#looks to the camera and begins to fight government agents while she makes her way towards the symbiote specimen they have

[spybiote]

in aprils film there will be fight scene to boney m's rasputin

[kpopxx]

Spy Games [Chapter 1] : More Than It Seems

Characters: Twice Momo, Male Reader

4579 words

Authors Note: This is literally the first fiction writing I have done since I was a little kid writing stories about a town full of hamburgers. I was inspired to try my hand at writing by the plethora of amazing kpop smut writers out there right now, but by @lockefanfic​, @nsfwtwicecatcher​, @nsfwflint​, and @ggidolsmuts​ in particular. If there are any similarities between my writing and theirs, please forgive me as I’ve spent more hours than I’d care to admit “researching” their work. 

One thing that amazes me is how the hell everyone cranks out thousands of words with such frequency, as this post isn’t even 5k and it took forever to write. I can’t begin to explain how much respect I have for all the authors out there who can write so much and maintain such high levels of quality.

As a new writer, I welcome any and all feedback! Feel free to drop me a line if you have any critiques, or if you just want to chat!

***

“Coming up on the target now.” 

“Roger that, remember the office is on the top floor. Let us know when you’re inside. And remember, no elevators...” teases your handler, Choa.

“Thanks for the reminder,” you reply sarcastically.

You survey the skyscraper against the night sky--it would be impressive if it weren’t one of a hundred just like it downtown Seoul--and wonder what you had done to deserve getting the short end of the stick. Of course, you knew there was a reason to avoid the elevators: they sat directly in front of the building’s concierge and the cameras in the lobby, while the stairwell lay in a remote part of the first floor. The logic behind your impending hike didn’t make the reality any less abhorrent.

“Meanwhile, Seolhyun gets to infiltrate an organization in the Caymans. Just my fucking luck.” you grumble to yourself.

“Oh, stop whining, you big baby,” says Choa, reminding you to keep your thoughts to yourself.

You sneak past the lobby and towards the back of the floor you find the entrance to the stairwell in a poorly lit area.

“Beginning my climb.” you report, shaking out your legs as you prepare to go up.

“Sir, I-I’m getting some interference over comms,” chimes in the timid voice of the girl you knew to be your newest team member, Yoo Jeongyeon. “It could just be local chatter, but I want to make sure it’s not someone trying to listen in.”

“Probably nothing to worry about, but we’ll let you know if there’s anything you need to worry about.” Choa assures you. 

As you climb up the stairs, you wonder why anyone would want to listen in on this particular mission. This was a run-of-the-mill operation to investigate money laundering at an accounting firm. You’d infiltrated foreign governments, broken into and bugged the offices of billionaire CEOs, and tailed enemy agents. You could understand people wanting to hear those comms, but this? Either someone wanted something to listen to as a sleep aid, or this mission was more interesting than it looked.

A tip had come in through one of the new girls at the Intel Desk reporting that there was some fishy activity related to organized crime going on at the accounting firm. This was routine and you’d gone on dozens of similar recon missions before: break in, find suspicious intel, get out. But if someone wanted so badly to hear what was going on, the new girl may have stumbled onto something worthy of a promotion. Hayoung, you think her name was. Her chestnut, shoulder-length hair along with her well-endowed physique reminded you of a young mother, but her mature beauty belied her young age. You had caught yourself more than a few times fantasizing about her in your off hours…

You stop mid-way in the stairwell, scolding yourself for losing focus. Too often over the course of the last year you found yourself fantasizing about the women in your life. Sure, before the incident with Eunha you had sexual thoughts about your coworkers--you were surrounded by beautiful women, after all. But recently you noticed that your life was increasingly preoccupied with sex: both in your thoughts and the real-life exploits you carried out. 

Much longer than a few minutes later, you reach the 63rd floor out of breath and sweating, wishing more than ever that it was you and not Seolhyun lounging on the beach. You take a moment to compose yourself before peeking out into the office floor to see if the coast is clear.

“We may have a problem, boss. Jeongyeon looked into the comms disturbance and someone much more sophisticated than the average joe is definitely trying to tap in,” Choa says. “Jeongyeon’s kicking their ass right now blocking their access, but there’s only so much she can do alone. Eventually we’re going to lose control of this channel.”

“Dammit. I knew something was off with this op,” you grumble. “If they want to listen in to whatever I find, it must be important. We’ll go dark. Recon says this should be a quick in and out anyways. I’ll tag you once I’m out.”

“Be careful. Signal us if anything goes wrong. Just don’t do anything stupid.” replies Choa. 

“What do you think they pay me all this money for?” you tease, wanting to put her nerves at ease. “See you on the other side. Over and out.”

You could hear the concern in her voice. Even though keeping you safe was part of her job, you knew she cared about you. You also knew as well as she did that anything could go wrong even in the five minutes it would take you to break in, especially when it appeared that someone knew exactly what you were doing.

You switch off your comms link and head out the door and into the office.

It looked exactly as you expected--rows and rows of non-descript cubicles, with a princely office lined with glass walls occupying the far corner. Jeongyeon had retrieved the floor plan by hacking into the building’s security database earlier in the week, and you knew after her effort tonight in detecting and fending off the comms interference that Choa would want you to acknowledge the work the new girl had been putting in. She certainly was more skilled than the five previous team members you’d fired after Eunha, but you found it difficult to bring yourself to praise her. The Ops Officer position she occupied was a sore point for you, after all.

You deftly pick the lock on the corner office door and immediately sit down in front of the terminal on the desk, logging in with the security bypass Jeongyeon drew up. 

Again your thoughts drift to Eunha. Eunha was your longtime Ops Officer--highly skilled, you trusted her more than anyone. It also helped that she was your fiance. It made you sad to think about her; about what could have been, what should have been. Over the past year, you were constantly reminded of her absence by the utter incompetence of her replacements. You suppose it was nice that at the very least, Jeongyeon didn’t give you many opportunities to bemoan her performance in the same way--to remind you of Eunha.

You shake your head, compelling yourself to rise out of your funk and get on with the mission.

As you scroll through files, you stop on one with a familiar signature. Reading its contents, your eyes open wider--suddenly you understand why someone would be interested to listen in to your communications. You quickly save the file to your flash drive and stand up to leave, only to be startled by a figure in the doorway.

“Care to tell me what’s on that?” comes a familiar voice from the darkness that you knew to be Hirai Momo’s. Momo was an agent for a foreign espionage agency--you had as friendly a rivalry as you could have when working for different governments. 

“What was the point of trying to hack our comms if you were just going to show up and ask me that?”

“I had no intention of coming until you decided to ghost your girlfriends,” teases Momo. “Besides, I like showing you how much better I am at sneaking around.”

Momo flicks on the light and she comes into focus. The Japanese government made a good decision when they hired her, you think. She was built for the job of a seductive spy. Her perfectly toned legs had a lovely sheen all the way up to her short skirt, while her cleavage suggested that her tits were ready to burst out of her tight, patterned blouse. Where most of your attention was drawn, however, was her lustrous blue hair, which fell to her shoulders.

“I may actually need your help with this, once you see what’s on it,” you say, nodding your head at the flash drive.

“Oh, so you’re willing to give it to me? I thought I was going to have to fuck you for it,” she says sarcastically. You knew behind the humor was more than a nugget of truth, though. Sex had been the primary vehicle for information trading with Momo over the years. You decide to test your reading of the situation.

“Just because I need your help doesn’t mean I’m giving it for free…”

Momo brings her thumb to her mouth and bites gently as she ponders your not-so-subtle proposition. She takes her turn to look you up and down, making you feel more than a little self conscious in her gaze of judgment. After so many years in the dangerous world of espionage, there were only a handful women who could make you feel so small. Then again, Momo was no regular girl. 

Once she’s satisfied she has properly appraised your worth, Momo lets go of her thumb and straightens her blouse.

“Fine,” she says matter-of-factly, “let’s get to it,” unbuttoning her blouse as she walks towards you.

You are surprised by the lack of fight she put up, but you thought it best to keep that to yourself. Her tone reminds you of a business meeting--that is, if you hadn’t seen her pull her top off as she approached you. She sits in your lap on the chair, wrapping her arms around your neck as you meet her lips for a kiss. Momo’s mouth was familiar to you, introduced to you many times throughout your career. It seemed like every time you ran across her you had sex. One thing you adored about your relationship with her was that it was absolutely without strings attached. You fucked for work, but just because it was part of the job didn’t mean you both didn’t enjoy it. 

Momo, however, was loath to admit the pleasure she got out of her liaisons with you. Call it pride, call it being professional, whatever--Momo refused to act like sex with you was anything other than work, no different than working in a spreadsheet.

You feel her reach down to your pants, quickly unbuttoning them as she sinks to her knees in front of you. You smirk--her eagerness to please you betrayed her air of ambivalence.

Momo wastes no time getting down to business. You are certain the Japanese trained her very well in tender foreplay, but it seems she doesn’t care much for subtlety at the moment. Instead, she utilizes a more direct method to extract your pleasure--one that must have required its own fair share of training--as she spits on your cock before immediately forcing it as deeply in her mouth as she can take it. One, two, three bobs is all it takes for her to reach the base of your cock, her nose buried in your pelvis.

“Fuuuck me, that’s good,” you groan as you hold her head in place for several seconds, and Momo replies in turn with a cough that spits a healthy serving of saliva on to your cock. You release your grip on the back of her head to give her a chance to breathe, but she surprises you when she simply continues to work her mouth on your increasingly saliva-drenched cock, swirling her tongue around your base. Most of the other women you had slept with in recent months would be gasping for air by now, but Momo’s demeanor was cool, calm, and collected. Almost as if she was reading your mind, Momo paused her slurping and pulled her mouth off your shaft--but not forgetting to continue stroking it with achingly deft corkscrew motions.

“What’s the matter? Girls in your department not able to take care of your cock like a real woman?” Momo clicks her tongue and grins. “I’ve told you for years, you’d never be treated so poorly if you came to work for a professional outfit like ours.”

“Shut up and suck my cock.”

Momo shrugs, and gets back to the task at hand. Slobbering even more as she takes you into your mouth again, you pause to thank your lucky stars that you had a job that paid you in part to fuck women like Momo. You gaze upon her face, which has become just as messy as your cock. Momo’s sloppy blowjob has not only left liberal amounts of spit on your cock, but on her face as well--with strands of her blue hair plastered to her cheeks. Even though you thought it impossible, you feel your cock get harder at the sight of Momo’s messy face.

For several minutes, Momo continues inhaling your cock as you find yourself nearing the point of no return, you yank Momo’s head off your throbbing cock in order to prolong your session. A bit too forcefully, it seems, as Momo falls over onto her side.

“What the fuck!” yelps Momo as she picks herself back up, glaring at you. “I suck your cock and you thank me by throwing me on the ground?

“I didn’t mean to, I’m just not ready to cum yet. We both know you would’ve ignored me if I had asked you to stop.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” Momo replies sheepishly. You knew from previous run-ins with her that she loved nothing more than swallowing cum. Even though you had just denied her that favor, you were already thinking about how to make it up to her in a few minutes.

“How about I repay your kindness? Get up on the table and let me eat you.”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries. I’ll get up on the table, but you’re going to fuck me.”

“Someone’s eager to see what’s in this thumb drive,” you tease, inadvertently reminding yourself that this was a transactional liaison. You suspected that Momo’s interest in you extended beyond her desire for the information at hand, and part of you yearned to take her outside of the confines of work. You’re skeptical such a day would ever come, however, given how ambitious Momo was. 

You knew her story--she applied for a job in the Japanese spy agency several years ago, making it all the way through the process before being cut at the very end. She ended up receiving an offer shortly after one of the other finalists died in a ‘training accident’, but Momo lived with a chip on her shoulder ever since. She lived and worked with a pathological drive to prove the agency wrong in their original decision to cut her. Already the youngest lead operative in her country’s history, she had an eye on the directorship and seemed destined for it. So, you supposed, it was nice to be able to fuck her before she became famous.

Momo hops on up on the desk, hiking up her skirt to reveal a delicious-looking blue thong that matches her hair. She looks behind towards you with lust heavy in her eyes as she pulls her thong to the side, revealing her glistening pussy--already dripping, you noted.

“I don’t have all night.”

More than happy to oblige, you line your painfully throbbing cock up with her pussy and you can feel the warmth radiating from it. You take a second to appreciate Momo’s incredible physique as your hands graze downward from her upper back, to her hips, and finally to her ass. As you rub it, you cannot help but appreciate how sublimely taut it is. 

“Jeeze, you act like this is the first time you’ve seen a woman naked,” Momo jabs, interrupting your reverie.

You are starting to get annoyed with Momo’s demeanor. It was nothing new, really--she always carried an air of superiority--but it nonetheless grates on your nerves to see her be so dismissive. You are mature enough to understand that at least a part of this aggravation had to do with the fact that you knew Momo slept with plenty of men for work. Not so mature, however, to be able to stifle the primal urge deep inside of you that wanted Momo to see you as the best of all her lovers. More than ever, it seemed that sexual vanity mattered a great deal to your self-confidence.

With a renewed sense of purpose and your cock in hand, you enter Momo slowly with a long stroke until you fill her to the hilt. In unison with your initial insertion, Momo lets out a whine that crescendos as you bottom out.

As you begin to thrust in and out Momo settles in and widens her stance ever so little, which has the added benefit of allowing you to go even deeper into her warm, wet pussy. Momo was not a girl of surprises. Her face was gorgeous, capable of angelic beauty and fiery lust. Her body reflected the many hours she spent in the gym with ample breasts, insanely tight abs, and a toned ass to match. Her pussy feels exactly as sublime as her beautiful face and incredible body suggested. The perfect combination for a woman who used her body to seduce and take advantage of brainless men. You decide to push out your mind the realization that at this very moment, you are in fact one of those men.

You wanted to make sure Momo felt each and every drive into her hot flesh. Momo continued to moan quietly, each breath punctuated with a new thrust and the sound of your skin meeting hers.

“Looks like someone’s gotten real quiet all of a sudden,” you say, noticing her haughty attitude had subsided as pleasure took you both over.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Momo says, looking back at you with rekindled determination in her eyes, “you’re no better than half the guys I’ve been with. I’m here for the file, not for whatever you call this.” She cooly turns her head to face front again, leaving you seething.

Your twinge of annoyance was now a bubbling boil.

You slow down before withdrawing your cock from her warmth--Momo lets out the faintest whine of disappointment, betraying her dissatisfied front.

Just as Momo turns her head again to complain, you quickly slam your cock deep inside her. Momo yelps, and you notice her eyes bulge as you move your hips in a circular motion with your cock filled to the hilt, scraping deep inside her pussy. After several seconds of this you grab a makeshift ponytail out of her hair and yank backwards, causing her to gasp and arch her back instinctively. As much as she bothered you with her air of indifference, you had to admit that the image in front of you was the stuff of dreams.

Taking advantage of the highly erotic sight before you and the increased leverage offered by your grasp of her hair, you began to truly fuck her with quick and powerful strokes.

“Take it, Momo,” you grunted, beads of sweat beginning to form on your forehead.

Momo said nothing, emitting only breathless gasps from her open mouth. You noticed that their intensity was gradually increasing, so you increased the speed of your shaft penetrating her young, sinful body. You knew she was enjoying this, but you wouldn’t be satisfied until you broke her facade. You wanted her to lose herself to you.

You speed up even more, and the volume of your skin slapping together increases as her pussy drips wetter and wetter, mixing with your leaking precum. You are slamming your cock into her now, and Momo has to grab on to the table to steady herself. Slowly but surely her pretense was crumbling.

“You want it, don’t you Momo? You want more?”

“Fuck yeah,” Momo gasps hoarsely, struggling to speak with her hair being pulled, “Give it to me...o-oh...fuck, give it to me!”

Satisfied that she had succumbed to her pleasure, you relax your grip on her hair slightly and lean over to growl in her ear.

“I’ll give it to you. I’m gonna make sure you remember this, make sure every time you’re with another man you wish it was me.”

Momo acknowledges your promise with a deep groan, giving you great pleasure as you resumed fucking her gorgeous body.

Your eyes drift downward to her glorious ass, now shining with sweat and jiggling violently with each crash of your cock inside her. Inspired by the sight, you release her hair and put one hand on her hip and begin striking her ass with your other. Momo shrieks in surprise, but quickly looks back at you with lidded eyes while biting her lip to tell you she wanted more.

Again you oblige, and it was quickly becoming clear that lust and pleasure were staging a coup of Momo’s senses. She’s making lots of noise, but nothing intelligible. Nothing but guttural moans interspersed with high-pitched squeals. You continue spanking her ass, alternating cheeks--noticing a deep pink beginning to form on both. She’d most likely be dealing with soreness for several days after this, you think.

“You wanna cum, Momo? Cum for me, I know you want to.”

“Mmmmm...Ah, ah, AH! Unggghh,” comes Momo’s response.

“Come on Momo, fucking cum baby...cum all over this cock,” you shout, sincerely hoping there was no one working in an adjacent floor to hear.

“FUUUUCK!” Momo screams eloquently, suddenly dropping her head as her body begins convulsing. You knew what to expect having slept with her before, but you are nonetheless surprised to see how completely overtaken her body was by pleasure. Her upper body jerks spastically as her legs tremble with your cock plunged deep inside her pussy, all the while letting out a high-pitched whine that turns into a soft whimper. Just a few minutes before she was defiant and happy to throw insults at you...now she was a mewling, writhing mess incapable of speaking. The dark, primal part of you is satisfied by her tacit recognition of your talent.

After a short while, Momo begins to compose herself and lifts her upper body from the table. You take it as a sign to slowly resume taking your cock in and out of her. You decide to give her now glowing pink ass a rest and caress her back, tracing long lines with your nails.

“Mmmmm, that feels good,” Momo says, her eyes still closed, “you fuck me so good.”

You slowly begin ramping up the pace, rolling your hips with each stroke. You want to make sure your cock pleases every inch of Momo’s pussy, and make sure it craves you when she’s alone at night. 

After several minutes of this tender, softer version of lovemaking, Momo comes back to her senses. She arches her back again and turns her head to gaze in your eyes as you continue to take her. She begins to move her ass back and forth on your cock in unison with your own strokes.

“Oh my god, you feel so good in my fucking pussy! Every...fucking...stroke!” Momo gasps, the final words punctuated by the force of her majestic ass crashing against your cock.

“You’re a bad girl, Momo,” you tease, “you like being taken and shown who’s boss, don’t you? You like me grabbing your hair and slapping your ass?”

“Yes!” she gasps, “Yes I love it! Mmmmm...I want you to fuck me until you cum. Fuck me until you cum!”

There was no command in the world easier to follow.

Satisfied that you had fulfilled your vain, immature desire to see her acknowledge your skill as a lover, you now focus yourself on extracting pleasure from the young woman beneath you. You settle into a pace with rough strokes, fiercely pounding her over and over. Your pleasure rises with each thrust, aided not only by the mindblowing caress of her pussy, but by the incredible sight of Momo on all fours before you moaning with each strike of your cock inside her.

“Fuck Momo...I don’t think I have much longer, I’m gonna fucking cum so hard!”

“Yes,” comes the response from Momo, “Yes, yes! Fucking cum baby, I want your cum so bad!”

A few more thrusts and you can feel the point of no return coming. For a brief moment you contemplate cumming inside Momo, to truly claim her. You quickly reconsider, wanting to give her what she truly wanted--to swallow your load.

And so, you quickly withdraw your cock from Momo’s now sopping wet pussy and she instinctively turns around and drops to her knees on the floor. Stroking your cock with great fervor, her mouth wide open begging for what was to come.

“Please give me your cum, please, please! I want it...I need it! Cum for me!”

Your head tilts backward as a long groan escapes your lips. Your cum explodes from your shaft, shooting long, thick ropes of semen into her mouth and onto her cheeks and nose. Over and over, your cum splashes on her beautiful face until you finally reach the end of your orgasm, panting and exhausted. Momo’s face is a pornographic picture of lust, her eyes rolled back in pleasure as she swallows the mass of cum you deposited in her mouth.

“I fucking love your cum,” Momo says as she wipes the remaining cum off her face with her finger and promptly brings it to her tongue before swallowing it down as well.

“I’m glad we were both able to get what we wanted,” you say, struggling to catch your breath.

“Speaking of getting what I wanted…” Momo says, nodding her head to the part of the floor where the USB drive now sits, evidently thrown from the table during the session that had just taken place.

“Right,” you say, suddenly remembering you’re here for work, “make a copy and let’s get out of here.”

“Great,” says Momo, still on the floor with a satisfied smile of content on her face, “Hey, I meant what I said about having you join our team. As much shit as I give you, we could really use someone with your talent.”

“Thanks, but I think I’m better off staying put. Don’t think the Korean government would let me live if I tried defecting.”

“Probably true,” says Momo as she begins picking up her clothes, “Never hurts to ask, though.”

***

A few minutes later, you and Momo had both gotten dressed and copied the file onto a drive for her. Momo disappeared into an adjoining hallway and you set off to traverse the stairwell again. As you prepare yourself for the descent, you also steel yourself for the repercussions of giving the intel to a foreign spy agency. With the information you saw in the file, you knew the Japanese would have to be looped in sooner or later. If it was going to happen eventually, you thought it made the most sense to entrust that intel to the agent on the other side you knew would make sure things got done correctly. As logical as it seemed to you, however, you knew it wouldn’t be taken well back at the office.

You click on your comms link, now knowing there’s nothing to fear. 

“Hey Choa, I’m on my way back to the rendezvous.”

“Oh thank god! That took forever, I was about to call for a tac team!” Choa sighs with audible relief, “I take it you got everything you needed?”

“Got more than I needed, actually,” you say, nervous about Choa’s reaction to what you say next, “Listen, there’s one small thing you should know...”

“You did WHAT?!”

[squishneedsahero]

Jordskjelv

The Earth Shaker

Part 1 of ?

Word Count: 1885

Loki x Reader

Just a 2012 style avengers fanfic that is Loki x Reader. Sometime you just need cute fluff that is absolutely nothing more than self indulgence.

It had been a normal day, you going to work at the little cafe, serving people coffee and sandwiches, just living your normal life. Then things had shown up on the news, an attack in New York City. Aliens coming down from the sky and wreaking havoc on the city, and then you saw him and your heart stopped. The customers were all distracted so you called out on your break then and there, pulling out your phone and looking up the fight in NYC, you kept looking for any glimpse of the man with a red cape flying around with a hammer in hand.

"Thor," it comes out as a breathless whisper.

You don't care that you're in the middle of a shift, you shout to your coworkers that you have to leave and walk out the door. You needed to get to NYC, you needed to find Thor, you couldn't get there fast enough. Surely the fight would have ended by the time you even make it to the outside of the city, but hopefully you could make it on time to find Thor. Thor was the only chance you had for getting your old life back and you had missed him the last time he'd been anywhere close by.

As you get in your car and take off driving at a reckless pace you let your mind fill with memories. You'd grown up with Thor in Asgard, your name was actually Faylwyn even if here in Midgard you went by y/n. You'd run and played and trained alongside him and Sif and the Warriors Three. Then once you were a bit older you had gotten in trouble, gotten on Odin's bad side, and he had banished you to Midgard. Thor had to have not known that you were alive, else he would have come looking for you.

But it isn't Thor you care about here. You glance at the bracelet around your wrist, beads strung on a strand of black hair, intertwined with a strand of your own hair. It was all you had left of your life on Asgard, you'd been friends with Thor sure, but he was just Loki's dumb older brother. You and Loki had been inseparable, hell you'd even given each other love locks, thats what this bracelet was, you'd had to cut it out of your hair, but you couldn't just give it up. You'd put some beads on it to hide what it truly was but it was your most prized possession.

The lovelocks had been hidden, hidden under layers of your hair so that no one knew besides the two of you. You and Loki had had wonderful plans, plans to run away together, to explore the universe together, to get married once you were old enough and to spend the eons with one another. No one had known this, no one but the two of you, Odin was unlikely to allow it, Frigga had to listen to her husband, and Thor had a big mouth. No one had known the full extent of the love both of you shared for the other, but now you had a chance, a chance to find him again after 700 years of being in Midgard alone.

You had never stopped loving him in all that time, you had longed to be by his side once again, you could only imagine the pain he had felt with whatever story Odin had decided to tell of your disappearance. Now you had that chance to find him again and you weren't going to miss it for the second time. Your one and only fear was that, he might not love you anymore, after all this time that he had moved on while you hadn't.

You drive all day, the fight is long over when you reach the city, it's the middle of the night and the streets are packed with people and rubble along with alien bodies. There wasn't anyway you could continue to drive, so you got out of your car, leaving it running in your hurry, you don't care you don't need it. You look up on your phone directions to the Stark Tower, it was your best chance of finding Thor, and you begin running. You aren't fast like Captain America but you have stamina, able to run for hours and hours, going for miles and days on end.

No, you weren't Asgardian royalty, but here at least much like Thor was considered the god of thunder in ancient mythology, you were considered the goddess of earth. No, not like Earth the planet, but earth, the dirt, minerals, the ground beneath your very feet. Thor was able to fly, like the lightning and thunder, rushing through the air. You were able to run, moving with ease, being one with the ground beneath you, never faltering calm and steady.

You round a corner and the tower becomes visible, tall and graceful, pointing into the sky with lights illuminating its massive form. It's when you get close that you notice the many agents and people swarming the scene, there was no way you'd be able to get inside unnoticed. And none of these people knew who you were so they'd never let you in, you sigh, time to do something stupid, or at the very least a plan which Thor could have come up with. You slowed your pace, finding your way into an alley, then to a side door. "Here goes nothing," you say softly to yourself as you pry the locked door open and step inside.

Instantly alarms begin wailing and SHIELD agents begin to swarm towards your position. That was fine, you didn't want to hurt any of them but causing a scene would get the attention you needed. You needed to pose yourself as a big enough threat to need the attention of the heroes who had fought the aliens, any less and they'd ignore you, thinking you're some crazy from off the street. The agents surround you and you don't make a move, letting them go first. You don't want to hurt them, so you need to judge their skill first, you'd been fighting for nearly a thousand years, you'd easily be able to take them down.

The first to approach you with their gun, telling you to surrender since you weren't supposed to be here, you punch in the nose and knock them out. Seeing the ease with which you did that, leads to them calling for backup. Perfect. From there you focus, feeling a heavy sensation in your stomach as you do, slowly the ground opens up enough to sink their feet in and trap them, and one small, earthquake later their guns are on the floor.

You approach the one who had called for backup, and look them over briefly before speaking. "I need to talk to Thor, can you make that happen?"

They seem confused with your sudden loss of aggression, but nod, placing a finger to their ear as they reached out through their coms, "Director Fury, the infiltrator on the ground level wishes to speak with Thor. They have disarmed us and and have us all trapped my our feet in the floor but they do not seem to pose a threat as long as they see Thor."

You nod once and confirm, "I just wish to speak with him, I'm an old friend." With that you step back and place the door back in place, as you step outside once again, "I'll be in the park. Tell him I'm waiting."

With that you leave, and close the door behind you. Only releasing the agents from the ground once you've made it safely away. It was short and fortunately went better than planned. Now all you had to do was wait, and wait you did. It did not matter to you that it took hours for anything to happen. It didn't mater that you'd slept in the grass that night, and that the sun was rising when someone approached you. You had a chance to see your Loki again and that was all you needed to be happy.

You're awoken by someone speaking softly, "sir, I have eyes on the target." It's a woman's voice, you don't move, and continue to lay there, eyes closed.

It's when you hear the slightest sound of the grass moving that you finally do so as well, sitting up and moving to face her. It's the redheaded woman who was fighting alongside Thor the day previous. You offer a slight smile and a, "hello."

When you move Natasha removers her hand from the earpiece she was wearing, and asks, "you're the one that broke in last night asking for Thor?" It's posed as a question but you feel it's more of a statement.

"That is me, I'd just like to speak with him, I'm an old friend. My name is y/n l/n, at least that is the one you will find me under in all government records. Look me up, I don't care, just let me see Thor before he returns to Asgard," you come to a standing position and hold out your hand, "tell him Faylwyn wishes to see him, he'll know what you mean." With that you turn to walk away.

"Sorry, no can do, you're coming with me, you broke into a secure facility and took out multiple agents. You don't get to walk off right like that," she says and reaches for her hip.

You turn back to face her as she speaks, glancing at her hand before meeting her eyes again, "I'm willing to come peacefully. You don't have to tase me," you hold out your empty hands to her, "see, you can even handcuff me, just so I can speak with Thor."

Natasha looks at you, you're being genuine on this one thing, though she still doesn't trust you. She had seen the door you'd pried open, the imprints of your fingers in the metal around the latch, there was no way handcuffs would hold you if you wanted to leave. "No need, come on," she nods her head towards the tower and keeps her hand on the taser as she leads the way. You were a threat if you wanted to be, and obviously you were smart. You hadn't caused more damage that a broken door and a broken nose, and from what she had heard and seen on the cameras you could have done a lot more had you wished to do so.

You follow Natasha to the tower and in the doors, around some corners up an elevator and through the hallways to a more private and secure room.

"Wait here," she says as she opens the door for you, letting you in before closing it behind you. Once again, you wait. This is still your best chance, you had no other way to contact Thor, thanks to Odin's being pissed at you even after 700 years. The All-Father could All-ways hold a grudge.

Eventually the door handle jiggles before opening, and you look up, meeting the eyes of the tall blond, the Asgardian armor covering his body and the red cape over his shoulders. He looks at you in shock and says, "Faylwyn?"

[stillness-in-green]

I felt like the plf war was rushed

1.Plf advisors getting hype but no payoff

2.Only miruko, Momo, and Kirishma got time to shine

3.Machia got defeated to easily

4.The war felt more like a raid

I don't know if I feel like it was rushed, per se--it's by far the longest arc in the story so far by number of chapters, and would be even if you cut off the Tartarus jailbreak and the entirety of the hospital aftermath. What it absolutely does feel like to me is unbalanced.

You note that the "war" feels more like a raid, and you're right. As a caveat, it's worth keeping in mind that "Paranormal Liberation War" as a name for the arc in question is entirely an invention of the fanbase. To the best of my knowledge, the reasoning for the name was that big action shonen series like BNHA (Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, etc) always have a war arc, so what we were seeing in the lengthy, mass combat confrontation with the PLF had to be HeroAca's equivalent. It's not a term that's in the manga itself, however, not called as such by the characters, not referred to as such by Horikoshi or his editors, not even namedropped in chapter or volume titles. If it feels like a raid, that's probably because that's what it was intended to be.

And that's the problem, really. This arc shouldn't have been about a couple of raids; it should have been about a war.

(Below the cut: a bunch of fired-up complaining. Uses some harsh language, and talks about both injuries and deaths we did see and some we logically should have.)

From the outset, we were told that the resources Shigaraki had amassed were "on par with, or even stronger than" the resources of the hero-saturated society. Yet, we're expected to believe that a force that strong is so easily taken down by a single coordinated set of raids? Yes, the heroes had the benefit of surprise, but there's just so much that doesn't work for me.

First off, and to get this out of the way, it's ridiculous that the heroes even had the benefit of surprise. The MLA had an unknown number of hero double agents. They had people in the government; they had people in the infrastructure. This is an organization that had been living undercover completely unsuspected for multiple generations--how did the HPSC ever manage to carry out a massive, country-wide investigation on such a secretive group and coordinate multiple simultaneous, comprehensive raids without a single person finding out and alerting the higher-ups over a period of only three and a half months?

When exactly did Hawks have time to go and revive Best Jeanist--which he tells us he did personally--such that none of the bugs and micro-cameras he was covered with picked up on it, and both he and BJ could be back in the positions they needed to be in for the raid to begin?

How did Skeptic find out about the raid such that he only discovered it at the last possible second and not minutes, even hours, before it kicked off? How did hundreds of heroes (and even "hundreds" is being conservative, given the fact that they had seventeen thousand people to detain) close in on the villa without anyone from the PLF noticing, either Skeptic with his information network or mundane precautions like people on watch?

Even granting the heroes their surprise advantage--which I don't want to--if the advisors were all supposedly "stronger than the average hero," why didn't we see any of them winning? Okay, yes, Hose Face beat Midnight, but he had every possible advantage in that "fight"; I hardly count it as some big impressive defeat that shows us that the villains were holding their own.

Here's another thing: the MLA styled themselves as an army--they were demonstrably trained in troop tactics. When we saw them in Deika, even their nameless on-the-ground people were capable of coordinating with each other on the fly in response to the movements of the enemy, as we saw come up repeatedly:

Yeah, they were off-guard at first, but as soon as the advisors made the front line (which, you'll note, was immediately), that disadvantage really should have begun eroding. Certainly once Geten--Geten! The number one MLA member most willing to disregard collateral damage! And there he was being a proper leader!--got to the front and started yelling orders, we should have seen the PLF rallying, and I can't imagine any sensible justification for the tides not turning when a) Re-Destro showed up to occupy the highest-ranked hero on the field, b) a bunch of heroes peeled off to try to stop Machia only to get trampled for their efforts, and c) Trumpet got dug out.

You know who don't style themselves as an army, though? Heroes. Oh, they get some basic lessons in cooperation as students, but the extent of such lessons we see is stuff like "why it's important for heroes to have signature moves"--so that on group missions, their reputations will precede them and fellow heroes will already know their shtick. U.A. teaches the odd lesson plan that involves the kids fighting in groups, but there's a huge difference between you and 3 to 6 of your buddies fighting a similarly-sized group in a practice fight, or a handful of heroes teaming up to take down some criminal low-lives, and the mass combat scenario that was the raid. For heaven's sake, look at our closest other equivalent: the raid on the Hassaikai base. At every turn in that encounter, the heroes let themselves get split up and picked off, winnowing down their numbers. It's even explicit in the narrative that hero team-ups were, in the age of All Might, uncommon, and heroes are only just beginning to adjust to fighting in teams. The erstwhile MLA should have had the advantage there.

As to Machia's defeat, I think the big problem with it is not how it happened, per se, but the timescale involved. The plan itself was sound enough, and even with all the kids' efforts, it still took Machia reaching Shigaraki and not getting any new orders to follow to really do him in. Given what we can extrapolate about his movement speed, though, I just don't think the kids should have had time to set all those traps, especially given how much of that equipment would have had to be fabricated by Momo on the fly. I know she's gotten stronger and all, and good for her, but you're telling me that in the four months between Joint Training and the raid, she went from passing out because she created a bag of goodies and one (1) cannon to being totally fine and still able to coordinate her fellow students while cranking out 23 jars of sedative, dozens of feet of rope/cable, multiple fire-resistant coats, explosives they somehow had time to bury, and three cannons?

For fuck's sake, Jirou gave Machia's ETA as under ten seconds. Yeah, Mount Lady slowed him down, but "only a little"--how much time could she possibly have bought them, that the kids were able to to coordinate and enact everything that plan involved?

You guys, go read this post by @codenamesazanka. Machia is so fast. So unbelievably, incredibly fast. "Twice as fast as the fastest train in the world" fast. "Horikoshi clearly did not stop to think about the distances involved here" fast. Three miles in ten seconds fast. It would have been hard enough to square with the needs of the plot that the kids were sufficiently far from the villa to have the kind of time they needed to swing Momo's plan at all, but Horikoshi explicitly letting Machia get right on top of them before the kids even start just makes it completely impossible for me to credit. Machia clearly being slower aboveground than he is when burrowing does not make that much difference to my suspension of disbelief.

My other big complaint? More people should have died, for real. The PLF warriors would not have been holding back. They were ready and willing to kill anyone they came up against. The heroes did have to hold back, because heroes, as we're told over and over again, are not supposed to kill, no matter how dire the circumstances. That difference in ability to exercise force should have been yet another significant advantage for the PLF. I could write an entire list of characters that I think could have reasonably been killed during the raids. That wouldn't be to say that I think any individual, specific character on that list should have died, just that, based on the parameters as they were presented to audience, some number of them should have.

I mean, honestly. How did Horikoshi wanna show us Gang Orca's unmoving claw in the wake of Machia's passage and not have Gang Orca on the list of the dead? How did Fat Gun run right into a mass melee and still have enough fat left over afterward to survive getting trampled by a walking mountain? How did Thirteen survive not getting pulled out of the hospital basement when Shigaraki's Decay hit? How did Trumpet survive getting a staircase dropped on top of him? How did Gran Torino survive a fist through his tiny old man chest cavity?

I could go on and on, but it's not just about the deaths, either. I'm not saying that Kamui Woods necessarily should have died by swinging himself face-first into a blast of blue fire, but I am saying that he should have been out of commission for longer than three goddamn days. You bet your ass I'm saying that after telling us that Hawks' weak point is fire, making us watch him spend at a solid minute or more with his wings wholly enveloped in Dabi's 2000 degree flames, and having Dark Shadow exclaim that his back is completely burned away, Hawks should never have grown his wings back, much less so quickly that they were already visible under his shirt a single day later.

More deaths, more maiming--heck, even more retirements. I'm not saying I love that kind of thing in my fiction--I don't, actually. I think an overreliance on it is a sign of edgelordy nonsense. But the scenario that we had demanded to be treated with the kind of gravity that would have led to such an outcome. To set up a conflict like the raid and have the villains only barely be able to scrape a partial escape, to try to tell us that Shigaraki's victory in Deika granted him such a terrifyingly powerful force only to have them lose every battle they got into, to tell us this was a blow that shook Hero Society to its core, only to be so unwilling to kill or retire any heroes the audience cares about that Midnight is literally the only significant loss… It doesn't work. None of it works.

I don't have much to say on which characters did or didn't get a highlight. I think there were a few more people than you listed that got some good scenes--Tokoyami and Uraraka both got material I liked quite a bit; Dabi famously out-trended the U.S. presidential election on Twitter when he (literally) came clean, and Mr. Compress gave us some wonderfully interesting and characteristically opaque material to chew on. On the whole, though, adding more character moments would only have been dragging out the problem: the scale of the PLF's threat and the HPSC's chosen method of dealing with it are simply incompatible with the feeble "neither side truly won or lost" resolution we got.

And that's my rant on that--thanks for the ask!

[artyblogs]

Best Wingman Ever

Read on Ao3

Summary: For @caruliaweek. Prompt: Surprise. After the fight in the pyramid, Julia doesn’t feel so hot, so she checks into a hospital. Carmen finds out and has concerns, so she goes to see her.

---

The longer the press conference goes on, the more discomfort Julia feels. It started in the pyramid, after Countess Cleo pushed her into that godforsaken pit, and she managed to catch the edge with her elbows. Her legs swung under her and something in her torso tore. Or broke. It certainly seemed like something snapped judging by the searing pain that lanced through her chest.

She was able to ignore the pain for the rest of the time they were in the pyramid, half because of the adrenaline coursing through her system, half because…well, it seemed pittance in the face of certain death. But now, in front of all these reporters, with the adrenaline draining from her body, the ache grows and grows until she sweats under her collar from the exertion of standing upright.

Every breath Julia takes is fire.

Either the reporters don’t notice what is happening, or they attribute Julia’s flush to the strong Egyptian sun, because they don’t ask what is wrong. They ask her if she will be heading the effort to catalogue all of these artifacts (she won’t be; all this treasure is technically on Egyptian soil, so it is up to the Egyptian government to come up with a plan), or if she will be working with Egyptologists and other archaeologists to catalogue them (again, that’s technically the jurisdiction of the Egyptian government. If invited, she’d help, but she needs to be invited).

Eventually, they have enough information for their segments, and Julia and Chase end the press conference and slink off towards the parking lot. Julia waits until they are out of earshot of the reporters, and far away enough to be indiscernible by the cameras, before she runs a cautious hand over her ribs.

It doesn’t seem like anything’s broken, but a simple swipe of her palm induces agony. Julia sinks to her knees.

“Miss Argent? What’s wrong?” Chase kneels next to her, his hands hovering, but not descending. He’s probably afraid of making things worse.

It feels like her chest is imploding. Julia tries to catch her breath, but cannot get any words out. Chase takes out his cell phone and dials a number.

“‘Allo? Please send an ambulance, there is an injured woman who needs help.”

---

Julia had hoped that she would be able to tough it out until she got back to the UK because at least there, she would have all of her identification. Here in this private hospital in Cairo, she has nothing. Besides the press conference and Chase, no one knows that she is here. The fact that a whole person could be disappeared like that, that she could be misplaced, is disquieting.

The walls of the hospital room muffle the car horns and loud voices in the street. If Julia closes her eyes, she can imagine that she is slowly sinking into sand, like so many forgotten baubles in the desert.

CLICK.

The door to her hospital room opens to reveal Chase, who carries a grease-stained paper bag and a cardboard drink tray with two paper cups.

“Miss Argent?”

“Agent Devineaux!” Julia tosses the thin, hospital blanket aside and—very, very carefully—sits up and unfolds her legs over the side of the hospital bed. In the back of her left hand there is taped an IV line, and she lightly pushes the IV rack a little to make room for him.

Chase gently closes the door behind him, then he takes the back of a visitor’s chair and drags it to her bedside. He places the tray of drinks on the side table next to a prescription bag, and holds out the greasy paper bag for Julia to open up.

Julia delves into it and finds two shawarma wraps carefully bundled in foil. “Which one is mine?”

“They are the same.”

Julia takes one of the wraps and opens it up, the foil shredding between her hands, and bites into it. The shawarma is a mess of sliced lamb and garlic and spices. Still hot. Smothered in yogurt and lemon juice. She had a similar shawarma years ago when she first visited Egypt during a field archaeology class, and she has been searching for a comparable place ever since.

Nothing has even come close. Julia licks a stray drop of yogurt from her thumb and takes another bite.

“They didn’t feed you, did they?”

Are her table manners that bad? Julia hesitates, then slowly shakes her head to agree. Chase frowns and unwraps his own shawarma. They eat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the muted noon adhan ring out across the city. Eventually, the food is done, and they crumple the foil into balls and toss them into the paper bag, and Chase holds out one of the drinks to Julia.

“Where is the medicine?” He asks.

“On the table. Can you get it?”

Chase opens the prescription bag and blanches. “Miss Argent, this is…eh….”

“It’s just one of each.” Julia chews on the straw and holds out her hand. “Do you mind?”

Thus begins an absurd process: Chase takes out a pill bottle, twists it open, and shakes a pill into Julia’s hand. Julia claps it into her mouth and takes a swig of water while Chase recaps the bottle and sets it aside on the side table.

They do this five times.

At last, Chase sets the empty bag next to the bottles and stares at the display ruefully. “Miss Argent?”

“Hmm?”

“What did they do to you?” He’s unusually subdued.

Julia’s ribs twinge. “I am an ancient historian, and VILE needed to decode ancient languages.”

Chase’s frown deepens. “I have taken similar pills for what I assume are similar kinds of injuries, Miss Argent. Please.”

“They were not nice people,” Julia finally says. She doesn’t…she cannot describe what happened, because to do so would require her to travel there in her mind.

“Miss Argent,” Chase says, now truly alarmed. It’s funny, in a way. A year ago, he would have probably given anything to shut her up and today, he can’t get her to say anything.

“I can describe what they looked like,” Julia says. She can do that, at least. Chase reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out his cell phone, which he unlocks and gives to her.

The screen is cracked. Julia gingerly taps and swipes to navigate to a specific face-generating app, and uses sliding scales to change the different attributes.

“How are you getting back to Oxford?” Chase asks.

“There’s a British embassy down the street; I’ll go there first thing tomorrow,’ Julia says.

“Not today?”

“The doctor wants to keep me here overnight for observation.”

Another pause. Chase’s nose wrinkles as he scowls.

“It’ll keep, Agent Devineaux.” Julia takes a screenshot and refreshes the app to create another face.

Chase makes a noise as he sinks in his chair. “I shall go with you to the embassy tomorrow.”

Julia looks up. “Really?”

“You should not be alone. We do not know where VILE escaped to. They could still be here in Egypt.”

Julia is legitimately moved. She didn’t think it was possible for him to act this way. “Thank you, Agent.”

“Pas de probl��me.” Chase stares moodily out the window, so Julia returns to the app.

The minutes pass, but somehow it’s not as bad as before. Julia is in the middle of creating the last face when the screen blacks out for a call. She hands the phone back to Chase.

“Zari is calling you.”

“Eh?” Chase looks quizzically down at the phone, then takes the call. “‘Allo? Ah, Agent Zari. I will not be back for another forty-eight hours at least. What?” He pauses to listen. “Wait, now? But Miss Argent needs a security detail!” Chase tries to say more, but the voice on the other end rises in volume. Eventually, Chase’s shoulders slump in defeat. “Yes, yes, I’ll be on the next flight.” The call ends.

He turns to her and he might look as miserable as Julia feels. “Miss Argent, I, er.”

“Duty calls.” She says despite the sinking feeling in her gut. “You have three of the four faces at least. I’ll go to the embassy tomorrow, and you’ll visit me in Oxford when this is all over.”

“But VILE.”

“Aside from you, no one knows…no one knows I’m here. That anonymity will shield me.”

Chase’s jaw clenches, and he nods. “Until then, Miss Argent.”

“Goodbye, Agent Devineaux.”

He turns and leaves the hospital room.

---

Carmen does one more sweep of the hotel room before she zips her duffle for the final time. She doesn’t usually pack a lot on capers, but it pays to be vigilant.

“How is Jules getting back to the UK? Is Devineaux arranging that for her?”

Player absently hums as he types. “Oh yeah. She wouldn’t have any passport or anything, huh? Because she was kidnapped?”

“I want to make sure she isn’t stranded in Egypt.”

“I’ll take a look. And I could whip something up for her if Devineaux doesn’t have anything in place. How does sharing a plane with your favorite Oxford professor sound to you?”

“Ha ha.” Carmen throws a phone charger into the duffel and zips it closed. “Being close to Jules might not be such a good idea. VILE kidnapped her because of me.”

“VILE knows and now ACME knows too. You might as well go for broke, Red.”

“Go for broke doing what, exactly?” Carmen asks. “Don’t say, ‘Jules.’”

Player laughs. “I’m trying to be a good wingman here!”

“Jules has students, and bills, and maybe even a cat, or something. She has a life outside of all of this and I ruined that when I went to see her.”

“How dare you say that to me when I heard what she said when you guys talked in her office. What was it she called you? One of her ‘two key interests?’”

The sheer audacity. “Player.”

“Carmen.” But Player gasps and whispers a curse.

“What is it?”

“Uh.” More typing. “Julia isn’t going anywhere. She’s—uh. She’s checked into a hospital.”

All the hair whooshes out of Carmen’s lungs. When she last saw Julia, she was awake. She was responsive. She was standing unaided. She was…she was in VILE’s custody for at least twenty-four hours at that point, that’s what she was. Julia walking around in the pyramid this morning? Seemingly bright-eyed and bushy tailed? That doesn’t mean a thing if she’s in the hospital now.

BEEP. Carmen’s phone receives notifications as Player pushes an update to it. Address, map, and a plane ticket for the rescheduled flight back to Seattle. She pulls the duffle strap over her head and strides out of the hotel room.

---

In case of emergency, Player allegedly has a list of hospitals that he will trust with the safety of Team Red. Allegedly, because Carmen’s never seen Player’s desktop. When he tells her that Julia’s been admitted to one of those hospitals, it does little to ease the raging unease within her. Carmen gently opens the door to the hospital room and peers inside.

The blinds are drawn against the afternoon sun. A privacy screen is pulled halfway across the room, obscuring the single bed in the room. There is no television monitor, and instead a oscillating fan sweeps back and forth on low.

Carmen steps into the room and softly closes the door behind her. She lowers her duffel to the floor and creeps closer. While she didn’t see any local police, or any police-looking types staking out this hospital, and while she didn’t see any VILE operatives either, it helps to be cautious. When she peeks around the curtain, however, she only sees Julia.

Her glasses and suit jacket are gone, and a hospital blanket has been drawn up to her chest, but it is her. Carmen steps around the curtain to her, and she holds a hand a little ways from her mouth.

There’s a soft breath against her palm, and Carmen almost cries in relief.

“Red? Did you find her?” Player asks.

“She’s asleep,” Carmen whispers.

“Ah.” And Player falls silent.

She’s also alone. There are no guards, or orderlies, or nurses. Devineaux is nowhere to be found. If VILE found out that Julia was here, there would be nothing to stop them from taking her again. Carmen sinks down into the visitor’s chair.

Let them come. She will be enough to stop them.

Julia seems smaller in sleep. Her brow is smoothed free of complex thought, and her lips are slightly parted. A sunbeam falls across her face, highlighting the freckles dusting her cheeks. Julia’s dark hair is disheveled from the pillow, and her front fringe falls over her eyes. Carmen makes as it to smooth it away, but falters and instead, she pinches the hinges of Julia’s glasses and delicately lifts them from her face. She folds them, and starts looking for the rest of Julia’s things.

She finds pill bottles instead, lined up like soldiers at the back of the side table.

“Player?”

“Yeah?”

“When you found Jules’ file, it was bad, wasn’t it?” Carmen whispers.

“I didn’t look very long, because I didn’t want to snoop, but from what I did see? It wasn’t good.” He leans back from the mic and shouts something, then when he returns, he says, “I gotta go eat breakfast. Will you be okay for a minute?”

“Yeah. Go.” Carmen continues searching. She finds the rest of Julia’s things in a drawer in the side table. At the bottom are Julia’s shoes, over which is her suit jacket—carefully folded—and over that is her pendant. Carmen puts the glasses down beside the pendant and closes the drawer.

Julia wakes with a start. She gives a weak cry, and her feet kick out against the blanket. When she settles back down, she also puts a hand over her eyes.

“Jules?”

“Carmen?” Julia’s voice comes out strained and broken. Her hand cannot hide the furrow of her brow, nor can it hide the stuttering gasps she takes in a poor attempt to calm down.

“Surprise,” Carmen whispers. She holds her hand, the one with the IV line stuck into it, and Julia holds on tight. So tight that it might break her fingers and some dark part of Carmen thinks that she might deserve it. But it doesn’t last. Eventually, Julia’s breathing evens out, and her body relaxes against the bed, and her grip loosens, but she doesn’t let go. Julia drops her other hand to reveal red eyes.

She clears her throat. “How did you find me?”

It is so casual that it throws Carmen off. Are they really not going to discuss Julia’s state from not even a minute ago? But Julia looks at her expectantly, so she says, “Player found you. I was worried.”

“Thank you. I didn’t think….” Julia’s face screws up. “Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t. Jules, I am so sorry. VILE was never supposed to get a hold of you.”

“I’m not sorry,” Julia whispers. She winces as she eases up on the bed, and Carmen wants to help her, but doesn’t know how. Julia manages to sit upright anyway.

“You needed help. Was I supposed to say ’no?’” Julia asks. She even manages a half smile. “This was not your fault,” she says as she gestures to herself.

“They kidnapped you because of me.”

“Absurd. I mean, yes, they did. But that still wasn’t your fault. You might as well rage against an earthquake for bringing down a building, or at lightning for striking a tower. Criminal syndicates kidnap people; that’s just what they do. If not me, then it would have been some other poor sod.”

“Jules.”

“I mean it, Carmen. Don’t blame yourself for this.”

When Julia says it like that, Carmen might be able to believe it. “How bad is it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

The bridge of Julia’s nose wrinkles, so Carmen asks instead, “What happened?”

“I said ‘no.’ The taller woman—they called her ‘Countess Cleo’—she said that she would only ask for my services once. So I said ’no.’” Her brows furrow again and she bows her head, casting shadows on her face. “Those two men, Vlad and Boris, they were very persuasive. And I tried, I really, really tried. But I couldn’t.” Julia trails off and when she looks up again, her eyes are glassy. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

The idea that Julia should ever think of herself deficient in any way, that she could be convinced that that was the case, is so painful that Carmen’s heart could break. It is also equally vexing, because it is clearly untrue. The boldest lies that Carmen has ever heard.

“How could you apologize for being so brave?” Carmen asks.

“I’m supposed to be a former secret agent.”

“And? I don’t care about some arbitrary threshold of toughness. I’m just glad that you’re alive.”

Julia smiles and stares down at their clasped hands. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too. Not that I’m in a rush, but the longer you’re here, the more dangerous it is for you. When are you getting discharged?”

“Next morning at the earliest. The doctors want to keep me overnight for observation.”

“So it’s that bad.”

“Carmen….”

But Carmen gestures to the pill bottles. “Jules. Come on. How bad is it?”

Julia sighs. “Hairline fractures in my fibs, and some minor internal bleeding.”

She mumbles this last part, but Carmen catches it anyway. Cold horror washes through her body. “Internal bleeding?”

“Minor internal bleeding. Carmen, don’t feel bad, or we’ll be going in circles all day.”

On the contrary. Carmen’s horror ignites into hot, unbridled rage, and she leaps out of her chair and starts pacing up and down the tiny room.

“Carmen?”

“They are never touching you again. Never again.” Carmen pauses just long enough to say before she continues to pace. Julia face softens a bit.

The door creaks open, and Carmen whirls around and grabs an extra chair. It’s one of those mass-produced plastic and wire things, light enough to throw across the room if needed. Julia too, falls silent.

But an orderly pokes their head in. “Visiting hours are over,” they says in Arabic. “Miss Santa Rosa, you must leave now.”

“No, no, she can stay,” someone else says from behind him. It sounds like the nurse who was manning the reception desk. “She’s her fiance. It’s in the file.”

“Eh? Okay.” The orderly turns back to them. “Have a good night.”

The door closes again.

The chair slips from Carmen’s nerveless fingers. On the bed, Julia turns away, her face and ears a brilliant red.

“You understood that,” Carmen says. It isn’t a question.

Julia, unable to speak, nods her head.

“Player, did you do that?” Carmen asks. Her earrings crackle to life.

“Do what?”

“The fiance thing.”

He chuckles. Actually chuckles. “Best wingman ever.”

Oh no. Carmen is going to die. She is going to shrivel up from mortification. What must Julia think? At the very least, she must think that Carmen’s such a creep.

“Do you want me to change it back?”

“You’ve done enough.”

Player chuckles again, this time with a darker tone. “So that’s a ‘no.’”

“Goodnight, Player.” And with that, Carmen taps her earring to mute.

“You can leave if you need to. You must be terribly busy,” Julia says.

“Never too busy for you,” Carmen says, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she can think too much about it. Julia flushes all over again.

---

Julia gasps awake, the ache in her ribs stealing her breath. Her left hand is clasped tight in Carmen’s, a lifeline tethering her to this this plane of existence.

She fell asleep.

They were talking. About anything and everything. One of those meandering conversations that are pointless, yet profound. Carmen is endlessly fascinating, of course. Julia couldn’t help but hang on her every word. When it was her turn to share, she tried her best to be as interesting, but she couldn’t help but feel so incredibly mundane. Carmen’s rapt attention must have been a facade done out of politeness, because there is no way that she could be just as interested in Julia. Carmen was just being kind.

They were just talking, and then the meds took over and she fell asleep.

“I’m right here, Jules.” Carmen’s worried face swims into focus and the bed dips as she sits next to her. The room is dark, save for a single nightlight plugged into a nearby outlet.

“Was it a nightmare?” Carmen asks.

“The pain from my ribs must be tricking my mind. Every time I go to sleep, I go right back to that safe house,” Julia whispers.

“What about a distraction?” Carmen asks. “If you felt something else, would that help?”

They both look at their hands. They’re still holding onto each other, with Carmen’s thumb gently pressing against Julia’s pale knuckle.

“It does seem to help,” Julia says. Somehow, realigning herself with reality is easier with Carmen around. Carmen’s brow furrows in thought, then she nods, as if making a decision.

“Okay, scoot.”

It takes Julia a moment to understand what Carmen means to do, and when she finally does figure it out, she briefly considers saying ‘no’ before the thought is immediately smothered without mercy. Perhaps it’s because Julia almost died this morning, or perhaps it’s because of the heady cocktail of medications currently running through her system. At any rate, Julia doesn’t say ’no.’

She scoots.

It takes a little maneuvering—Julia’s IV line has enough slack, but they don’t want to pinch it shut—and they take care to not jab elbows and knees, and the bed is already so narrow, but they manage it in the end. They end up facing each other, with Julia’s head cradled between Carmen’s arms, and their legs tangled together. Julia’s fingers curl in the belt of Carmen’s romper.

Carmen runs hot. The heat of her arm thrums against Julia’s ear. Her gray eyes are also very close. The distance between them is so negligible that if Julia were to move just a couple inches forward….

Well.

“Go to sleep,” Carmen whispers, her breath ghosting against Julia’s face. “I’ll be here.”

Julia closes her eyes and goes to sleep.

---

“Red.”

Carmen’s earrings turn on, and Player’s voice cuts through the still night.

“Red, wake up.”

Julia is still asleep. Carmen’s arm is getting a little numb, but hell, Julia can have it. She rolls away a little, not enough to disturb Julia, but just enough so that she can talk to Player without speaking directly into her face.

“What time is it?” She whispers.

“About one AM your time.” Player also lowers his voice to match hers, even though he’s a little speaker in her ear. “The Seattle base got torched.”

“What?”

“VILE destroyed it. They burned everything. And then in Oxford, another team torched Julia’s apartment and blew up her car. They blew it up, Red!”

Beside her, Julia stirs. “Wusrong?” She slurs.

Carmen’s heart sinks. “I’m so sorry, Jules.”

“This again? We talked about this, Carmen.” Julia’s sleepy expression melts away when Carmen doesn’t answer.

Carmen gently removes her arm from under Julia’s head, then maneuvers so that she doesn’t crush her, but she’s able to brace herself over her and align her head over hers so that she can also hear.

“Player? Explain.”

He explains. Julia tenses beneath her, and her hands tighten in Carmen’s clothes the longer he goes on.

“VILE must have wanted to retaliate, but when they couldn’t find either of you, they did the next best thing,” Player says.

“Phone,” Carmen says. She rolls off the bed and goes to her duffel bag. She takes out her phone and swipes across the screen to answer Player’s call. He appears on the screen, and she tosses the phone onto the foot of the bed. Julia sits up and leans over the phone.

“Player?”

It must be early evening where Player is, but it’s always difficult to discern anything with how dark his room is. He must have blackout curtains or something.

“I’ve got Carmen’s plane ticket sorted out, and I was gonna get you on a plane to Oxford, Julia, but I’m not sure I should do that anymore.”

Carmen slips on her shoes and ties the laces. “Put us on the same plane.”

“What?” Player asks.

“You were right about VILE and ACME. Jules isn’t safe as a civilian anymore, so she’s coming with me.” Finished, Carmen stands up and regards Julia, who has her hands over her eyes again.

“Jules?”

“Jay?” Player asks, slightly muffled from the hospital blanket.

“I placed my students’ papers on the coffee table. They were just there in bundles, because I meant to grade them. And there were plant clippings on the windowsill…I was growing them in jam jars.” Julia’s hand moves to cover her mouth, and she stares into the distance. “Gone.”

Player looks down at his keyboard. Carmen’s heart sinks in her chest. She did this. Julia lost everything because of her. Because she asked for her help, and this is how she’s rewarded.

“I’ve only lived in Oxford for half a year, but that flat was mine, and I….” But Julia stops and turns to the side table. She pulls open the drawer and there, nestled in the folds of her suit jacket, is her pendant. It glitters in the low light, and she lifts it out, the chain draping between her fingers.

“I was wrong,” Julia whispers. She slips her glasses back on and she stares very hard at the pendant.

“Jules?”

“Everything I need is right here. Everything else is replaceable.”

Player’s jaw drops, and he and Carmen share a look. “Just like that?”

“Sometimes it really is that simple. Don’t mistake me; it will be awful to replace everything when the time comes, but the fact is that they can be replaced. And I have insurance. My class will be fine. My students will be fine.” Julia unclasps the chain and tries—and fails—to put it on. She looks up at Carmen. “Do you mind?”

Carmen takes the ends of the chain and carefully clips it around Julia’s neck. Her fingertips graze her nape as she pulls away, and Julia catches her wrist.

“I won’t be put in a safe house. If I’m coming, I’ll be useful,” Julia whispers.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Carmen says. Julia smiles up at her.

“Plane’ll be ready in an hour,” Player says. The call ends, and Carmen slips the phone into her pocket.

“Then we shouldn’t waste time.” Carmen unhooks Julia from the IV and helps her shrug on her jacket. Julia slips her shoes on, and after picking up the duffle and the meds, the both of them vanish into the night.

Show it some love on Ao3!

[weekendwarriorblog]

Review: BLACK WIDOW Finally Gives Scarlett Johansson’s Character the Storytelling to Truly Blossom

It’s actually nice when you can go into a Marvel movie these days with very few expectations, and a lot of surprises still intact, and what do you know? Marvel has done it again with Black Widow, a movie that finally shines enough of the spotlight on Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff to really flesh out the character in ways that’s hardly seems possible when she’s competing for screen time against a Downey, two (sometimes, three) Chrises, and a Hulk.

Even believing that I know quite a lot about Black Widow's history from the comics, I still don’t think I was quite ready for what we end up getting, since Black Widow still managed to be very different from what I expected after watching the trailers. It’s actually pretty cool that a Marvel movie can be delayed a whole year, but not feel like you’ve seen every cool thing in the advance marketing.

The Cliff Notes synopsis is that this takes place sometime earlier during Avengers history (my guess is after Captain America: Civil War), but it forces Natasha Romanoff to revisit her past being trained and conditioned in the Russian Red Room where she learned all her specialized killing skills. She also wasn’t alone, as the Red Room, run by Ray Winstone’s Dreykov, has spent the past few decades plucking young girls off the streets and away from their parents to turn them into similarly conditioned fighting machines.

But first, we begin in an idyllic Ohio setting in 1995 as we see Natasha’s family during happier times -- actually, placed in the USA as sleeper agents -- before Natasha and her younger sister Yelena were taken away by Dreykov. We reconnect with Yelena twenty years later when Yelena (as played by Florence Pugh) is on a field mission to retrieve vials containing a glowing red substance that turns out to be the one thing that can break the control Dreykov has over his Black Widow agents. It’s not long before we reconnect with Natasha, who is in hiding, because the Avengers are on the lam from the government due to the events in Civil War or maybe Age of Ultron. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter.

What it comes down to is that Natasha has learned that the Red Room is still operational, and she vows to destroy it with Yelena. But first, they have to free their father, former Russian superhero Red Guardian (David Harbour), who has been languishing in a Russian jail for the past 20 years, betrayed by his own government. Since he doesn’t have a clue where the Red Room is, they go to find the girl’s “mother” Melina (Rachel Weisz), who might be able to help them.

And honestly, that’s probably all that I want to say about the plot, because a lot of what happens after the family from the opening sequence is reunited goes so far into spoiler territory that I hesitate to say much more. So I won’t.

What makes the first half of Black Widow so intriguing is that you kind of are trying to figure out what is happening, because nothing is quite as cut and dry as other Marvel movies. In many ways, it’s more like a Bourne movie with Natasha and Yelena trying to revisit their past and save others from suffering a similar fate. While doing so, they fight a number of similarly-trained agents, as well as Taskmaster, a seemingly robotic killer that’s able to replicate anyone’s skills or fighting moves.

I will jump in here and say that I’ve ALWAYS loved Taskmaster as a villain from the comics, and seeing him on the big screen made me a little bummed, because I still have deep seller’s remorse from having to get rid of my entire 40-year comic book collection a few years back for way less than it was worth. Among those tens of thousands of comics was a long run of Avengers issues, including the one that introduced Taskmaster, and how couldn’t you love a character that looked so cool and could replicate everything the Avengers could do, whether it’s shooting arrows like Hawkeye or throwing a shield like Captain America? It doesn’t take long before we have a great fight between Taskmaster and Natasha early on, but then there’s an even better one involving an amazing chase through the streets of Budapest when Natasha and Yelena are reunited.

Black Widow will probably remind you of the Bourne movies, but one of the reasons is because there are so many global locations one after another bam, bam, bam… we’re in Morocco and then Norway and then Budapest… and if you pay attention during the end credits, you’ll see that they actually went to all those places. I could give another obvious reference (flagrantry teased earlier in the movie), but that would indeed be a HUGE spoiler. I will say that this is one of Marvel’s stronger “solo” movies since Captain America: Winter Soldier, probably because it deals in similar spy/political thriller territory, just in a grittier and more visceral way, while also touching upon the mind control over the Winter Soldier character.

For those that Black Widow will be their first experience with a film directed by Cate Shortland, she’s an Australian filmmaker who started out with indies like Somersault and Lore. Like Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, she hasn’t made a ton of movies before Black Widow -- exactly three in 15 years. But clearly, that formula seems to work, because there’s nothing in Shortland’s previous movies that could have informed me that she would be capable of doing a movie as big and full of jaw-dropping action as this one.

More than anything, it’s kind of nice to have a movie that mostly stands alone, and doesn’t really have anything to do with Thanos or Infinity Stones or anything but casual mentions of the Avengers. The movie acts exactly as it’s meant to in giving Johansson’s character who was killed in Avengers: Infinity War, a chance to really show how much more there is to her than we’ve seen previously.

The main four actors are great as they’re brought together, but it’s really Johansson and Pugh -- the latter having never really shown a proclivity for humor on screen -- whose chemistry makes up the core of the character dynamics. Harbour brings something else entirely, which is much bigger comedy relief, and then Weisz’s character… well, she’s just a great mystery from the second we’re reintroduced to her during the second half. When the four of them are together, the film does get slightly more emotional, but it’s also the first time when things slow down, and you can feel it.

Because I’m not reviewing for Below the Line, I won’t get into all the amazing work by Shortland’s team, but I do want to give special attention to the soundtrack by Lorne Balfe, who also provided the music for another movie I really liked, actually hitting streaming this week. I’m definitely becoming a fan.

Black Widow is an excellent return to theaters for Marvel, showing that the initial casting of Johannson and the weight put on Shortland’s shoulders to deliver a worthy Marvel action movie were both fully warranted. Maybe we won’t be seeing this Black Widow again, but a new world in the MCU has been revealed with this movie that builds upon the MCU’s proven ability to flow freely between genres.

Listen, I will say this, just as I’ve said in many reviews over the past few months: Black Widow was made by thousands of skilled people on both sides of the camera. You will see all their names go past as you wait for the inevitable end credits tag (and it’s a good one!). You’ll definitely enjoy watching their work in a theater more than watching it on any size television or projection screen. Sure, $30 is not that much money to watch the movie in the comforts of your own home, but Marvel makes these movies so that people can react and interact with others. So do them all a favor, and get off your couch and go see Black Widow in a theater.

Rating: 8.5/10

[the-original-b]

Archangel Chapter 11: Talent Scouting

Format: Prose / Fiction, multi-entry

Part in Series: 3 of 9 (Previous Chapter | The Beginning)

Word Count: c. 2,600

Summary: Khai pressures Krueger to contain a rapidly deteriorating state of affairs.

Krueger stepped through the glass doors of the Sixth Avenue office—dressed in a commando sweater and dark jeans with classy shoes under his pea coat—and headed towards the conference room.

Danielle straightened up behind her desk as she noticed him walk past her. “They’re waiting for you inside, Mr. Krueger,” she said.

He thanked her with a nod and proceeded down the hallway, past Khai’s old office which CJ Silvio now worked out of, and entered the conference room to join her and Everett to discuss their next steps after the events at Pharaohs a few days ago. Visible on a computer monitor at the end of the table was Hayden.

“Gentlemen, Miss Khai.” he greeted them. “Is Mr. Desmoulins joining us?”

“We’re ironing out the connection now,” Khai noted. She wore a dark suit with a white blouse and black peep toe pumps. “It’s one thing to set up a video call, but another entirely to set one up with him.”

“The man lives in military grade encryption,” Everett added. Today he wore a conservative blue suit with a pale gray shirt underneath.

“It’s how he’s stayed invisible for so long…” she added sotto voce. She tapped a few more keys on the laptop Hayden’s face was on. “Got it,” she said, turning the device toward the other men in the room. “Brandon, can you hear us now?”

“Loud and clear,” Brandon voice confirmed through the speakers.

“Perfect. In the room you can see I’m here with Mr. Krueger and Henry Everett. Also joining us via teleconference is Mr. Hayden.”

“Hey, everyone.”

“Greetings,” Hayden said. “Good to see you’re all well.” He folded his arms atop the desk he sat behind.

“Same to you, sir.” Khai said, sitting down and facing the laptop. Krueger and Everett took their places standing behind her. “Have you heard any updates from Dana and Charles?”

“No, and that’s what concerns me. Karin’s seen a steady increase in the Dragon Tears’ popularity in her territory, but she and I have been in regular contact; and Herman’s reported no problems in his area. The others have had their hands full for months, and now that I haven’t heard from them since last week the rest of us are more than a little concerned.”

“That bad?”

“It isn’t just the drugs, it’s the problems they invite. Police budgets have been slashed nationwide, and the hardest-hit cities have turned to the private sector to compensate.”

“Castle Security Solutions,” Krueger noted. “I’ve seen a news story on them the other day.”

“It’s no coincidence they’re expanding while the Dragon Tears become more popular,” Khai noted.

“Are you suggesting they’re connected, Miss Khai?” Hayden queried.

“I’m saying there may be a causality, sir; that somebody stands to profit from the expanse of one or both of the two forces choking the Partners today.”

“I agree,” Everett added. “And thanks to Krueger, I think we know who.” He looked at the monitor. “Mr. Desmoulins?”

“Special Agent Peter Cross,” Brandon said. “Born August 14th 1966, UT San Antonio class of ’88. Eight years with the FBI, then transferred to the DEA in ’96. He spent three years there, then moved to ATF. He changed hats a third time and joined the CIA in 2002, after which the records stop.”

Krueger arched his brow. “The United States Government?” He crossed his arms and shifted his weight to one foot.

“We don’t know that for sure, but it does make sense,” Brandon mused. “If the CIA is sponsoring an effort to destroy the Partners, they’d want somebody like Cross at the tip of the spear.”

“Not their wheelhouse,” Khai commented. “That’s more the FBI’s job.”

“Also doesn’t make sense that his story stops after his start with the CIA,” Everett noted, his hand on his chin. “I get the feeling there’s more to this Peter Cross than the records show.”

“Especially since the buyer named him,” Krueger added, just loud enough for the others to hear.  He leaned on the back of a chair to Khai’s left. “Is it possible he’s changed sides, started working for another criminal organization?”

“Possible, but not likely; the only other major player in the region is the Company,” Khai said. “And after the ordeal with Osiris, they’re hardly on my radar these days.”

“Mine either,” Hayden said. He brought his knuckles to his lip as he looked away from the camera, breaking eye contact as he considered the new information. “Do we know if Cross is operating in the Tri-State?”

“I found an office in Long Island City,” Brandon said. “Registered to a Rook Capital. He’s listed as Operations Manager.”

Krueger and Khai shot each other looks.

“Then I think that’s where we should start,” Hayden concluded. “Mr. Krueger, head to the Rook Capital office tonight.” Hayden lowered his hand again. “Surveil the building and report back what you find”

“Understood,” Krueger said.

“If I may, gentlemen,” Brandon suggested, “I think I have a better idea. I wrote a script that clones a computer’s internal drive and writes it to another location. I call it the Intruder.”

“The one used at Miles Orham’s cabin?”

“The very same. I think we can use it again here, but we’ll need an access point for it to work.”

Hayden nodded. “I agree,” he said. “That is a better idea. Mr. Krueger, if you can gain entry to the office and upload Mr. Desmoulins’ program into their server room, I believe we’ll gather all the information we need.”

“I’ll get it done, Mr. Hayden,” Krueger said with a nod.

“Excellent. We’ll reconvene after we’ve made more sense of the data.” He reached for something off-camera. “Good day.” His visage disappeared immediately afterward, and the four remaining people on the conference call shared a moment of silence.

“I’ll make the needed modifications to the Intruder,” Brandon finally said. “Krueger, can you come by later today to pick up the drive?”

“Absolutely. I’ll get the address from you while I’m there as well.”

“Awesome. Let me know when you’re on the way. Mr. Everett, Liz, take care.” And just like that, Brandon Desmoulins disconnected from the conference, and Khai shut her laptop before turning to face the two other men in the room with her.

“Well,” she said.

“It sounds self-explanatory to me,” Everett said. “We plant the Intruder, wait for it to do its job, and decide our next steps after we analyze the data.”

“We might run out of time before then.”

Everett shot her an inquisitive look.

“Rook Capital… Rook, the chess piece.”

“Castle,” Everett concluded. “The private contractors?”

“Not a doubt in my mind.”

“I caught it too,” Krueger added. “It can’t be coincidence that Cross is part of their office in Queens, he has to be connected to the private contractors coming up in cities across the country.”

“All the evidence points to that,” Khai said. “And if all is as it seems then there’s no time to delay here…” She stood up from her seat, adjusting her glasses. “We have to kill him.”

“Liz,” Everett said, raising a hand to chest-level. “You’re talking about killing a possible U.S. Government agent. That’s a sure-fire way of drawing attention that we cannot afford.”

“It’s also the only way we can guarantee avoiding the same thing that’s happening to Dana and Charles right now, and to stop whatever’s brewing from destroying the whole organization…” She took a breath, placing her hands on her hips and shutting her eyes. She opened them again and met Krueger’s gaze. “Milo, go see CJ in the armory.”

“Liz,” Krueger began.

She started toward her desk at the head of the conference room, by the window overlooking Sixth Avenue. “It won’t be easy, but if you can get in and out before they know what happened, I think we can slip the noose before they get a chance to tighten it.” She took a seat and woke her desktop computer.

“Liz, I was ordered—”

“It’ll be tight, but there’s a safe house in Sunnyside, on 40th Street. You can lie low there while things settle down—”

“Liz..!” He got her attention.

Khai looked away from the monitor to face him.

“That isn’t the job,” he specified. “You heard Mr. Hayden, this is strictly an infiltration assignment.”

“I did,” she said, “but it may be too late to do anything about whatever facts we dig up by the time we analyze them all. We need to solve the problem before it becomes one.”

“And I agree with you there,” Krueger said, leaving his place at the table to approach her. “But this is different—you’re talking about having me remove a possible Federal Agent.” He stopped barely two feet from the edge of her desk, then placed his hands onto the desk top. “A long time ago I stood right here in front of your predecessor, and promised to kill him in his sleep if he ever ordered me to do something I’m not comfortable with.”

Khai didn’t take her eyes from his, even as she leaned back into the chair and uncrossed her legs. She wasn’t even aware of the distance she tried to create between them until she blinked, realizing what she was actually feeling wasn’t shock, but fear.

“I don’t want to have to revisit that threat.” Krueger finally said. He maintained his flat tone, deadly serious. “Least of all to you… but if I have to, I will.” He straightened his posture again, looking down at her. “I was issued an order, Liz. And I don’t intend to deviate from it.” Krueger turned on his heel and headed toward the exit, his hands in his coat pockets. On his way out of the office he acknowledged Danielle again and passed through the glass doors to the elevator down to Sixth Avenue.

Everett shuffled uncomfortably after Krueger left. “That wasn’t something I should have been in the room for. Sorry, Liz.”

“No, you’re fine,” she reassured him. “Really…” She let a quiet sigh escape her lips. “You know, that’s the closest thing to a fight he and I have had in the almost two years we’ve been together… I was always nervous about that, but now I think I was scared of the wrong thing.”

Everett followed her eyes darting across the top of her desk. He noticed her reach for a pen and absentmindedly tap its point on an old post-it note. He’d seen that look on her face before, and could practically see the gears turning in her head as she worked through what must have been a problem she’d revisited and resolved dozens of times already. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” she declared, trying to convince herself more than him. “Yeah, it’s just… easy to forget who he is sometimes.”

“A good-hearted man?”

Khai looked up at him and, after a brief pause, exhaled. She shut her eyes and put the pen back down, then brought her hand back up to remove her glasses and rest them by the pen. She rubbed her eyes with her thumb and first finger then pinched the bridge of her nose before allowing her hand to slide down her face to her mouth as she opened her eyes again, staring ahead blankly.

Everett looked over his shoulder to the conference table and headed over to retrieve a chair which he placed in front of Khai’s desk. “Don’t tell me,” he began, sitting down. “You’re considering ending your relationship with him; you’re listing the pros and cons in your head and trying to come up with any good reason to let him go on your own terms before you’re forced to make that choice.”

Khai quietly laughed and shook her head. “That obvious, huh?”

“You may as well be an open book,” he returned, smirking.

Khai relaxed her smile and brought both her hands together, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers. She shut her eyes again and placed her face into her palms, exhaling slowly. She interlaced her fingers again, looking over her knuckles at him.

“And now, you’re realizing he’s not only the best thing to happen to the Branch, but also to you.”

Khai nodded. “I know,” she said. “And as much as I try to rationalize and poke holes in the pros, I can’t find a single reason to make it worth breaking up with him in the end.” She dropped her hands and turned her head to look him in the eye. “But I’m scared, Henry,” she admitted. “I hesitated even bringing him to the Brooklynite that night. I didn’t think I’d fall for him…” She shrugged. “But I did. A kind, charming, good-looking guy with a tragic past; I didn’t stand a chance,” she laughed. “I ignored my doubts and let myself get closer to him. No matter how many times I think I made a mistake with him, then realize I didn’t, I still feel like I’m going to screw this up somehow. And that terrifies me.”

Everett gave a half-suppressed chuckle as he considered his next words. “Forty years ago, I think I heard those same words come out of your father’s mouth when he tried to talk himself out of proposing to your mother.”

Khai laughed again. “I guess the apple plopped straight down,” she jested. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him he was the smartest person I knew. Then I chastised him for not being able to see the obvious choice,” he added with a smirk. “You inherited his brilliant mind, Liz. The two of you work through problems the same way—you consider all the approaches, all the variables, and by the time you reach your solution you realize you knew the right answer from the beginning.” He shrugged. “This is no different. I think you made your decision before we even started talking about this.”

Khai opened her mouth to offer a rebuttal, but stopped herself when she realized he was right. Sure Krueger caught her off guard with his parting words, but he said what he did because of who he was and—more importantly—who he wasn’t. Khai rested her cheek in her hand as she considered Krueger, weighing his numerous good qualities against his few bad ones. She tried to justify splitting with him in light of any hypothetical and actual threats to their relationship, and a soft smile washed over her face as she realized she couldn’t.

“There’s a reason you invited him to dinner that night, Liz” Everett concluded, leaning forward. “Remember that.”

~~

Krueger headed down Sixth Avenue and crossed at 51st Street to head toward the garage where he parked his car. He slowed after he made it across the street, then sighed as he stopped in his tracks. He stood off to one side to let others pass him as he slid his hands into his coat pockets and stared absentmindedly into the sky, re-playing his meeting with Khai, Everett, Brandon, and Hayden in his head over and again as he considered the information. After a while he fished into his coat pocket to find his mobile phone. “Ich werde es bereuen,” he said to himself as he dialed the number when he found it in his list of contacts.

“Mr. Krueger!” CJ Silvio’s voice on the other end answered. “What can I do for you?”

“I need something precise and powerful.” he said. “Last-minute.”

“How powerful are we talking?”

“Hole-puncher.”

“Uh…” Silvio shuffled audibly on the other end. “I think I can put a list together. Rifles or handguns?”

“The latter. The quieter the better.”

“Oh, well that narrows it down… I’ll have to see if we have any of those left in the armory.”

“Meet me there in thirty minutes.” Krueger ended the call and headed for the garage on 51st to his car.

(Masterlist | Chapter 12)

[nitewrighter]

Hiya mun! Can you write like little character bio blurbs for your fankids? Im not sure if you've wrote some already before but if not could you please? :D

I’ve written a short masterpost of who’s who’s kid here but as far as like... bios go...

I’m limiting this to the main continuity because we are practicing Self Care.

Watchpoint Kids

Rei is Mercy and Genji’s daughter, and the first kid on the Watchpoint. Despite her parents’ desire to try and raise her as protected and peacefully as possible, Rei grasped from an early age how much Overwatch’s conflict was affecting her life. She idolized Hanzo from a young age and wanted very much to be a ninja like her father and uncle. Genji and Hanzo obviously had a lot of misgivings about continuing the Shimada skills and traditions, and with them their violence, but in the end they relented and started training Rei as a means to keep her occupied, teach her to defend herself, and to try and direct Shimada ninja arts into a force for good. Rei grew up on the watchpoint alongside Marti, Rajeev, and Samir. Under Genji and Hanzo’s tutelage, Rei became a very competent ninja, even incorporating her Mercy’s Valkyrie wings into her movement and combat. Eventually Rei became frustrated with how slow her training was going and broke into Shimada castle one night looking for answers, but Genji and Hanzo were able to intercept her and convince her to come home before the Shimada clan became really aware of her existence. Years passed and eventually Rei joined Marti’s strike team, going on several minor missions before, at age 18, she was kidnapped by Talon, an incident that ended up catalyzing Aedan’s defection from Talon, but Rei lost her dragon after being killed by Moira and subsequently revived by Aedan. Rei then spent two years away from the Watchpoint as a stuntwoman for the Sentai series “Midori Rider” in Hollywood, all the while struggling with the pain of losing her dragon, and trying to get it back. She eventually did get it back during a confrontation with the Reaper76 Clone Andrea in Shirakami-Sanchi.

Marti is Widow and Sombra’s kid--she actually refers to Widow and Sombra as her “aunties” rather than her parents because she still remembers her biological mother. Marti’s story actually begins well before she’s born, during Sombra’s days in Los Muertos. Sombra’s best friend in Los Muertos was a woman named Soledad, who was romantically involved with Jacinto, a ruthless enforcer for the gang. When Soledad found out she was pregnant, she became disillusioned with Los Muertos and enlisted Sombra’s help in disappearing from the gang to assure a safer life for her unborn child. Sombra was able to secure a new place to live and identity for her, and Soledad named Sombra as Martina’s godmother when she was born. Six years later, however, Talon began opening communications with Los Muertos, and Jacinto, now a leader within Los Muertos, was more than happy to hear them out. Talon was desperate to kill Sombra after her defection, and managed to track Soledad down and alert Jacinto and Los Muertos to her location. Talon initially planned to just use Soledad and Marti to draw Sombra out of hiding, but now that Sombra was involved with Overwatch, the situation rapidly escalated and ended with both Soledad and Jacinto dead. Sombra and Widow adopted Marti, and Marti came to live with them at the Watchpoint. The other kids instantly latched onto her, and while Marti was wary at first and a bit lonely being the oldest, warmed up to them... and got kind of good at bossing them around. Like Genji and Mercy, Sombra and Widow had no intention of letting Marti be affected by the fight between Talon and Overwatch ever again after her loss and traumatizing experience, but Marti’s grief fueled her desire to take Talon down. Always a tinkerer, Marti was playing around with various electrical gadgets from a young age, but eventually used what minor hacking skills she had picked up from Sombra to access Overwatch’s old records. She learned as much as she could about the old Overwatch, and even cribbed information from Sombra’s own work on her eye conspiracy to try and find out as much about the fight between the two organizations as possible. Not wanting Widow and Sombra to worry about her, she kept tinkering with robotics, but now she started bothering Jack Morrison to tell her about the old days. At first Jack was rightfully stubborn and insisting that “This wasn’t her fight” and “he didn’t have time for this” but through sheer force of Sombra-level persistence, Marti managed to cow him into taking her under his wing... and, okay, yeah, he was kind of fond of her at that point. She almost reminded him of Reyes, sometimes. Marti engineered her own full-body grappling harness system based on Widowmaker’s rappel hook, ended up picking up hand-to-hand combat skills from self defense lessons from Widowmaker and sparring with Rei, and all the while used Sombra’s intel and Jack’s experience to gain an uncanny perspective on the scale of the fight. Eventually she told Widowmaker and Sombra that she wanted to fight as well, and while they weren’t happy about it, they understood how invested Marti was in the fight (oh they chewed Jack the hell out for it, though). Marti went on collaborative missions with adults in mentor-like roles as well as a few solo missions before being selected as the leader of the “junior strike team.” The fight would be pretty simple and straightforward if she didn’t have a weird romantic rivalry with Seye Ogundimu.

Rajeev and Samir are twins born to Pharah and Symmetra via IVF. Pharah carried them, and their sperm donor is a Pakistani Olympic Rower, engineer, and philanthropist named Kader Hiraj (Sombra may have hacked the sperm bank to give Pharah and Symmetra an edge, haha). They were born in the orca at 45,000 feet. To their credit, Pharah and Symmetra were able to raise their twins to be a bit more ‘protected’ than Rei and Marti, however, Rajeev impressed on Grandpa Reinhardt and Auntie Brigitte from a young age and loved the idea of glorious battle. Samir, the more quiet of the two, took after Grandma Ana and also became very interested in the applications of Hard-light, which Symmetra was more than happy to share because she saw it as a chance for Hard-light to be about creation rather than control as it had been with Vishkar. Ana and Pharah had a lot of mixed feelings on teaching the boys combat--they made a point of teaching them self defense, and Ana even taught Samir marksmanship (More as a target practice hobby than a combat application). Still, as with the other kids, when you grow up on a Watchpoint, it’s hard not to see the fight affecting virtually every adult around you. Eventually, with help from Marti, they learned more about where Symmetra’s past with Vishkar, and, learned that a lot of Symmetra’s architectural work was actually still in Vishkar’s clutches. At age 16, largely on Samir’s goading, they broke in to a Vishkar office in Oasis to get their mother’s blueprints back, leading to a confrontation with Sanjay Korpal and a Vishkar agent named Akasha. They managed to escape with the blueprints, but Rajeev lost his eye in the fight. Samir blamed himself, and Marti ended up taking Samir under her wing. Marti soon found that Samir’s perspective was invaluable, and he ended up as her unofficial “Right hand Man.” Rajeev eventually got a cool gold-irised prosthetic eye, and both got Wadjet tattoos as a gesture of “Yeah. We’re in this fight, too.” 

Jaime was born to Turkish-Basque parents in Pamplona, but was orphaned in a Null Sector attack at the age of 7. With so many state resources going to trying to just remain stable in the face of Talon and Null Sector attacks, the Spanish government resorted depending on the private sector for many child welfare services and Jaime was given to the custody of a Vishkar Corporation-owned orphanage. Throughout his time in the orphanage, his Vishkar guardians criticized him as “Resourceful but resistant,” “Contrarian to the point of self-destructive,” and “A little shit who needs to learn his place.” Jaime actually had numerous escape attempts over the course of his 5 years in the orphanage. His first attempt he tried to bring five other kids with him, but one of them snitched. The second attempt he whittled down his fellow escapees to two others, except one of them twisted their ankle as they were running out, and the three of them got caught trying to carry him out with them (a part of Jaime still wonders if they would have made it out if they left him). Then there was just one other... but it turned out Vishkar had treated them with extensive conditioning with the express purpose of making them betray Jaime and teaching Jaime “You are completely alone” in the hopes that that would discourage further escape attempts and traumatize him into submission. It did not. It just pissed him off and isolated him. With all of his escape attempts, he was getting better at free-running, at climbing, at breaking in, at picking locks, at pickpocketing keycards, at disabling security cameras---every time Vishkar caught him he got a little better. Two years and 9 escape attempts later, Jaime finally made it out, homeless, angry, and alone, but free. He hopped several freighters, and used the agility and cunning he had learned in his escape attempts to scavenge, steal, and stow-away his way all over the Atlantic and the mediterranean for the next two years. He had only been in Gibraltar for about two weeks when he stole a schoolgirl’s backpack and she and her friend chased him down like a fucking madwoman. It had been the first time in 2 years someone had managed to keep up with him. McCree and Hanzo were able to intercept them, basically looked at him and were like “Oh shit, you’re 14 and starving.” It started out with the offer of food, a shower, and a place to sleep back at the watchpoint, and McCree’s word that Jaime could leave the second he wanted to...and it ended up with McCree and Hanzo pretty much adopting him. When Jaime found out that Overwatch was fighting Vishkar, he wanted to join the fight as well, but quickly ended up butting heads with McCree over the issue. McCree just didn’t want to end up as “someone else’s Reyes” and wanted Jaime to stay out of the fight. In the end, Jaime ended up spending 6 months in the southwest with McCree’s godmother Willow “Billie” Quintero. Incidentally during this time, Jaime met Ashe and ended up learning a lot from her, so basically McCree’s plan for Jaime to “not end up like me” kind of went out the window. But Jaime returned to the watchpoint, significantly cleaned up, now way more cowboy-ish, and still just as stubbornly willing to fight as ever. The other kids were happy to have him on the team.

Talon Kids

Seye Ogundimu was the product of an amicable but complicated marriage of Doomfist to successful Ogundimu Prosthetics shareholder Tujuka Tejuosho. Raised largely by his mother for the first few years of his life, he was only a few months old when Doomfist broke out of prison with Talon’s help. Seye himself grew up in luxury and privilege, attending the finest schools, proving himself both a brilliant student and incomparable athlete, and being groomed to take over Ogundimu Prosthetics once he came of age. Still at the back of his mind, the fear of irrelevance loomed. Every time he turned on the news, the name of his father was on everyone’s lips. To his credit, Doomfist did try to be a good father to him, and while he didn’t exactly pressure Seye to be like him, it was one of those situations where context was everything. Doomfist didn’t need to pressure Seye to be like him... the effect Doomfist had on people, the power he had, was something Seye wanted, too. The only other option, as the son of Doomfist, was humiliation and oblivion. But Seye knew he couldn’t just try to be a carbon copy of his father, and his father was also a product of their company’s own cybernetics. Seye thus decided to throw himself into engineering, and eventually developed his own pair of high-tech graviton gauntlets (nicknamed “The Twofists” by Aedan). Once he finished with his schooling, he kind of just... strolled into the main Talon board room like “Ready to take my seat at the table!” and Doomfist was just like “Oh, you think you have a seat at the table?” And Seye was just like “...uh...” and Doomfist basically made Seye start from Talon’s bottom ranks and pretty much claw his way up. It turned out for the best though, with his ambition, Seye gained the experience needed to lead strike teams, formed alliances and gained loyalty of grunts, enforcers, assassins, snipers, and heavies, and got plenty of combat experience. Still, doubt sometimes itches at the back of his mind.

Faustine was the daughter of two major money launderers for Talon, who died under suspicious circumstances. She was adopted by Maximilien. Afflicted by a rare bacterial infection at a young age, Faustine had nerve damage all over her body and was bound to a wheelchair for the first 13 years of her life. Still, her brain was unaffected, and she proved herself a mathematical, financial, and strategic prodigy. In Talon’s “Private” sector, she served first as an intern, then as a secretary to Maximilien, helping oversee much of Talon’s finances. Frustrated with the limits of her body, Faustine enlisted the help of Ogundimu prosthetics to undergo an experimental procedure outfitting her entire body with “neuroprosthetics.” Not only could she now walk, run, and, to a limited extent fight, but she could interface with virtually any technology. By her own ambition she soon proved herself an invaluable asset in the field of corporate espionage. Almost as if to make up for her previous lack of mobility, she also gained a passion for cars, and got into amateur, then professional racing. Both her neuroprosthetics and the logos slapped all over her racing suit are a veritable billboard for Talon’s many shell companies, and Faustine herself displays a particular ruthlessness both on the racetrack and in the boardroom that, despite her more diminutive phsyicality, makes her no less a threat than any other of her Talon compatriots.

Aedan was engineered by Moira in an amnio-tank. Part of his reason for existence was not only Moira securing her own genetic legacy in the world, but also proving that you could make a stable embryo with nanite-based biology. In essence, while Reaper was falling apart, Moira wanted to know if being nanite-based was actually biologically sustainable on a growing organism... if it could exist, in a sense, “naturally.” There were five attempts before him, and all self-destructed in their first few weeks of gestation, thus making him “Subject Six.” Artificially aged to 10 years old and flushed out of the amniotank, Aedan had been implanted with false memories and brainwashing tech giving him an entire childhood and a staggering intelligence. He and Moira actually had a wonderful rapport together, they were really on each others’ wavelength. He didn’t figure out he was a clone until 4 years in and it did severely affect his trust in her. He understood, to an extent, that Moira did it so she wouldn’t just drop him headlong into an existential crisis, and in its own way, the brainwashing did give him enough of a sense of self to really develop. Still, to cope, he threw himself more into science, interning at Oasis’s labs. At age 17 he met a girl named Rei, not even knowing at the time that she was the daughter of Angela Ziegler and a target of Talon. As soon as he realized who she was, she bolted. He wouldn’t see her again until Talon kidnapped her. Repulsed at the concept of Rei becoming either brainwashed or a constantly-dissected lab experiment, Aedan helped her escape, though in the process he was forced to defect from Talon. Both were harrowed by the experience, but eventually Aedan found his place on Overwatch’s team. 

Andrea, like Aedan, was made in an amnio-tank. She was not only meant to be a more ‘martial’ application of nanites, but Talon wanted to replicate the SEP serum as well, and the only still-living source for that was Jack Morrison. So, Andrea was formed from an X chromosome from Reyes and an X chromosome from Jack Morrison so that they could have a subject with both nanites and SEP serum... there were many failed attempts, and Andrea’s project was titled “Subject 19.” Andrea wasn’t given a childhood while she was being artificially aged, rather, they crammed as much martial knowledge into her as possible. As a result, her personality is very... uh, “Terminator.” While Reyes was warned that her ultimate loyalty was to Talon, and while he was furious that his and Jack’s DNA had been used to create an entire fucking person without either of their consent, he did feel a protectiveness towards her. One of Andrea’s first missions with Talon was assassinating Aedan after his defection, but the mission failed, and even worse, Rei somehow ended up getting her dragon back in the process. So now Andrea’s pissed, and she has no intention of failing again.

 Like Jaime, Akasha was one of thousands of orphans taken under Vishkar’s wing, but she took to Vishkar’s vision like a duck to water. While not able to make the massive constructs most hard-light architechs are known for, she demonstrated an uncanny ability to make smaller constructs really really fast. This paired with a high athletic potential from a young age, slotted her in an experimental program for more martial applications of hard-light. She was equipped with a ‘Projector sword’ capable of making a hard-light blade and functioning as a translocator, but she disappeared after a fight with the Amari twins went awry and her translocator sword was destroyed. It’s not sure if she’s alive or dead, (Schrodinger’s Akasha...) but last time someone got caught in a teleporter incident like this, it was Tracer in the Slipstream. So if she ever comes back, she’s going to need a chronal accelerator, and she is going to be pissed.

[its-freakinbats]

heaven don’t have a name-- q.b.

Part One

Oof.

First off, let me just start off by saying, “my bad”. My hiatus wasn’t supposed to be this long; family matters were abundant, and just when I thought I overcame them, the good ol’ chronic depression kicked in.  

Those of you who decided to read chapter two anyway are absolute darlings and I deserve none of you. I will still continue this story for those of you who are interested, and am still sticking by my estimate of ten chapters. 

Fun fact: when writing this story, I managed to send my dad this story by mistake, so dad if you’re reading this, no I don’t take constructive criticism. 

Anywho.

The story is still very much going to be a reader/QB story, but the POV will be shifting every so often, so as to get some of Quentin’s reactions to how things play out. I figured it would be pretty tough to see Quentin’s inner turmoil if the entire story was from reader’s POV. 

Lots of dialogue in this chapter, and I can only hope and pray that I managed to get Quentin’s manipulative persona somewhat right. 

Enjoy, my darlings!

Quentin strolled down the walkway with his hands in his pockets and a peppy tune buzzing in his throat.

He didn’t think it would be this easy to find her. 

Part of him expected Janice to return to him with bad news; that the agent they were looking for had staged an elaborate set up for him. That she couldn’t be found.

However, he was pleasantly surprised to hear that the woman was staying twenty minutes from the site of the previous nights attack, and had appeared to be on a vacation of sorts. 

Janice had suggested that obscurity for the woman was out of the question entirely for her; her past history with the Avengers would be sure of that.

He supposed the agent knew no other way of life; after her identity was handed over following the events of Hydra’s resurface in 2014, he could only imagine the hoops she had jumped through in order to veil herself before the Snap. 

Then, obscurity wasn’t a luxury she could afford. 

He supposed that’s why she hadn’t attempted to mask herself from the world last night. 

He’d been up into the early hours of the morning reading whatever he’d been supplied, and then some. Of course he’d been familiar with the Avengers over the last decade or so; but who hadn’t? 

After witnessing aliens who’d mindlessly attacked New York under the orders of a megalomaniacal demi-god, it was clear that the world had changed: superheroes existed, and so did their otherworldly adversaries.

He thought back to her first appearance. 

At the time of the attack, the first four figures were easy enough to make out--Tony Stark, Captain Steve Rogers, Thor, and a large green mass that had been identified as scientist Bruce Banner. The group of them were icons of sorts--heroes to many. 

And then there were the other three.

Just like Romanoff and Barton, she was virtually invisible to everything except for the eye. At the time, the only indication that they were real was the grainy footage showing several individuals fighting the alien threats. 

He knew that she was on the younger side when she helped neutralize Loki’s threat, and that she was equipped with some sort of gauntlet pair. Other than that, she was a mystery.

He vaguely recalled a comment made by Tony Stark during a meeting once. 

“Mouthy as hell, that one. Doesn’t take no for an answer. I’d swear she was mine if her mother wasn’t a shut in.”

Everything else he’d learned about her had been through news articles, and even then, there wasn’t much. 

From what he now knew about her, however, she was a mixed bag. The agent was a level seven with access to information he couldn’t even begin to conceive. 

He wondered what the worst thing she ever had to cover up was.

She was an only child of a prominent member of SHIELD; her mother had served primarily in the eighties and nineties, and if he read correctly, she had ties all over. 

Government work did that, he supposed. 

The father wasn’t named, but a report he found several pages later had suggested he’d been in Colorado in 2009.

That was the first reported instance of her using her gauntlets and the name Soleil.

Before Manhattan, SHIELD had used her as a mouthpiece to placate simmering threats across the world. Apparently, she was silver-tongued, and damn good at it, too.

She’d been used as a way to get the demigod, Loki, to talk. The files on the 2012 attack stated that she was harsh, and unforgiving in her interrogation. He recalled how blunt she had seemed just last night, and he believed the report. 

She was just like the other two SHIELD agents: practiced in hand to hand combat, marksmanship, observation, and ambiguity. Where the other two had seemingly been picked up out of nowhere, she was born for SHIELD.

Her mother hadn’t been expected to be a parent, and surprised everyone at the age of forty-one. 

Twenty two years or so later, her only child would be sent to neutralize her first issue. 

He couldn’t even think of what he’d been doing in his early twenties.

Probably amphetamines to keep himself awake all night to finish whatever tech he’d been obsessing over.

By twenty-three, she’d been taken under Nick Fury’s wing and deemed a significant, if reckless, threat by a few different organizations globally.

He learned that her mother was found dead as a victim during the Manhattan attacks, when the younger woman was only twenty-five.

He thought of how disillusioned she had seemed when they spoke. No wonder the disbandment of the Avengers left her in a state; they were likely the only family she had left after that.

Quentin had made a note to remind Janice about retrieving the dogtag he knew the agent coveted so much. Her mother’s dogtag.

The Hydra Uprising had brought many things to light; not just of her, but of SHIELD as a whole. On the surface, they’d been a non-descript organization the US had implemented in the forties to ensure global safety from one end of the world. He supposed that that hadn’t necessarily been a lie, but he’d been astonished by the amount of threats that were regularly being avoided, and just how little the people knew of it. 

It made him wonder what all she knew.

Who else was out there, other than Thanos? What would they do should a larger threat come for them? And what could people like Tony Stark do to prevent it altogether?

He gritted his teeth at the thought of his former boss. Stark had measures for earth stored away, but for otherworldly threats? .

The chagrin in his blood fell just as quickly as it had risen at the thought of his old mentor, however. Stark was long gone, and the only person to carry on his legacy would be pliable, forgiving. 

Peter Parker would lose Stark’s new tech one way or another, and he briefly wondered if he could use her to get it for him.

Tony Stark would lose the final thing he’d gifted the world, and his legacy would soon be replaced by a newer, more unstoppable hero. Someone who was infallible, and didn’t have to rely on teenagers to finish his job. Stark’s legacy would be continued as a satire, while he reigned victorious as the world’s source of hope. 

Tony Stark did much for the world, he’d give him that, but he would do so much more.

With his hands in his pockets and a spring in his step, Quentin marched up the stairs to the hotel. 

“Hotel cameras pin her outside of her room just two minutes ago,” Mortimer said in his ear piece. 

His eyes scanned the spacious hotel lobby, and his lips quirked when he saw a familiar shade of hair. 

“Got her,” Quentin said quietly. He removed the ear piece before shoving it into his coat pocket. 

Even with her back turned to him, he recognized her. The images plastered on the news of her and her teammates had practically been burned into his head. Her hair was down for once, and she wore leisurely summer clothes instead of the body conforming suit she’d worn in combat. He briefly thought that her current outfit suited her far better than her alter ego’s.

His fingers grazed over the chairs that adorned the lobby, as he heard her thank the concierge for their assistance. He began to stride towards the door, and ended up colliding with her moments later. 

She bounced off of him with an, “Oof,” and he lifted his hands to steady her.

She smiled politely at him and gave a quiet, “Thank you.” 

Before she could turn to leave, however, Quentin spoke up.

“I was hoping you had gotten that looked at,” he commented. He let go of her arms, and he watched as her eyes fell. He wondered if she recognized his voice.

When she looked back at him, her expression was unreadable. 

He was hoping she would say something, and soon, instead of walking away and deeming him a creep. It would make his job just that much more difficult.

Instead, she surprised him with a broad smile. 

“I didn't know you were meeting me here,” she said, feigning excitement. 

Quentin smiled, and did his best to play along with whatever game she was starting.

“I figured there was no harm, since we’re getting lunch,” he replied, and he watched as she snaked her arm in the crook of his. She led the way to the door, and spoke as if they were old friends. With as much as he knew about her now, he almost felt that way.

She continued on about how excited she was for their lunch together, and he offered vague answers to her questions about his stay in the city. They walked in tandem around the courtyard, before ending up beside a fountain. 

When they were alone, she pulled away from him and regarded him; she was still indecipherable, even as she spoke.

“You’re a good actor,” she stated.

He was surprised by how quickly her demeanor had shifted, but chided himself. This had been her job for quite a while, after all.

“Not quite as good as you are,” he replied.

Her expression didn’t change. Her tone, however, was accusatory.

“Who else knows where I’m staying?” She asked.

“No one.” 

Her eyes finally gave something away; she didn’t believe him. Part of him was grateful for that. He would have thought her a fool if she had been so easily trusting.

“Why are you at my hotel?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s my hotel, too,” he replied smoothly.

Her expression didn’t falter, and she looked away. 

“I’m sure you’ve seen stranger things than a familiar face,” he offered. Her gaze remained fixed on the crowd that they’d passed on their way out of the hotel, though he noticed as her brow furrowed in concentration.

He continued to watch her. His mind whirled as he considered all of the things she had been through over the last twelve years. The neutrality she continued to pose suggested nothing out of the ordinary, and yet here she was. An Avenger. Someone who had no doubt seen some of the craziest things on earth. 

Finally, she turned her eyes back to him. He could have sworn he saw the wheels turning in her head. He wondered if she had done as much research on him last night as he had her. 

“Maybe...maybe I wanted to check in on you,” he said quietly. 

Her head tilted slightly and her brow furrowed.

“Really? You wanted to check in on me because of a hit to the face?” she asked incredulously.

It was Quentin’s turn to tilt his head.

“If I recall correctly, it was more than that. Or did I imagine you getting thrown across a parking lot and into a field?” he wondered.

She chewed on her lip for a moment before replying.

“I’ve taken worse.”

“Can’t be good for you in the long run,” he countered.

“Who says I’m hoping to make it that far?”

Stark had been right: she was persistent, and had a response for everything. Quentin briefly wondered if it was mandatory for an Avenger to be a smartass before they joined. 

“I didn’t realize that you had a death wish,” he started, before he heard her scoff.

“Were you raised to be nosy, or did you develop that attribute in your later years?”

Undeterred, he continued his facade of concerned hero.

“Where I come from, it’s regarded as polite to check in on someone after they’ve had a fall like that,” he said,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Part of him really enjoyed this prodding, this teasing. The circling the two of them were doing around the elephant in the room was enjoyable, if anything.

“My back is in one piece,” she answered finally. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Good to hear you’re not going to be confined to a hospital,” he added when a silence fell between the two.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” She asked. Her tone didn’t suggest annoyance. In fact, he wasn’t sure what it suggested at all.

“Kind of sounds like you want me to leave,” he said. A little prod here and there wouldn’t hurt anything.

“Kind of sounds like you have nothing better to do than interrogate me.”

Quentin didn’t respond, and he shifted his gaze towards the garden that sat beside the back of the hotel. The woman, on the other hand, must have sensed he was unsure of how to reply to that snippy remark. When she spoke up, his gaze found her again. Her expression had softened. 

“I’m grateful that you put a stop to that thing, really I am,” she said finally.  

“It was nothing,” he insisted gently. She looked at him with a perplexed expression. He looked down at the ground and stammered before adding, “Uh...you didn’t have to step in yesterday.”

“I know.” 

Well, then.

“Then, why?” he asked, looking up at her carefully.

She offered a shrug. “I’m nosy.”

“So, it had nothing to do with the two kids you helped outta there?” 

She finally seemed like she was reaching a breaking point with him.

“Is that what this is? A psychoanalysis?”

Quentin almost laughed at her response. “No, not at all. Not intentionally.”

The woman crossed her arms again. He wondered if it was habitual, or a defense mechanism. 

“Then what?” she implored. “I’m in circles here trying to figure out why you’re talking to me.”

Quentin watched her; it was bothering her more than she was letting on. He hid his smile.

“I owe you,” he said. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there to distract that thing. I do know that those kids wouldn’t have made it,” he added. 

She was quiet for a moment as she took in his words.

“You don’t owe me a thing,” she said quietly.

Quentin shook his head.

“I do, though. You don’t—” he said before he stopped suddenly. She regarded him with another quizzical look. He remained silent, just long enough to seem as if he was searching for the words to say. He ran a hand through his hair, feigning stress before rushing the words.

“Can I at least get you a coffee? Tea? Whatever you start your day with?” He looked at her imploringly, and he watched as she pursed her lips. 

“You don’t have to say yes, you know,” he added.

In her silence, he could see the different emotions running through her eyes. How much of it was real, he wasn’t sure. 

She didn’t smile at him, but there was the slightest quirk of her mouth before she answered next.

“So you did go to my hotel looking for me,” she said. 

That certainly wasn’t what he was expecting.

“I did,” he admitted; he shoved his hands in his pockets as he faced her.

“Well, at least you’re honest about your nosiness,” she said. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me last night?” she added, furrowing her brow. 

“What I believe I said was, ‘I don’t want to keep you out here late.’ It’s possible you didn’t hear that after getting hit in the head.”

“Gaslighting,” the woman said with a laugh. “Not a tactic most go for when picking up a woman.”

He laughed at that, too. A genuine laugh.

“Like I said, I was just hoping to get you some coffee,” he said. Her expression was, again, unreadable. “No motives, no agenda. Just some coffee. Maybe a walk while it’s not too late.”

She was quiet for a moment, and took the time to observe her surroundings as she considered what he said. 

She was much more animated than she’d been yesterday. Quentin wondered if that was her usual response to near-death experiences.

“You said you knew who I was,” she said finally. “Last night.”

“Yes,” he insisted.

“Then you know that I have taken down far larger men, and aliens before,” she assumed.

“Yes,” he repeated. Of that, he was sure. 

“You know that even with your glowing green Shego hands I can easily find a way to have you on your ass, right?” 

He didn’t doubt that.

“I do.”

He was smooth when he spoke, not wanting to give her any reason to doubt him.

She observed him carefully, her eyes searching for any sort of hint of deception. He hoped he masked it well enough. 

He’d been told before that he had kind features, and he was hoping that they didn’t suggest anything else.

She released a sigh and nodded slowly.

“Fine,” she agreed. “Just until I have to leave. No longer than that.”

Quentin hid his satisfaction, and offered his elbow to her. She was uneasy, but took it anyway.

She was a brave one, he thought before leading her away from the hotel. \

Perhaps this would be easier than he thought.

✹

“I thought you said no agendas,” the agent said from Quentin’s left. He peered from over his coffee cup and shot the woman a quizzical look. 

“Does coffee have an agenda attached to it?” he wondered. 

The woman had been preoccupied during their venture to the cafe, and had remained so as they wandered around. Of course, she’d answer superficial questions he threw her way: what the doctor said about her head injury, how many she’d ever received, etc. It wasn’t until that moment that she had instigated a conversation.

“Everything has an agenda attached to it,” she answered cryptically. When he didn’t answer, he saw her struggle to speak again.

“Objectively speaking, agendas don’t always have a negative connotation attached to them. Sometimes, it’s just a goal, or a means to an end. A phone company might make their products less than top tier to ensure that a customer gets the newest model after two years, therefore bringing in revenue.”

She kicked at a nearby rock before trailing off to throw away her empty cup. When she returned, she spoke again.

“A macchiato on the other hand suggests that one party may be looking for information from a second party. What kind of pay they’re expecting from a job, or the contents of their upcoming novel—“

“Or what the second party was doing in their hotel,” Quentin cut her off. 

“Or what the second party was doing in their hotel,” she agreed.

He offered her a winning smile, and he watched her eyes flick up towards him before focusing back on the road ahead. 

“So...yesterday. You said something that’s been bothering me,” she said, leading the way down the walkway.

He continued watching her.

“I asked if you’d been living under a rock. You said, ‘Something like that.’ What did you mean?” she asked.

Quentin’s lips twitched.

Showtime.

“You witness me fight a humanoid typhoon, and you decide not to ask me about that, but some offhand comment I made?” he asked incredulously. 

“That was my follow up question,” she added. “What was that? What do I need to do to make sure that another one of those things doesn’t come out of nowhere and decimate the population of Fresno?”

“I’m not sure that that will be the case,” he replied cryptically. 

“What does that mean?” she said, sounding slightly annoyed. “You know for sure that there’s not an angry army of wind people who are going to want others dead? Who want you dead?”

Quentin took a few more steps before stopping. He heard her stop, and he spun around to face her. She watched him intently, and he squared his shoulders. 

“That monster didn’t come out of nowhere,” he said after a moment. 

She shuffled beside him, and he felt as her gaze remained on him; more than likely looking for any possible clues, he thought.

He looked down and could very much see the problem solving side working out in her head.

“You were right. Last night, I mean. I...haven’t been living under a rock, but I—“ he started, before running a hand through his hair. 

“We’re from...elsewhere,” he said thinly. 

She rolled her eyes at that answer.

“Yeah, I gathered that. Care to inform me where exactly?”

He didn’t reply at first. He’d practiced the conversation a few times, and wondered how to sound most organic.

“Look, I’ve been to space,” she interrupted. “I’ve seen alien planets, and I’ve seen aliens. I’ve fought against aliens. I actually played cards with a few aliens,” she added. “I’ve seen way more than I ever thought I would have. There’s nothing you can say that would surprise me.”

His lips twitched. 

“I’m not talking about space aliens. I’m talking about alternate dimensions,” he said finally.

She nodded, though he thought he saw indecision in her eyes.

“So, alternate dimensions gave birth to this thing?” she asked indignantly. 

“Not necessarily,” Quentin said as he began to walk away. He thought her heard her huff from beside him.

“The alternate dimensions have existed for a while, but the Elementals haven’t.”

“Elementals? Plural?” The more he spoke, the more exasperated she sounded.

“Four of them. Thanos inadvertently created them when he snapped his fingers. They’re made out of the traditional building blocks of inhabitable worlds: air, earth, water, and fire. They...they came to my world after the first Snap, and they...they destroyed my world before another Snap could happen.”

He heard her footsteps slow again, and at first he didn’t turn to look at her. Instead, his shoulders shook slightly as he played the facade of loss. As he stood in his spot, he heard her shift uncomfortably.  

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must be like,” she said finally. Her voice was stoic, but he wondered just how stoic she felt. 

Quentin offered a solemn nod, and a heartbroken laugh.

“There’s not much that they can take away from me now,” he said. 

The agent didn’t respond, and he took that as an opportunity to continue playing victim.

“It’s...not easy, that’s for sure. It was bad enough trying to cope with what Thanos had done,” he said softly. “I thought that we had started to move on. I thought it would get better.” 

If he had read about her as thoroughly as he had thought, that would have struck a chord with her. If anyone knew of loss, it was her.

“I thought it would get better, too. I’m not sure that that’s the case,” was her response. 

He turned around and offered a twitch of the lips.

Rather than return it, however, the agent shifted gears. 

“So, alternate dimensions. How...what does that even mean? What are we preparing ourselves for?”

“What do you know about alternate dimensions? Alternate worlds?” he asked.

“From what Strange has told me, they’re just variations on a theme, right?” she replied. “But what kind of alternate universe? One where typhoons attack people because someone stepped on a butterfly they weren’t supposed to?”

Quentin nearly scoffed at that. 

“It’s just an alternate timeline that coincides with the one you’re living right now,” Quentin explained. 

“And you had Thanos there, right? Did you also have...us?” 

“The Avengers? Not in the one I’m from,” he said before strolling away to throw away his own cup. When he returned, he continued.

“No, if we’d had you guys, we might have stood a chance.”

She was silent at his commented, but when she spoke again, he truly recognized the espionage she’d grown up with.

“So, where’s our help, then? Why didn’t Strange fly in and take care of it himself?”

Quentin raised his brows.

“You tell me,” he said. “As far as I can see, you’re the only one who has their eye on earth. Where are the other Avengers? Aren’t there more?”

Her expression became stony again. 

The two fell into silence for a while, and Quentin could practically hear how much the comment stung.

“I didn’t mean to hit a nerve,” he began to apologize, but she shook her head and cut him off. 

“No, it’s...it’s fine.”

“Where are they if you don’t mind me asking?”

They continued to walk in tandem, and she remained quiet for a moment. 

“After the second Snap, a lot of them went their own way. Some had families, others had...responsibilities.”

“And you didn’t?” he asked. She looked at him, confusion clouding her features.

“What do you mean?” 

Quentin shrugged at that before replying.

“Well, from what I understand, you’ve been there from the beginning, haven’t you?”

“I...I guess,” she admitted. 

“Why do they get to move on and you don’t?” Part of it bothered him, but he wanted it to bother her more.

“Who decides who leaves and who doesn’t?” he pressed.

When she spoke, she ignored the question. 

“What happened to your world?” she asked. 

“Something I’d like to prevent here.”

With that impasse, he shared her gaze, though his was considerably less defiant.

He was unsure of how to continue the conversation, and opted to continue strolling. From his side, he heard her clear her throat. He looked back at her with a furrowed brow.

She met his eyes again, before speaking up.

“Was it as bad as the Snap? What they did to your home?”

He fell into a thoughtful silence before replying.

“It was worse.”

“I’m sorry. That’s...I can’t imagine,” she said.

Quentin shrugged. 

“It seems like you do,” he said. He used her silence as a sign to continue. “Seems to me like Stark was a big part of the team,” he said.

Her lips twitched, and he thought he saw her bite her cheek. 

“So it fell from Stark’s shoulders to yours from what I gather,” he said carefully. She didn’t respond at first, choosing instead to merely walk side by side with him.

“So?” he asked with a lifted brow. She looked at him with exasperation.

“You don’t have more pressing responsibilities?” he continued. “But everyone else does?”

“What’s more pressing than making sure the world doesn’t collapse again?” she argued. She started to sound more and more annoyed.  

“Haven’t you done that?” he asked kindly. “Multiple times? Kind of sounds like it’s your responsibility alone.”

“Kind of sounds like you’re trying to get me to retire. Besides, it’s not just me doing it. I have help, you know.”

“If you say so.”

They fell into companionable silence once again, and Quentin wondered if his scheme was working. All he needed was for her to feel like this was her task, and he was more than convinced she would. But he would believe it when he saw it.

“Assuming you stay to keep an eye on the...what did you say? Elementals? Assuming you stay here long enough to take care of all of them, I may have to retire.”

He wondered if that was her attempt at humor.

“Is that your agenda?” he asked. 

“My what?” She asked.

“You said that everyone, everything has an agenda. Not only did I pressure you into a walk that you easily could have turned down, but I also interfered with your day.”

“And you came looking for me in my hotel,” she added.

“And, yeah, I did that. So, why did you come with?”

For the first time since they’d spoke, she said something that he thought might have been genuine.

“I just know that certain people would like to get to know you a little better.”

He shot her a charming smile. 

“Are you one of them?”

She rolled her eyes. 

“You flatter yourself, Beck.”

“Support is always appreciated, but...getting people involved isn’t something I do, unless absolutely necessary.”

“You needed me last night,” she pointed out.

He hid his smile.

“I did. But if I can help it, I’m not going to risk someone’s life. Not when they have so much more left to do.”

She looked puzzled for a moment.

“You say that like I didn’t ignore you yesterday.”

He had to say, her persistence was a welcome addition to their talk.

“You’re still so headstrong. Please don’t let that be your downfall,” he said. 

“Was that the point of this?” she asked. “You took me out for coffee and entertained me for an hour or so just to leave me with a warning?”

Quentin watched her with a false admiration.

“I’ve seen what happens when people close to me bite off more than they can chew. And I’ve already lost too many people because of my recklessness.”

She looked like she wanted to reply, but he spoke up before she could say anything.

“I’ll...I’ll get going. I’ve taken enough of your time.” 

With that, he strode away with his hands in his pockets, hopeful that he’d been successful.

✱✱✱

You watched as the man’s figure disappeared into the landscape; you waited a few silent moments as you considered all of what he said.

Should he be telling the truth, you were afraid of how much trouble that spelt for you and your world as he had put it. Would these things dominate your world as they did his? Or would you be enough to stop it? You knew that Fury was contemplating bringing Parker in, something you vehemently disagreed with. A teenager wasn’t something you wanted on your conscience should the mission fail. Then again, you weren’t sure who else could help you. Beck’s words bothered you. 

Who decides?

Well, you did. It was you who agreed to the mission. 

What if you had said no? Fury would have made you anyway. The responsibility was left with you.

You frowned at the thought. You supposed there was some truth to that. It’s not like Fury would have had anyone else help. You were one of the first Avengers. You were one of earth’s defenders and you’d be damned if it didn’t have that.

Whatever it takes.

You knew that it would likely never be enough, and yet you still marched forward. Still, Beck’s voice wouldn’t leave your mind.

You brought a finger up to your mouth and chewed anxiously at the nail bed. The vibrating in your pocket pulled you from your thoughts and you answered it before the second ring had finished.

“For someone who had their ass handed to them by a typhoon, you were pretty animated,” Maria said on the other end. You could practically hear her smirk. 

“Well, it helps that my company was easy on the eyes,” you countered.

“Alternate universe, huh?” Fury could be heard.

“Yeah, I guess we’ll see,” you said, wiping your face.

“A shame you couldn’t get the next location from him,” Hill added. 

“If the next ones are as easy to find as this one was, I don’t think we’ll have much trouble,” Fury countered. 

Your yawn didn’t go unnoticed.

“Get another coffee if needed,” Fury replied. “We’ve already scheduled your plane. You’re meeting us in London where we can rendezvous. I’d also like to get your back checked out by a professional before the next one comes. And you’ll need your blasters.”

“Aye-aye,” you said. “I’ll see you in London.”

“Copy,” Fury said as Hill said, “See you in three hours.”

The conversation ended as quickly as it had started, and you had a hard time pulling yourself together to leave.

An alternate fucking dimension.

@famdomizedtrash @whatamessofwords @actuallyivar @ghostprincess @qtmeryr @grelabonkai

[hanna2020season2]

Hanna (2020) Season 2 Complete | x264 AMZN WEB-DL | 1080p | 720p | Download | Amazon Exclusive Series | Watch Online | GDrive | Direct Links

Hanna (2020) Season 2 Web Series Download Complete 720p GDrive

Hanna (2020) Season 2 Complete x264 AMZN WEB-DL 1080p 720p Download, Hanna Season 2 Watch Online Direct Links, Hanna Amazon Exclusive

Hanna (2020) Season 2 Amazon Exclusive Quality : WEB-DL Resolution : 1080p, 720p IMDb : 7.5 / 10 Release Date : Genres : Action | Amazon Exclusive | Drama Stars: Esme Creed-Miles, Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman Language : English

Scepticism was rife when it was announced in 2017 that the film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston and the rest of the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, would be made into a TV series.

The hype around the show's second season is building fast, and it's a huge step forward for the show and its fans alike. The TV series is the second season of Hanna - Barbera, the popular animated series about a group of teenage super soldiers. After all the characters from season 1 are brought back, season 2 will include a host of new additions. At the forefront of these new characters is a new character, a young girl with a mysterious past and a penchant for violence, but who will play this enigmatic character? Like all shows, Hanna's second season looks like it's set around the story of a teenage "super soldier."

Hanna Season 1 enchanted the audience with its star - with performances by leading actors such as Hanna - Barbera's daughter Hanna and her sister Sophia. Hanna is a coming-of-age drama about teenage rebellion, when Hanna escapes her persecutors and is on the run in Morocco, experiencing the joys of making friends while fleeing from them. Season 2 follows Hanna as she struggles to survive in a boarding school that turns a girl like her into a mindless government killer. The teenage assassin is in the midst of a war between the government and the rebels in her homeland.

Amazon is known for quickly renewing their hit series, and they have renewed Hanna for Season 2. Hanna Season 2 has even more to tell than the first season, so there's plenty of room for it. Jack Ryan was also renewed for season one in 2015, before season one had even been released.

The series has been extended because many fans demanded a sequel from its creators, so we will try again.

Hanna Season 2 is almost finished filming and will premiere in the next month or two, and its release date is expected to be the first quarter of 2020, meaning the Amazon original show could premiere between March and April of this year.

While the first season took nearly a year to stream online after filming began, the second won't last that long. Season 2 will be available in limited time on Amazon Prime Video - limited preview form, according to the show's creators.

Amazon Prime Video has announced season two and released the official trailer for season two of the show ahead of its July launch. Season 1, and Amazon has renewed the show for a second season, according to a press release from the show's creators. Hanna's second season returns for eight one-hour episodes and follows the journey of an extraordinary young woman who escapes the relentless persecution of a sinister government agency and tries to uncover the truth about who she is. After her discovery at the end of the first season, Hanna (Esme Creed Miles) knows that she is not the only one with a mysterious past, a secret identity and her own dark past.

By moving to the Meadows facility, the trainee lifts her restrictions and senses the possibility of a new identity in the outside world.

In April 2020, Amazon released a teaser trailer for Hanna Season 2, which, while not revealing much, offered plenty of intrigue. It doesn't take much to lure Hanna back into the action in "Hanna 2020 Season 2." Hanna returned to her refuge in the woods with Clara at the end of season 1, but it is also possible that Sophie and her family will return to continue their education and teenage life.

The teaser shows Hanna watching a hidden camera, and she seems to have noticed that she is watching, but what is she watching?

The Amazon reboot of the 2011 action thriller starring Saoirse Ronan and directed by Joe Wright (Darkest Hour) mimics the events of Hanna's film, but goes beyond that to explore a larger universe to explore further potential for Hanna's second season. Esme Creed Miles takes on the title role as Hanna, while Joel Kinnaman plays Erik, the father of their young daughter Hanna. Erik steals baby Hanna from Utrax and hides her in a secret facility in the United States for the rest of his life. Hanna is born as a genetically enhanced super soldier in the CIA program "Utrax" and is the first of a series of genetically enhanced super soldiers in her family.

Amazon Prime Video has released the official trailer for the second season of HANNA ahead of its launch in July. Hanna's second season returns with eight one-hour episodes and follows the journey of an extraordinary young woman who escapes the relentless persecution of a sinister government agency and tries to uncover the truth about who she is. After her discovery at the end of the first season Hanna (Esme Creed - Miles) knows that she is not the only one in her family with a mysterious past. By moving to the Meadows facility, the trainee lifts her restrictions and senses the possibility of a new identity in the outside world. Hanna Season 2 is about how Hanna escaped successfully and how she survived, what life she experienced and what she is fighting and fighting. The upcoming season will probably show Erik's journey and we may be dealing with her quest to avenge his death.

Stay tuned to get the latest updates on the Amazon Prime series, and don't forget we're back for season two!

TV series based on the 2011 assassination film starring Saoirse Ronan, which was made into a film adaptation of the bestseller of the same name and a sequel to the film. The return of the title character promises to be an exciting and captivating series not to be missed. The Amazon remake is the first in a series of two - part spinoffs of the film, and the highly anticipated second season of Hanna is back on screens. I gave up the eighth episode of the first season for good reason, hoping that the story (we already know the ending) could be extended into a second season.

At the end of the first season Hanna discovered a shocking revelation about her past and above all that the other girls, just like her, are bullied. With the return of Esme Creed, Miles, who really stood out in his role, I've put together a list of all the shows to watch for Hanna's second season.

We're used to seeing male killers in the spotlight on screen, so it's refreshing to see strong female characters, which Hanna does plenty of. Hanna is the first time Esme Creed and Miles have been cast in lead roles following the success of Hanna Season 1. The creators have decided to re-shoot Hanna Season 2 to showcase her new cast and name a suitable date. I hope Amazon Prime will release it soon, but I hope it will be in the mid-2020s.

Hanna, the main character on the show, has genetically advanced superpowers, but she was not born an ordinary human. She was born with the ability to be a person with super powers such as telepathy, telekinesis and super strength.

Season 2 has gone into production, but if given the green light, it is possible that Hanna Season 3 will begin production in 2020, meaning early fans would get to see her in 2022. Whether Hanna will be renewed for season 2 when the new season can ramp up production is debatable, as the world continues to suffer from the coronavirus pandemic.

The full cast for Hanna Season 2 is not yet known, but it will bring back some of the main characters from Season 1, including Hanna's best friends Esme and Hanna and the rest of her family. Fans may expect a few new faces to enrich the show's creativity, such as a new character from the past, or perhaps even a few new characters from previous seasons.

If you haven't seen Season 1 yet, I recommend you check out the pilot episode to get the best and clearest news in time for the release of Season 2. Amazon Hanna Season 2 is set to premiere on Prime Video on Friday, July 3 Anyone who has seen the first season and also the premiere episode of season 1 can assume that the show will be a super hit. Because Hanna is an Amazon original, it follows the usual schedule for Prime Video premieres and is available to sleep in. Every few weeks, a new Prime video title appears on the service, usually in the form of an episode or two series. Hanna Season 1 enchanted viewers with its star - with performances by the main characters Hanna and her best friend Hanna and the rest of her family.

Season 2 follows Hanna as she struggles to survive in a boarding school that turns a girl like her into a mindless government killer. The titular teenage assassin is in the crosshairs of the government and her ex-boyfriend and wants revenge. Hanna is back, but this time with a whole new set of enemies, new friends and a new mission. The story of the first season was told as an extended version of the plot of the film, and that is why Farr was inspired to make the series after he wrote the film. In season 2, Hanna's lust for revenge, coupled with her desire to transform Utrax into other teenagers, is potentially a major driving force for her. She learns more about her past, what she experienced in the real world and what her organization has created, suffers from the loss of Erik and learns to create her own identity as a murderer in her new life.

After training her in combat and survival tactics for 15 years, Erik tries to find a way to give her a new life that puts her in contact with other CIA agents, led by Jerome Sawyer and Khalid Abdalla. Hanna is a coming-of-age drama about teenage rebellion when she escapes her persecutors and meets friends for the first time while on the run in Morocco.

[doomonfilm]

Review : Richard Jewell (2019)

I was a sophomore in high school when the Olympics came to Atlanta, Georgia, and with the World Cup having just been in the United States two years prior, Americans were eager to put their best foot forward.  The world was changing rapidly at the time, and the 24 hour news cycle was just beginning to present itself, though we had yet to name it or identify how it would be so powerfully influential.  Then, in one fleeting moment, a random bomb changed all of that, and a man went from being a security guard to public enemy number one in the blink of an eye.  Clint Eastwood has always had an eye for humanity, especially when in the director’s chair, which piqued my interest when it was announced that he would be taking on the previously mentioned story in the form of his latest film, Richard Jewell. 

In 1986, a young Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) meets attorney Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), and the two men form a bond that Jewell was unable to make with any of the other attorneys and partners that he worked for at the firm.  Ten years later, Jewell has landed a job as a security guard at Piedmont University, which finds him closer to his dream of a job in law enforcement.  After repeated reports of abuse of power, however, Dr. W Ray Cleere (Charles Green) is forced to fire Jewell, who transitions into a job as security for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.  Shortly after midnight on July 27, Jewell breaks up a group of drunk and unruly teens, but notices a suspicious package in the form of a backpack that was near the ruckus.  Jewell urges the officers on location to call in the package, and when the bomb inspector investigates, he discovers three extremely large pipe bombs.  Jewell and the authorities attempt to clear the area, but the bomb explodes, injuring or killing over one hundred people.  Jewell is initially seen as a hero, but after Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) coerces a tip out of FBI Agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), she runs a story identifying Jewell as the primary suspect, causing worldwide attention to be cast upon Jewell and his mother Bobi (Kathy Bates).  With the help of Bryant, Richard Jewell attempts to fight attacks from the FBI and the news media, all in hopes of clearing his name.

Richard Jewell manages to provide a redemption portrayal for its titular subject without completely absolving him of base humanity or the capacity for wrongdoing.  Rather than presenting a case for specifically absolving Jewell of past accusations and completely clearing his name, the film reaches for the bigger goal of setting an example of how wrong things can go when those accused find themselves guilty until proven innocent.  It is flatly stated that Jewell could, in theory, fit the ‘false hero’ narrative, and due to being a Southern man with dreams of a role in law enforcement, his knowledge of guns, bombs and criminal personalities harm him more than help him.  Most of all, his weakness is his kind nature, and his defensive mechanism of trying to trust in the law becomes the dramatic tension that cause Bobi and Walter pain, which in turn forces Jewell to the breaking point of having to stand up for his innocence.

Interesting, as evenly as Clint Eastwood decides to posture his protagonist, he is unflinching in the manner that he positions the government and the media squarely as antagonist.  Be it the constant drone, presence and forceful nature of communication in the form of the media, or the calculated power bundled with sheer intimidation that the FBI utilizes, both parties (as entities) are looked at quite subjectively.  The characters of Scruggs and FBI Agent Shaw are not completely devoid of empathy, though Shaw does seem to be fighting his own battle over pride in his job and whether or not he will be viewed as competent, to the point that he blindly seeks the indictment of Jewell.  Watching Bates play Bobi on the verge of breakdown due to her lack of ability to protect Richard from this dual threat hits hard, hence her Golden Globe nomination.

Eastwood makes some interesting decisions as director that work well conceptually.  The visual flare, fancy camera moves and hectic editing that defines most biopics is set aside for measured camerawork, allowing the story to be the sensation rather than the way it is presented.  The choices of what is presented as stock footage, like Tom Brokaw or the Katie Couric interview, play like echoes of times when media was simpler and easier to trust, while the portrayal of Scruggs and the AJC staff, the horde of reporters, or even a recast Bryant Gumbel (Garon Grigsby) using ‘gotcha journalism’, play like personal indictments on these institutions and practices.  The muted, reserved way that the film qualifies as a period film is different than normal... period specific dress, haircuts, vehicles and the like are around, but the way that reflections on the era are used narratively, like the Michael Johnson scene, play much stronger.  The sensationalist hunger of the media and their search for the next big story is also referenced, with nods to TImothy McVey, OJ Simpson and Ted Kaczynski all popping up.  The film also manages to find ways to present humor, with most of it being found in the funny moments that manage to pop up in the extreme moments of life.

Paul Walter Hauser finds a curious rhythm that mostly involves him embodying the news media portrayal and public perception of Jewell, with brief but powerful outbursts of emotion that reveal fear in a shell-shocked man.  Kathy Bates embodies all of the motherly support that can be captured and displayed on film, with a handful of powerfully emotional moments of her own that resonate long after the film is done.  Sam Rockwell’s natural charm and offbeat nature work well in his portrayal of an anti-establishment attorney, with him showing an ability to focus force both vocally and with intense staredowns... Nina Arianda works well in tandem with Rockwell, providing a strong and supportive sense of guidance that pushes Rockwell’s character in the right direction.  Olivia Wilde finds a unique balance of her own as a comedicaly straight antagonist, posturing in extreme ways while bolstering the choices with a matter of fact nature, all the while keeping a touch of humanity in the chamber for the resolution-based moments.  Jon Hamm puts another notch on the ‘charming villain’ belt, somehow managing to be an intimidating good cop in comparison to Ian Gomez and his standard look and operation as an FBI agent.  Appearances by Niko Nicotera, Mike Pniewski, Dylan Kussman, Wayne Duvall, Garon Grigsby and Charles Green round out the film.

Clint Eastwood continues to rack up a strong directoral catalog, and Richard Jewell stands as evidence of this.  The potential director in me noticed a couple of mistakes that modern directors probably would have erased in the post, but these mistakes just further enforce the old school aesthetic that Eastwood uses.  With the film itself being an echo of a recently bygone era, all of this works to Eastwood’s benefit... this one won’t be cracking my top ten, but it is certainly worth seeing.

[dat-town]

carpe diem

Characters: Mark & OC (Honey)

Setting: paranormal abilities au (~Tomorrow People)

Genre: fluff with a hint of angst

Summary: They have their own safe haven but when a boy with stars in his eyes says he misses something, Honey would like to know what that is.

Words: 2.6k

The day after tomorrow spin-off, set after the 2nd part. @restlessmaknae ♥  

Despite her name, Honey didn't have a sweet life at all.

It's not a sob story though, she just doesn't like to tell it anybody. Her past is a carefully hidden closet deep in her heart with the key thrown away. Nobody knows exactly who she is, not even the nation since she has no social security number or ID. According to the government she doesn't even exist, or at least shouldn't. That's why she uses her forged name and glares at everybody who asks about her real one. This one is as real as it could get.

Originally she had no intention of joining any group, she was more of a loner even with Johnny on her side. The elder definitely had some crazy brotherly instinct and that was why he stuck with her through the beginning even when she insisted on not needing anyone.

“We all need someone in our life. It doesn’t make you weaker that you do, too,” he said and reluctantly Honey agreed.

As time went by she learnt that Johnny actually had a sister on the other coast of the States but he left his family when he turned out to be dangerous in the government’s eyes, so that made him a threat to his own family and he wasn’t willing to risk their well-being. Maybe she reminded him of his own sister and Honey didn’t actually mind. A brother would have been nice to have in her life. So if she couldn’t have a real one, she was happy with what she got. Not to mention that the whole underground group started to feel a bit like family. As their number grew and they all took care of each other more their bond also strengthened.

They all shared two things besides being homo superiors, blessed with powers humans were incapable of such as telekinesis, teleportation and telepathy: they all hated Ultra, the organization ought to make their lives difficult by hunting them and the need for some friends, a family because most of them lost or left their owns behind so they wouldn't put them in danger with their abilities. Honey would have never admitted it out loud but joining the so-called Avengers of Tomorrow - the recent name is the courtesy of Yukhei - was one of the best decisions they could have made. Before the team, the two of them, she and Johnny, wandered from city to city at the first chance of getting caught when they accidently used their powers or agents seemed to find them. However, living in fear and uncertainty wasn't the ideal kind of life. But with a whole dysfunctional little family around them, living in a cool underground place where they could use their powers freely was almost living the life to the fullest. Especially because now they had a purpose.

It had been three weeks since their break-in to Ultra's laboratories. They helped almost a dozen of superiors escape from those cages. Some left the city, maybe even the country, trying to find a safe, peaceful place but some stayed and joined them. The original team, Yukhei, (his almost but not really girlfriend) Ariadne, Ten, Johnny, Mark and Honey who helped them nurture their powers and taught them how to fight physically when they can't use them. But now, weeks into their training watching them fight was somewhat satisfying because they all could see how much they improved and how they would be able to protect themselves next time when Ultra wants to cage them.

“You're good with the new ones,” a guy with boyish features sits down next to her on the couch. Then they both watch the two newest addition to the team circling around watch other in their madeshaft ring. Winwin was a quick learner, he excelled in telekinesis while Jeffrey was more of a teleporting talent.

“We were new once, too. They will get better,” Honey sighed and fell back onto the couch to find a more comfortable position next to the boy. It wasn't on purpose, the way she avoided contact. It was her nature to keep distance from everybody on instinct. Of course, she knew that nobody here would have hurt her but the memories faded too slowly for her liking, she couldn't kill off those reflexes that saved her life once.

“I’m still pretty new to this,” the boy shrugged not mentioning her sudden movements and kept his eyes on the new trainees. It’s true that he was the last addition to the original team before attacking Ultra but he behaved pretty professionally back then even if he had no choice but to support the whole mission from behind a camera. Without him and the electricity shortage he created in the building, they all would have stuck there for sure. 

“You’re a veteran rookie, Mark, don’t kid me. That telekinetic shield you used against Yukhei last practice was really cool,” Honey smiled at him and she found it adorable when the boy’s cheeks gotten red after her comment.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and ruffled his hair not knowing what else to say. They sat there side by side in silence just watching the practice from afar. The noises of the fight and Yukhei’s advice to both involved parties dissolved into nothingness as their thoughts seemed to be louder than words. Honey had a feeling they were both lost in their own mind deeply until Mark broke the silence. “Don’t you ever miss the surface?”

The girl looked at him nonchalantly and shrugged. “What’s there to miss?” She wasn’t used to moving out and she had not been allowed in the past. So maybe it was just old habits dying hard. She was rather familiar with the four walls and maybe that’s why she was so good at telepathy. She had been alone enough with her own thoughts to perfect that skill. Let's just say she had experience about being experimented on. That was something Johnny knew too, the only thing she could let slip when he found her behind a garbage truck after she ran away.

"I don't know. Everything. The sky. The fresh smell of spring. The breeze in your hair. The animals. I miss dogs," the boy pouted and with his doe eyes and pouty lips he was like a kid at Christmas who didn’t get the gift he wanted.

"You are being melancholic," Honey reminded him but her voice wasn’t cold or scolding. The way he felt was perfectly reasonable. Being locked into a place with no natural light could do funny things the person’s brain.

"Maybe I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm really grateful that we have this place where we don't have to hide who we are or we don't have to fear but it's like we locked ourselves in willingly," Mark whispered, words falling from his lips so tentatively as if she was the first one he dared to tell all this. Maybe she was which was ridiculous considering how close they all were. Of course they all had their own secrets but they talked about this kind of stuff normally. "Maybe I'm just complaining because it's been a while since I have been out. Yukhei said not to leave alone after what happened to Hendery."

They both remembered the panic of the recent event clearly. They were so very close to lose this place, or at least being exclusive in knowing about it. Some agents had been following the young boy back to the place and it was only thanks to Ten’s special skills that they realized what was going on in time, so they could trick them without getting caught. But it was a warning sign that Ultra had new methods and they became smarter too, so they had to be even more careful. 

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so negative. I just... I feel like I'm going crazy stuck in here," Mark sighed after the pang moment of silence and Honey didn’t know what came over her, it might have been the sadness or the longing in the guy’s voice that she could resonate with, but she blurted out:

"Then let's go out."

"But..." Mark’s doe eyes went even wider as he seemed absolutely taken aback.

"No buts. Nobody needs to know. We just come and go. A bit change of atmosphere," she turned to the other with her body, eyes fierce and confident. She might have not wanted to leave before but seeing how the guy missed whatever he missed up there, it made her curious: maybe there were things up there worth of missing after all.

"Look, we need you to be in your right state of mind when we demolish Ultra," she reminded  Mark firmly because she believed that if he had these internal turmoils, all these vulnerable thoughts, he needed to get rid of those before Ultra could get them and mess with his or anyone’s head.

"You say that like it's so sure it happens," Mark gaped at her, eyes wide and curious like he admired her but what for?

"If enough people believe in it, it will," Honey answered confidently and flashed a smile at the boy, one of her rare, genuine ones, the ones of the girl behind the fighter. Mark had to blink as he caught himself staring but then he tried not to stumble with his words as he nodded.

"Okay, let's do it," he agreed with a hint of smile on his face.

They didn't talk about details, they didn't plan anything further, they just got their wallets and phones and met up at the hallway. Honey merely left a note for Johnny that they have gone out because she knew the guy would have worried more if he didn't know where she was rather than if he knew for sure that she willingly went outside and not alone on the top of that.

As soon as they teleported outside, the chilliness of the late evening caught Honey by surprise. One thing about living in a place with no windows that you couldn't tell the time nor the weather just by looking out. A swear word slipped from her mouth as goosebumps dressed her skin.

“You curse like a pirate,” Mark laughed and she rolled her eyes. But the boy was too cute for his own good to be mad at especially with his explanation. “My mom used to tell me this whenever I cursed even if it wast something trivial, she scolded me like this jokingly.”

“She sounds like the typical loving mom.”

“She was better,” Mark smiled fondly nostalgic and Honey knew she wasn’t supposed to ask more because they had all lost something. Probably it wouldn’t have been the best to rub salt into the wounds of the past, so she stayed silent looking around for any suspicious movement around them but the dark alley seemed empty.

"Speaking of which I guess it wasn't your mom who named you like this so why Honey?" the boy blurted out the obvious question most people asked right after she introduced herself. As long as they didn’t insist on knowing her birth name, she let them be but didn't bother with a detailed answer. Though, with Mark it was a bit different. He was so open-minded and kind to anyone that she felt like he would have understood anything she told him. So she shrugged before telling him the truth.

"Johnny gave me the name. He said I was sweet and sticky, at least with him," she rolled her eyes in disapprovement but didn't comment on it. She remembered that day all too clearly, when she had met the brother-figure of her life and he had asked about her name, all she could think about was not wanting to be a bunch of numbers anymore. It took a few days of getting used to each other when Johnny decided to call her Honey because it seemed fitting. And it stuck with her.

"You are pretty sweet with me, too," Mark's thoughts echoed barely audible in the air but Honey heard him anyway, telepathic superior powers and stuff. She wasn’t sure Mark knew he failed to hide his thoughts but since she couldn't really handle compliments, she didn’t say anything to that. Instead clearing her throat she went straight to the point.

"Don't make me regret I came out with you," she shook her head instead of downright objecting the fact. "Instead show me something you love up here, so that I know it's worth the risk."

Mark's eyes sparkled as soon as an idea came to his mind and watching the smile spread on his mouth was like watching the sun rise.

"There's this adorable dog café I used to go. You will love it!" he exclaimed and they dived into the city looking for that special place.

In the meantime Mark couldn't shut up, he kept talking about what he liked up here and what he missed down there. He kept telling stories of him tripping by that corner, having his first, super-awkward date at that cinema, going to high school on the other side of that bridge and so on. Honey was used to the quietness, so all this was a bit fuzzy and a lot for her but listening to Mark was easy, it eased her nerves.

The boy was also right about the dog café. Both the food and drinks were good, not to mention the adorable dogs all around. They must have seen pretty comfy around each other because the waitress commenting on them looking cute together and neither of them could handle the situation accordingly. Honey just shook her head while Mark blushed, a good look on him, definitely.

Then they visited a PC room where Mark showed her his favourite game - in which she quickly beated him - and then they went for the walk on the riverbank. By that point even Honey started doubting it was merely friends hanging out and not a date but she was sure Mark didn't do this on purpose. He wasn't that sneaky.

But all good things had to come to an end eventually. They noticed they were being followed by some time and in such a crowded area teleporting would have been too risky. They kept talking through telepathy trying to get rid of the stalker, most likely an Ultra agent but in vain, he was like a leech.

“What if we make a run for it?” Mark suggested as they were already walking in ridiculous speed, so Honey quickly agreed.

“Yeah, let's show them,” she thought and without counting, they started running.

Adrenaline pumped the blood in their veins faster and the breeze in their face gave the full experience. Even though being chased wasn't part of the original plan, they handled it with care. They only teleported when they got to a secluded area but in the rush or the thrill of the moment, they stumbled right after getting back to the couch where it all started. Falling brought painful yelps and tangled limbs but surprisingly genuine laughter.

"This was..." Mark laughed, still panting, out of breath as he pulled away, tentatively looking in Honey's eyes as if he could find the answer there.

"Fun. We should do it again," she finished it instead of him. Still laughing while looking at each other she knew they had the very same thought. 

From then on they started living for the day too and not only for the tomorrow.

[stewy497]

Stew Reviews - inFamous: Second Son

No, I’m not dead, I’m just really lazy. But now I’m back, and you might be interested to hear that I managed to get my hands on a PS4 at a vaguely non-extortionate price while I was away. So, let’s do some exclusives to justify my reckless spending.

Infamous: Second Son is an indirect sequel to the two prior Infamous games on the PS3. I haven’t played much further than the prologue of the first one, but that doesn’t matter since while Second Son utilises a few concepts from the originals, the story is largely unconnected. In the time since Infamous 2, leading man Cole McGrath has retired to Seattle to run a small chain of electronics shops, leaving the position of protagonist to Delsin Rowe, young Akomish punk and graffiti artist named after his preferred clothing material. In the world of Infamous there exists a small percentage of humans with the ability to manipulate different forms of matter, known as Conduits. Since the events of the first Infamous games, Conduits have developed something of a PR problem, being more commonly referred to as “bio terrorists” and imprisoned by some crazy woman with funny ideas about civil rights.

Second Son kicks off when a prison bus transferring a handful of Conduits crashes in Delsin’s neighbourhood, allowing a handful of them to escape. While investigating the crash, Delsin discovers that he can leech powers from other Conduits; this gives resident crazy woman Augustine, a government Conduit agent who looks like a head teacher dressed by a militant goth, an excuse to maim the Akomish people with jagged concrete shards. Thusly is established Delsin’s motivation to go to Seattle and take in the sights, while also maybe taking some time out to leech Augustine’s powers and undo the damage she caused. On the way he meets and leeches a handful of other Conduits, but none of them are particularly engaging or developed beyond their archetypes – I think the exact moment I gave up expecting compelling storytelling from this game was a line from the Neon Conduit, a pink-haired punk girl with facial piercings and an edgy attitude: “But the drugs, man, they were heaven.” I shouldn’t need to explain why that falls flatter than a pancake off a penthouse balcony, but just in case I do, it represents the character as nothing more than a caricature of a troubled youth, lacking in any nuance or insight. The story also attempts to make Augustine seem like a well-intentioned extremist, but that too falls completely flat since she’s a psychopath. No, seriously. If the concrete torture thing didn’t already tip you off, for all she claims about imprisoning Conduits for their own protection, she doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of human empathy, or that innocent, frightened, misunderstood people don’t appreciate being having their freedom stripped away, or being literally treated like death-row criminals.

I know I usually do my overall summary at the end of a review, but on this occasion, I’m going to skip ahead and say right away that while Second Son isn’t particularly offensive, I have very little actual praise to give it. Second Son was a launch title, and therefore was expected to do little more than showcase the new PS4’s graphical capabilities. In other words, PARTICLES. You can barely see the game past them. Every ability Delsin can use generates them in copious amounts, the same applies for most of the enemies, and the environments aren’t much better. Which is why it’s especially ironic that, on a slimline PS4 at least, the framerate suffers when things get too busy. Such as when the game starts throwing baddies at you en mass, the only way it knows how.

Combat is actually halfway exciting. With most power sets, taking down enemies becomes a decent challenge as each set functions differently and allows you to dispatch enemies in a variety of ways. Well, except for Video. Video lets you turn invisible and run around deleting enemies at your leisure. Effective, but not exactly stimulating, and since it also has the most effective movement ability the game is for all intents and purposes finished once you acquire it. Concrete is one of the stronger options in both combat and storytelling, as it lacks a non-lethal option in a noteworthy case of ludo-narrative synchronicity; Augustine was completely ruthless, and so is anybody with her powers. It’s just a shame that you only unlock Concrete at the end of the game, at which point there’s nothing to use it on, depending on how much of the sandbox you already cleared out.

You’re up against unfavourable numbers right from the beginning, as the core relays which are your primary source of upgrade tokens are heavily guarded, and fights often descend into spamming the dash button and waiting for your health to regenerate. It gets frustrating since it turns out that denim and sarcasm don’t make particularly good body armour. Less a problem in the later portion of the game, since you can get an upgrade that lets you restore your health with karma takedowns, and this also charges up your clearing attack. Useful for clearing out garrisons, but I feel like the combat could have been more reasonable if the clearing attack had been less pivotal. Had it been the unlockable endgame ability that it feels like, rather than a standard part of your powerset, it might not even have gotten stale watching the associated overdone, particle-smothered cutscene over and over again.

Outside of destroying core relays, the majority of the available side activities – destroying cameras, collecting audio logs, rooting out hidden DUP agents – only contribute to unlocking district showdowns, which only unlocks the district fast travel point, which is pointless because once a district’s showdown is completed, there isn’t much reason to stick around. Even if the fast travel system wasn’t a pain to unlock, your Conduit movement powers are fast and effective for getting around, and make exploring the city fun; in itself another nail in the fast travel system’s coffin, since you need to explore to find upgrade tokens and karma actions to build your powers. That would a good thing, as the essence of a sandbox is that messing around in it is cathartic and contributes towards achieving your goals, but Second Son subverts this by giving you relatively little room for specialisation, restricting you to a paltry handful of available powers and upgrades which ultimately do nothing to affect the outcome of the final confrontation, and in turn rendering moot the franchise’s signature karma system. Ideally there should be upgrades that increase your damage output or improve your mobility and evasiveness to make the final boss easier – incidentally, that would have been appreciated since as it stands the final battle is tedious, repetitive and unforgiving. You could probably finish the story in a single sitting if you ignored the side activities altogether, which would have the added advantage of giving you some actual endgame content for after the end.

While the side activities don’t contribute anything to the story, they do serve the purpose of clearing out Augustine’s flunkies and liberating Seattle from martial law. But that just means that if you do go through the side activities alongside the story as I did, by the end you’ll be left with nought but a dessert trolley of super powers and nothing to use them on. There is something called the Paper Chase, a questline which requires you to register an account on the inFamous website to start; I had assumed this was for customer surveying purposes, but it turned out to be a rather tedious and unintuitive ARG which requires you to peel yourself away from the actual game and spend half an hour shuffling through papers on your browser before you can actually play the damn mission. I didn’t bother, because it defeats the purpose of playing a video game and I have better things to do.

So, bottom line: Second Son stands for nothing, and brings nothing to the medium. I can’t think of a single reason to buy it if it didn’t already look like something you’d enjoy. It’s the video gaming equivalent of junk food – good enough while you’re experiencing it, but take a step back and you’ll find no reason to consume it. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the stencil art gimmick though. I thought it was very charming.

[d-noona]

AERO

SUMMARY: In a future of political, economic and moral collapse, a genetically enhanced superhuman prototype named Y/N escapes from military confines and dwells amidst the decadent underground street life of *Seoul* to avoid government agents who want to bring her back into the fold.

WORDS: 1286

Jeon Jungkook x Reader

M.LIST | CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 10 - ALL GOES DOWN THE DRAIN

A few days after Y/N's encounter with Jungkook, she was left hot and bothered knowing that Taehyung and Hoseok are out there. Y/N pulls up on her motorcycle. A sign says CLOSED. Y/N dismounts, knocks on the door but its open. She ventures into the laundromat and transits the corridor into Ardiente's office. She takes a look at the place. It's been trashed. Ardiente sports a mouse under one eye.

"What happened?" Y/N inquires, her voice was cold but her eyes gave her concern away for the poor man. He looks up at Y/N, puts a finger to his swollen lip to silence her, then by way of explanation scrawls on a pad as he speaks "Walked in on some hump ransacking the place. Disgruntled former client, or someone I'm looking into trying to see what I got. Or it could've been your garden variety junkie boost. Who knows?" he says as he holds up the pad with his writing saying: ROOM BUGGED. Y/N nods understanding. "As long as you're okay." She says. He motions Y/N toward the back door "if you need to freshen up, bathrooms over there." Y/N picks up the cue. "Please" she says as Ardiente steers her outside into the alley way. Ardiente's demeanor instantly changes.

"I don't know what your story is and I don't want to know" he says. "He's your money" as Y/N hands him the envelope, he doesn't take it. "Listen, whoever tossed this place wants you. And I'm looking to stay outta line of fire." Says the man.

"How's it about me?" y/n asks in a high pitched voice full of contempt. Ardiente kept wary of his surroundings turning left and right looking to make sure no one was listening in "They lifted my wallet to make it looked like a robbery. But there's a bug in my computer keyboard, a tap on the phone and a mic in the light fixture." Y/N knows that this is probably Aero Corporation on her tail, but she shrugs the information that Ardiente is giving her, not when she knows Taehyung and Hoseok were out there, somewhere. She needs to find them. "Like you said, maybe somebody's tracking one of your investigations."

Ardiente yanks Y/n's hand to make her realize her current situation as of the moment. "Hardware's too sophisticated. It's gotta be the government, and why do I think they're looking for you? You're on top of the food chain from all the searches. Most clients come in asking for help on cheating husbands, or lost dogs. If I were you Y/N I'd take that money and get outta town while you can."

He heads back to the laundromat, Y/n follows suit as Ardiente continues with his cover story. "Your fiancé has four previous wives. His M.O. is to clean em out and take off. Which is what you oughta do." Y/N smiles with gratitude but replies with an anguish tone to make them sound believable. "Bastard!"

"I'm sorry I couldn't come up with something more positive" says the man. She slowly leaves the office in response "You and me both" off she goes.

As Y/N gets on her motorcycle and heads off, she puts her collar up, pulls her hat down, glancing at the two men in a parked car who watch her closely as she passes.as one of the men raises a camera and clicks off several frames, Y/N looks away and drives back to her apartment.

Y/n arriving at her building emerges from the stairwell into the darkened corridor. Oli runs toward her waiving a flashlight, making the sounds of gunfire and explosion as he wages a five year old's war. "BAM! BAM! BLAAAAAAAM!!! You're dead" says Oli. As Y/N tries to wrest the flashlight out of his hands annoyed. "Turn that off Oli, before you get the cops on us."

Lita emerges from her apartment, calls in monotone for her son. "Come on, Oli, Its time to go to sleep." She scoops up the child, turning off the flashlight but not before the beam illuminates her face. Eyes are red, her cheeks tear-streaked. "Are you okay?" y/n asks in concern. Lita just nods. Oli wriggles out of her arms and runs into the apartment shooting at an imagine adversary. Lita turned to face Y/N "I took Felix to the hospital again tonight. He couldn't walk so I borrowed some money and we took a cab...but..." her chest begins to heave and she breaks down in sobs "H-he... he didn't make it. He's dead. Oh my God he's dead."

Y/N goes to find her and takes her in her arms, comforting the stricken woman. She rubs her back as she endlessly cries through the dark night.

The following morning grimacing, tortured by another seizure. Another wave of flashbacks occur. In the barracks, Y/N who is sprawled on the floor convulsing. The group of captive transgenics look up in fear as the door bangs open and a group of guards and orderlies come in. The group were ordered out of the way, but Taehyung and Hoseok along with the rest didn't want to give Y/N up, not after what happened to the last blonde girl.

As Y/N shakes, fumbling to open her pills. She dumps out handful, scattering some. She pounds them into her mouth as the flashbacks continue. As the group were being pulled out of the way protesting. The orderlies, yelling, grabbing Y/N, but Taehyung pushes one of the orderlies and the guy flies back and guards rush in with stun batons raised.

Jondy a plane crash survivor springs on one from behind and, quick as a flash she yanks his gun out of its holster. She puts a round into the ceiling, then pulls down on the guards. Screaming at them she waves the gun in an arc and they fall back. Leaving Hoseok crouched over Y/N with the gun. The rest join ranks without hesitation their eyes fierce. The guards and orderlies fall back through the door and the hybrids start to barricade it with steel bunk frames.

Y/N continues to convulse on the bathroom floor, her muscles are locked in a tetanic rigor. One fist shoots out and shatters the tank of the toilet. Ceramic shards and water pour over her. She pulls into a fetal position, shaking violently, as she rides it out. Her head raps against the flooded tile floor as brain wrecks more of her damaging past.

The group lead by Taehyung are running through a service hall in the lab complex. Hoseok and Max are pulling a stumbling Y/N along. They round the corner and lights blast suddenly into their eyes. Eva standing beside Max, Hoseok and Jondy, falls to her knees. Eva fires rapidly at the lights. A figure steps into the lights and fires back with one swift move. Eva is slammed backwards and slides in crumpled heap across the floor. The pistol skitters and comes to rest right in front of Y/N. The silhouette materializes out of the lights, White.

Outside the lab the windows explode outward as the hybrids crash through the glass in a suicide charge, dropping twenty feet to the know below. They hit and roll, and come up sprinting. Hoseok pulls Y/N with him as they pelt for the treeline. Y/N running in her hospital gown, she pounds through the snow, toward until she is just a rhythmic blur. She fights back her seizures attempting to stand as she hunches against the bathroom wall, struggling to push away her flashbacks. Her tremors subsiding. The shudders have been replaced by sobs. Tears stream down her face as her chest pitches, and she shudders with pain of the soul the pills can't touch.

[brokehorrorfan]

Interview: Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)

Broke Horror Fan had the pleasure of participating in a conference call interview with visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro to discuss his new film, The Shape of Water; read the transcript below. The other-worldly fairy tale opens in New York City this Friday, December 1, before expanding to more cities next week via Fox Searchlight.

When you began conceptualizing The Shape of Water’s characters, did you write them with certain actors in mind, or did you get extremely lucky with casting?

No, I always wrote it for them. In 2011, I heard the seminal idea that unlocked the movie for me. It came from Daniel Kraus when he said, “A janitor meets an amphibian man in a government facility and takes it home.” I thought that’s the way to unlock this story I want to do. I want this elemental river god and a woman going through the service door, and I thought who can do it. And I immediately went to Sally [Hawkins]. I started writing the screenplay in 2012, and I had my agent call her agent and say, “Guillermo is writing this story for you.” And I found out who Michael Shannon’s agent was and I also said the same thing.

Then, as the movie progressed to 2013/2014 and so on, I started writing specifically for Octavia and specifically for Doug [Jones], because I met with Doug in 2014 and I said, “Look, I’m writing this movie and I want you to be the main male character, the protagonist, the star.” He’s never done that, of course. I said, “You are truly a beautiful, god-like elemental creature.” He couldn’t believe it, but I knew that he is a terrific actor and that he could pull it off and he could hold his own with Sally Hawkins.

Sally is, I believe, this is my opinion, I’m biased, the most beautiful, luminous presence in cinema today; somebody that can combine the extraordinary, the poetic, the sublime, and the ordinary, and the quotidian. You can see her on the street waiting for the bus or you can see her illuminating the screen with a radiant, completely genuine emotion.

Can you talk about how you hoped audiences would react the first time they see the creature on screen and how the design of the costume contributed to the reaction you wanted to get?

The first decision was that we’re going to make a physical suit and a physical make-up because before the audience react I needed the actors to react. We took three years, two of design and one of execution, to bring this creature to life; first alone with a few sculptors, and then with Legacy Effects and Mike Hill doing the final design and the final touches, all the way to confection and application in the set.

The way I wanted audiences to react was to have a changing point of view of the character. When the movie starts it starts with a shock, with a hand hitting the glass. It’s a monster moment. Then you see the creature in silhouette bleeding and approaching the glass and haven’t got a sense of is this creature good, bad, what. Then the creature emerges from the water and blinks. It’s gorgeous. It’s a beautiful, beautiful shot. A perfect combination of digital enhancement and physical suit.

I think that’s the moment that the audience kind of falls for the empathy of the creature. Then the creature comes out and growls at Sally, and we feel, okay, it can go both ways. Then the next scene the creature is signing back to Sally, so you understand it’s intelligent and that’s where the communication starts.

It’s an ever-changing perception. My hope is at the end of the movie you have completely forgotten that this is a creature, you have completely loved him as a character and you want him to fare well; you can completely buy that he’s a divine god, an elemental god of the Amazon and that he has that power and that majesty and that he has enormous beauty and grace. That is an ever-changing perception.

Strickland is one of the more striking characters in the film that we learn quite a bit about his personal life. Why was it so important to you that the audience identify with the traditional villain character of the film?

The idea of the movie is that we need to look at the “other” and not fear the “other” and that is embodied by the creature. But I cannot help but think that if we apply that rule to the creature and the protagonist, you have to apply that rule to the antagonist. So, I wanted to at least give the audience the opportunity to understand what makes him tick, what makes him have his resentment, or what makes him feel pressure, and why his goals need to be achieved in a position to the goals of the protagonist.

Each of the characters actually has a little story outside. We get to see the life of Zelda at home. We get to see the life of Giles outside of the apartment. We get to see the life of the secret Russian agent at his home. It’s a movie that makes it a point to “follow” each of the characters home so that we can get a little glimpse of their lives. Every character that would be “the other” in the narrative becomes somebody we can at least experience and try to understand, because to understand is to nullify fear. This is a movie that says we should not fear the other but embrace the other.

Was the scene between the creature and the cat your homage to Frankenstein with the little girl, or was there some other inspiration behind that?

From the beginning, I wanted this to be a different type of Beauty and the Beast tale, in which the beauty is not a pretty princess in a pedestal, that she has “flaws” and that she is not the traditional Hollywood movie commercial beauty pretending to be a janitor, but somebody that you can find anywhere, and that she has a life, a sexual life, a private life and complexities. The beast doesn’t have to transform into a prince to be loved because the whole point of the movie is that love is not transformation but understanding.

And you come to the scene in which the creature has a divine element to him but it also has an animal element to him, he needs to eat, and when fighting with a predator, no matter what size the predator is, the creature is going to bite. The creature bites off two fingers of Michael Shannon’s character and it readily takes the cat as nourishment because he hasn’t eaten in a while. Therefore, the beast remains a beast, but you can learn to see that it also has a divine spirit in it.

Can you talk about the visual style of the film? It feels like you went a little more film noir instead of the vivid style for which you’re known, but that opulence is still present.

Yes. The idea for that is I wanted to evoke actually classical cinema from the ’40s and the ’50s, even early ’60s, if we could; Douglas Sirk, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Stanley Donen, William Wyler, I tried to evoke that and the opulent nature of the color and the cinematography and the design. The camera moves were very classic. I was shooting the movie like a musical, with the camera always rolling and traveling and craning. At the same time this was done because the content of the movie, the twists and turns and the ideas behind it, were so completely unique.

The form are those two things. One is it celebrates classical cinema because the movie is a love poem about love and a love poem about cinema. I felt this could be clear in a formal way through the look of the movie that was not just a look but part of the content, and it evoked those melodramas of Douglas Sirk or the musical crane shots of Stanley Donen, and so forth.

People think about these departments as separate, but it’s a single department; cinematography, directing, wardrobe, hair, make-up and costume are a single department. You need to coordinate them all to give a movie a look that is not just beautiful but is substantial and part of the storytelling.

A lot of your films, including this, are set against this war backdrop, but they also have this fantastical theme to them. What is it about that dynamic that makes you continually return to it?

I think that the best juxtaposition of the fantastic is to juxtapose it with the real; the extraordinary with the ordinary. An elemental god from a river, but you can take him to a bathtub, that’s juxtaposing the ordinary and the extraordinary. Nineteen sixty-two is the last year of the fairytale idea of America: Kennedy in the White House, Camelot, the space race, post war suburban wealth, a car in every garage and so forth, and at the same time it’s a time of great division and of Cold War.

America will change the year after Kennedy is shot and the war is culminating in Vietnam and it’s almost the inset of the skepticism. It’s a perfect place to set a once upon a time fairy tale because underneath all this harmony here is the great division, racial prejudice, gender discrimination, all the problems that we have alive today were alive back then. I wanted to make a movie about today but without making it a contrast that demerited the fantasy. I needed to go to a time that was magical to some, at least visually, and then show also the ever-present ugliness underneath that, and it was very useful for that.

[ewh111]

Annual List of Favorite Film Experiences: The 2020 Pandemic Version

Happy new year! So happy to finally arrive at 2021! All the best for a much better new year!!

What a year it was. Since March 12, I've spent 98% of my time within the confines of my condo. The good thing is that as a natural introvert, I have not yet gone stir crazy. I get plenty of social interaction via Zoom. And as a type-2 diabetic, I have been especially careful, staying at home, going out only for essential work or errands, like groceries. I'm grateful that my extended family connected more through the pandemic via weekly 90 minute Zoom family check-ins.

After just two months of work from home, I surpassed the longest time I hadn't been on a plane in over 15 years. (In 2019, I took 42 flights--15 of them international; in 2020, just eight, all prior to the first week of Feb.) As someone who typically travels a lot for work, it's strange to be so stationary. But I'm not complaining. Without the daily commute, travel, and regular schedule of evening and weekend events, I've quietly appreciated the ability to get more sleep, find time to exercise, and even lose some weight. As I reflect upon the past year, I choose to look at the silver-lining and see this period as a positive, massive macro re-balancing of my life.

When things do get back to some semblance of normalcy, the ones who will have the most difficulty adjusting will be these two girls, Freddy and Maxie, who have been so spoiled with attention over the past 10 months.

Now onto this year's favorite film experiences.

What a strange year for film. The last time I experienced a communal movie-going experience was at the Sundance Film Festival back in January. Since 2020 will be remembered as the year of an uber-significant election and home confinement, it seems appropriate to begin this year's conversation with these two themes: democracy and geography, aka places we couldn't travel to.

LESSONS IN DEMOCRACY

Boys State

One of most riveting experiences is my favorite film from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. This documentary follows four participants in the Texas edition of the week-long Boys State program. The filmmakers lucked out by selecting four boys whose journeys turned out to have fascinating dramatic arcs during the week. What unfolds is a totally engaging microcosm of the political dynamics in the rising generation of voters in America. Trailer: https://youtu.be/E1Kh_T5ZBIM

Hamilton

What a delightful escape from confinement and inability to see live theater by revisiting the stage musical phenomenon via the viewpoints of multi-cameras. It was a new way to appreciate the words, the music, the choreography, and staging of this remarkable work about Alexander Hamilton and his fellow founding fathers. Trailer: https://youtu.be/6s9sNvkjpI0

What the Constitution Means to Me

Missing live theater? Here's another gem to take in. Fast-paced, funny, deeply personal, and defiant, playwright Heidi Schreck plays herself in a mostly one-person show, revisiting her days as a teenager debating the meaning of the Constitution in dingy American Legion halls, linking her personal family history to our country's founding document. Trailer: https://youtu.be/P2zSRdVanDY

Crip Camp

Incredibly inspiring and engaging documentary about Camp Jened, a Catskills summer camp for teens with disabilities in the 1960s and 70s, which prepared many members to become leaders in the movement that eventually led to the passage of the ADA. An important piece of lesser known history and fight for social change and equity. Trailer: https://youtu.be/XRrIs22plz0

TRAVELING WITHOUT LEAVING THE COUCH

My Octopus Teacher (South Africa)

A truly meditative and surprisingly moving documentary. In a kelp forest off the coast of South Africa, a noted underwater photographer documents his, dare I say "friendship," with an octopus whom he visits every day over the course of a year. Trailer: https://youtu.be/b-lbIJHlmbE

76 Days (China)

New York-based filmmaker Hao Wu worked with two journalists in China who recorded harrowing, fly-on-the-wall footage inside four Wuhan hospitals at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, a clearly risky endeavor unsanctioned by the Chinese government. While this may seem unappealing to watch as we still struggle with the crisis, this apolitical, humanizing, compassionate, and ultimately uplifting film documents and honors the courageous doctors and nurses and their relationships with patients and family members grappling with the unfolding crisis over the course of the full 76 day lock-down in Wuhan. Trailer: https://youtu.be/x_f6-jhbsR4

Your Name Engraved Herein (Taiwan)

The highest ever grossing LGBTQ film in Taiwan, as well as its most popular domestic film in 2020, this is a sensitive, poignant, slow-burn story of coming out and first love in an all-boys Catholic school in a still socially-repressive Taiwan immediately after the lifting of martial law in 1987. Trailer: https://youtu.be/mzfVBg54BGw

A Sun (Taiwan, again)

Driven driving instructor father + marginalized night-club hairstylist mother + high achieving, golden child # 1 son + disowned black sheep younger son serving time in juvenile prison = unhappy family. This multiple winner of Taiwan's version of the Oscar, A Sun is an intricate, engaging, character-driven family drama full of disappointment, redemption-seeking, and tragic setbacks, but uplifting in the end. Trailer: https://youtu.be/LBogLcE2wNQ

Gunda (Norway)

An unusual viewing experience, I did not expect to be so drawn in and highly moved by this intimate, up-close and personal barnyard portrait. A totally mesmerizing and beautifully filmed, black and white, wordless and scoreless documentary (only ambient farm sounds with no humans in sight)--just a sow named Gunda and her piglets with interludes by a one-legged rooster and herd of cows. And yes, there's a subtle message. Trailer: https://youtu.be/05Gc2lANyTQ

The Painter and the Thief (Norway, again)

An intriguing and fascinating documentary about the strange and complicated story of a female Czech artist, whose two most important paintings are stolen from an Oslo art gallery in broad daylight, and the thief who turns out to be an addiction-addled male nurse who she unexpectedly befriends during the trial. Trailer: https://youtu.be/LKBiKDZSf_c

Mucho Mucho Amor (Puerto Rico)

The story of the iconic fortune-teller with millions of followers in the Spanish-speaking world: the bedazzled and caped, effervescently flamboyant, gender non-confirming, Puerto Rican television astrologer Walter Mercado. Disappearing from the airwaves without a trace in 2007 after decades of daily uplifting telecasts, no one knew what happened or where he had gone. Until these filmmakers tracked him down. Here, they tell his story in this loving portrait of the legend, in time to participate in an exhibition dedicated to his 50 year career at a Miami museum before his death last year. Trailer: https://youtu.be/XEJqiucxyrs

Welcome to Chechnya (Russia)

A gut-wrenching and chilling documentary about courageous activists who help LGBTQ individuals flee the repressive regime of Chechnya where violent, homophobic beatings and executions play out regularly and whose leader denies the existence of gay people in his republic. The doc plays like a menacing thriller with the filmmaker going to great lengths to protect the identities using elaborate digital facial disguises. Trailer: https://youtu.be/GlKkj_aHMXk

Tenet (Russia, the Amalfi Coast, Oslo, the future, and the past, among other places)

This is not an easy film to like. One of the most anticipated on my list of "must sees," but the pandemic delayed my viewing till its recent VOD release. Was it worth the wait? Well, it was almost incomprehensible for the first third. But it is here because I'm still thinking about it long after watching and is high on my list to rewatch. To enjoy on first viewing, you should stop trying to figure it out and just let it wash over you and enjoy the ride--it will eventually make (some) sense. Despite all its complexities, Christopher Nolan's ambitious concept boils down to a simple plot: rich Russian bad guy (Kenneth Branagh) wants to end the world and an unnamed secret agent-type guy known only as the Protagonist (John David Washington) tries to stop him. Oh, and there's reverse entropy. And inverted time. And yeah, there are spectacular scenes with time moving forward and backwards at the same time. Like its title, the film is one giant palindrome. Trailer: https://youtu.be/AZGcmvrTX9M

Apollo 11 (Space)

Watching this documentary is like witnessing Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin's mission unfold before your eyes live, in real time. Put together from previously unreleased, stunningly crisp, and beautiful archival footage and communications audio from NASA, this is a breathtaking experience that captures the awe of the achievement without talking heads or commentary. Trailer: https://youtu.be/tpLrp0SW8yg

HOW TO DEAL WITH DEATH

Soul

This time out, Pixar tackles existential questions, like what it means to be alive and what is the "before life" in this metaphysically jazzy and terrifically "soulful" film featuring a predominantly Black cast. Trailer: https://youtu.be/xOsLIiBStEs

Dick Johnson is Dead

One would not expect a filmmaker's decision to document her father's descent into old age and dementia to be such an enjoyable and amusing ride. The result is a uniquely comic and bittersweet approach on how to handle his mortality, including envisioning and staging various ways he might accidentally hasten death. Her inspired choice to embrace the time left with her father in this way is endearing and touching without being sentimental. (And the director happens to be a college classmate: Kirsten Johnson, Brown '87.) Trailer: https://youtu.be/wfTmT6C5DnM

AND THREE MORE

Mank

David Fincher masterfully tells the tale of Herman Mankiewicz, the writer of Citizen Kane. Part social history, part examination of the underbelly of Hollywood's Golden Age, part homage to Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, the film is beautifully and evocatively shot in lush black and white with standout performances by Gary Oldman as Mank, Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, and a screenplay by Fincher's late father, Jack. Trailer: https://youtu.be/aSfX-nrg-lI

David Byrne's American Utopia

An exhilarating and spirited concert film by Spike Lee who beautifully captures the exuberant grey-suited, bare-footed David Byrne and his similarly wardrobed bandmates on a minimalist stage--a perfect remedy for home-confined and connection-starved human beings during these unusual times. The Byrne-Lee pairing perfectly "makes sense" as you take in the penultimate number, a cover of Janelle Monáe’s "Hell You Talmbout." Trailer: https://youtu.be/lg4hcgtjDPc

Sound of Metal

A character study of self-discovery and emotional truths, Riz Ahmed gives a riveting performance as a heavy metal rock drummer who suddenly loses his hearing. The immersive experience is enhanced with the film's amazing sound design. Trailer: https://youtu.be/VFOrGkAvjAE

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (perhaps the film most representative of the craziness of 2020), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (great performances by Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman), The Personal History of David Copperfield, Da 5 Bloods, The Way I See It, The Invisible Man, Trial of the Chicago 7, I Lost My Body, The Life Ahead, Wolfwalkers, The Bee Gees: How Do You Mend A Broken Heart. 

In the Queue

Minari, Nomadland, Bacurau, Small Axe, Beanpole, The Forty Year Old Version. 

2020: THE YEAR OF NON-STOP STREAMING

Honestly, given the lack of traditional theatrical releases, I did spend an inordinate amount of time streaming shows than I normally would. It has made me wonder about the challenges of narrative storytelling in the 90-120 minute format vs. the longer episodic format which is so much more conducive to storytelling and character development.

MY TOP 30-SOME FAVORITE PANDEMIC STREAMING EXPERIENCES 

In descending order of bingey-ness--is that a word?--i.e., inability to stop watching episode after episode. (And occasional commentary...)

Dark (Netflix)--I gave this German series a special shout-out last year (Twin Peaks + Stranger Things + The Wire + time travel), and season 3 finally arrived this summer. So good, I devoured it twice in one week. Complex, mind-bending, and addictively dense storytelling with time travel that makes sense (Tenet, take note) and super satisfying series finish. Ultimately unraveling the intertwined family tree of all the time-traveling characters will make your head spin for days. 

Money Heist (Netflix)--I needed something to replace my addictive need after Dark, and four seasons of this Spanish heist/thriller fit the bill perfectly. Plus, I think the series is rich in lessons on organizational behavior and leadership development/dynamics. Dissertation, anyone?

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)--Not a genre I typically find appealing (superheroes), but I loved the combination of family dysfunction, sibling rivalry, humor, and more time travel. After finishing the two seasons, I really missed the characters and can't wait for next season. And as a JFK assassination buff, I loved that season 2 took place in Dallas,1963.

The Queen's Gambit (Netflix)--Girl survives car crash in which mom dies, grows up to be charming woman who is addicted to alcohol and does chess.

The Flight Attendant (HBO Max)--Girl survives car crash in which dad dies, grows up to be charming woman who is addicted to alcohol and serves first class. But not anything like The Queen's Gambit.

The Great* (Hulu)--Wickedly dark comedic period piece (Catherine the Great's 18th century Russia) with colorblind casting where scheming powerful people plot to get out of loveless marriage.

Bridgerton (Netflix)--A light romantic period piece (Regent era England) with colorblind casting where scheming powerful people and debutantes try to get into marriage and maybe find love.

Tiger King (Netflix)

The Crown (Netflix)

Sex Education (Netflix)

The Last Dance (Netflix)

Better Call Saul (Netflix)

Never Have I Ever (Netflix)--Best narrator ever!

Ozark (Netflix)

Watchmen (HBO Max)

Ugly Delicious 2 (Netflix)--David Chang is back with interesting take on food and culture. The classism of steak-eating?

Flavorful Origins (Netflix)

The Great British Baking Show Season 11 (Netflix)

Pen15 (Hulu)

Mrs. America (Hulu)

The Good Place (Netflix)

Ted Lasso (Apple TV)

Alex Rider (Prime)

Love, Victor (Hulu)

Giri/Haji (Netflix)

Ratched (Netflix)

The Undoing (HBO Max)

Lovecraft Country (HBO Max)

Zerozerozero (Prime)

Industry (HBO Max)

The Boys (Prime)

What We Do In the Shadows (Hulu)

We Are Who We Are (HBO Max)

Pose (Netflix)

Normal People (Hulu)

Indian Matchmaking (Netflix)

Middleditch & Schwartz (Netflix)

Schitts Creek (Netflix)--Don't be put off by this comic treasure being so low on the binge scale. The series gets better with each season, and I'm slowly watching it because I know the end is coming, and I don't want it to end.