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sineala · 3 years ago

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Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good.

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference.

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

#posts i actually wrote

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years ago

Text

Eccentricity [Chapter 6: You Know You Got Me In The Palm Of Your Hand]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: Mean It by Lauv.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sex and violence, slavery in American history.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Tagging: @queen-turtle-boiii�� @bramblesforbreakfast @writerxinthedark @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @loveandbeloved29

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! 💜

What The Fuck, Washington Animals Are Weird

I woke up in a bedroom drenched in a rainbow of darkness, shades of grey vacillating from charcoal to the wings of a mourning dove; indolent dawn rain pattered against the window. There were no glaring veins of sunlight spilling in through gaps in the curtains, no promise of dry invigorating heat, no whistle of vicious parched wind. Toto, we’re not in Phoenix anymore.

“Ugh,” I complained to the empty room, unraveling from a tangle of blankets patterned with cacti and pure white clouds and rust-orange suns.

I clicked off my iPhone alarm—I’d beaten it by two minutes; my circadian rhythm was finally conceding that this whole Pacific Time thing was permanent—and read my nine new texts from Joe.

3:12 a.m.: Hey it’s an emergency what’s the plural of octopus

3:13 a.m.: Rami is insisting that it is octopuses

3:14 a.m.: But it’s octopi, right? Right?? I just announced in front of everyone that it’s octopi

3:15 a.m.: Scarlett is verbally abusing me

3:18 a.m.: Oh you are probably asleep

3:21 a.m.: Update, according to the internet Rami is right and now I have to assume a new identity and move to Antarctica

3:25 a.m.: We can discuss logistics of the Antarctica relocation tomorrow

3:26 a.m.: Hope you like penguins

3:30 a.m.: Okay goodnight!! Don’t let the mythical creatures bite!!

“That man,” I murmured to myself, smiling.

I typed out: It’s definitely octopuses, you clown. Then I deleted ‘clown’ and replaced it with its Italian equivalent: pagliaccio. Text sent.

Joe responded almost instantly. I had to ask Lucy what pagliaccio meant and now she’s verbally abusing me too. Send help. See you at lunch. xx

Wait, two Xs? What did Xs mean?? Kisses???

Did Joseph Francis Mazzello, sexy undead Italian man, just send me multiple text kisses?

“You’re gonna give me an aneurism, Chicago boy,” I muttered at my phone as I slid it into the pocket of my flannel pajama pants. And then I glanced out the bedroom window into a tussle of rain and thick, caliginous fog.

Just a few feet beyond the misted glass, its leathery talons hooked around a branch of Charlie’s decades-old red alder tree, was an owl. But not just any owl. A hulking, spotlessly white owl.

“Oh, hey, you,” I whispered, leaning closer, pressing my palms against the cold window. My hands left transparent imprints in the condensation. “Hey, buddy. Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping? I sure wish I was. Did something wake you up? Did your idiot vampire boyfriend disturb you with a series of ridiculous texts?”

The owl just contemplated me with unnervingly vast, slick, engrossed eyes. And there was something else, too: those eyes were blood red.

“So you’re an albino owl, huh big guy? Good for you. You know, usually albino animals don’t last all that long in the wild. Because they’re really easy for predators and prey to spot. Or they get skin cancer. So congratulations on living to become the voluptuous, tremendously creepy creature that you are today. Job well done.”

The owl stared back at me unflinchingly, blinked, then resumed staring. Rainwater gathered in swelling beads like blood drops on its ivory-colored beak and talons.

“Well,” I noted, turning away and grabbing my shower towel off the back of the desk chair. “You don’t get that in Arizona.”

Thirty minutes later, I was bounding down the stairs two at a time to meet Charlie in the kitchen. He was browsing through his daily newspaper at the table, drinking coffee and nibbling messily on burnt triangles of toast. Crumbs littered his moustache.

“You didn’t tell me that living here came with the added benefit of freaky albino animal friends.”

Charlie crinkled his forehead at me. “Huh?”

“How was bowling with the dads last night?”

“Oh, awesome!” he exclaimed, folding up his newspaper and slapping it down on the table. “We bowled against the team from Mora and it came right down to the wire, but we caught them. Dr. Lee got a strike on his very last turn. He always seems to do that...he’ll be bowling hit or miss all night and then when it really matters he manages to pull a strike out of nowhere. He’s a beast.”

“He’s a pretty remarkable guy,” I agreed, rummaging through the cabinets for Pop-Tarts.

“He mentioned that you and his son were really hitting it off,” Charlie said, grinning. “Not the ragey blond one. The spindly annoying one. What’s his name again? Josh? Jimmy?”

“Joe.” I conjured up my best poker face of lofty indifference. It crumbled like a sandcastle beneath reckless, rushing footsteps.

“Ohhhh, I saw that!” Charlie said, pointing, delighted. “Check out that smile. My gorgeous, brilliant progeny has a crush. I knew it. I knew you wouldn’t be single for long up here. Alright, I’m ready. Bring on the grandchildren.”

“Shut up,” I pleaded good-naturedly.

“Relax, I have great news. According to Gwil, that Joe kid is pretty wild about you too.”

“Oh, is that what you old guys do between bowling turns? Betray your children’s deepest confidences? Matchmake them over nachos and chili cheese dogs?” Still, my curiosity was piqued. “What else did Dr. Lee say about Joe?”

“I think the exact word he used was...” Charlie reminisced, sipping his coffee, curls of steam pouring over the rim of the mug. “Smitten.”

Supernatural Pictionary

I turned the notebook to Joe so he could see; everyone else momentarily covered their eyes or looked away. Then Lucy started the timer on her iPhone. Thirty seconds.

“Go!” Lucy announced.

“I think it’s a boat,” Rami said, hesitantly, haltingly, squinting at Joe with great concentration.

“Do you?” Joe teased.

“Yeah. But I’m also getting something about a fish.”

“Maybe I’m trying to make you think it’s a fish because it’s actually a boat,” Joe replied flippantly.

Rami muttered: “Or you want me to think it’s a boat because it’s actually a fish.”

“Interesting.”

“Now you’re mentally singing Never Gonna Give You Up just to fuck with me.”

Joe gasped, pressing a palm to his chest. “That doesn’t sound like something I would do!”

Scarlett snickered, dunking her chicken tender in honey mustard, slurping Coke through a straw clenched between crimson-painted lips. “That sounds exactly like something you would do.”

“Fifteen seconds,” Lucy warned.

“Fish or boat, boat or fish...” Rami chanted, peering fixedly at Joe.

“Make a decision,” I taunted, hugging the notebook to my chest.

“I’m going with boat,” Rami decided.

“Final answer?” Lucy asked, then stopped the timer when Rami nodded.

“Loser!” Joe cackled victoriously, leaping out of his chair, waving his L-shaped fingers in the air. Calawah University students at nearby tables glanced over with wide, startled eyes, their beloved chicken tenders briefly forgotten. “How’s it feel to not win every round of a game, huh?! Loser!”

I flipped my notebook so Rami could see the extremely unskilled pencil sketch I’d drawn there: a smiling fish. “My condolences.”

“Damn.” Rami pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and slid it across the table to Joe. Joe snatched it up, tucked it into the waistline of his jeans like a stripper collecting money in her G-string, and slung his arm around my shoulders.

“We are the champions. Bask in our glory.”

Scarlett turned on her iPhone flashlight and waved it in slow arcs over her head. “Youuuuu are the champions, my friendssssss...”

From my usual lunch table, Jessica gazed at my esteemed place among the Lees with palpable envy, resting her chin in her hands. I had worked out a schedule that seemed fairly obvious given my extensive experience as a child of divorce: lunch with Jessica et al. one day, lunch with the Lees the next. I took a bite of the Chipotle veggie bowl that Joe had insisted on ordering for me and tossed Jessica a sympathetic wave. Get Ben’s Snapchat for me! she mouthed back. I harbored serious doubts that Benjamin August Hardy, former professional assassin, born in 1893, had a Snapchat.

Joe’s words from last week rolled around in my head; I could see him all over again, nodding to the enormous painting hung in Gwil’s upstairs office, telling me about those startling, ethereal figures who had initiated Ben into life as a vampire. They call themselves the Draghi. They collect dues from covens, offer protection, keep order, protect our secrets. But they also demand loyalty. They force people they want into service. They might try to make it seem like you have a choice, but you don’t. They destroy anyone who tries to resist them. And they feed on humans.

“This is so awesome,” Lucy sighed, elated. “We could never play Pictionary before, drawing something is way too much of a mental process, Rami always figured it out right away...”

But now they had a built-in blindfold, someone who could draw without Rami getting a peek into their thoughts, a fighting chance at hiding the truth from him...for thirty seconds, at least.

“Okay Benny Boy, you’re up.” Joe darted over to Ben’s side of the table and massaged his tense, muscular shoulders as Ben grimaced. “You got this. I believe in you. Baby Swan is gonna pitch you a home run.”

“I’ll pass,” Ben said.

“You can’t!” Lucy cried. “Ben, please? Rami got Scarlett’s, and then he didn’t get Joe’s...and I know he’s going to see though me immediately. You’re our only chance to tie things up and maybe beat him!”

“Traitor,” Rami told Lucy affectionately.

“Uhh...” Ben hesitated, glimpsing longingly at the doors that led outside to the grove of bigleaf maple trees. He was fidgeting restlessly with his vape pen.

“Come on, Benny!” Joe begged. “I’ll owe you. I’ll do anything.”

Ben perked up a little bit. “You’ll do my Calc 2 homework for a month?”

Joe groaned theatrically, but nodded. He was wearing a grey U Chicago hoodie today. “Fine. Okay. But you’re gonna have to learn that shit eventually, I can’t take the MCAT for you.”

“Deal.” Ben bumped his knuckles against Joe’s.

“Batter up,” Joe heralded in his best mock-umpire voice, grinning at me expectantly, drumming the table with his palms. “Go Baby Swan, go! What will she choose? Will she continue with the nautical theme? Will she change it up, maybe switch to beloved Chicago landmarks? Baseball or food? Will she invent a variety of pizza even more despicable than pineapple?”

“Hm.” I flipped to a fresh notebook page, scratched my temple with the eraser end of the pencil, then quickly sketched a picture for Ben. “Okay, I’m ready.” I showed the drawing to Ben while everyone else covered their eyes.

Ben shook his head, scowling. “You’ll have to try again. I have no idea what that is.”

“Really?!” I checked the picture again. Okay, it definitely didn’t belong in the Louvre or anything, but it was lifelike enough to be decipherable. “You don’t recognize it? At all?”

“No,” Ben replied flatly.

From behind his shielded eyes, Rami scanned through the images in Ben’s mind. He dropped his hands onto the table. “SpongeBob?!”

“Who...?” Ben ventured.

Everyone else looked too. “Oh yeah, that’s definitely SpongeBob,” Joe said, then chuckled. “Aww, Baby Swan, you even remembered his little necktie!”

“It’s so cute!” Lucy trilled.

Ben just stared at the picture, blinking, completely lost, increasingly morose. And now there was a new guest at the table; or maybe not a new one, maybe just a quiet one, something that perched on the ledge of every conversation and field of vision just waiting to tap its claws against the wall and make its presence known: that interminable reminder of Ben’s unconventional past life, of how incomparable his vampiric upbringing was to those of the rest of the Lee kids.

“Benny Boy, you’ve never seen SpongeBob?” Joe inquired gently. “No problem. We’ll have a marathon tonight. I have the entire series on DVD. Also several Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy action figures.”

Scarlett snorted. “This is why you’ve been single since Hoover was president.”

“I wasn’t single the whole time,” Joe corrected.

“Oh, really?” Not that I’m interested, my voice suggested. I was a total liar. I was super interested. Thank the great deity that Rami and Ben couldn’t read me like a restaurant menu. Today’s specials are Being In Love With Someone Wildly Inappropriate for $15.99, and also Lamenting My Own Lack Of Sexual Experience for $11.99. Oh, and clam chowder.

“He had a couple of...what would you call them?” Scarlett combed her elegant fingers through her voluminous blonde hair. “What’s the modern vernacular? Fuck buddies? Booty calls? Netflix and chill partners?”

My stomach lurched; I nonchalantly buried my fork in a mountain of guacamole and left it there. I kept my lips turned up into a smile like a mask. Of course he’s loved other people. Duh. He’s hot and immortal. Get over it. But that didn’t calm my pounding heartbeat at all, didn’t soothe that sudden and irrational melancholy.

“Whoa whoa whoa, okay, you’re making it sound way worse than it was,” Joe protested, glancing at me nervously.

Scarlett continued: “It wasn’t serious, whatever it was. None of them would have cared about your action figure collection or obsession with a city you haven’t lived in for fifty years. It wasn’t your personality they wanted. Thank god.”

Oh this is bad, I thought helplessly. How am I ever going to be able to compete with the memory of countless gorgeous vampire girlfriends?

“Uh, ScarJo, you’re single too.” And Joe’s nickname for her was strangely apt; Scarlett could pass for Scarlett Johansson’s younger, blonder, much hotter sister. And Scarlett Johansson, in case you’re somehow unaware, is already pretty fucking hot.

Scarlett flashed a grin. “Entirely by choice.”

“And much to Mercy’s eternal and profound concern,” Lucy told me. “She stages an intervention at least twice a month. Did I overhear one last week, Scarlett?”

“Oh jesus, yeah. I was like, ‘Mom, what the hell do I need a husband for? I have my own money. I can fix household appliances. I have a vibrator. I’m good to go.’”

Joe rocked back in his chair, howling. “You did not tell Mom that!”

“I did. She was so distraught. She just kind of pinched her eyes shut and shuddered and then went out back to feed the alpacas.”

“Scarlett, babe,” Rami managed between gales of laughter. “A vibrator isn’t going to keep you company for all of eternity. It’s not a suitable substitute for a life partner.”

“You’re right. It’s even better. It’ll never abandon or disappoint me. Assuming I keep the batteries fresh, of course.”

“Oh my god,” Lucy giggled into her hands.

“She’s not wrong,” I said, shrugging, sipping my Diet Coke.

And Joe peered over at me, surprised, intrigued, slowly raising his thin dark eyebrows. I winked back. Yeah, okay, I’ve never slept with someone. But that doesn’t mean I’ve never had an orgasm.

“Ah, loud thoughts! Loud thoughts! Joe, please!” Rami moaned, pressing his balled fists to his forehead.

Ben smirked. “There’s a color I’ve never seen from you before, Joe.”

“This family is the worst!” Joe exploded.

“I like that girl,” Scarlett decided, signaling to me with glossy maroon fingernails. “She can stay.”

Joe sighed, flustered, then shook it off as he turned to me. “You coming over tonight?”

“I can’t spend every night at your house petting alpacas, mob guy.”

“Yeah?” he asked, smiling, draping his arm around the back of my chair. “Why not?”

“Well, my tonight-specific reason is that I’m visiting a friend.”

“Cool. Your friends are my friends. Can I visit too?”

“You’re aware that you’re a legit stalker, right?” But actually, Archer was dying to meet Joe: the loud Lee, the approachable Lee, the Lee who I definitely liked more than a Tinder swipe could ever convey. This could work. “Offer to buy dinner and you can come.”

“I’m a walking Visa, baby.”

Ben stood, hauled on his backpack, gathered up his trash to throw away. “I need a smoke break before Chem. See you guys later.”

“Don’t forget!” Joe called after him. “SpongeBob marathon starts at 8! I’ll bring the Milk Duds!”

And when Ben disappeared through the doors, a solemn hush descended over the table.

“Poor guy,” Lucy said softly. The other Lees nodded.

And again, I recalled what Joe had told me in Gwil’s office, what he had said when I asked how Ben came to join the Lee family. He was assigned to us, to be the liaison to our coven. And Gwil saw something in him. Potential, suffering, unrealized decency, I don’t know. But Gwil worked on him for years, trying to convince Ben to leave the Draghi when his contract was up and come live with us. To give a peaceful life a try. And to be honest, Ben never seemed interested. But something must have resonated with him, because we opened the front door on October 15th, 2016 and he was sitting on the steps of our porch with a single suitcase, puffing on that fucking vape pen and watching the storm clouds roll in off the Pacific Ocean.

But why would they just let him leave? I had asked, tracing my fingertips over the uncanny and magnificent faces in that painting. Why would they let him live?

Because they know how valuable he is. And because they think they can get him back.

“I think he’s a good person,” I said, breaking the silence. “You know. Underneath the whole being raised to be a killing machine thing.”

“Yeah,” Rami replied, frowning thoughtfully. “Just try not to spend too much time alone with him.”

Car Jacks And Sneak Attacks

“Joe, this is Archer James Foxchild, my first-ever best friend.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you!” Joe said, shaking Archer’s oil-stained hand. “I understand you are really good at making mud pies and poking dead animals with sticks.”

Archer chuckled. “It’s true. We found a shark tooth down at La Push one time and I convinced Baby Swan here that it was from a sea monster. She had nightmares for months. Charlie called my dad over it and I got my Game Boy taken away.”

“No!” Joe gasped in horror. “Were you a Pokémon guy?”

“For sure.”

“Ruby or Sapphire?”

“Emerald.”

Joe grinned. “This dude knows what’s up.”

“And to think, my grandpa tried to tell me that you guys were freaks,” Archer replied.

“Well,” Joe conceded. “Not all of us.”

“Maybe you two should start dating,” I said. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit in my Honda and eat my Taco Bell cheese quesadillas and Cinnamon Twists and try not to interrupt all the sex.”

“Yes, you brought Taco Bell,” Archer sighed euphorically. “Give me five minutes, I just gotta finish rotating these tires real quick.” He jogged to the other end of the garage, knelt beside a Ford Mustang that was propped up on a jack, and starting twisting off lug nuts with a tire iron.

“You have a nice place here,” Joe observed, strolling around the small garage with his hands in the front pocket of his U Chicago hoodie, eyeing the fractures in the concrete floor and the spidering cracks in the windows. “You have any investors?”

“Are you kidding?!” Archer replied from the Mustang. “No, man, it’s just me. I rent for now, but at some point I’ll buy my own shop. Once I’ve saved up enough. A great big one with shiny new equipment and no mice squeaking behind the walls.”

“What’s your cash flow like?”

“I’m netting around three grand a month after taxes.”

“Not bad!” Joe noted admiringly.

“Yeah. It’s a hustle, but I love it.”

“Hey, I don’t know if you’d be interested—and absolutely no pressure if you’re not, really—but I do a lot of work with start-ups and I’d love to help you get into your own shop. By this Christmas, preferably. If we can work out a deal.”

“Really?!” Archer peeked incredulously over the hood of the Mustang.

“Absolutely.”

Archer beamed at me. “This guy is willing to drop serious cash to look good in front of you. You should probably marry him. No prenup though.”

I held my pinky out towards Joe, grinning. “No more sad prenups.”

He laughed and hooked my pinky with his. “Bankrupt me, bitch.”

I heard the metallic clang of a lug nut hitting the concrete floor and rolling under the Mustang. “Come back here, you bastard,” Archer muttered, then dropped to his stomach and crawled beneath the car.

“Hey, kid, be careful,” I fretted, crossing my arms across my chest and taking a step closer.

“Relax, Baby Swan, I am a professional, changing a tire for me is like feeding a fish for you, so just chill and keep fantasizing about those Cinnamon Twists—”

There was a squeal of metal as the car jack collapsed and the Mustang came crashing down. In a fraction of a second—faster than I could see him moving, faster than I could loose a scream—Joe had soared across the garage, yanked Archer out from beneath the falling Mustang, and dragged him to the center of the room.

“Oh fuck,” Archer wheezed, his dark eyes huge and fascinated and horrified. “Grandpa was right.”

I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)

We rolled up to the Lee house in my 1999 Honda Accord just as I polished off the last of my Cinnamon Twists and Archer chewed, tentatively and dazedly, on a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. The sun was beginning to set in a clouded sky that perpetually threatened rain.

He asked Joe for the fifth time from the back seat: “But wait, seriously, no one is going to eat me, right? Because I’m too young to die. I haven’t taken enough vacations yet. I can’t die without seeing Hawaii. I want to swim with the sea turtles.”

“No, none of us have ever eaten people. Well, almost none of us. Maybe stay away from Ben.”

“I would like a little more exposition,” Archer replied, blanching.

“Hey, if you stay until 8, you guys can join us for the SpongeBob marathon!”

Gwil and Mercy were waiting on the front porch, thanks to Joe’s ‘hey I accidentally exposed myself as a paranormal being and now we have a new friend, plz don’t be mad okay love you see you soon!1!!’ text.

“Welcome, sweetheart!” Mercy fussed, enfolding Archer into her arms as soon as he stepped out of the Honda. “Would you like some hummingbird cake? I just baked it this morning. And maybe some sweet tea too. And some peanut butter cookies. And banana pudding.”

“Sure,” he responded, bewildered. This lady does not seem like a bloodsucking demon, that voice said. And he was absolutely right.

“I’ll fix you up a tray,” Mercy promised, and hurried into the house.

“We’re so very happy to have you, Mr. Foxchild.” Gwil shook Archer’s hand firmly. “We don’t get many visitors around here. I’m sure you understand why.”

“My grandpa always insisted that there was something off about you guys. Especially you, Dr. Lee. Said you shouldn’t still be around.”

“Yes, I imagine that would have been disconcerting for him. He must have remembered us from the 1940s...that’s the last time we settled down in Forks. It’s not often that someone recognizes us after so long, but it happens. It was just Mercy and me and Rami and Joe back then. And look how far we’ve come.” Gwil beamed warmly, then turned to Joe. “But really, son, you’re going to have to stop telling humans about us.”

“Hold up, I was not responsible for her!” Joe exclaimed, waving at me. “Take it up with Ben!”

The garage door rumbled open and Scarlett sauntered out, wiping her filthy hands with a rag. She halted abruptly, stood there in her high-waisted vintage jeans and black crop top and bare feet with maroon-colored toenails, tilted her head and pondered Archer with an innocent sort of curiosity that I hadn’t seen from her before.

“Wait,” Archer said, gaping. “Is that...is that an Aston Martin Vantage in there?!”

“You bet,” Scarlett replied. “You want to learn how to work on it?”

“Uh, hell to the yeah!” He trotted over and they vanished into the garage together.

“Huh,” Joe muttered, watching them. “She was nice to him. Very weird.” He whirled back to me. “Anyway, come on. I promised you an education in classic rock music. And I shall deliver.”

Joe’s bedroom was a chaotic jumble of economics textbooks and Chicago Cubs paraphernalia and U Chicago apparel and action figures and comic books and classic rock posters. There was a massive Italian flag tacked to the wall above his bed. But what caught my attention immediately was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Ben lurking in the corner by a bookshelf full of cassette tapes.

“How is there any possible logical explanation for that?” I asked, pointing.

“Oh, that! That was a joke. When Ben first showed up, he pretty much lived in his room and never came out. Gwil was worried. Mercy was heartbroken. So I made a cardboard cutout of him and would bring it to family activities and do this really deep and seductive Ben voice when I pretended to have conversations with him. It gave the whole situation some levity...and I think Ben secretly liked that we missed him enough to make an artificial version to fill the void.”

“So this bitchy, brooding, blood-craving Ben I met is actually a drastic improvement?”

“Oh, Baby Swan,” Joe confided, almost sadly. “You have no idea what he was like four years ago.”

“I’m glad he has you. All of you. That he has a chance to get better.”

“I think you might be good for him too. Seeing a human as a real person instead of a walking, talking Hi-C juice box. And you care about him, don’t you? Despite everything.”

“Of course. It’s not his fault they taught him to be a monster.”

Joe just looked at me for a while, and then he cradled my face with one hand and grazed a thumb across my cheek “You’re never going to stop saying things that knock me into next week, are you?”

“Joe...” I hesitated, laying my hand over his. His skin was smooth and yielding yet strong, cool yet not unnaturally so. Refreshing. Safe. Fan-fucking-tastic. Oh noooooo. “Are we a thing?”

“Why? Do you want to be a thing?”

“Oh, uh, no, I was just wondering if we were.”

He stepped away, teasing me with a crooked smirk. “...So you don’t want to be a thing?”

“What would that entail?”

“Well...we’d be an official thing, you and me.” He shot finger guns at me, and then towards himself. “Which means you can’t be a thing with anyone else. And neither can I.”

“Ahhh, I see. So this thing is an exclusive thing.”

“Will you shut up and just admit that you’d totally be thrilled to be a thing with me?”

“Fine. Whatever. We’re a thing.”

“Nice.” He high-fived me.

“This is the most romantic moment of my life.”

“But wait, there’s more.” He went to the bookshelf, browsed through his cassette tape collection, found the one he wanted and popped it into a boombox that was probably older than I was. The frantic opening piano notes of I’d Do Anything For Love poured out.

“Meat Loaf,” I said in disbelief. “Really. This is the product of your superior taste in music. This is the culmination of over a century of musical experience. Meat Loaf.”

“The man is a genius!”

“This is all an elaborate joke about my vegetarianism, isn’t it?”

“No,” Joe mused. “But now that you mention it, I have yet another reason to force you to appreciate this song.” He took my hand in his, spun me around like a ballerina in a slow and careful circle, sang along—with extreme and dramatic enthusiasm—to the music.

“And I would do anything for love

I'd run right into hell and back

I would do anything for love

I'd never lie to you and that's a fact...”

“I don’t dance,” I cautioned him, laying a palm against his chest to catch my balance. That brisk, comforting scent of pine and snow and peppermint was everywhere. It feels like I can’t stand to be away from him. Like I’ll never get close enough. “I am terribly uncoordinated. I will step all over your feet. And I’m really not sure if I can trust you. You didn’t even know the plural form of octopus until like eighteen hours ago. You’re kind of a disaster. A, you know, uh, unexpectedly charming, unconventionally super cute, kind of bizarrely enchanting disaster.”

“Yeah,” Joe whispered, smiling, tilting up my chin, leaning in to kiss me. “I like you too.”

Cato

He came out of the oak trees like a ghost, pushing aside massive chandeliers of Spanish moss that blotted out the dusk sun, his expensive shoes sloshing in the marshy water that flooded the rice field. He was wearing a full suit, but no top hat; his hair was black and chin-length and wild around his face. And at first I thought he was a hallucination, a dream conjured by heat sickness or those first dreaded signs of malaria. He was unnervingly, uncommonly beautiful; beautiful like a hurricane, beautiful like lightning or an eclipse. But he was real. I straightened up as I watched him approach, my back aching in protest, a basket full of seedlings slung over my shoulder.

“Mr. Cato.”

His voice, clear and beckoning and twisted by an accent I’d never heard before, rang in my skull like church bells. He called me mister. This white man called me mister.

“Yes sir?” And I almost added: You want to be careful there, sir. The water moccasins like to hide among the tree roots, especially when the sun starts going down. But I had an inexplicable feeling that this man wasn’t afraid of things like snakes. Maybe the snakes should be afraid of him.

“Mr. Cato,” he said again, this time to himself, very quietly, tasting it.

I kept trying to look away, to disentangle my gaze from him like a hook out of a sturgeon’s mouth, because staring piercingly and astonished at a white man like that in the rice swamps of South Carolina in 1851 could get me beaten or the lash, could get my teeth pried right out of my jaw. But it didn’t seem to bother him. He grinned, hugely, all-knowingly, under prehistoric golden eyes like an alligator’s. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. And he was proud.

“Do you want to be free?” he asked, almost hissed, still grinning from the tree line.

What kind of question was that? Did a sandpiper want to fly? Did a coyote want dirt under its paws and flesh disappearing down its throat? But that wasn’t something you ever confessed aloud, not if you wanted your feet on the ground instead of swinging ten inches above it. But this man wasn’t a master, wasn’t an overseer. He wasn’t from the South. He didn’t carry a whip or a club to remind you of the rules of the world. He stood there tall and radiant in the shadows of the fading daylight like he was the one who wrote the rules to begin with; which meant that maybe he could change them. “Yes sir.”

“I can only take you,” the man warned. “No others. No family. No friends.”

“No trouble, sir,” I told him. “They sold my family. They hanged my friends.”

The man’s grin stretched wider under glinting eyes. His canine teeth were sharp, I realized: like a coyote’s, like a snake’s fangs. He held out his hand. “We are going to get along very well, you and I.”

I let the basket fall from my shoulder. I slogged through the mud and rows of wispy verdant rice plants to meet him in the shade of the oak trees. And there, for the first time in forever, a man with skin the color of bones looked me dead in the eye and shook my scarred hand.

“Welcome, Cato,” he whispered; and I was home.

He took my face in his cool palms, gingerly, reverently, like a lover. He touched his teeth to my throat. And every nerve ending in my body flooded with wildfire as he dragged me, screaming, into the depths of the forest.

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sickassastrology · 3 years ago

Text

What made you different? 🥸

This is a general reading for the collective. This read is about your person you have in mind. Remember that because it is general it will not resonate with everyone. So take what sticks. Your free to choose whatever pile you feel. Heck, there could be little messages in all the piles. Time is fluid and we all have free will. So things can play out at anytime or maybe not at all. Follow your heart always. -E 💙🌻

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pile 1 🍒🍒🍒

Greetings pile 1, the classy crew with the rider Waite deck. let's get into it. I'm getting whoever this was misused you when they had you. I heard the line from Jackson 5 I want you back. when I had you to myself i didn't want you around, those pretty faces always made you stand out in the crowd". With this group I'm feeling like what made you different to this person was that you had it going on. you had a lot going for yourself. and you didn't share that with just anyone. your riches. your glory. whether it was your body, money, time, energy. whatever the case was...you were selective in who you gave to. you are an attractive energy and human pile 1. and you know it too. 😜 confident. I'm getting the energy of I have a lot going for me, and I'm not going to just be out in these streets. my money is good, I look good, I feel good. It took a lot for you to get there and so you won't share that with anyone & everyone. and then....you gave it to this person and decided to act a fool, right? lol isn't it always like that. this person saw you as being able to take care of yourself, even when it was a lot. im getting heavily that some of yall have family members or siblings (big on the siblings) that you take care of. you are the parental figure to them. you had a lot of responsibilities, and yet you were still like a breathe of fresh air. you still knew how to smile. mature. you always smiled in the mist of sadness. and you meant it too, like it wasn't just a mask. it was like "I still have something to smile about in life. my flowers still grow. there's happiness all around me." you still knew how to give to this person. managing the connection even with your own stuff going on. and they admired that about you. when things got tough you remained calm. never too out of control. you handled each situation how it came and for what it was. although you told this person about your life, you NEVER made it burdensome to them. like that's my life, but we are separate from that. and this person was acting stupid. I see a few of yall into the occult too. and that definitely makes you different, doesnt it lol. but you don't mind it and didn't hide it because it's who you are. when you saw there was sneaky behavior going on, you left. you used your intuition to guide you. and now, this person does have a lot to give and will give it but if I screw them over they will bounce out. you are not the one to do an unfair relationship. I'm seeing this person got caught cheating on their phone. like you saw some hidden text messages. I also heard "nude" like nude photos you found. this person was doing too much. and you were like no it's not fair. and it was like they didn't care. they were only sorry they got caught. they see you are strong, know who you are, know your worth, and you won't bow down to anyone. and that's on purrrr! it hurts you, but you know your special and you are a gift to somebody out there. so if you have to leave, then bye. you'll see why I'm special later on. and this hurts but you know how to keep pushing forward. and your person is just like, omg how are they doing this, how are they still okay!? pile 1, your energy is so beautiful 😍. its very tranquil. and im not saying that you never get upset or anything like that but there is a peace about you. like it didn't work out. okay, cool. I'll just keep working on my life, taking care of me and mine. and best of luck to them, ya know? I see you did love them, like them a lot. but that's the way the cookie crumbles. and tbh, pile 1 I feel you'll be better off without this person anyway. like you'll be happier being a lone, find somebody else, or just keep taking care of business. so many blessings to you all, you deserve wonderful things. ❤

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PILE 2 🥠🥠🥠

Hi pile 2, so while I was shuffling I heard likeable. so your very easygoing and charming im getting. this pile is nurturing, motherly. I get the energy of "ill lick your wounds for you so you don't have to". Ouuuu a healer. I see. (make sure that people don't try to get over on you, because they will try it)! You are a kind person. I'm getting friendly to everyone around. This pile is let's make love, not war. You don't like to agrue much. This person could have been a fireball and you just put their fire ALLLL the way out lol. I feel like some of yall worked with this person or around them. and there would be competition around you, and they would try so hard to get your persons attention. like look at me!! trying real hard. and then there you were like " I'm just here, doing me". you weren't trying to stand out. and they looked right at your ass too. 😂😂 Pile 2, you are almost too loving for your own good, aren't cha. 🥰 you love life. you showed this person a different way of living, like just go with the flow. but you weren't reckless. if you did go out or drink. I'm feeling like a festival or winery type. you showed this person that life is fun. you are a true free spirit. you don't let a lot of life's qualms bother you. this group is very natural. humanitarian. I heard the word garden. this pile is the type that give to the less fortunate. I'm seeing a person on the street and like you'll give them money, food, or whatever it is with no second thought. very "here you are. be blessed". and this person was in awe of that type of generosity. because this world doesn't have people like that. you weren't doing it for attention. you are a G-I-V-E-R. Tbh, with this pile I'm really feeling like you have a gift to help people, but I'm not sure that you even know that yet. you think that's just how you are. but i see you really doing things with the community. know your purpose you all, because its so important. you are balanced. Yes you are such a giving person. BUT you will hold back IF needed. you know when to hold em & fold em. that's you. you just don't have to try hard. I'm getting your person wears a mask to fit in. you do nothing, you can get somebody's attention without doing much of anything really. you love life and you give life into others. into earth. the seas. skies. heavens. whatever it is, you give life to it. this pile is an empress. very divine feminine. *(remember tarot have NO gender, it is only energy)* you'd make a good parent if you had children. *as I said that, I heard I don't want kids but I have fur babies*. 😂 okay so you take care of your pets as your little babies. we love them too. 🐾🐾 this group wishes good on other people. as I was pulling your oracle. the card purpose slips right from my hands. and it reads. purpose: I know what I am here to do. didn't I say this group fits in to a bigger picture. find the reason you are on this earth, do not waste another minute because you will feed so much life into other people. earth angels. 🥰 beautiful. pride: I love myself and see myself in everyone. and gratitude: I am thankful for life and the opportunity it presents. come through pile 2! confirmation again. I just said you love the life you live. the pride you have is almost humble. it's like you like yourself. the good. bad. ugly. and there's no better way to be. and that's why they like you! heck, I like you 😂 so awesome. let your light shine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PILE 3 🥦🥦🥦

Pile 3, whatsup!? How are yall feeling? So right off. This is more about your mindset pile 3. your intellect. this person valued your decision making. you moved very carefully when it came to other people. they would come to you and ask about somebody. and you could look and examine and tell if that person was okay or had some type of ill intent. umm....intuitive much? you are a very wise person. you listen a lot to your gut, even if you have to sleep on it. your going to go with what you feel. you knew how to get work done but you still made time for the connection too. I'm getting that some of you have an important job or school that takes up time BUT you knew when to be silly and take breaks too. I'm feeling like you and this person had really goody times together. snapchat filters and silly faces 🤪😂. you are a very determined person. when things get hard or you fail. you never stop trying until you succeed. but you pace yourself, never tire yourself out. sheer determination from yall. love it. there's a lot of power in that. this group loves gathering information. reading. tv. listening. however you gained it, you shared it with your person and other people. a teacher. you actually made this person become better when you spoke to them. it challenged them. you also had a quirkiness about you. I'm getting you had hidden talents about yourself that were really random 😂. but your person loved it. you all pulled the empathy card. it reads: I am open to seeing both sides of the situation. again yall, you really know how to read people. use this to your advantage and get in touch with yourself. Tbh, if you tap in...you can sense auras. if you can't already! 💫🔮

********************************************************

I have to say, every single one of you are special. each of these piles possess such unique abilities and talents. bless you all. not to say your perfect by any means. but beautiful works in progress. so whether or not these connections work out or your person comes back. you matter. you don't need to change what beauty inside yourself. keep growing. keep challenging yourself. don't compromise. your worth it. so climb to the highest mountain top and scream. "I AM WHO I AM. I AM WORTHY. AND BEAUTIFULLLLL". bless. -E 💙🌻

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skeletaldarling · 5 years ago

Text

Chase The Fire Away Chapter 3

The Witch’s Corner

AO3

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Summary: Patton gets too lose to seeing something he’s not supposed to see... and Remus and Logan work in the same bookshop!

Ship: Lomile, mentioned Sleepxiety, mentioned Roceit

Word Count: 1423

Warnings: Dark sides, Remus “Duke”, mentioned Deceit, swearing, blood, blood drinking, witches, vampires

Patton giggled at his phone screen. He was sprawled out on his bed, messaging Remus.

The Duke: Im not saying id fuck any werewolf I met

The Duke: Im just saying that its definitely rlly hot

Pancake: Werewolves tho?

Pancake: Not something cool, like a witch?

The Duke: UM RUDE!?!

The Duke: ARE YOU SAYING WEREWOLVES ARENT COOL?

Patton was smiling so much his cheeks were nearly aching. It was so easy with Remus, everything just felt so right and natural when they were talking.

The Duke: Actually id probably fuck a witch tbh

The Duke: As long as they had the hat

Pancake: Right, obvs they need the hat to be a witch

The Duke: Exactly!!

The Duke: Oh shit gtg

The Duke: Ttyl byeeeeee

Pancake: Byeeee

Patton tossed his phone down on the bed and flopped back onto his pillows with a happy sigh. He looked out the window at the tree and couldn’t help but feel like all those flowers hadn’t been there yesterday. Or this morning. Patton squeezed his eyes shut. He was definitely imagining it. He sat up again and jumped to his feet. Maybe Emile was making lunch.

When Patton got downstairs he could hear his dads in the kitchen.

“You can keep going, honey. I feel fine.” Emile said.

Patton could hear someone make a small inhaling sound, liking they’d been holding their breath before the tap started running.

“Lo?” Emile asked. “What are you do- shit.”

Patton reached the kitchen doorway and paused as he saw Logan hunched over the sink, coughing and spitting. Emile moved to block him from Patton’s view. “Hey, pumpkin!” he chirped. “Whatcha up to?”

Patton blinked. Emile’s cheeks were pink and he looked uncomfortable. “Um. Do you want some lunch?” he asked.

Patton looked at Logan. “Is Pa okay?”

Emile rubbed his husband’s shoulder. “Papa’s fine. He just, um, ate too fast.”

Patton furrowed his brows. That seemed like a blatant lie. “But-”

Logan coughed once more, louder, and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Dad’s right. I’m fine, Patton.” He rinsed the sink out and stood up straight again, he adjusted his glasses. “I could make us some omelets for lunch?”

Patton still seemed unsure but Logan pushed past it and opened the fridge. “Who wants to help?”

Emile grabbed a frying pan. “Pat, sweetpea, grab the glass bowl please?”

Patton hesitated before taking a deep breath. He was just being stupid. Papa’s fine. He reached up to get the glass bowl and handed it to Emile. They wouldn’t lie to him.

And there’s no way it was actually blood in the sink.

+++

“He almost saw you feeding!” Emile paced back and forth, chewing on his thumbnail. “Oh my goodness. What if he had walked in? He knows something’s wrong. He’s a smart kid, Lo. He’ll figure it out and he’ll be so hurt that we didn’t tell him!”

Logan sighed from the couch, his head in his hands. “Emi, please. Just calm down.”

“I can’t be calm! Patton trusts us now, and we’re keeping this from him. How is that fair?”

“Em, dear, we’re keeping this from him to protect him-”

“No, what does that even mean!? He’s not protected, he’s just a kid who doesn’t even know who his dads really are.”

“Emile.” Logan finally stood up and stepped in front of Emile’s pacing route, making Emile flinch at his vampire’s speed.

Logan took Emile’s hands and set them on his shoulders. He gently took Emile’s hips and tugged him closer. “It’s okay, kitten,” he whispered.

Emile shuddered as the tears that had been building finally spilled over. “I’m just so worried for him.” He buried his face in Logan’s neck.

The vampire rubbed his back. “I know you are.” He threaded his fingers through Emile’s hair and kept running his hand up and down his husband’s spine. “It’s okay.”

Emile cried. “I want to tell him.”

“Shhh, I know.” Logan kissed his head. “I know. We will. We can do it soon. We’ll do it soon, I promise.” He swooped down to pick Emile up, cradling him close to his chest. “Let’s get some sleep now, okay? It’s late.”

Emile sniffed and scrubbed his eyes. “Okay,” he whispered hoarsely.

Logan kissed his forehead and carried him up the stairs, smiling at his husband’s halfhearted protests.

“I can walk!” He insisted, keeping his voice low enough to not wake Patton.

“I’m sure you could, kitten, but why walk when you could have your vampire husband carry you?”

Emile kissed him as he was set down on their bed. “I love you heaps.”

“I love you heaps too, Emi.” Logan assured him. “Go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

+++

Logan hurried into The Witch’s Corner, his arms full of pastry bags and coffee cups. He sped straight to the counter and set everything down. He took a sip from his own reusable takeout cup as he grabbed his boss’s one. He took a second to admire the hand painted designs that were splashed across the cup, Dee’s work. Logan zipped to the back of the shop where Roman was organising a shelf of herb-filled jars.

“Your tea,” he said.

Roman glanced up. “Oh, thank you.” He took the cup gratefully.

“There’s donuts and biscuits on the counter.”

Roman hummed. “And how’s my son? Still obsessing over his wedding binders?”

“Remy was working at the counter when I got there. Virgil was serving all the customers and they both seemed incredibly annoyed with a florist.”

Roman chuckled. “Sounds like them.”

Logan leaned against the shelves and noticed a painting on the wall. “That’s new. One of Dee’s, right?”

Roman glanced over at the canvas Logan was referring to. It was a painting of two black cats, running through a forest, being followed by a colourful, sparkly mist. The witch smiled. “Yes. Dee made it the other day.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is.” Roman sipped his tea and straightened a crystal cluster on a bookcase.

They were interrupted by the bookshop’s door opening with a dainty little bell chime. “Hi, Roman!”

Roman smiled and headed out to the front. “Hey, kid.”

Remus bounced over to the counter. “Can I do something cool today?”

Logan walked over to them and sat down behind the counter. “Cool?”

“I wanna do witchcraft!” declared Remus. “Like you, Roman!”

“Roman’s not a witch,” dismissed Logan instinctively, shooting the older witch a tired look. “Stop feeding him your crazy voodoo lies.” he smirked.

Remus lit up. “I want to learn crazy voodoo!”

Roman laughed. “Alright. Maybe later, kid.” He pulled a donut from the brown paper bag. “But for now, you can redo the window display into something cool.”

Remus grinned. That was his favourite task. “Any theme?”

“Well it’s currently centred around dreamcatchers… so I’d say to switch it up we should go with the whole ‘skulls and crystals’ vibe.” Roman teased, smiling at the kid’s enthusiasm.

Remus was wiggling with anticipation. “YES!” He scampered off to collect various bits and bobs from around the little shop, switching things around and taking all the feathery hoops down from the window.

Logan shook his head fondly and pulled his book out from under the counter, it was a dusty old thing full of detailed sketches and smudgy faded scrawlings about ancient lore and myths. It took up a solid half of the counter but Logan loved it too much to stop reading through the old beliefs and occasionally jotting quotes down in his journal to do further research later.

The witch took his donut back to the furthest corner of the shop to finish filing away some new books. Roman finished just in time for Remus to pop back and say goodbye.

Roman waved him off and flipped the door’s sign to read ‘closed’. Logan was packing away his books. “Anything else you want done before I take off?”

“No, everything’s perfect. Go home, Logan. Give Emile a hug for me.”

“Of course.” Logan smiled and turned the door handle. “And stop telling that kid you’re a witch. We don’t need anyone else to know our secrets.”

“Oh come on. Remus is a good kid. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of magic.”

“Maybe in your case,” said Logan, his smile saddening slightly.

Roman rolled his eyes. “You’re not any form of bad or evil, Logan. You’re just as mystical as the rest of us and the sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be.”

Logan inhaled deeply and looked to Roman once more. “Goodnight, Roman.”

“Goodnight.”

Taglist:

@sander-sideblog

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bigbrothernetflix-st · 4 years ago

Text

EPISODE THREE

“this was literally one of the worst decisions i've ever had to make so now i'm just kinda pissed off!” - nash

HOH: Nash UPSIDE DOWN: Joey & Saira NOMINEES: Brianna & Gina POV: Jacob FINAL NOMINEES: Emma & Gina EVICTED: Gina (11-1), Jake (WALK)

ARIA

https://youtu.be/SyHPQkbxxw8

JOEY

WATCH THIS AGE LIKE MILK:

I feel great!!!!! Nash winning means my ass aint going up, I gave her 2 tokens, and she gave me 1, and I feel fantastic heading into this week

SAIRA

i feel okay about nash being hoh, she wasn't my first choice but i don't think im in any danger of being nominated (hopefully haha) im not sure who i WOULD want to be nominated, i just know who i wouldn't want, so as long as they're okay i'm good!

JEV

I'm once again feeling pretty good this week. I've grown pretty close to Nash since nominating her in week 1 and she told me and Nathan we aren't going up so, there's that! She's told me Gina is going up and will be her target which I'm not thrilled about but hopefully Gina can pull some miracle and win POV. I'm a little worried about Emma and Jake too, as they've both said they haven't spoken to her much which is dumb, bc like hello??? its week 3, i feel esp with Jake, I can understand Emma bc Nash keeps leaving her on read but I don't think Jake has even tried much (crying emoji) So hopefully they can ALSO pull something out

JAKE

FUCK MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i hate everyone in this game t b h. why can't people just follow with a plan and go through with it like it aint that hard to put your chips on one person from your alliance so youre all safe like........ i dont think these ppl understand strategy and it's TIRING. i frankly am over people relying on their friendships to get themselves through another week bc fucking nash won an alliance-based hoh comp. now we have to deal w this fucking friend group running the house another week. i don't know if i'm safe i'm honestly probably going to be put up??? even tho nash is the one that CONSTANTLY ignores my PMs even tho ive given her paragraphs to respond to... she's gonna do whatever her little friends want her to do. i mean that's what she literally said to me. i was like pls don't nom me <3 and she was like "im not making any promises im just doing whatever the house wants me to do" like girl............ lkjghklsdfjhg what kind of dumbass bullshit response was that. just tell me you're putting me up or you're not. youre a big girl you can make your own fucking decisions.

i give nash what i would give any hoh if they won and that is "i'd never ever nominate you it's never even crossed my mind" and hoping that's enough to make her wanna keep me. she might think im not going after her but, if she's smart, she'll send me out the door this week before i can retaliate.

im super super worried that jacob will be like oh jev n jake aligned in BBHOS9 u should put them up together since jev nominated you week 1. like i feel like she'd do ANYTHING jacob tells her at this point cuz shes just another one of his sheep so like hoping im good w jacob but he's such a wildcard idfk

at this point im just hoping me or emma don't get put up and if we do there will be a veto to be won and a nash/jacob to come after next so...... period

ARIA

yall i feel so fucking cracked and tired of everything but itS FINE!!! I got this easy peasy!! Im not going to always feel motivated but im doing my best and thats valid baby!!! So lets jump in, first off lets start with a random information dump of things i've collected

-jacob has talked about me w/ nicholas during pasio

-monty and jacob have a connection ( i dont even remember how)

-nathan nash (maybe jacob) obviously tight lmao

-joey monty close

-Jake made a counter alliance to Jacob's (actually joshes) alliance made of me gina saira emma and josh

-josh emma me alliance

-JOEY RECORDS CALLS

-Jake is wary of nathan (but also thinks hes cute ugh)

-told jake im wary of pasio peeps so he might nom them

-Jacob alliance STILL isnt created

-called with josh and told him that jacob is wary that the alliance isnt made yet

-jacob josh have a pregame

-told josh, saira and nick have a pregame

-josh kiki close

-josh thinks saira is a social threat

-josh prefers jev over nathan

-told monty to talk to jake more

-told joshua jacob is the most connected person

-got back to nash gina doesnt like her

-jacob kiki nash confirmed trio alliance

-nash told jev gina is the target (jev then told jake)

-josh thought jacob was the original maker of the alliance

-jake thinks jacob/josh are snakes

-jake also thinks jacob-josh-nash-kiki-bri-nick-nathan are an alliance

-josh wants to play the middle w/ me :uwu:

So from here I want to get into how my ideal week will go and how it will realistically go. IDEALLY Nash noms jev and josh with them not winning veto and the house gets rid of a utr social threat but realistically its gonne be gina and jake with gina going bc she doesnt talk to anyone of have any motivation for this game (I LITERALLY WROTE HER A PARAGRAPH TO SEND TO NASH TO NOT BE NOMINATED AND SHE GOES "hmm idk maybe ill send it" LIKE????)

Okay the other thing im freaking out about is bc i feel like theres tension between me Jacob Josh and Jake and im not sure what it is about. I mean i kinda do but im missing key components. The whole situation just doesn't sit right with me at all and I feel very at odds with them in a weird kinda way. I've explained this so many times but i have such a bad feeling that josh leaked the janelle alliance to jacob and is more with him than me and now josh is setting these two sides against each other and i just heard from him that nash isnt nomming him so now im really uncomfy ughhhh i have such a bad feeling and i really need to work on people like jev saira monty to make sure i have people behind me i can fall back on, but also im getting the vibe jake really really trusts me which is great because i want to go far with him as well, unless hes just misting me SUPER hard ughhh

god i just have such a bad feeling about this week buts its fINE totally fine ill work it out eventually,,,but now its trust ranking time yay

1.Gina (youre so inactive i adore you!)

2.Joshua (kid GANG!!! thank you for trusting me sometimes <3)

3.Jake (hes a crackhead but hes my crackhead)

VERY BIG GAP

4.Emma (shes chilling what a lovely gal)

5.Monty (better inactive than be active and a threat)

6.Nathan (youre kinda sketchy but hes like a funky older brother)

7.Josh (youre at the center of a balancing act i wonder if u can keep it up)

8.Nick (they always give such an honest vibe,,,,,i dont trust it)

9.Brianna (shes so sweet but the sweetest angels make the fiercest demons)

10.Jev(,,,,your on slightly thicker ice than joey but combined with a little more charisma)

ANOTHER GAP WOOT WOOT

11.Joey (youre on THIN fucking ice buddy,,,,please be more open w/ me)

12.Saira (im begging for u to talk game to me,,, but also since we havent talked u cant snake me yet)

13. Jacob (idk ily sm but youre so fcking connected and idk if i reached ur inner circle yet)

14. Kiki (my favorite furry)

15.Nash (please talk to me im begging ill do anything please plsease plaease plae-)

So update ive been talking around and wow this game loves looking at my allies and kicking them in the kneecaps while spitting in their eyes ugh. So nash is probably leaning towards nomming jake and Gina with gina as the target (really weird that jake is nommed makes me think jacob had some influence there) but in that scenario best case is that veto is used and anyone but josh goes up and that person leaves easy fucking peasy!! Anyway i just talked with josh and apparently jacob was the one who came up with the alliance idea which is interesting bc he tried to pin it on josh. Anyways not to totally contradict my initial rant but me and josh had a really good chat where we're kinda in the same position between two groups (the og alliance and janelle) and we dont know if we should make the og alliance and with who bc of janelle so we're struggling to see whats the correct move from here....or maybe josh is completely misting me but i fucking hope not ugh- either way im surviving this week and thats that!!

JEV

I'm realising that I'm getting myself into a pretty tight position since I have firm alliances with Emma & Jake and Nash & Nathan, as well as being extremely close to Josh C, which could prove difficult for me down the line, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

KIKI

https://youtu.be/6cn8xUFWqhA

BRIANNA

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvZzg3dTEZ89VeFbG3bxk4JFNtr7Ixm0/view?usp=sharing

i had to use google drive bc it wouldn't take my file on youtube :((((

JEV

So right now I've somehow accidentally wriggled my way into conspiring with Nash on how best to take Gina out, which is so dumb of me because I don't really want to see Gina leave this week, but at the same time I'm having to fight Nash's decision because she wants to put Emma up beside her and... I can't let that happen because I'm worried Emma would leave over Gina

JEV

So I'm speaking to Nash, taking the heat off of Emma by telling her I feel she could be a number for me/her/Nathan down the line, and now I'm pushing for Brianna to go up since Nash wants someone who 100% wouldn't leave over Gina and I'm thinking like... WHO would vote to evict Brianna, but at the same time I'm feeling super terrible about it because Brianna is a literal angel

JEV

Wow a lot going on so I'm trying to update as best I can, Nash is saying she's going to randomise for who goes to the upside down so I'm having to encourage her not to include me or Nathan in the randomisation just incase she needs us for strategising but REALLY its so I can stay and hang around and try my best to keep Emma from touching the block at all this week.

NASH

sorry for nominating women i didnt mean it.

EMMA

If i am being honest the more this game goes by i get so unmotivated and its only week 3 i suck because well in bbgames like galar and almia i mostly played from the bottom now im like alright i kinda want to fuck up my game for fun but kinda pisses me off a bit that i almost could of been nominated if it wasnt for jev but that pisses me off so much i tried talking to nash but i get left on read i dont take things 100x personal unless if somebody is being mean like laughing etc but knowing that i would be on the block over brianna when i did try talking to nash its still hurts a little but if somebody like gina wins veto if i get on the block it issss what it isss i guess but i played on the bottom way to many times maybe i can do this??

JEV

So my efforts worked and Brianna went up instead of Emma, now I've just gotta hope neither of the noms win POV/that the POV isn't used so I don't have to throw someone elses name out there to Nash :flushed:

JOSH

hello ladies and gays. straights aren't welcome here.

today, we are feeling GOOD because the person we nominated just a few days ago won power and STILL didn't nominate me. is that iconnery or what? i was honestly ready for my ass to be TOAST but i did approach nash before they won HOH and had a conversation about where we stood and they said i would be OKAY this week bc we did start talking. we love to see it, yes we do!

the nominees this week are gina and brianna and.. even though i'm in two different alliances with both of them, i'm not mad at either of them going up. i don't REALLY talk with either and i'd be happy to see either one of them go. the tricky part will be figuring out WHO to vote when the time comes, but we have a POV to happen before we get there. we'll SEE.

if i had to choose, i'd probably send brianna home simply because i find her a bit CHAOTIC where i feel like gina isn't really going to cause a lot of waves with me. she's much more quiet whereas brianna is more likely to be able to pick herself back up.

some other fun events going on:

jake was NOT happy about nash winning and thought he was going to get nominated because of it. he was about to RIP nash a new one and is really brewing with how much he hates them. MAKES ME LAUGH A LIL BECAUSE IT WAS SO UNWARRANTED BUT NEVERTHELESS, it's something to note that jake does NOT like nash.

i think aria is my number one right now bc we get along really well and have very similar opinions. i'm really open with how i talk to her so i'm HOPING she's not spilling everything i say to someone else but i don't think she WOULD? i dunno. i love her energy and i'm hoping we can SLICE AND DICE together in the middle.

my strategy is to take my HOH under my belt and take a step back for a minute while my two alliances (one: jake, aria, gina, emma, saira, me & two: jacob, aria, brianna, kiki, me) get picked off back and forth. i'm going to see if i can craft a narrative for them to go after each other but we'll SEE. there are a lot of people in the middle i enjoy a lot more than some of the people in my alliances so IDK. i feel like some people got thrown into these alliances that i did NOT want but they were kind of forced in so i don't trust it. and i think people KNOW because i'm not very chatty abt it in the chats (and i haven't even made one of the chats. am i supposed to? idk)

anyways that's all for now x

ARIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp71zzR-wgE

someone help

JAKE

https://voca.ro/g2ZQWs9x8du

JEV

Not miss Nash coming to me asking how I'd feel about being renom :flushed:

JEV

So I literally just woke up from a sleep and in the space of 30 minutes have had to talk Nash out of renomming me, Emma or Jake since we've just made an alliance together so I warned her that probably wouldn't work out for us in the long run. We narrowed it down and she shortlisted Aria, Josh C, Monty & Nick, and I have spun her to try and get her to nominate Aria, because 1. I don't wanna see Josh C go up and 2. like with Brianna I feel nobody here would vote to evict Aria, and Nash wants Gina GONE (crying emoji) so I feel this was the only logical renom to suggest.

JEV

The conversation has turned back to Emma and I just really don't wanna let that happen because I do feel like she'd leave over Gina. Part of me is saying not to stick my neck out too much to save Emma but at the same time she's my number 1 in this game and I hope she'd return the favour if she was in my position.

NASH

this was literally one of the worst decisions i've ever had to make so now i'm just kinda pissed off!

ARIA

Well,,,, FBSFJDF I feel like im making so many of these but honestly this game changes everyday so please dont be too annoyed by me uwu, the mood swing i had just this DAY was insane so lets begin w/ the general info-

IN TIME LINE ORDER

-Jev told jake that something about noms but acted dumb when I asked

-Gina/Joshua/Aria alliance created!!

-Saira and Josh are close

- VIDEO DR GOES HERE

-Jake spills Emma-Jev-Nathan-Nash-Jake alliance with Emma/Jev/Jake being a trio as well= Jev created the alliance

-Jev prefers gina out

-jake doesnt believe in screenshots or recording calls

-Jev and Jake are close

-Jev/Jacob/Jake all played together before

-I leaked Bri's backups to Jake as well as Jacob's trio with Nash and Kiki

-nash almost backdoored jev bc he wasnt responding to her

-jev was the reason i was almost otb

-I WAS ALMOST OTB

-Josh AND Jacob both want Jake out

-Bri thinks nash's comp ability is scary

-Nash and Nick are close

-Jacob nervous about Bri's backup leaking

-Jacob barely talks w/ saira and monty

-made a final three w/ jacob josh called malibu

So now im debating whether its morally okay for me to analyze what happened in the living room in a game sense. FBSdffan So lets run down things in chronological order and I might mention my thoughts if they arent too controversial, Nathan leaks the alliance with jev/nash/jake/emma. Eventually emma says 'i wanna know who put these thoughts in the hohs head" and nick starts to shut the discussion down which is an interesting contrast to their earlier attitude where they were very for the drama continuing, which leads me to begin they had some sort of hand in it. Nathan goes on to say he likes nash on a personal lvl which jake analyzes as a nod to a friendgroup and a mini confrontation between nathan and jake occur. I believe that part was just a misunderstanding on both parties account. Then happy discussion until Jake calls nash out for being in the diary session for too long which leads to a discussion of house guests over analyzing production and using that as a strategy which is ultimately unfair and also at this time I believe nash was going through itTM leading to their friends to be slightly defensive on their behalf (which is valid) and i after rereading things i really hope that they're okay, ultimately this leads up to frustration on Jake's part and his ultimate quit.

I mean where do i go from here? I have the Bri's angels but that did get leaked to Emma on Jake's way out so i need to figure some way to micromanage that where i think im gonna make a emma jev alliance and work with them as a trio in the future (if gina goes) but rn i feel like this force of energy that is Bri's backups is gonna body for a bit but i think theyre gonna throw hoh leading me jev or emma to step up and body a bit. Like i think i might actually win hoh and nom nash and monty with a nick potential renom bc im BORED and nash continuing to skate by without even talking to me is not valid, and monty is so not here its like??? HEWWO??? but idk thats making big moves i may just chill a bit for now but i dont want jev and emma being targeted in the future bc theyre gonna be numbers for me and thats on PEWIOD!

HOST WEEKLY CAST ASSESSMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L25lY813N1k&list=PLFEwPPy8j010XXwntq80VSU0qLNTNpSIN&index=4&t=0s

#bbnetflix st

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