#meanwhile they continue killing and incarcerating and not giving a shit about the people they govern

[newpartnerincrime]

you can say whatever you want about what not voting for kamala means but a vote for her is still a vote for genocide! do what you want but that's a fact of the matter!

[therenlover]

In Fleeting Touches & Airy Sighs Chapter One (A Three Chapter Helmut Zemo/Reader Fanfic)

(Thank you to the wonderful anon who requested angst and smut between Zemo and the reader because Zemo had to be away from her on the run!)

Synopsis: A year after working together with Zemo in the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam and Bucky seek him out once again in need of shelter from John Walker. Meanwhile, Zemo’s wife resents his absence and prepares for guests.

Tags: Flashbacks, Depression, Alcoholism, Separation Anxiety, Arguing, Struggling Marriage, Reunions

Rating: T (E in future chapters)

Warnings: Guns, Swearings, Reader shows signs of alcoholism/alcohol abuse, Reader uses a hot shower as a mild form of self harm

Word Count: 5000~

This fic has been crossposted under the same title to my AO3!

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Helmut Zemo was not often a man backed into a corner.

He was smart, resourceful, and had nothing left to lose. If it came down to the line, he would do whatever had to be done within his morals to achieve his goals, even if that goal was simply staying alive. The Baron bowed to no man, and made his enemies, no matter their size, fall to their knees with sheer wit instead of brute strength. That’s why, when he stood backed into an alley with the barrel of James Barnes’ gun to his forehead as the Falcon watched on, it was strange that he didn’t try to weasel his way out.

“We need answers,” Sam said, hands in the pockets of his dark hoodie. Bucky wore a similar one, only he wore a baseball cap instead of keeping his hood up. “How the hell did you break out of prison for a second time?”

Usually, Zemo would have replied with a clever quip. He had never been one to back down from a fight. This time, though, he looked almost frightened as he raised his arms in defeat. “I got in contact with friends on the outside during our short adventure together. They decided to help me out once I was re-incarcerated, willingly I might add. I had no part in the plan, but who would look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“And I guess I’m just supposed to assume you had no part in getting my pardon revoked?” Bucky spat.

“If you hadn’t noticed, James, I’ve left you alone,” A hint of his usual mockery slipped into Helmut’s tone, but he quickly pulled it back, “Believe what you want about me, but I’ve had some time since last year to… re-evaluate my feelings on the world. You had no choice but to do the things you did as the Winter Soldier, and as long as you pose no threat to society now I have no qualms with you,”

Despite the strangeness of Zemo’s response Bucky remained unphased. Sam, on the other hand, was less stoic.

“Man, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the government is looking for Bucky and I harder than they’re looking for you, and it’s kind of all your fault, so excuse me for not giving a shit about your supposed sudden change of heart!”

“Can we get to the point? I’m afraid my flight leaves in an hour and I would hate to be late,”

“Cut the bullshit!” There Bucky went, pushing the cold metal closer to Zemo’s furrowed forehead.

“Bucky...” Sam warned.

“No, Sam, I can do this. Did you or did you not actively attempt to get my pardon revoked when you took us to Madripoor? Because thanks to you, a worse symbol than Sam is now standing unchecked with the title of Captain America AND he has access to the last of the new super soldier serum AND he’s trying to get us killed so we can’t tell the world about the awful shit he does,”

“I-” Zemo went to speak and, for the first time since he had met him, Sam believed he was being genuine. There was a tremble that made its way through him, all the way to his raised hands and even his voice. It was enough that Bucky even lowered the gun minutely. “I understood that by following my lead, the both of you were risking a lot. I didn’t intend any specific malice with my actions though, no. If I may… the two of you have attracted a lot of attention here in the past few days. I assume Walker is very close to finding you?”

Sam and Bucky shared a look before Sam responded. “Maybe, why?”

“I have a safe house,” he continued, “I don’t stay there often so the location isn’t compromised, but it’s my next stop. Might I suggest we take this conversation on the road? I would hate to host your reunion with Mr. Walker in an alley over my corpse,”

There was a moment of complete stillness. Zemo remained, face dark with that strange deer-in-headlights look, a perfect statue, as the barrel of Bucky’s gun remained pointed firmly in his direction and Sam shared what seemed to be a completely silent conversation with Bucky. It was true that they had been burned before. Zemo was a man with his own agenda who did what it took to fulfill it. That being said, he had returned willingly with them back to prison before he was broken out, and without his help, the band of freshly minted super soldiers would still be running around Europe causing chaos. In the end, Bucky lowered his gun slowly before tucking it away into his boot holster.

Zemo grinned.

“Don’t think this means we trust you,” Sam groaned, pointing a finger at the man.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now, gentlemen, I believe we have a plane to catch,”

As the trio began to make their way out of the alley Bucky and Sam fell to the flank of the group. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” Bucky asked, eyes darting between his two companions. Sam shrugged.

“At this point, I’m doing whatever it takes to get home to my family in one piece. If that means I have to ride in Zemo’s stupid private jet again and lay low for a while, then that’s what I’m gonna do, because Sarah and those kids don’t deserve to lose me all over again,”

“But don’t you think he’s acting a little… weird?”

“Don’t worry, I have my eye on him. If he tries anything we can just throw him out front when Walker tries to shoot us,”

“You’re doing a very poor job of concealing your conversation,” Zemo shouted.

Bucky stormed ahead as Sam laughed.

“Oh, shut up!”

Surprisingly, the drive to the airstrip was mostly uneventful, as was the relatively short flight from Zurich to Avignon. There was, of course, the usual cutthroat banter and tension so thick you could feel it like a fog hanging over the group, but in an unusual twist of fate, the baron did very little to initiate. Of course, he wasn’t fully innocent though. He never was. That being said, even as his chauffeur carefully navigated the stone roads to the dropoff point he was strangely quiet. He had texted someone earlier to have the house prepared for their arrival but he kept looking down at the phone as if a response would come. It didn’t.

Sam appreciated the break from the noise. To him, it was a moment of peace after a few months of constant opposition. For the duration of the trip, he had chosen to shoot a few choice quips Bucky’s way before taking a long nap. Bucky, on the other hand, was only growing more suspicious of Zemo by the minute.

After his time with Hydra, Bucky had become intimately acquainted with the type of man that Zemo was. He was ruthless, driven by ideals that couldn’t be changed by any amount of debate or theory read inside a prison cell, and willing to do whatever it took to fulfill those ideals no matter the cost. There was remorse but no regret. A man like that doesn’t just stop believing in the thing that led him to kill dozens if not hundreds of people, because once the impetus is gone so is the only thing upholding their sense of self.

In basic terms, he was hiding something. Bucky was intent on finding out what that thing was, a thing important enough to make Zemo of all people shut the hell up and tell his enemies exactly where his safe house was, and he wasn’t going to rest until he did. The answer came easily enough in the end, but not before Sam and Bucky were forced face to face with the strangest thing they had ever seen, even when including aliens and wizards. That thing was Zemo buying flowers.

The trio had gotten out of the car somewhere around the center of the city and continued towards the safe house on foot. A few minutes after they started, though, Zemo had spoken.

“I apologize, but I’ll have to stop for a moment,” He said, holding up a hand to alert the two men trailing him to the fact that he was about to stop. Sam quirked up an eyebrow.

“At a flower shop?”

There, to the right of them, was a small fleuriste. The window was a burst of bright color. Pinks, reds, whites, purples; a certain bunch of spring blooms had caught Zemo’s eye. He shrugged. “It’s rude to arrive at someone’s house asking for a favor without a gift, Mr. Wilson. Excuse me,”

With a comfort that said he had been into the shop many times, Zemo walked through the door and began conversing with the shop owner in perfect French, even referring to her as tu instead of vous as he made his purchase.

“Did he just say someone’s house ?” Sam asked Bucky, eyes widening.

Bucky gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I think he did,”

“So, we’re just showing up at someone’s door,”

“Yup. Not to mention they’re someone who aligns themself with him,”

A groan escaped from Sam as he ran his hand down his face in disbelief. “I didn’t expect much from Zemo, but damn,”

“It’s your fault for expecting anything from Zemo in the first place,”

“For once, you’re right,”

They dawdled for a moment. As their conversation stilled, Zemo returned, now burdened by a sizable bouquet from the window. Around them, the city was starting to get off of work. Families walked together as businesses had their 5 o’clock shift change. Somehow as the world around them came to life it didn’t look at Sam and Bucky with anything more than a passing glance. They were tourists, nothing more. For a moment Sam understood why Zemo would go to a place like this for safety and anonymity.

Without ceremony, the trio began walking towards their destination once again.

“I apologize for the delay,” Zemo said, keeping his pace brisk and remaining about a foot ahead of his companions, “I suppose it’s become a bit of a habit that I buy Y/N flowers whenever I come back. We shouldn’t be long now, though, the house is just a few more blocks away, maybe 3 minutes by foot,”

“Y/N?” Bucky asked. The name felt heavy on his tongue, familiar. That had to be a coincidence though. Zemo would never align himself with anyone who had worked for Hydra, and there was no other place he could have heard that name and had it hold any significance. Right?

Zemo chuckled. “Y/N is our host. I’d appreciate it if you tried to maintain some semblance of respect when we arrive, she tends to have quite the temper and it would reflect badly on me if she believed I was asking her to indefinitely house two people who would happily send her to prison,”

“About that,” Sam chimed in, “Who the hell are we about to be staying with? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t, and by extension, I also don’t tend to trust people who trust you,”

“I assure you, Sam, Y/N is more trustworthy to you than I will ever be,”

“That doesn’t answer my question, nor does it make me feel any better,”

“She’s American, and like you, she is seeking shelter from the government. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Man, at this point I feel like you’re not telling us because she’s actually some sort of crazy Sokovian sleeper agent who’s gonna stab us in the back while we sleep. Am I crazy, Buck, or am I right?”

Bucky, who had been trying his best to stay out of the conversation, replied. “You are being unnecessarily evasive, Zemo, though that’s nothing new…”

“Right? Like, I’m really grateful that you’re lending us a hand, but I’ve gotta be honest, if I think for a second things are going south-”

Sam never got to finish his sentence.

Suddenly, Zemo stopped short, turning around and looking Bucky in the eye with a madness neither he nor Sam had ever seen before. His whole body was stiff, rigid. The hand that wasn’t cradling the flowers delicately was gripped in a fist at his side. He looked angry, but underneath the anger, he really just looked scared. “You will not touch her. Do you hear me? Do what you’d like with me, I have made choices worthy of punishment, but you will not touch Y/N. If you so much as think of it, all bets are off. Do you understand me?”

Bucky nodded, sharp. This was certainly interesting. Sam just smirked.

“Is there something else you want to tell us?”

Zemo walked up a small set of stairs towards a home to their right. “No, Mr. Wilson, I don’t believe so,”

The building was a nice one, all tan stone with dark wrought-iron fixtures on its many windows. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal midtown manor-house for some upper-class member of the community. The normalcy of it all hid its true purpose in plain sight. It was genius, really. Over a dividing wall made of the same yellowing stone, Sam could see a small sliver of vibrant green garden space and a pool at the side of the building.

With a steadying breath, Zemo knocked on the door.

“You have to knock on the door of your own safe house?” There was a hint of incredulity in Bucky’s voice as he crossed his arms. This was going to be a disaster. Why had they agreed to this again?

“A little etiquette goes a long way, James, especially when you’re already in the doghouse,” Then, the door opened.

Bucky froze. There, standing in the doorway with a pistol in her hand and a fire in her eyes, was a woman he thought long dead: you. This couldn’t be right! He had killed you back in ‘02 with the rest of the AAHR...

You quirked up an eyebrow at Zemo.

“Give me one reason I should let you in and not shoot you on the spot,”

They were so fucked.

________________

The day, on your end of the world, had gone by much slower.

It started off like any other, with the alarm on your bedside table blaring as you opened your eyes and your arms reached out into the emptiness in the sheets beside you. Sometimes, when Helmut’s flight got in late enough, you would wake up and reach to the side only to find that he had appeared beside you in the night. Those were the best kind of reunions. They were free of pretense, no bitterness or resentment clouded your sleep-heavy brain when you opened your eyes to his peaceful resting face, and you could simply fall into the comforting rhythm of husband and wife. If you reunited with a clear head things tended not to go as well.

You groaned. It wasn’t as if there was even a guarantee he would come back, especially not after the way you’d left things last time. The philosophy of attendre et espérer, waiting and hoping like an Edmond Dantés type, wouldn’t do you any good, at least not anymore.

Maybe it was time to start moving on…

Tomorrow. You could start thinking about the next steps tomorrow. For today you’d enjoy what you had.

Getting out of bed was difficult but you managed. The sun streamed through the curtains that billowed gently in the breeze near your balconette, brilliant gold beams illuminating the dust that danced in the air. The first thing you did was shuffle along to the corner and pour yourself two fingers of brandy from Helmut’s private collection. It was like a morning ritual these days, a numbing agent against the loneliness. Once the drink was downed you moved on to the closet to get dressed.

Dressing yourself wasn’t of much importance these days. You couldn’t exactly leave the house, and nobody was visiting, so more often than not, it was easier to just wear the same pajamas for a few days until you knew Oeznik would be around to drop off groceries. Today, though, you felt… filthy. Not dirty in a physical way, just sticky and filthy and unclean under your skin and in your very heart. Maybe a shower would help.

You looked around the closet with a clinical eye. It was difficult to be in there, surrounded by lavish dresses and expensive suits that you and your husband had worn arm in arm while plotting the downfall of the Avengers before your unsteady alliance had turned into so much more. Everything still smelled like his cologne. In the small, often-closed, walk-in closet, the scent had only intensified, covering every article of clothing with a fog of cedarwood and sage. It made you sick, choked the air from your lungs and left you gasping for even a single breath that didn’t sit heavy on your tongue with the bitter taste of that familiar musk.

The alcohol had helped. It always did. The remnants of its burn in your mouth formed a sort of guard against the scent of the closet as you searched through a pile of shirts for something soft and easy to wear. Your hands suddenly stilled.

“Zemo, I’m gonna be honest, this is the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen in my entire life,”

“I’m hurt! That’s one of my favorites,”

“Where did you even get it, a 90-year-old grandpa’s closet? Jesus Christ, it looks like something out of a shitty 70’s flick about family values,”

“I’ll have you know that I thrifted that sweater. It’s very eco-conscious you know,”

Your heart hurt. Well, no, your whole body hurt, but your heart ached a little more prominently as you carefully picked up the sweater and held it to your chest. It was terribly ugly, 4 sizes too big even on Helmut and covered in an olive and forest green argyle. Somehow he was always able to pull off the oversized thing no matter how ridiculous you had always insisted you found it. When was the last time he’d worn it again?

The memory evaded you.

Still, it was a happy relic, happier than most of the monuments to a failing marriage that lined the shelves of your beautiful personal prison. It wouldn’t hurt to hope that by wearing it, you might rub just a little bit of that lost happiness off onto your present-day, right? With one last forlorn glance around the closet, you gathered up the sweater and a pair of jeans before getting out as fast as you could. With the scent of cologne clinging to you, the shower wasn’t just a good idea now, it was necessary.

So, you showered. You took the stupid foot-long exfoliating brush Helmut loved so much and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed yourself under the near-boiling stream of water until your skin was pink and raw. Disappointingly, even the new skin felt filthy. It was better, though, less intense. With some lotion and a little bit of Neosporin on the fresh patches of blotchy red, you were able to feel okay. Not good. Not clean. Just… okay. At least you didn’t smell like him anymore. The clock read 12:14 when you finally made it out of the bathroom in search of some real food.

Lunch, if you could call it that, was a silent affair. The fridge was almost empty and the pantry was only a little less bare, so you threw together a cheese sandwich, not even bothering to waste butter and grill it. You ate it plain with another glass of brandy out on the pool deck. It was gone sooner than you hoped it would be.

Oh well.

You finished your brandy with a sigh. Only seven or eight more hours until you could finish your day with a few more drinks and pass out in bed until nine or ten once again. Ah, dreamless sleep. That sounded divine. Now if only you could fathom any non-depressing way to spend the time between sleeping and waking. Swimming was out, the chemicals would burn your freshly eviscerated skin. Playing solitaire for the fourth day in a row sounded like absolute hell on earth. Even watercolors, a usual calming respite from the torturous and neverending monotony of life trapped alone in a house you had no help in stocking, were off the table ever since you’d run out of paper.

Somewhere inside the house, your phone dinged.

The second the sound hit your ears you jumped, dropping your glass and letting it shatter into a thousand tiny shards on the stone of the patio.

Phones were a difficult thing to own for someone who was trying to stay out of the eyes of the government. They were too easy to track and could tip off enemies to your location with very little error needed on your part. Even searching the internet for innocent things was too risky. If your search history was too similar to that of the alias you had used before Helmut went to prison, it would have been easy for them to find a connection and send someone to track you down. Still, you kept a cell phone charged and ready on the kitchen counter despite the risk for one reason and one reason only: Emergency contact with your husband.

He never texted from the same number on more than one occasion, always switching from burner phone to burner phone as he flew across the country doing god knows what, but if he was ever in a situation where emergency contact with you was needed, he was able to reach you at your number immediately. It had only happened a couple of times, and each time he had been in a considerable amount of danger. So, when you suddenly heard the sound you dreaded more than anything else in the world, you were quick to rush inside, even ignoring the shattered glass at your feet as you shoved through the doors and found the phone.

The small, LED display was lit up with the notification. It made your heart both soar and sink.

Flying home with two guests. Prepare the two rooms for their stay. We will be there by 5 at the latest - B

You read over the message several times before letting the phone fall from your hand and back onto the counter with a dull thud.

That absolute asshole.

Three months. Three months you had spent sitting alone. Three months without a call, or a text, or a letter, or even a word of when he was coming back by way of Oeznik. Three months! And after three months of loneliness and sleepless nights and empty bottles on the drink cart he reaches out through an emergency line of contact that almost certainly means he might be dying only to tell you he’s bringing two strangers into your safe house, the place even he refuses to stay in too long in order to not give its location away. The scar on your spine was starting to burn as you leaned up against the counter and cried.

It was ridiculous to think you had ever believed him capable of more tact than that.

Really, it was your fault. From the beginning, you’d had too much faith in a man incapable of being trustworthy, even to those closest to him. You knew that, and yet you had married him. Maybe the soft touches and sweet lies he had spoon-fed you had made you weak. Maybe you always had been.

“I’m not a child, Helmut, I know what I’m doing!”

“I don’t think you do,” he shouted. He was a few drinks in now, you both were. The nights before his departures never tended to end well when you both drank. “Because no matter what I do to protect you, you have the need to disobey me! Have you considered that I do the things I do for your own good!”

“Oh! Oh yes, the things YOU do!” You slammed your glass down on the table as you stormed over to Helmut, “I sit here all day like a fucking dog in a cage while you fly to fucking Ibiza and flirt with supermodels, but YOUR story is just so fucking tragic! I’m your wife, Helmut! I’m not an animal or your property, I’m your goddamn wife! You can’t just order me to sit and stay like a dog,”

He glared down at you, eyes hawkish and glinting in the low lamplight. For the first time in years, he looked threatening, “You may not be a dog, or a child, or my property, but you are a weapon! It’s my job to keep you here, away from the-”

“Excuse me?” You interrupted. The two of you stood, inches away and yet miles apart. Slowly, the drive in Helmut’s eyes faltered. “Say that again. I dare you,”

“Schatz, I-”

“No, Helmut, you meant it so say it again. Call me that again. I fucking dare you,” Tears were streaming down your face now. He took a step towards you, hand extended to wipe them away, but you were quick to take a step back out of his reach.

“You misunderstood me,”

“I don’t think there was anything to misunderstand,”

You swept the shards of your glass tumbler into a dustpan, hands still shaking even ten minutes after you’d read Helmut’s message to you. As you worked, your last conversation before he’d left echoed in your mind.

How had it all devolved into that? It wasn’t hard to remember Helmut before prison, jaded and broken and lonely. He had been so much like you and yet so different. Each of you seemed to be the perfect balm for the others' wounds. In the end, despite all of his flaws, you had found yourself in love. Now that he was a different man, was that love gone? You couldn’t say. All you knew for sure was that you weren’t nearly drunk enough to be facing the confusing feelings in your brain. With the last of your energy, you emptied the dustpan of glass into the trash can and returned to the house, sweater itchy against your irritated skin, to ready the guest rooms.

The job wasn’t a long one. You had never used the guest rooms in all the time you’d spent at the Avignon property, so the sheets were already clean. There was just a thin layer of dust on the furniture that needed to be swept away as you checked to make sure the dressers were bare and the bathrooms were stocked with amenities. Then, when that was done, you were left to your thoughts as the hours ticked by.

Most of the time you spent sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing. It sounded terrible, and in all honesty it was, but what else could you do? The house was already spotless so cleaning wasn’t an option, and you didn’t quite feel like doing much of anything as you stared at the clock and tried to remember a time when your life was less of a disaster. As it got closer to five, though, you started to get antsy.

You had tried your best to not think about the obvious issue of the guests. Zemo was not the type to threaten his home, even if he wasn’t happy with you, so usually having anyone who wasn’t Oeznik or another paid lackey aware of the location of your safe house would be a big no in his book, but then you started thinking of the implications of him bringing people into your home. Your home, not his. Was he on his way to kill you? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Or maybe he was bringing your replacement.

Now that thought made anger bubble up in your throat. You were no stranger to the idea that when your husband was away, he could be doing anything. There was no guarantee when he slept in lavish hotels or drank the night away in elite lounges that he kept his wedding ring on. The fact that there were two guests meant it was unlikely he was bringing two mistresses, but never impossible. Nothing was impossible when it came to Helmut.

No, it was more likely he had finally decided it was time to end your suffering. The shouts and boisterous laughter that started to sound directly outside of the front room window only confirmed the for you. Slowly, you crept towards the door and grabbed a small pistol from its place in the umbrella stand. If he wanted you dead you weren’t going to go without a fight.

Through the curtains on the front door, you could just barely make out the trio. When you saw them your blood ran cold. It was one thing if he needed help to take you down, but getting the Winter Soldier on board? Your rage only grew by the minute.

Helmut said something, probably planning the best course of action to catch you off guard, and you sneered. Two could play at that game. When he knocked on the door you opened it calmly and held the gun with your finger just barely ghosting over the trigger.

Everyone froze.

“Give me one reason I should let you in and not shoot you on the spot,” you said, rage coursing through every nerve in your body. You may have been in retirement for quite a few years, but you still knew how to handle a gun. Everyone there, except maybe the Falcon, knew that. As Zemo went to open his mouth, you prepared for a firefight.

“Because I brought you flowers,”

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a/n: Sorry that only one chapter is out! The fic is just getting very long and complicated and I wanted to make sure you got as much as possible before the next episode drops lol. I’ll be working pretty much nonstop from now until then, though, so the next parts should be out soon!

TAGLIST: @tatestripedsweater​ , @elaineygrace​, @multiyfandomgirl40​ ,  @lovelymischief​ , @rami-malek-trash​ , @dazzlingseb​, @avgravy​ , @sarahsilver , @wh0re-4-techno​ , @forcebros​ , @sugarsweetkiss​ , @grandmuffinsharkbailiff​ , @killsandthrills​ , @novasstudy​ , @thnksfr-ptrkstmp​ , @inmate-marmalade​, @alanathedeer​ , @mossybank​ , @simsiddy​ , @xxspqcebunsxx​ 

Please do not post my work on other sites, thank you!

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 297: We’re Bustin’ Outta This Joint

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi did his best to undo all of the good vibes from the Girl Power arc by killing off Midnight. It sucks and I still don’t like it, but it is what it is. Unfortunately, Not Killing Off Your One Female Teacher Character With Any Character Development was worth 30% of his grade for the semester, so it brought his average down all the way to a C-, and so he and his report card will just have to live with that. Meanwhile Ochako did some rescuing, and the other U.A. kids lay around unconscious and/or traumatized. The chapter ended with an abrupt cut to Tartarus, where AFO is apparently just chilling and waiting for the Nearly High Ends to come bust him free. What kind of a cliffhanger is that to leave your fans hanging on for three whole weeks. Who’s suffering more here, the characters or the readers.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “okay I know you all want to know what happens to Deku and Shouto and the rest, but have you considered finding out what happens to Overhaul and Muscular and Moonfish and New Girl Character instead?” Fandom is all, “you had us at New Girl Character.” Seiji’s dad is all, “I’m just going to say a bunch of stuff to help make sure none of the readers feel conflicted about cheering on a bunch of mass murderers escaping from prison.” Tomura is all, “dammit AFO why are you still here.” AFO is all, “shhh, Tomura, go back to sleep.” Tomura is all, “wtf but you’re literally hijacking my body and continuing to shred it to bits while we break into BnHA Alcatraz to recruit your own personal Suicide Squad.” AFO is all, “:).” Real!AFO is all, “HERE I AM, EVERYONE, SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING.” And then the chapter ends. Geez.

oh shit lol it’s a whole big fucking page all about Tartarus

my very first thought was “that’s a long-ass fucking bridge”, and then I went to go google “longest bridges”, and Wikipedia was all “son there are literally a hundred and fifty bridges in the real world longer than 5km, and the longest one is actually 165km”, and I was all “oh shit I really don’t know jack shit about bridges.” then I looked at the list for a few more minutes and realized that the super-long bridges were all built over land, and that the longest bridge over water is only 38km. which is way more reasonable, but also still really fucking long though?? ngl I would freak the fuck out on that bridge. what does any of this have to do with Tartarus you ask?? absolutely nothing, I literally forgot I was reading a chapter for a sec lol uh

anyway, my parting thought on the bridge is that it kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a giant island fortress prison, but whatever. moving on

and the six levels thing is straight out of One Piece lol. something tells me BnHA’s prison break arc isn’t going to be quite as fun. hmm

so now we’re cutting to “the Bronze Gate”, which is the main entrance off of the bridge, and some goat-looking motherfucker is out here trying to become my new favorite character. bro

SON OF A BITCH WHAT’S WITH THE BULLETS FLYING IN THE BACKGROUND. DON’T TELL ME THEY’RE SHOOTING AT GYGES. THEY CAN’T KILL OFF MY FRESHEST HOMIE GYGES. SURELY THEY WOULDN’T

ooh and now, giant robots!

giant robots with machine guns. “I’m very sorry I killed off Midnight, makeste” you know what, fuck you Horikoshi. thinking you can buy my affections back so easily

does Gyges have six arms??? look how fucking calm he is announcing the code red security lockdown, holy shit. GYGES

NOOOO

NO NOT BRIAREUS. THIS DAY EXACTS A HEAVY TOLL

YO, WHAT

he came there himself?? so much for making the Noumus do his dirty work. and based on the speech bubble shape and font, this is still AFO talking

uh oh what’s happening

is he using Decay or is his arm just sort of crumbling to pieces because he hasn’t had time to heal up yet? if it’s the former this prison break is going to set a record for shortest arc yet isn’t it

now we’re cutting to B10 which is apparently the lowest level. but do they mean lowest as in the least security, or lowest as in the deepest underground, a.k.a. the most security? idk it’s confusing and I think they should be more specific. is it B like in basement?? are there six levels or ten?? stupid Tartarus

anyway so the guards are talking about how Gigantomachia is scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning. heh. will there even be a Tartarus tomorrow morning

(ETA: WELL, UH.)

wow they’re talking about just killing him outright. damn

I kinda feel like “prison guard” is one of those jobs that just sort of naturally attracts shitty people. anyways yeah, Seiji your dad is a real piece of work

and he’s even doubling down on it after the other guy repeatedly keeps trying to hush him up. dude we get it, you’re an asshole

ooh and now we’re getting an interesting look at the various prisoners, some of whom look suspiciously familiar!

for starters, that’s definitely Moonfish in the upper left corner, I’m like 99% sure. not quite clear who that is across from him in the upper right, but it’s been a hot minute since we saw Muscular, so maybe?

and could that be Overhaul in the panel beneath him?? they’re not showing his face so I assume it’s someone we’d recognize, and he’s the only currently-incarcerated villain with that haircut as far as I can recall. though it seems weird that he’s not restrained more given his quirk. I thought Horikoshi mentioned in Ultra Analysis that he’d gotten it back somehow. eh well we will wait for answers

I don’t recognize the person to his left either (though she has an oddly familiar look to her?). but the person on the bottom right, next to Kurogiri... is it Stain?? the hair and body language are sure giving off Stain vibes. if someone had told the me from two years ago that I’d actually be excited to see Stain again I would have said you were full of shit. and yet here we are. these sure are interesting times

anyway so now the Code Red intruder alarm is blaring. and I gotta say, that one scene sure was effective at killing any sympathy I might have been inclined to feel for these guards lol. bring on the imminent massacre

“what horrible timing” lol yes. it’s almost as if they planned it that way

uh oh

is he omae wa shindeiruing. watch your six, Mr. Prison Guard

oh shit

WHAT DID I SAY. WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY. but nooo, you all were all, “but a bridge is more convenient!” VERY WELL THEN, LIE IN THE BED THAT YOU HAVE MADE

anyway so it’s the High Ends lol. I mean we already knew it was them. let’s just get on with it

omfg Tomura ARE YOU RIDING ONE

WHAT ARE YOU, A NAZGUL. WHY IS THIS MY FAVORITE THING

and it looks like it actually is Tomura again, too (as opposed to AFOmura)

-- is he using Decay on himself?? is that what it is?? or no wait, is this just more of the weird side effect shit that’s been happening since he Awakened. actually yeah never mind that’s clearly what it is

y’all this man is out here having a full blown argument with himself

so this is equal parts compelling and hilarious to me right now lol. like I feel so bad for Tomura, but I also lowkey want to see how far this escalates. like do you think he’d go as far as to punch himself in the face. where will this journey lead us

fucking look at this shit

other people have already mentioned this, but with this scene especially it makes me really curious how they’re going to show this in the anime. will it be AFO’s voice coming out of Tomura’s mouth? or Tomura’s voice using AFO’s speech patterns? more importantly, will it be cool and dramatic, or will it actually wind up being hilarious? or both?? never count out both

also he’s looking pretty good there in that bottom panel with his one eye just barely visible. that doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but here I am, pointing it out

also also, lol at Tomura being all, “the fuck do you mean, ‘rest’, you’re the one that dragged my body out here to raid a fucking prison,” and AFO being all, “oh yeah, lol, true true, but I meant rest after that.” yes, this man clearly has nothing but the purest intentions, Tomura. trustworthy af

this fucking guy. Tomura is your bullshit radar finally operational yet?? can you see yet that it was always his intention to use you right from the very start?? oh man I am starting to get fidgety now listening to this

so Tomura’s saying he doesn’t just want to be used as a chess piece. and AFO is all, “well okay but what if it’s a VERY NICE AND IMPORTANT chess piece.” bro DID HE STUTTER

-- AHH BUT NEVER MIND THAT, HERE IT IS, THIS IS WHERE THE FUN STARTS OMG

GO ON AND ACQUIRE THEM THEN! omg. why am I so fucking excited. it seriously makes no sense. like seriously, ‘hooray, our old buddies, Overhaul and Stain!!’ -- come again now?? who is this person that I have become

meanwhile AFO is making all this fuss and I really don’t understand it though

why would you need to plow directly through the building. why can’t you just use doors like a normal person. it’s not like they can lock you out, like hello, you can literally turn anything you touch into dust, what’s with all the melodrama

anyway so he’s apparently hitting the prison with some sort of EMP attack now and shutting down all their systems

omg the suspense is killing me. this is going to be so badass once it’s animated, but right now all I keep thinking is “YES, GREAT, CAN WE PLEASE JUST MOVE IT ALONG”

the doors are opening ahhhhhhh come on come on come on let’s go let’s get to the excitement already

now the guards are running over to try and regain control. but, like

yeah that’s pretty much how I’m expecting the rest of this to go basically

so now they’re shooting at the dust cloud lol. well if there’s one thing movies have taught me, it’s that bad guys who wait inside clouds of dust while panicked cops blindly rain bullets at them until they run out of ammo are basically invincible lol. soooooo

OHHHHH SHIT

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. THEY ARE SO FUCKED LOL, SHIT

YEP, AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE

is this the first time we’ve seen Moonfish’s face? I feel like we might have caught a glimpse of it before on an omake page or something. either way, it wasn’t anything I actually needed to see again. thanks...?? I guess??

okay but seriously, are we supposed to actually know who this badass lady is?? like I don’t know her but I feel like I know her, you feel?

(ETA: lol there are already like 60 different theories about how she’s related to every single character in the series. will be interesting to see if anything comes of this. although we did just get three “this villain was secretly related to [insert character(s) here] all along” reveals just in the last arc, so idk, it might be better if we pass on it this time lol.)

girl who are you. please stick around. for the love of god don’t let this man kill you off too

????

wait so is this Overhaul? boy sure has seen better days huh. but the floppy sleeves... yeah, it’s gotta be him

anyway so then the only ones missing are Stain and Kurogiri, yes?? omg. and one page left to go

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO CONVINCE ME HE COULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS SHIT RIGHT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. FUCKING TIME-BIDING DRAMA QUEEN

AND HE’S JUST FLOATING HIS LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM ALONG BEHIND HIM SOB. THIS FUCKING GUY

AND IS HE JUST ABSENTMINDEDLY DRAGGING SOME POOR SCHLUB’S CORPSE ALONG BESIDE HIM LIKE A SLEEPY TODDLER CARRYING THEIR TEDDY BEAR. I FUCKING CAN’T. REST IN PEACE, FRIEND. GIVE MY REGARDS TO GOOD OLD BRIAREUS

so that’s it! and we still don’t have any idea what AFO is actually planning to do now, after all of that. are they going to merge bodies?? or is he going to try to switch with him?? either way Tomura’s body has to be part of the plan somehow since he keeps making so much of a fuss over it. flkhglkhlk. dammit I need answers lol

[black-wolf066]

An Au where Five dies young in the apocalypse.

(((I originally wanted this to be something more happy-ish, despite the Au idea, but my Muse demanded angst; so angst it shall have. Warnings for the general Klaus-ness of... well Klaus (he's my favorite of them all so I’m not hating on him, but we all know the warnings that come tagged with his name by now) as well as mild language and again angst. 

This story is posted over on my Ao3 account under the same pen name (blackwolf066) I would link but due to people posting phishing links, I'm weary to do so. The story is called [Not an End of All, Only an End of Something])))

Klaus is not quite twenty-four, just a little over a year before the inevitable publishing of Vanya's book, when Five pops up out of the blue. And at the worst possible moment too as Klaus OD's on the ground of some seedy alleyway.

When he wakes up in the back of an ambulance, he thinks it was all just one big twisted hallucination. But then he looks over the EMT's shoulder and sees a glaring, near murderous Ben, which is not an uncommon sight at all considering where he landed himself (again). No, it's the pale figure standing beside Ben, a very rattled and pale ghost with the face of little number Five and--

"Well, shit."

Is all he can really articulate.

Ben just glares harder.

After coming to grips with it (he will never come to grips with it) and after hearing Five's sad tale; he seeks out the rest of their living siblings.

Really, he shouldn't have even bothered.

Much like how no one believed Klaus about Ben in the beginning, they sure as hell don't believe him about Five, or the bullshit he spits about the apocalypse being real (courtesy of Five telling him and Ben what all had happened after he disappeared). Klaus truly believes his brother's story, the proof of it clear enough on his ghostly corpse. The layer of soot that was too ashy and grey to really be grime. The slight wheeze to Five's words even though the boy was dead and no longer needed air. The hollowness of his cheeks and the clothes that hung too big on his too small, bony frame.

It’s a scary thought, to know that all of humanity rests on Klaus' shoulders; and all because none of his siblings could be bothered to give Klaus the time of day.

"We're all doomed." Five puts eloquently.

Klaus hisses at him, but he knows Five is right. He's the last person anyone should put their faith in and yet Five didn't have much of a choice.

Klaus didn't need the reminder.

Nor did he sign up for this shit.

(None of them did, not Ben and surely not poor little number Five, who Klaus still has a hard time keeping long bouts of eye contact with; the image of his too small brother and the clear suffering he had gone through, far worse than when Ben had appeared all bloody and shadowed in the corner of his room at Seventeen).

Meanwhile the Commission are left scratching their heads and wondering what in the hell happened. What killed Five in the first place? Was it the starvation that did him in; or the ashy air that caused his lungs to stop filling altogether? Or was it the expired Twinkie that was the straw that broke the camel’s back?

(They don't dwell on it for long. What will be will be and all that jazz)

With two nagging brothers instead of one, Klaus has a harder time chasing and keeping his continued highs. Though he doesn't want this responsibility, would rather sit back and watch the world burn during his lower moments of weakness; Klaus finds, much like Five, that he doesn't have much of a choice either.

(The disappointment on anyone's face had always been a natural state in regards to Klaus. He was the family fuck up after all, the useless number out of the lot of them; and that included Vanya. He was used to it by now, but to see that disappointment on his kid brother, hurt more than he'd ever like to admit aloud).

So he gets clean, or clean enough, no longer allowed to go for the harder stuff (the topic of Sobriety is a fight Ben and Five realize they will never win). Klaus needs something if he's to do this with his sanity still intact, the ghosts are just too damn loud, too unpredictable and too uncontrollable (not like he could ever control them in the first place) to really go full on cold turkey.

At least it's a start in the right direction, so Ben and Five will take whatever they can get at this point.

With no leads other than a glass eyeball no longer in Five's possession, there isn't much Klaus can really do but wait for nightfall and break into the Meritech facility; a company he had never even heard of (until that day) that apparently the eyeball originated from ("Obviously it came from there, Klaus, pay attention!"). With Ben and Five acting as his lookout and scout respectively (to warn of any security wandering the building as well as to point out all the cameras to duck around and avoid), it doesn't take Klaus long to find the file room, but none of the files on hand have the serial number Five rattles off and they're back to square one.

Between the span of the next six years, the harbinger of death will lose an eye and none of them know when exactly that will happen or who said harbinger will be.

And life continues on.

Klaus manages to get a job despite his record, and even a small apartment to live in. It's a shitty little studio in an even shittier part of town. It's all he can really afford, but it's the home he made for himself and his brothers and he couldn't ask for much more.

Vanya publishes her book, and though Klaus silently cheers on her ballsyness (even--deep down--understands why she did in it the first place) he would have liked it better had she not callously attacked him like she did everyone else. He debates on using the damn thing for kindling in the fireplace, but somehow can't bring himself to do it; not when it's the only picture he has of his sister despite the betrayal he feels burning in his chest.

It sits collecting dust on the bookshelf instead.

Then one day Vanya randomly appears in their ghostly midst and Klaus is honest to god ready to throw hands.

"You know this is not what I ever had in mind about getting the four-corner squad back together again." Klaus mumbles.

"There never was a 'four-corner' squad," Five grunts, "You always just invited yourself along anyway."

Fair, Klaus thinks, and smirks faintly at the twin smacks that resound in the apartment from Ben and Vanya hitting Five's arms. The little gremlin’s hissing as he threatens and dares them to do something like that ever again, do nothing to lighten the fact that Vanya is still very much dead and standing in the middle of his apartment.

"It would explain why I never found Ben or Vanya among the rest of your bodies." Five states sometime after Vanya is filled in on the whole stopping the world from ending shin ding.

Klaus doesn't ever meet her eyes the entire time they talk; skirting around the guilt laden looks she keeps shooting in his direction upon learning he was speaking the truth this whole damn time.

(Meanwhile the commission is scrambling to right this wrong, and they almost go back to save their bomb from getting hit by that car, until they realize the apocalypse is still happening)

Which is fitting, really, that where Vanya ends the world the first time, it's Klaus that ends it the second time (the commission just don't know it quite yet).

And god doesn't that just suck to know he was the cause of his brother's suffering, even if the whole damn thing was nothing more than an accident.

Reginald still kicked the bucket (ding dong the abusive bastard’s dead). Harold still somehow managed to get his hands on the damn journal and was still hellbent on getting his vengeance against the umbrella academy; even without Vanya by his side.

With his living siblings distracted in their fight against Harold and the commission (still believing that Harold is the fuse somehow in all this chaos), Klaus is still kidnapped, tortured and forced to go cold turkey (but this time it's because he knows too much, Hazel and Cha Cha being sent out to find out how Klaus even knew about the apocalypse in the first place). He still gets saved in the end, still ends up back in time alone, fighting in a war because he was too scared to use the briefcase again and end up somewhere far worse. He still gains and then loses the love of his life (his Dave, his everything). Still dies, talks to dear old daddy and comes back--to the land of the living where his dead siblings all hover worriedly around him.

And all of this spirals with Klaus being absolutely and utterly done with everyone's shit: with the added scary bonus of secondary powers he didn't realize he even had (nor can control) due to said cold turkey experience.

In the end Harold really was the fuse, and the world is ended because his ghostly siblings couldn't penetrate the fog of Klaus' panic attack to calm him down (a panic attack induced by a mix of PTSD, the complete lack of faith his living siblings still have in him, and the resulting battle that ensues as Harold strikes the mansion).

His already uncontrollable telekinesis goes ballistic when the mansion explodes from C-4 Harold had planted around the block. He doesn't see the fighting that results from it, he doesn't see Luther rip Harold's eye out either (an eye he gained from pissing off the wrong people at the wrong time in his incarceration). All he hears is the fighting, the loud explosions, and the crumbling of the building around him. All he can smell is the smoke. All he can feel is the heat of the flames as they begin to lick teasingly at his skin and before he knows it, he finds himself back in that god forsaken jungle.

And so, ends all of ‘something’.

it's not a moon chunk to end everything in a fiery blaze of death, but an earthquake as Klaus' power unintentionally shifts the tectonic plates enough to set off every volcano in the world (dormant or otherwise).

Oh well.

C'est la vie

What will be, will be.

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: What Happened to Milla, Part 2

So I guess we’re back to this, huh? Ugh.

We’re continuing our coverage of “To the Devil, His Due” and “Without Fear” (Daredevil v2 95-105) by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark. Last time, Melvin Potter was institutionalized for sudden bouts of murderous rage - and Matt’s wife Milla seems to be going down the same path, after she kills a random bystander in a subway station.

Content Warnings: Ableism, sexual assault and implied threats of sexual violence.

Ever since Milla’s incarceration, Matt has been pursuing Mr. Fear even more aggressively than he was before, to the point that criminals on the street are commenting on this new level of violence:

Hey, it’s Turk! Hi, Turk! Congratulations on being probably the smartest you’ve ever been in this scene.

Matt is also allowed to see Milla, who is being kept under heavy sedation because when she’s not sedated, she, like, tries to keep people:

I don’t know, though, I feel like her reaction here is completely rational, considering she doesn’t remember what happened in the subway. I’d also be like “WHAT THE FUCK.”

Matt sneaks in to be with her at night, in hopes that being together will bring them both a little comfort:

Matt does his best to help Milla regain control of her emotions, but the drug proves to be too powerful:

...Yeah. It doesn’t look great.

Which is why Matt’s so surprised when he comes home a day or two later and Milla is waiting for him:

Yeah, so basically Lily recanted her previous testimony that Milla threatened and pushed her, which means that the state can chalk Subway Man’s death up to a terrible accident caused by Milla’s illness but not anything criminal. Milla has been released, but she still has to be kept under sedation. Also, the woman in the second panel is a nurse who basically needs to live with the Murdocks until this is all resolved.

“I guess I’m just a better lawyer than you, pal.” <3

But just in case you think things are going well for Matt, we get some foreshadowing from a smirky Mr. Fear:

Two things you should know about Larry Cranston:

1. I’ve mentioned it before in these recaps, but he hates Matt pretty much solely because Matt beat him out for valedictorian back in college.

2. I haven’t included any of these images but you will encounter them if you read this arc in the comics: aside from his traditional fear gas, the anger drug, and Lily’s perfume, he has created basically a roofie gas, so he’s constantly shown with naked women draped over him. You know, just a little “check out all these women who have been raped” sprinkled in for flavor, Game of Thrones-style. Ugh.

Meanwhile, Foggy goes with Lily to the DA to confirm that she is 100% not pressing charges against Milla. The DA points out that it’s super shady that Foggy, who is representing Milla, is also somehow representing Lily. In the elevator, Foggy agrees that the whole thing is shady and he’s not comfortable lying like this, even to help Milla and Matt:

Oh, this is going to go well!

Meanwhile, Milla’s recovery is...not happening:

I’m going to talk about this more a couple storylines from now, but there’s something particularly foul to me about taking a disabled character and writing a story that completely breaks down her agency and self-sufficiency, to the point that Milla can’t walk around her own house without literally being led by the hand. This happens earlier, too, when she tells Foggy she doesn’t need help taking the subway. Every time Milla says anything in defense of her own capability, the story immediately smacks her down for it. The ableism is only compounded by the fact that she now has a mental disability as well as a physical one.

As Daredevil, Matt is still on the hunt for Mr. Fear, and he’s gotten increasingly ruthless about it. In that he tortures Ox (remember Ox?) with a blowtorch:

Yeah.

Flashback time! A couple days ago, Lily got a visitor:

Mr. Fear created the perfume, so Mr. Fear can undo the effects of the perfume. I don’t think he created the perfume on commission for Vanessa Fisk so that she would give it to some random woman from Monaco who would then come seeking Mr. Fear’s greatest enemy for help and then he also drugged Milla so that Milla would try to kill the random woman from Monaco and be arrested, thus emotionally destroying Matt, because that’s getting a little too far into Robot Devil territory:

I think he’s just playing things by ear, but there’s a quality of “ah, yes, just as I planned” that makes it all a little...implausible and stupid. Sigh.

(Fun fact: I looked up what people from Monaco are called and they are Monegasques, while non-native residents are Monacoians. I wasn’t sure which term applied to Lily so I whiffed it.)

ALSO, apparently Lily does in fact have designs on Matt??? After all, she’s a woman, what other motivation could she POSSIBLY have? BARF.

Back in the present, Ox gives up Mr. Fear’s hideout. Matt goes to there, but he’s already gone:

Part of what makes this whole arc so tiresome is how repetitive it is. This beat is exactly like the moment in Part 1 where Matt comes to in the back of a cop car to a mysterious voice telling him Milla’s in danger, and it happens like three other times between then and now. It’s like Brubaker is just treading water to use up issues or something. I don’t know if this is because of editorial interference - there are pages and pages and pages of a turf war between Mr. Fear and the Hood, as part of a crossover with whatever was going on in Avengers at the time - but it’s effectively like watching Milla get fridged over and over and over again.

Matt races home but it’s too late. Milla has gone off the rails again and attacked her nurse, who is unconscious but thankfully still alive. Matt finds Milla huddled on the floor, bloody and scared:

Foggy shows up to handle the paperwork, and once Milla is in custody, Matt goes looking for revenge - on Lily, who he smelled in his house earlier tonight and who clearly triggered this latest incident:

He’s so angry he literally almost chokes her to death - the panels depicting it are genuinely disturbing - before catching himself and backing off. Lily says that she had no choice, Mr. Fear promised to cure her as long as she got Milla out of jail and then went to visit her. The minute she walked in, Lily says, Milla started screaming, and when the nurse tried to calm her, Milla attacked her and Lily fled.

Disgusted, Matt tells her to get out of the city and leaves to go hunt down Mr. Fear. And that’s a series wrap for Lily! She hasn’t been seen since.

Meanwhile, Matt finds Mr. Fear and proceeds to beat the shit out of him as he demands a cure for Milla and Melvin, but that’s when Fear plays his final card:

There is no cure. Milla’s like this forever.

So that’s that. Melvin and Milla will be institutionalized for the rest of their lives and have been permanently removed from the roster of useable Daredevil characters (well, Milla is used as a McGuffin a couple times after this, but that’s not the same thing). Just because Fear felt like it, as the capstone to an interminable plotline that fridges a fifth woman in Matt’s life. It’s just the goddamn worst.

Next Time: We lighten things up with a story about *checks notes* murdered children. Hoo boy.

[tessatechaitea]

Eclipso #2

Looking at this cover is the best sex I've ever had.

After reading Eclipso #1, I needed a three month break from reading Eclipso comic books. After typing the previous sentence, I needed an overnight break from writing another sentence. Eclipso has a plan to take over the country (which country? I don't know. Parador? Ecuazil? Cheru?):

Does he mean the gun or the packets of desiccant?

Oh shit! I forgot I'm supposed to be some idiot named Grunion Guy talking about stupid fucking comic books! Sorry!

I used to think nobody reads my comic book reviews because people aren't interested in comic books and didn't know my reviews weren't actually about comic books. But after so many years, I think I finally understand that people don't read them because both of those reasons! Eclipso decides to stop beating around the bush and possess the president of Venombia. Now I bet he makes him masturbate in public! Or maybe he just floods the U.S. with drugs. Fifty fifty chance that it's one of those two things. Apparently Eclipso doesn't actually possess the person infected by the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond just causes them to be fueled by whatever rage lives within their heart which they immediately act violently upon. After the president gets angry while holding the Black Diamond, Eclipso says, "Fortunately, the president's anger was directed at his own failure to stem the drug tide!" This causes the president to personally go around the country murdering all of the non-Eclipso drug lords. So now Eclipso has the entire drug trade of Argenaguay at his disposal!

One week later, Eclipso has taken over the country and the moon is still full.

Trust me: the moon was full in the first non-cover picture I scanned. I just didn't scan that much of the page. Eclipso's plan is to poison the cocaine shipped to the United States. It won't kill people who ingest it for 30 days so I guess that means everybody will die? Because the chance of every American doing cocaine within a 30 day period is 100%? I thought he was going to cut the cocaine with Black Diamond dust so that everybody becomes Eclipsos. I guess that would be too much of a dumb comic book idea. Meanwhile in Africa, Eclipso as a lion discusses how he plans to bring all of the tiny Black Diamonds back together in the Heart of Darkness before destroying the Heart of Darkness. I don't know that it makes much sense but I guess it's a plan and some motivation for the character. Aside from his main motivation which is to kill everybody. Eclipso has a third motivation though: to get revenge on Bruce Gordon, the one man who has ever defeated him! And probably will again since Bruce has figured out Eclipso is back and has taken over Guylivia.

The issue ends with a moon-bound deformed mass of Eclipso jerks off over Shakespeare.

Eclipso #2 Rating: D+. Most of this issue is expository. Eclipso just explains things that are going to happen or have just happened while not actually doing much. It feels like the first two issues could have been a brief summary about how Eclipso has returned to the DC Universe and then jumped straight into the action. Maybe having Eclipso recite Shakespeare at the end is supposed to make the reader think, "Oh! This issue is mostly soliloquy! That must means it's intelligent and not boring at all!" But Giffen did expect a stupid reader who doesn't understand Shakespeare to be reviewing his boring comic book! Take that, Giffen!

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Talks the Creative Freedom of That R-Rating

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A couple of days. That’s how long director James Gunn had to wait before Warner Bros. and DC came calling in 2018. Up until that moment, it’d been a pretty turbulent July. The iconoclastic filmmaker who made audiences cry over a talking tree in Guardians of the Galaxy was just fired by Disney—temporarily as it turns out—and his name was being besmirched on social media. Yet less than 72 hours after that dismissal, WB was making him an offer that could change the face of DC superhero movies forever.

“It happened immediately,” Gunn says with a hint of lingering chagrin. “We started talking about what the project would be. The first thing that was brought up was Superman, but I didn’t know if I wanted to do that.” 

So the studio suggested a once-in-a-lifetime alternative: make whatever you want. Gunn was free to adapt “anybody out of the DC catalogue.” Somehow though, with an entire gleaming multiverse at his disposal, Gunn only had eyes for the filthiest D-listers this side of Krypton. He only wanted to make The Suicide Squad.

The team of supervillain rejects has of course been adapted before, with David Ayer’s divisive Suicide Squad coming out in 2016. The earlier movie was a hit too, grossing more than $700 million and triggering a small bout of jealousy in Gunn, who even then thought that was the only DC property he ever wanted to do. But the film left something to be desired for many fans and critics.

To be clear, there are things Gunn absolutely loves about Ayer’s movie. How could he not, when he incorporated so many of the 2016 film’s cast into his own? In Gunn’s mind, Margot Robbie was born to play Harley Quinn, which he hopes to only further highlight by bringing out her “true lunacy” in the new movie. Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller, meanwhile, was the first character he decided to put in his own film. But Gunn is unambiguous on one point: his The Suicide Squad is going to be its own 31 flavors of weird.

“It wasn’t something to contrast the first movie,” Gunn says. “It wasn’t about going through a checklist of this is good, this is bad, this works, this doesn’t… but the concept that John Ostrander started with in the comics, that these are B-grade, shitty superheroes who are considered disposable by the U.S. government and are sent out on these black-ops missions, where they probably won’t make it but who gives a shit because they’re pieces-of-shit prisoners without many skills?”

That is the movie Gunn wanted to make. And he did so with R-rated glee.

Engineered as a standalone epic that might (or might not) be a sequel to the 2016 movie, Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is, in essence, meant to be a spiritual continuation of comic book writer Ostrander’s seminal 1980s run with the team. Davis’ Waller is still the government’s shady lady pulling the strings and recruiting incarcerated sad sacks to do the wet work law enforcement won’t; her point man on the ground remains Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), a straight arrow surrounded by coerced supervillains, including familiar faces like Robbie’s delightfully demented Harley, plus new ones such as Idris Elba’s Bloodsport.

The genre Gunn and his cohorts compare this to is war movies, but who they’re going to war against isn’t exactly clear. With that said, recent marketing revealed a comic book deep cut, with the 1950s space alien, Starro, running amok at kaiju-size.

“Starro is hilarious because he’s ridiculous. He’s a giant, cerulean blue starfish, but he’s also fucking terrifying,” Gunn says. “When I was a kid I thought that was the scariest thing of all time… and I think that exemplifies what this movie is: it is ridiculous and it’s also terrifying, and serious. So he works really well as the villain of the movie—as one of the villains, actually.”

Ironically, the real antagonists of The Suicide Squad might simply be the flick’s main characters, and Gunn is using the motley crew to unleash his distinctive voice. With an absurdly large cast to pick from, the director has carte blanche from WB to kill any character he wants, and to embrace any level of weirdness. And unlike the 2016 film, or his previous Guardians movies, The Suicide Squad is a big budget superhero flick with an R-rating. A first for Gunn.

“Most of my movies have been R-rated,” Gunn laughs when we mention this. He is, after all, a filmmaker who cut his teeth at indie grindhouse distributor Troma Studios, and has a history with tongue-in-cheek horror movies like Slither. But whether it’s making an R-rated Suicide Squad movie or a PG-13 Guardians picture, it’s all the same to him: telling the biggest-ass version of a campfire yarn.

“This is simply a little bit of a higher age bracket,” he explains, “and my audience is a little bit different. They can see a shark tearing someone in half, they can see a penis. It doesn’t matter.” Even so, there remains a sense of human connection among a number of broken Squad members. And those without that vulnerability still allow the storyteller to broaden the moral spectrum he’s playing with.

“I think you know from the beginning of the first Guardians that most likely, in his heart, Peter Quill is good, Gamora is good, Rocket is good, Drax is good.” But with the Suicide Squad, “some are not good people. They’re bad people. It’s less sentimental in that way. King Shark is much less sentimental than Groot.”

And some of these bad people will die in presumably horrible ways. Not that Gunn is killing his darlings lightly.

“The first thing I had to do was ignore the potential blowback from killing a character,” Gunn says. Instead he focused on following the natural progression of the story, and the natural progression of a character’s arc. “I’m just the servant of the story, so whatever the story says is what I’m going to do, no matter what the repercussions are for anything. I believe in the truth of the story. I believe that there was a story out there that needed to be told that I don’t have any control over.”

Perhaps ceding that control is the greatest advantage he’s discovered from making a gross, foul-mouthed superhero movie exactly to his liking.

“I wanted to do the things that other spectacle films haven’t been able to do,” Gunn says, “which is really take my time and investigate these characters, get to know them, focus on the character aspects, focus on who they were, and deal with time in a different way than it’s been dealt with in these movies.”

Gunn is thus able to let his movie breathe in a way that’s unusual for the superhero genre, but is in line with the more adult-oriented filmmaking he loved as a child. The Suicide Squad may be a war movie, but for Gunn it’s a specific type of throwback. Quick to name The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, he becomes audibly excited when discussing those 1960s “war-caper” films from his youth. Recapturing that men-and-women-on-a-mission aesthetic is as much the appeal of the movie as honoring Ostrander’s comics. He even refers to Elba’s Bloodsport as his Steve McQueen.

“He’s the unsentimental portrayal of a 1960s action hero but without the moral repercussions of those characters,” says Gunn. Also, he notes, Bloodsport is the guy who shot Superman with a kryptonite bullet. “How cool is that? And also, what a dick!” When contrasted with Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Gunn even likens the pair’s energy to an Abbott and Costello routine, only now Costello might kill you with a bat.

But then, each of the Squad members represent their own genre. They also each leave the door open for further exploration. Hence Gunn’s next project is still not Guardians 3, but rather an HBO Max TV series starring one of the nastiest pieces of work in The Suicide Squad: John Cena’s Peacemaker.

Describing the jingoistic flag-waver as if Marvel’s Captain America took a really far-right turn, Gunn saw Peacemaker as the perfect jumping off point when HBO approached him about doing a series.

“I think that the actual inspiration for Peacemaker was the shitty 1970s Captain America TV shows that I loved when I was a child,” Gunn says. “And I think Peacemaker exemplifies a lot of things about society that are going on politically, and what people’s beliefs are about America and the world. So being able to tell those stories that are slightly more socially conscious in their essence, but also outlandish, he lends itself to that.”

Exploring this week-to-week with Cena—an actor whose range Gunn believes audiences have only seen a fraction of—is irresistible. In fact, Peacemaker might mark another significant turning point in Gunn’s career.

Says the filmmaker, “I love doing Peacemaker. I could see just making TV shows after Guardians 3. It’s a possibility.”

Three years since Gunn’s one very bad week, the possibilities now seem limitless.

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The Suicide Squad opens on Aug. 6 in theaters and HBO Max. We’ll have more from our interview with James Gunn in the coming weeks.

Check out more on The Suicide Squad in the latest issue of Den of Geek!

The post The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Talks the Creative Freedom of That R-Rating appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[canaryatlaw]

So today was all around pretty good. I have to start with last night though, because falling asleep pretty much turned into a trainwreck. I had slept in till noon so it wasn't too odd for me not to be super tired, but when it's going on 2:30 and I'm feeling very distinctly awake and I remember taking my melatonin, I'm wondering what the fuck is going on, and then it hits me- when I was setting up my pill box for the week I neglected to put the 1 Xanax I've been taking a day in the box, and we all know the apparent sedative powers Xanax can have on me. I realized this at exactly 2:30 am, so of course at that point I got up and took a Xanax. Unfortunately it did not take effect as soon as I hoped, and I wound up staying up some time after 4 o clock, meaning with my 7 o clock wake up time I got somewhere less than 3 hours of sleep, probably closer to 2 1/2. Yikes. But I swore I would get out of bed because I fucking have to, I can't afford to be a slacker for another day when it's only a four day week anyway, so when my alarm rang at 7 I dragged myself out of bed and thankfully for the most part I didn't feel too exhausted during the day, though I felt slightly sleepy during the afternoon, but that was probably due to my relatively boring task, but more on that later. So I get ready and get to work, my direct boss is out for the morning on a visit or something like it, and somewhere around 9:30 I remembered I had the phone interview scheduled for 10 am, but I had a sinking feeling they wouldn't be calling me. Nevertheless, I went through the interview packet and came up with a list of questions adapted to his situation being that he was being released from juvenile detention. As predicted, they didn't call, I gave them until 10:30 before calling them, and they claimed they never got our paperwork, even though I have the confirmation that the fax went through, they said it must've gotten lost somewhere along the way and I'd have to resend it, and they need 48 hours to schedule any phone interview. I asked if they could make it work for Thursday and they said to fax the request and they'd see if they could fit it in the schedule. *sigh* so I type up a new request and used my recently acquired faxing skills to send it to them, asking that they call me to actually schedule the time. The fax went through, but I didn't hear from them today. If I get to tomorrow afternoon without hearing from them I'll call again and bug them. Ugh, I was not pleased with this situation. So after that I run a few things around and call some caseworkers to get some info on cases and got to run through permanency hearing questions for the other one I'm doing on Thursday, so that was good. At that point I was out of work, so I announced this to all the attorneys on my calendar, and the one that sits across from me said she had some prison phone calls I could listen to. Oh goody! At least they're interesting sometimes. So she gives me the basic breakdown of the situation, basically they're calls between mom and her supposed boyfriend through mom's incarceration from October to January waiting to get bailed out. Boyfriend had testified in January that he dumped mom in August and she's just been following him around, but then of course we have a record of 100 calls between the two of them, so we just had to find the content to disprove his testimony. Well, as expected, they were very much together and very frequently exchanged I love yous and such. 90% of it was mom bitching that nobody has bailed her out yet (she had a $1500 bond) and just hounding this guy about it meanwhile literally nobody around her has a job or any money and get all their money from public assistance. But then she'd say shit like "(daughter) says there's no groceries at the house" and the guy would start listing food he spent money on, but then mom turned around and was like "that was money you could've been sending me." Like, wtf? And of course she was just constantly hounding him to send her money for any and everything. Then there was the half hour call between her and her daughter where they laughed and reminisced about the shoplifting incident that got mom arrested, and she's now facing 5 years in prison because this is her 8th fucking time getting arrested for it. And I kid you not, they were joking about it and having a great old time. Other highlights include when she told her boyfriend he couldn't come pick her up from jail "in case DCFS finds out" well, we ain't DCFS exactly, but believe me, we're gonna find out (and as far as court is concerned, you should be more scared of us than them). Then there was when she was like "my grandpa sells his pills on Mondays, he gets $400 for them and offered me $100 but I said I'd only take $50" and I'm just like ohhh boy. But yeah, it was full of little gems like that, and I was only like my 18th page green sheeting it, so there's definitely plenty there. I just don't fucking understand people when literally the entire time the call is like "this is being recorded and monitored" and then people still say the dumbest fucking things. Amazing. So that actually took up most of the rest of my afternoon, and time passed pretty quickly because of it. Sometime after 4 one of the other attorneys came in and asked if I could do some emergency motions for her and argue two on Friday, so I put the calls aside and started working on those, cuz we'd have to serve them on everybody by the end of the day tomorrow (of course it won't take me nearly that long to complete them). So I worked on those until about 4:50. I was planning on taking the 5:13 bus and not rushing for the 5:03 because I had no particular reason to, but then I checked my app and the 5:13 bus said it was "delayed" and of course I'm like aw hell no I ain't doing this shit again so I ran out of the office and just made it to the bus in time. Got home by 6:20 and had a little bit of time to relax and eat before going to PT at 7, which was nice. PT was good, we ended up doing more of the dry needling because some of my muscles are still super tight and my PT guy was like we should be making more progress at this point, so hopefully that will help. I got home around 8:24 and of course turned on the prison break finale, I hadn't realized they moved it back an hour so I was happy to find out I wasn't as far behind as I thought I'd be, and the episode did not disappoint. I know they said they could potentially do more seasons, but I almost want them to just leave it here because FINALLY everyone is just happy and any other problems are just gonna screw that up and I just want my bbys to be happy forever after everything they've been through. It was honestly such a great episode though, classic prison break, kept you in suspense until the very end and full of so many twists and turns you never knew what was gonna end up being part of the plan and what wasn't. I was sad that we lost Whip, but I knew they were gonna kill off someone we liked, and in all honestly he was probably the least painful one to go (I do not count T-Bag among those we liked) so as sad as it is better him than one of the others. And of course I'm just so happy for my Scofields to finally have happiness and to be able to live happy lives together and I really don't want anything to interrupt my (fictional) babes in their happily ever after and I don't care if that means not getting any more episodes, I'm honestly fine leaving it here for their sakes (I know, they're fictional, but still). So overall I was really quite pleased with it, probably the best season/series finale I've seen in quite a while. I'm so used to the rug being pulled out from under us at the last moment it was FINALLY so nice to just see them go happily ever after with no last minute devastating twist. So when I finished with that I switched over to the keepers, and watched the 7th, and what I did not realize was the final until I was done with it, episode. I kept meaning to look up how many episodes there were but I just figured it's a Netflix show so there's 13, so when the credits rolled and there was no next episode to start I was definitely surprised. I have to say though, episode 7 was a bombshell episode, probably the best in the series IMO. To me it was just so disturbing to hear just how much the Catholic Church shielded pedophile priests and enabled them to abuse more and more victims, and to this day their actions continue to be those that are simply to cover their own asses. I know of course not the entire church is bad, I'm quite the fan of the current pope actually, but I was really disgusted to see the church sending lawyers to argue against extending the statute of limitations for civil suits on child sex abuse, and for their arguments to consist of "well we have to pressure the victims to come forward before more people get victimized" which is such an incredibly awful statement I can't even understand how anyone would think that's an okay thing to say, to put the blame on the victim like that is appalling, and any idea that a shorter statute of limitations will result in victims coming forward sooner is pure fantasy. This was about nothing other than getting the church out of liability, and that's disgusting to me. Their continued denial of knowing about Father Maskell's abuse when there's clear evidence they did is just baffling to me, I can't possibly see what they have to gain by making these claims other than a sorry attempt to cover their asses that in all reality royally backfired on them. As for the whole murder situation, after seeing all of it, I definitely found Jean (Jane Doe) to be credible and I believe her account of being taken to see the body where it was later found and being told sister Cathy died because she was going to confront the priests about the abuse. As far as the players involved that actually could've carried it out, the Edgar guy seemed odd to me but I'm not sure he was definitely involved, the Bill guy however, especially given the recorded interview of his (unfortunately now deceased) nephew who describes being there while they buried the body was pretty dang convincing to me, especially given he has literally no motive whatsoever to make something like that up. I think it's very possible both men were involved, but we sadly don't really have enough evidence (at this point, anyway) to piece together what actually happened that night, and sadly many of the key players who would potentially be at fault are dead, so justice will never be served as far as they are concerned, which is very frustrating. I'm glad at least father Maskell had to watch numerous claims of abuse by him come to light before he died. And yeah, that was pretty much my night. I have a slight headache and I am very tired now, so I think I'm gonna take that as a sign that now is a good time to call it quits here and go to sleep. I've clearly ranted about my day enough. So goodnight dollfaces. Stay beautiful.