on a leash for the longest time, unfortunately – mainly because it’s too predictable to make any wild manoeuvres.

We’ll never know what Lord and Miller would’ve done with Solo: A Star Wars Story, even as the underlying story would’ve been the same. It’s also possible their version would have been horrible, and that Lucasfilm was right in removing them before it was too late. But if Star Wars is going to keep swinging the pendulum back even as its world expands – reports abound of more standalone chapters with Obi-Wan and others, alongside all-new stories from Johnson, Favreau, and Game of Thrones creators – the least it can do is not be borderline cynical about it.

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[jennidonley14-blog]

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[furederiko]

It's the 1st post for March, so let's march it up with a Random-News-Digest!

Disney Live Action

As marketing promotion for "Beauty and the Beast" continues to ramp up to herald its imminent premiere, another live action adaptation title is moving along nicely. No, not "Mulan" or others, but this time it's "The Lion King".

Eventhough the movie will likely not go into production until the sequel for "The Jungle Book" is completed (or is it? Hmmm...), Disney has assembled two of its core cast. Donald Glover, who is currently in production for "Han Solo: A Star Wars Story" has been cast to play Simba, the titular lion king himself. And he will be joined by a legend. James Earl Jones, a.k.a Darth Vader, is set to reprise his role as Simba's beloved father, the wise Mufasa. Yes, he's reprising this role, because he was the original voice actor in the original 1994 animated movie. Don't bother doubting these reports, because it's director Jon Favreau himself who announced them via Twitter. He revealed that he first met Glover back in December, and that the director's teenage son is a fan of Glover's music.

This is a fantastic news, and I can already see how the movie is shaping for greatness. I'm crossing my fingers that Nathan Lane and Bernie Sabella will return to reprise their roles as Timon and Pumbaa too. I doubt other actors would be able to bring justice nor the same levity to their iconic "Hakuna Matata" number. Here's hoping Favreau read this (though the chance of that happening is close to zero LOL). As I said, the movie might not begin production until perhaps later this year, so we still have plenty of time to get more cast confirmation. I wonder who will be cast to play Nala, and others like Zazu, or Scar? Hmmmm....

DC Films

You're one of the few who is expecting Warner Bros to get their act right when it comes to DC Films? Well, don't get your hopes too high too soon. Remember the news that Matt Reeves was in talks to direct "The Batman", taking over Ben Affleck's prior role? Well... said news has been followed by a tsunami of strong waves, that surged both high and low, giving a rather concerning sign. Not long after the news went buzzing, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that talks have ceased between Reeves and WB. It's unclear what went wrong, but it's possible there was a major creative difference happening between the director and the studio. Looks like the damage done by both Zack Snyder and David Ayer is too much to fix, eh?

But even that has become an old news so quickly. Yes, in just a week passed, WB announced (via the same outlet) that Reeves has finally closed the deal to not only direct, but also produce the solo Batman movie. Hooray for DC Fans! But should we even rejoice? I dare say, don't. Not yet. Judging from the quick come and go in DC Films, things can still easily turn for the worse along the way. Sure, Reeves stated that he's a fan of the character, and WB's President and Chief Content Officer Toby Emmerich is singing praises for him right now. But dejavu much, haven't we been in the exact same situation before? After all, if "The Flash" is any indication, Reeves might still simply pull a last minute surprise and walk out during the pre-production process. Look no further, because Ben Affleck is the living proof to such uncertainty. Speaking of Affleck, while his brother just won an Oscar for an exceptional acting performance in "Manchester by the Sea" (something he hasn't achieved), Ben's fate in the DC Films might be in a dangerous flux. Why? Because his name was mysteriously NOT mentioned in the report. Suspicious, huh? WB commented that they only wanted to focus on Reeves in this recent press release. But that felt too much like mere sweet-talking to me. It has become, pretty much a troubling question in everyone's head for now. But you know what? I totally won't be surprised if "The Batman" turns out be another soft reboot that introduces a new actor to take over Affleck's shoes.

Interestingly, whether with or without proper confidence, WB is still moving forward with their superhero adaptations. Until the well runs dry, right? Since both Flash and Batman, their most popular characters, have been quite troubling lately, it seemed WB finally turned their head to secondary characters. And by secondary, that means one prominent member of the Bat family. Who else, but the ever charming butt-tastic Dick Grayson, a.k.a Nightwing! Following the success of "The LEGO Batman Movie" that many critics are praising for its strong understanding of, and respect to the source material (looking at you Zack Snyder!), WB has approached its director Chris McKay to convince him to helm "Nightwing". Bill Dubuque who wrote "The Accountant" is also in negotiation to write the script.

My reaction to this? Took them LONG ENOUGH. Even as Robin, Dick Grayson has been gypped a lot in the live action adaptations, subtly showing that WB simply couldn't care less about this fan-favorite character. Yes, the character Robin (Grayson version) did show up in "Batman Forever" and "Batman & Robin" as played by Chris O'Donnel, but he has been treated poorly ever since. Don't forget, a Robin's (presumably the Jason Todd version) mysterious DEATH was one of the most annoying and unnecessary plot in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice". Assuming you still remember that ugly movie, of course. If, and only IF WB manage to get this movie right, this is possibly the first DC Films title that I'm interested to see. After all, Dick Grayson is a character with massive potentials to be more than just great. His relationship with Bruce Wayne would be vital, as it was the catalyst that evolved him from a mere orphan circus boy, to half of the dynamic duo Robin, into the all mature crime fighter Nightwing. It's a movie that can assure fans that WB knows their shit and won't be disappointing audience any further. Nevertheless, for me personally, it all depends on the casting as well. WB had already failed me big time with "Aquaman", and they can always do the same with this one. I sincerely hope that's not the case, but you know what? I'm not getting my hopes up too much. I don't want to be fooled twice. Let's just see what happens next, okay?

X-Men Universe

Looks like FOX is doing much better than WB in the superhero department. "Logan" is getting rave reviews, despite being out of sync in its own universe, and "X-Force" is moving along nicely. According to Collider, Joe Carnahan, who is working on the script for Shawn Levy's adaptation of "Uncharted", has been revealed to be writing this ensemble movie as well. If the movie follows the continuity of "Deadpool", then we will likely see Wade Wilson himself, alongside Domino and Cable to be part of the roster. Right now, it is said that he's only serving as a writer, but there's a possibility he might continue in a directorial role. IF the script is deemed worthy by FOX.

As for the not-much-anticipated "X-Men: Supernova", there's a buzzing rumor that producer and long-time writer (a.k.a the person to blame for the continuity errors) Simon Kinberg is looking to make this his directorial debut project. As I said before, I couldn't care less about this movie. And the fact that Kinberg will not only be writing and producing, but might also direct is totally my last straw. Those who enjoyed his work however, can be excited. Why? Actress Sophie Turner recently revealed that production for this title would commence very soon. So it IS happening folks. Eventhough nobody asked for it.

A new writer apparently has joined the gang of "Deadpool 2" as well. Unlike the director that had been replaced, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have long been confirmed to be returning. The new name joining him would make comic books geeks and nerds everywhere happy though. Yep, Drew Goddard, the guy that wrote "The Martian", the acclaimed "Daredevil" TV series, and almost did "Sinister Six" for SONY, is onboard this project as a consultant for the screenplay. According to the report on Collider, the script is close to finish, so we can expect to hear an official release date for the movie. As always, let's just be patient and wait for it to come...

Marvel Studios

After being teased on social media, the latest and likely final trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2" has been released. It debuted several hours ago (or last night in PST time) via Jimmy Kimmel's Live. If that's not enough, it came alongside one very flashy but cool-looking poster. The trailer includes one important bit: the long awaited official look of Kurt Russel's Ego the Living Planet. 'Official' because it HAS already been revealed several days ago, via Hasbro's figure line during the New York Toy Fair. Even Marvel had shown it too in their coverage video!

As you can see on the trailer, the design of the toy figure looks exactly like the way he is in the movie. To be frank, it doesn't look groundbreaking or anything. It basically looks like Kurt Russel in a thick beard, who wears a space cowboy suit. That's all. LOL. Intriguingly, while the trailer showed many new footages, it didn't spoil any key moments or any surprises from the movie itself. Everything that was shown is inline with what Kevin Feige, director James Gunn, and many of its actors had revealed during the set visit interviews. Obviously, there's something that meets the eye here, and that Gunn is deliberately making sure that nothing crucial or important is revealed too soon. Hey, this is a guy who spoiled Peter Quill's father's identity in advance, right? I'm positive there's something more he's hiding.

Meanwhile, nothing much is happening on the other movies. Everyone's focused on the Oscars, so it's a slow news week for Marvel movies. "Avengers: Infinity War" is still in production, and is set to head out to film in Scotland for several months. The same goes for "Black Panther", that's still filming in Atlanta. There aren't any rumors, or announcement regarding both. Everything is being tightly wrapped from the press. There is however, a news surrounding a movie that hasn't even found its director: "Captain Marvel".

Because Brie Larson is currently on a press tour to promote "Kong: Skull Island", of course members of the press would start asking question about her upcoming superhero project. IGN specifically asked her opinion of the character Carol Danvers, and Larson sort of hinted what to expect in the movie. She said that she liked Danvers because she serves as "a bridge between two worlds, that she can go to Earth and go to Space and that her own personal place is in the littlest place in between where Earth ends and space begins". Naturally, that IS the key component of the character, enabling her to be both a member of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Of course, that doesn't necessarily means that she will be the same in the movie. Perhaps, she might have a different origin story? It's still too early to tell. But Marvel Studios is known to be faithful to source material, so I don't think we can expect a drastic change. As for the looks, Larson can't share anything about how Danvers would be. Whether she will have the long hair like before, or short like the most recent version, either she knew about it but chose to stay silent, or she's simply clueless is the question. She just pointed out that some folks aren't going to get what they want, which once again can mean anything.

Could we be hearing more tidbits about the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies during similar press tour? After all, Larson is travelling from one country to another alongside other MCU actors like Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson. Surely a reporter or two would ask their involvement in the upcoming movies too. Let's just wait and see, okay...

Marvel TV

At long last, we finally have a cast announcement for Marvel's "The Inhumans"! It's high time for it to happen, I mean, duh... it's starting production REALLY soon, right? Took them long enough. For now, we get two of the core characters confirmed: the King, and the Big Bad.

Let's start with the big bad, as his actor was the first to be revealed. Playing Maximus Boltagon, is "Game of Thrones" alumn Iwan Rheon. Maximus the Mad, as he's commonly called in the comics, is a despicable character whose inner desire is to usurp and dethrone his older brother as the Inhuman King. He has a non-visual ability to manipulate others via speech, sort of similar to Kilgrave in Marvel's "Jessica Jones", thus can be really scary. I'm not familiar with GoT, because I haven't seen the show (Don't ask. It won't even legally gain access to this country, due to its full frontal adult nature), but I'm not at all surprised with Rheon's casting. Why? Scott Buck is the showrunner of this 8-episodes mini series, and if Marvel's "Iron Fist" is any indication, then obviously the guy favors GoT's alumni. Remember, both Finn Jones and Jessica Henwick who are playing lead characters in "Iron Fist" ARE indeed GoT's grads. According to those who are fans of GoT however, casting Rheon (who played Ramsay Bolton) as the manipulative and villainous Marvel character is nothing more than pitch perfect. So I guess I'll just have to take their words on this. At the very least, he already nails it looks-wise.

The other character, is none other than Maximus older brother, the Inhuman King himself, Black Bolt. And who's the lucky actor that has been trusted to bring this generally mute character to life? "Hell on Wheels" lead, Anson Mount. Based on the official announcement, this character already sounds very much faithful to the comics. As for the actor, interestingly, it has been rumored that a "Lost" alumn would be part of the core cast, and looks that rumor is referring to Mount. I personally haven't seen much about his acting, so I can't really give any solid opinion. But just like Rheon, looks-wise, Mount and his stern eyes, chiseled jawline, and athletic physique can be considered spot on.

To be honest, I initially didn't remember about him, despite feeling that his name rang a bell somehow. It wasn't until a fansite frequent member commented about his past work: Britney Spears' "Crossroads", as well as his inclusion in Liam Neeson's "Non-Stop". Yep, that's when I finally remembered him. Not just that, thanks to Wikipedia, apparently he's also the lead actor for ABC's new series "Conviction" (playing Jim Steele), that had Peggy Carter's Hayley Atwell as its lead actress. Does this mean "Conviction" has been officially cancelled? That's anyone's guess. Then again, if that's the case then I really don't mind. After all, Atwell can now return into Marvel's "Agent Carter" and ABC can now hire Shawn Ashmore to play Karnak. That would be AWESOME!

Power Rangers

The currently airing Power Rangers season "Power Rangers Ninja Steel" has only reached episode 5 so far (and honestly? ...NOT doing great *sigh*). But that doesn't stop Saban and Bandai America to start planning ahead. Talking on the 2017 Bandai Toy Fair, Bandai of America revealed that highly likely they will skip "Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger" and go straight to adapting "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" for the 2019's Power Rangers season. It's not yet set in stone, but the representative did say that the Zyuohger's rubic-cube gimmick is just not workable. This statement was rather unclear, whether that is meant for US taste or something else, but I won't be surprised if they choose to go ahead with Kyuranger instead. After all, it has been widely reported that Kyuranger had direct inputs from Bandai of America regarding its designs. So eventhough the company will need to create different molds for each Kyuranger (since everyone's unique), clearly they are going for the space theme.

This is... a little disappointing IMHO. Yes, I can understand the limitation of Zyuohger. But plot-wise, that show has a great potential to explore discrimination, equality, and all kinds of important social issues that the US are dealing with right now. Then again, story has NEVER been Saban's forte, especially if we're talking about weak seasons like "Megaforce" or "Ninja Steel". So highly likely they will ditch the theme of connection if they ever decide to adapt Zyuohger. That's how I feel, so what do you think? By the way, assuming they ARE taking Kyuranger directly, I wonder what will the US title would be? "Power Rangers... Space Rebeliions"? "Power Rangers Global Defense Force"? "Power Rangers Star Wars" or "Power Rangers Guardians of the Galaxy"? Let those last two sink in your head... XD

The King of Fighters

Huge updates are coming to "The King of Fighters XIV". At the end of the "KOF XIV World Championship", SNK greeted its devoted fans and also other attendees with this pleasant surprise. I don't think it's available officially yet, but the announcement can be seen through this candid video filmed by fans.

Several new costumes were announced as DLCs. As previously announced back in November, Classic Iori Yagami costume that would give a nostalgic kick especially when paired with Classic Kyo Kusanagi, has been made available on February 23 JST. Kula Diamond's Sundress, Meitenkun's Pajamas, Sylvia Paula Paula's Little Red Riding Hood (that made her look like "Masha and the Bear"), and Angel's Diabolo costumes will be available in Spring. Which can mean this month, if not the next. After all, Spring starts in April in the country of Japan. 2 new stages will available for free as well. One of it came from the "Fatal Fury" or "GARO" series, while the other came from KOF classic.

More importantly, there will be new DLC characters coming to the game! The silhouette didn't look quite clear (this one is a lot more difficult to decipher than "Street Fighter V"), but I think it's showing 3 to 4 characters. As for who they are, it's anyone's guess. But I won't be surprised if these are the Orochi characters like the trio of Yashiro Nanakase, Shermie, Chris, and probably Chizuru Kagura. Considering the way the story mode plays out, their return should feel organic. Beside, even Mature and Vice have both been revived from the death due to the dimensional rift. SNK promised to reveal more details this month, so let's just wait and see whether my theory is sound or not. Would be dope to get fan-favorite characters like Blue Mary, Ryuji Yamazaki, and others though...