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thebibliomancer · 3 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #266: “... And the war’s DESOLATION!”

April, 1986

Earth’s Mightiest Super Heroes cannot save the Earth... this little man can. But to do it will destroy him!

Why does it look like they’ve put Molecule Man into the shame circle?

Actually, when I first saw this cover, I assumed that the Avengers plus Silver Surfer were putting Molecule Man on trial for some reason. Given what happens in Secret Wars II #9, it seemed like a reasonable dumb thing for them to try.

Anyway.

Last times on Avengers and on Secret Warses: In 1984, a super powerful cosmic being called the Beyonder kidnapped a bunch of heroes and villains and then bonked them off each other like action figures. Doctor Doom then stole his power and became the big bad of the story. Due to the heroes and a little skullduggery, the Beyonder got his powers back and then ditched the story.

Later, the Beyonder decided to come to Earth to experience life in his favorite universe. There are a lot of tie-ins where he tried various things and slowly became disillusioned and angry but here’s the Avengers’ side of things.

In issue #260, the Beyonder teleports Nebula away before the Avengers can catch her, due to Firelord saying something stupid and the Beyonder interpreting it ultra-literally. Then when they came back to Earth in issue #261, he played tag with the Avengers, without telling them he was doing this. This led to a lot of anxiety from the heroes as the super powerful cosmic being kept showing up and doing senseless things. Wasp tried to invite him onto the team to keep an eye on him but he declined, as he still had some more Earth tourism he wanted to do.

Then he became super disillusioned and decided to destroy Earth, the universe, and everything. He didn’t get around to it right away so several superhero teams tried to beat him up to no avail. The Avengers showed up to talk to him and he blasted them away with a tornado and captured Captain America. Then when the Avengers tried to rescue Cap in issue #265, he effortlessly stomped them but left without killing them.

That’s a lot.

But wait, there’s more.

Avengers #266 is an epilogue to the last Secret Wars II issue so I have to go over that in brief.

So the Beyonder was still going to totally destroy the universe. But he changes his mind because to get rid of this discontented feeling he’s feeling, he’d have to also erase his memory of the Marvel Universe and he doesn’t actually know what he is without it. Or whether there’s a him to know. His memory starts with his discovery that there was another universe.

Instead, he decides to take Molecule Man’s suggestion to become mortal. So he builds a machine that will make him a meat body, shoves all his power into a giant light bulb, goes through the machine and pops out a mortal, immediately panics, and hugs the light bulb to turn himself back. Then he’s immediately overcome with the ennui of being an omnipotent space jackass and turns himself human again. This time he enjoys running around and feeling mortal but Mephisto shows up and tries to torture the Beyonder now that he’s just a squishy mortal.

This makes Beyonder paranoid that becoming mortal will make him vulnerable to every jackass with a grudge (of which there are many) so decides to make a special new meat body that will have semi-unfathomable power but still be mortal.

While he’s working on that, pretty much every superhero is summoned by Rachael Phoenix to kick his ass. He distracts them for a bit with the dead and then resurrected and brainwiped New Mutants but they get down to his secret base and get their asses kicked. Molecule Man puts up a fight but he too is no match for Universe Man, Universe Man Powerful as an entire Universe Man.

The Beyonder slaps them all aside like flies, carving a gouge in Earth that wiped out the Rocky Mountains. The collected mass of superheroes were shielded by Molecule Man so they survived but the effort hurt him badly.

When the heroes return to the Beyonder’s base, they find that he’s put himself through the machine again and is incubating as a baby. The heroes question what the moral thing to do is given he is now baby. But they also question what is the smart thing to do since the machine is also containing the Beyonder’s UNFATHOMABLE power.

Molecule Man makes his own decision, exploding Baby Beyonder and then containing the outburst of released power by opening a portal to the Beyonder’s void. It sparks a big bang and starts a new universe but not THE New Universe. Although that would have been good arc welding.

Anyway, point being, the Beyonder is definitely dead forever and everything is good. Except that the massive wound he did to the Earth is causing the planet to fall apart.

That’s less than ideal.

Since Silver Surfer is a bit out of the loop with all these Secret Wars, Monica helpfully explains.

And since I’ve already fully recapped Secret Wars 1 and refuse to fully recap Secret Wars II, here’s the highlight.

Monica admitting that the Avengers just lost track of him for a while (despite building a Beyonder detector) and that by the time they were looped back into the story, he’d gone from being a friendly terrifyingly powerful cosmic entity who liked to play tag to a pissed off one.

And also Monica listing every superhero group that got involved seemingly in one breath. If she had to breath in her light form, which she does not.

Captain Marvel: “We Avengers finally confronted him here in the Rockies... That’s when the X-Men, the New Mutants, Alpha Flight, the Fantastic Four, the West Coast Avengers, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Cloak and Dagger, Power Man and Iron Fist, Spider-Man, the Hulk and you got involved! After it was all over, the Avengers and the F.F. stayed to mop up -- the others either left for their own reasons or we sent them home! But that was before we realized the magnitude of the crisis that still remained!”

I love the Avengers/FF telling everyone they can go home only to realize that the world is doomed.

Granted, of the people they sent home..... ehhhhh I think only Rachael Phoenix would be all that helpful. Maybe Magneto if he really stretches himself to his more bullshit levels.

After everyone was sent home, the ground started shaking and collapsing into an OCEAN of lava.

Black Knight dislocated his shoulder trying to catch himself on a rock and went plummeting. Namor flew down to save him but the intense heat dehydrated him so all he had the power to do was fling Black Knight to safety before falling himself. But Namor was rescued by Mr. Fantastic making an arm lasso.

I know that these are all super heroes but this sure is a lot of adjacency to hot molten lava with little effect. The fact that Namor is dehydrated by it but Black Knight doesn’t get cooked inside his own armor just makes it inconsistent.

Mr. Fantastic gets a pass though. Unstable molecules. They can do anything. They can fix the sun. It’s stupid but they can.

Anyway, all of that exciting nearly dying was an hour ago. The Avengers and FF are trying to think of a way to fix ‘Earth dying.’ The military is trying to support them but have their hands full preventing anyone from wandering into the giant gaping chasm in the Earth’s crust. Also tending to injured civilians.

Which is where Molecule Man wound up, actually. He and Volcana wandered off from the heroes to get Molecule Man medical help. Since the fight with the Beyonder really tore him up. But in a way that medical science for normal humans can’t really detect.

Would have been smarter to ask Reed but he has his hands full.

Full of a goofy geo-stress analyzer.

He has Johnny Human Torch Storm absorbing as much of the heat of the OCEAN OF LAVA as he can to try to stabilize things while Reed takes some Reedings.

And there’s bad news and weird news.

The bad news is that the Earth is totally going to break apart into cosmic rubble due to the damage in the crust causing axial wobble.

The weird news is that Reed’s first estimate is that the end of the world would happen within the hour. But the hour has passed and the old girl is holding together and it seems that the deterioration of the crust and mantle is slowing.

The bad news again is that his new estimate, based on his latest reedings, is that the Earth only has about six hours.

More than none but not a lot of time to find a solution to a chunk of the planet just being gone.

Meanwhile, Hercules gets bored of everyone trying to do science and not simply fixing things and decides that if the problem is a giant chasm carved out of the Earth, he’ll just fill it. With rocks.

She-Hulk tries to gently tell Hercules that um that’s not going to work but Namor tells Herc that he’s a big, muscle-brained dumb idiot who is immune to reason and will just have to fail on his own time.

Herc is not immune to reason (he was a fairly clever dude in his myths) so he throws away the giant rock and complains that he hates it when Namor is right.

But now that Captain Marvel has shown up with Silver Surfer, they might have better options than throwing a giant rock at the problem.

Wasp: “What’s the situation, C.M.? What does it look like from high up?”

Captain Marvel: “It -- it looks like the end of the world!”

Captain America: “Don’t talk that way, lady! We’ve been in tough situations before! We’ll find a way to lick this!”

Black Knight: Good old Cap -- ! Somehow, he always makes you believe you’ve got a chance! Boy, am I glad he’s here!

Not the last time it’ll be commented on that when Cap says something like ‘I’ve seen worse’ or ‘we’ve trained for this’ he’s instantly believable no matter how ludicrously absurd the situation.

Even though the Power Cosmic is one of those Do Anything powers (including letting you talk to squirrels) Reed is doubtful that even the Silver Surfer can handle this.

Mr. Fantastic: “I’m not certain even your power will be enough, Surfer. What the Beyonder did to this region extends far beyond the obvious geophysical instability.”

Silver Surfer: “You are right, Reed Richards -- millions of cubic miles of crust have simply dissolved away. If this wound in the Earth’s surface is to be sealed -- the dispersed matter must be drawn back and reassembled. I do not know if I am capable of such a task, but I shall try.”

And Silver Surfer tries. He tries with his “full, unfettered power!” He tries for fifteen minutes and expends terawatts of power and creates one (1) strip of land across the lava ocean.

Which immediately starts to collapse.

And then Silver Surfer gives up.

He just doesn’t have the oomph to close the chasm in one go and now further unsuccessful attempts might just worsen the chasm.

So... maybe call Dr. Strange? Or Phoenix Rachael?

Maybe a group effort?

No? No!

Captain America has an idea instead! Let’s find Molecule Man and get him to do it! He recaps the events from Secret Wars II #9 when Molecule Man shielded the heroes from the Beyonder’s wrath AND even moved all the civilians out of the path of the giant furrow he cut into the world.

He’s the only person that Cap knows who can operate on the level of power they need.

Captain Marvel says despite Molecule Man being a villain in the past, the fate of the world is at stake so they’ve got to ask him.

Hercules gets offended that they have to ask him instead of just forcing him to do it but Black Knight points out the obvious. If he can fix the Earth and they can’t, how can they force him to do anything?

Hercules: “What? You think him more powerful than I?”

Black Knight: “I’m afraid so.”

Weren’t you at the battle, Herc?

She-Hulk points out that he dropped a mountain (technically it was a mountain range) and that he might fold under the pressure and make things worse.

But they don’t really have other ideas, just a lot of naysaying, so Silver Surfer uses his COSMIC SENSES to locate Molecule Man. Which he can barely do since his energy signature is so weak.

Back over at the little medical center that Molecule Man and Volcana ran away to, Volcana has gotten nervous that all the doctors and soldiers have been asking questions about Molecule Man. So he comes up with an escape plan.

Which is beautiful in its simplicity.

He turns the tent around his medical bed into a balloon and Volcana fills it with hot air.

HA HA EAT DUST EVERYONE ON THE GROUND WONDERING HOW THAT HAPPENED

Truly Molecule Man and Volcana have gotten away completely.

Until Captain Marvel shows up just to talk.

Unfortunately, all Volcana knows Monica from is from Secret Wars where she went through Molecule Man’s impenetrable shield because it was invisible thus, y’know, light could go through it.

Anyway, Volcana immediately blasts Captain Marvel.

Volcana: “Gone... the witch is gone!”

(Thankfully, Monica was doing her ol’ hologram of herself trick and was immune to lava heat blast)

From her vantage point on Silver Surfer’s silver surfboard (Toomie), Wasp decides errors have been made.

Not in selecting Captain Marvel.

Wasp: “She’s the most capable Avenger I have -- next to Captain America.”

Hah, eat shit Hercules, Namor, and Black Knight.

Granted, that’s no knock on them. Monica is just cool.

But the error was that Molecule Man (and Volcana) are just unknown quantities so maybe sending someone to talk to them wasn’t a good strategy.

But Silver Surfer suggests his own plan.

Use the Power Cosmic to alter the winds to just gently crash Molecule Man’s hot air balloon hospital bed where all the heroes are so they can talk to him.

Reed tries to assure Volcana that this isn’t a trap and that they just want to talk.

It may have worked.

Maybe, maybe not.

But it definitely doesn’t work when Johnny loudly whispers that he could totally take Volcana in a fight. And that he kinda wants to. Please let him.

Volcana flips out, decides that the heroes want to hurt Molecule Man, and throws the first lava blast.

But her supervillain career is a couple of fights in Secret Wars I so she doesn’t really have a lot of supervillain discipline or whatever you’d call it.

When her first attack is effortlessly blocked by Invisible Woman’s invisible forcefield, Volcana just crumples to the ground and starts crying that she failed her “Owie” (Owen. Molecule Man’s name is Owen so her nickname for him is Owie. Its not great but they’re a very lovey dovey couple).

Monica reassures Volcana that nobody here wants to hurt them, they just want to talk, and after the talk if Volcana and Molecule Man want to leave, they can.

Although Silver Surfer points out that there’s not going to be much of a place left to leave to.

Silver Surfer: “The impending catastrophe threatens the entire planet!”

Molecule Man: “You think I don’t know that, Surfer? The ‘catastrophe’ would have happened by now if not for me! Even as we speak, I’m literally holding this planet together... and let me tell you, it’s not easy given my condition.”

Oh, neat. There’s that mystery cleared up.

But Molecule Man can’t do much more than slow down the Earth’s destruction. He’s way too wounded and worn out to stop it and if he tried to do more than he is, he risks burning out his power or dying.

Cap(tain America) tries to convince him given that... well, Earth is where Molecule Man and Volcana live. Its where all their stuff is.

Molecule Man: “Nope! We don’t have to die! You see, in a few hours I’ll be well enough to construct a little impregnable survival capsule for Marsha and me! It won’t be a palace but it’ll have life support and everything we need to live until I’m fully recovered! Then I’ll find us a new world to settle on! Or, who knows, maybe I’ll build my own!”

Molecule Man also suspects aloud that Namor and Hercules are both thinking of trying to punch him into saving the world, based on the fact that they’re giving him maximum stink-eye.

But. That’s also their resting pissed off face. So they may not even be paying attention.

Captain Marvel tries to reassure Molecule Man that the Avengers don’t coerce people to save the world but She-Hulk really is giving Molecule Man the stink-eye and all but punching her own palm.

So this looks like a job for... THE WASP!

Wasp: “You aren’t really going to just save yourself and let everything else go to pieces are you?”

Molecule Man: “The world didn’t do a whole heck of a lot for me most of my life!”

Wasp: “But, think about it -- ! No more Sak’s, no more children playing hide and seek, no more sunrises off Cape Cod...”

Molecule Man: “Hmm... no more of my favorite T.V. shows, either! Marsha and I sure would miss the F Troop reruns!”

Haaah.

When Cap(tain America)’s high-minded idealistic speeches can’t make the difference, trust in Wasp to remind what’s good in life. Shopping, the concept of children, and cool scenery.

No, I really love it.

Molecule Man is a dingus. A petty small-minded dingus. That’s why he was a joke despite his power-set. Even after getting an epiphany power-up in Secret Wars I, he really only wanted a girlfriend and a mundane life.

And that’s fine! Or at least better than when he tried to eat the planet just for the hell of it.

But it means that Cap’s idealism can’t really get its hooks in Owen but Wasp pointing out experiences that will be gone if Earth kersplodes works. It’s something he can connect to. Not her specific examples but like, it reminds him that his favorite show isn’t in space. I mean, it might be, but it would be a pain to track down those signals.

Kinda reminds me of in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when Arthur Dent couldn’t conceptualize the idea of the Earth being gone. Until he went smaller and thought of all the Things in his life that were now gone and knocked himself for a loop.

Anyway.

Molecule Man is still hesitant. Because if he tries and fails, he won’t have enough energy to escape.

It’s a death or glory situation.

Or a death or death or glory or worse situation. Because he can succeed and still manage to kill himself or burn out his powers.

And if he does that latter thing, he won’t be able to defend himself from the government kidnapping to try to reverse engineer his powers.

Cap(tain America) promises that the Avengers wouldn’t let that happen because rights! America! Apple pie!

Molecule Man asks Volcana what she thinks but she just says he’s the most important thing to her.

Molecule Man: “Uh-huh... Still, I know that it’s so hard for a truly cosmic being like me, to start over on a whole new world... but it’s a whole ‘nother thing for a relatively normal human like you! Okay. I’ll do it.”

Aww.

Doing it for F-Troop reruns and avoiding the inconvenience of meeting new neighbors.

After preparing for several hours Molecule Man sits by the edge of the giant lava chasm and prepares to SAVE THE WORLD. With Silver Surfer’s help.

Silver Surfer: “You understand that you must open yourself completely to my power if I am to be of any help.”

Molecule Man: “Tell me the truth, Surfer -- ! The reason you’re doing this is because you think I’m a wimp, right? You think when it starts to hurt -- and it will -- I’ll give up! So you plan to try to force me to go on even if I’m being torn apart inside, right? Let’s face it, you guys would rather I was dead or de-powered! You don’t like the idea of a guy as powerful as me walking around! Well, you’re going get your chance, Surfer! ‘Cause now our energies are linked! A little push from you at the critical point -- and I’m history!”

Then they start SAVING THE WORLD.

Mostly it involves glowing.

I mean, what it really mostly involves is reaching out and grabbing all the matter that was carved off of Earth and bringing it back but that’s happening far away so from a spectator’s perspective it mostly involves glowing.

Also some mountains start happening.

Molecule Man starts screaming and begs the Silver Surer to stop, which he does do. But it’s fine because the job is done.

The Rocky Mountains are back, there’s not a giant lava ocean, all the people Molecule Man shifted into subspace to protect them from the Beyonder fight are back, a place for every molecule and every molecule in its place.

Oh, and Molecule Man used so much of his power that he’s reverted to normal. His weird scars are gone and he’s just Normal Guy With Hot Girlfriend Owen Reece now.

The heroes say they can’t repay Normal Guy Owen Reece for sacrificing his powers for the world (but Namor secretly thinks how much saner the world will be without someone with Molecule Man’s power around) and promise to keep Molecule Man’s role in everything a secret if he wants. Which he does want.

He just wants to live a normal life. In Normal Denver.

Silver Surfer takes off with Normal Owen and Volcana to bring them back to Denver.

While Hercules and She-Hulk hit it off. Like immediately. Over their respective attractiveness.

And thus was born She-Hulk’s recurring romantic fantasy in her second solo book.

Anyway, when Silver Surfer returns Owen and Volcana to their apartment, Volcana is surprised to find it in great condition. It was busted up one of the times that the Beyonder popped in for a visit.

Owen explains that while he was fixing the Earth, he also fixed their apartment. I mean, why not? And why stop there? He also fixed the X-Men’s mansion, fixed earthquake damage that the Beyonder caused in San Francisco, and various other things.

Basically, Owen fixed all the assorted damage from Secret Wars II the event comic book.

Volcana: “But if your power was burning out, Owie, why did you do all that extra stuff? Unless you somehow forced him to, Surfer!”

Owen Reece: “No, Marsha. He didn’t. In fact, he could have pushed me too far... or possibly even have sucked my power out of me when he broke contact! But he didn’t! All he did was help me. And he was so unselfish, he gave me so much power, that I didn’t have to strain myself as much as I thought I would --”

Molecule Man: “-- so I didn’t lose anything, babe!”

DUN DUN DUN!

This is almost framed like a cliffhanger surprise villain reemergence.

Except its still Molecule Man and he’s still not much interested in being a supervillain anymore.

He just wants to live a private life with his girlfriend and with powers that make it so he never really has to worry about any material problems.

Silver Surfer: “I envy you.”

Ha.

Silver Surfer: “I lost the freedom of the cosmos in defending this planet -- while you risked all to save the Earth, yet kept your life and love! You are a lucky man, Owen Reece. May we all one day know such happiness!”

That’s nice.

Silver Surfer actually admits to Molecule Man that he very easily could have snuffed out his powers while they were linked. And that he was tempted to. But that would have been an act of fear while Molecule Man leaving himself open was an act of courage.

Silver Surfer: “Evil stems from fear, while true courage is a sign of good within! I simply allowed your courage to inspire mine!”

And Silver Surfer flies off and that ends Secret Wars II the comic book event. Both as a narrative and in this Avengers book.

And in terms of this issue as an Avengers issue, it wasn’t.

This is a Molecule Man story with the Fantastic Four and Avengers hanging around. I wish this had just been Secret Wars II #10 as an epilogue and not taken over the Avengers.

But it did happen and that at least lets me talk one more time about Jim Shooter’s apparent favorite theme.

The conflict of gods and humanity in one person.

Secret Wars II is about a lot of things but what it comes down to is the Beyonder and Molecule Man. An unfathomably powerful cosmic entity who is infected with humanity and ultimately can’t handle it. And Molecule Man, a normal guy who gains godlike power, has in the past been all supervillain out of a desire for more, but has found his happiness in life.

The various godlike people that Shooter introduced or reimagined in his Avengers run like Graviton, Count Nefaria, Korvac, and even Beyonder-power Doom in Secret Wars all mixed human desires with godlike power and became monsters.

Molecule Man is Shooter’s counter example. He has human desires but they’re fairly mundane. So despite once being an existential threat to the world, now he just wants to live a quiet life.

The Beyonder’s whole thing was desire. Wanting to know about it so bonking action figures together on Battleworld. Coming to Earth to experience more. Wanting more and more things, becoming infuriated when more and more didn’t bring him contentment. Lashing out at anyone that said ‘hey maybe you’re thinking too big, buddy.’

Maybe not very applicable to daily life what with all the superpowers and such but desire for more, more, always more is what made all these ‘gods’ into villains and monsters. While Molecule Man gets to watch F-Troop reruns with his girlfriend while shiny space man points and goes ‘that? that right there? that’s the kind of happiness people should aspire to.’

But if you desire more and more West Coast Avengers then good news for next week. They’re gonna fight the Rangers.

Follow @essential-avengers because I read (parts of) Secret Wars II for you! Yes, you specifically! Like and reblog if you want to but I’m not going to guilt you into it. I don’t know how to.

#essential avengers #avengers #Secret Wars II #comes to an end #Fantastic Four #volcana #Molecule Man #Captain America #Black Knight #namor mckenzie #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #Hercules #the Wasp #Silver Surfer #essential marvel liveblogging

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Donald Duck: Christmas on Bear Mountain Review!

Happy Birthday Uncle Scrooge! Yes it was 73 years ago that everyone’s favorite stingy adventurous billionaire entered this world. And I only NARROWLY missed it as I only found out this was coming up when looking up various character birthdays during the writing of my review of “The Three Cablleros”. I now have a word document with all the various important duck characters birthdays so this doesn’t happen again, but i’m glad I did my homework as I can celebrate one of my faviorite character’s birthdays. And Scrooge is one of my favorites. While I relate to donald’s everyman slacker spendthrift was a tad more, I still love this old bastard. He’s badass, quick witted, and earned every bit of his fortune square outside of one moment of weakness. But he has his flaws: He’s horribly cheap, quick to anger, and very dismissive and distrustful of people for good reasons and bad. He’s a complicated, interesting character and one that still works today in the reboot.. if with some slight tweaks to make him less of a greedy monster by modern standards. He’s one of my favorite comic book characters, and one of Disney’s finest, so it only felt right to honor him by going back to his roots with his very first appearance and a story that like him is 73 years old today. It’s also one I had never read until today’s review. So does this storied tale still hold up? How diffrent was Scrooge? and are there any actual bears in the story? Well come along with me as we take a trip up to Bear Mountain and find out. This story, if you didn’t know, is by Disney Legend and Scrooge Creator Carl Barks, easily the most influential and well known duck artist.. felt like it was worth mentioning since without Carl none of this would be possible and as usual his art is gorgeous and unique to him. On with the show.

We open with Donald and the Boys depressed, as Christmas looks to be pretty drab. While the boys are sad they don’t have a winter Cabin like everyone else...

Donald is even more bummed he can’t afford dinner or presents as he mentions this to the boys, being flat broke. It’s also a nice character beat that Donald, despite his usual hedonism.. would be just fine, with his depression coming from the fact he can’t even give his boys a proper Christmas let alone presents. It’s a stark adult fear and something that really hits as I find the money to buy Christmas presents for all my friends and family during my current unemployment, though commissions, have been helping.

But yes i’m doing my first Christmas review before thanksgiving’s even come in. But given the serendipity of Scrooge’s birthday and the fact I wanted to read it at some point before covering the last chapter of life and times anyway, since said story takes place DURING this one. I’ll explain how in a moment. Plus frankly with me already having to do my christmas shopping while I have money, I still feel the spirit of the holiday, so I honestly figure why not.

But all that aside, the Nephews muse things might be better if their rich Uncle Scrooge would remember them, but probably not. We’ll meet scrooge, if you care to continue, after the cut.

We then cut to Scrooge’s mansion. Two things to note. The first is that he has a mansion here. Now for us Ducktales fans, it’s not unusual, he lives in one in both series. But being even MORE frugal in the comics meant after this he mostly lived in the money bin to save .. well money. So he dosen’t have the mansion after this and Don Rosa explained it, as he did really most aspects of scrooge’s life, in life and times, having him decide to sell the place after also deciding to reopen the bin. Just a neat fun fact. The other fun fact is that his angry pose and expersion here were later homage in “Last Crash of the Sunchaser!”, in one of Ducktales 2017′s easily most heart pulling moments: the ending of the episode showing Scrooge truly alone once again. It’s also a nice refrence to Life and Times as at this point scrooge was just as miserable and alone according to Rosa’s masterwork, with the boys and Donald coming into his life being the thing that revitalized him. So let’s get on that shall we? Scrooge is wallowing in his misery, having never had any fun according to himself and thinking maybe giving a present could be fun.. and decides on his Nephew as the one to give it to. But in typical Scrooge fashion instead of just giving his Grandson a gift, he’s going to have to earn it. He sends a letter to the Boys and Donald offering up his cabin, fully stocked with goodies and presents. A bit pricey for who Scrooge would become, and a bit odd to see him not complain.. but it still sets up his character as someone who wants people to WORK for what they get, but can genuinely get behind someone who shows good character, in this case he’s hoping, but Doubting, Donald will end up showing himself to be brave. And it’s STILL more plausible he’d buy luxury items to prove a point to himself, than it was in that one Ducktales comic I reviewed where he spent presumably millions to teach a ten year old a lesson about getting everything you want. Which yes really happened.

Still not over that one, what the actual hell, let’s move on. Basically if Donald passes the test, he’ll get a real true present and if he doesn’t, well Scrooge will have fun anyway. It is easy to see the difference in character here: While parts that would later become bedrock, his code of honor and his wanting people to EARN things instead of just having them handed to them, as well as him sometimes being a huge dick about that are there, he comes off more as a golden age villain cackling in his lair than the awesome but flawed adventurer we’d all come to know and love. I mean while he’d be no less kind to the Boys and Donald about their poverty later, this time he’s especailly bad tempting them with a nice christmas they couldn’t afford and planning to scare the bejeezus out of them. But I do like seeeing where Scrooge came from, STARTING as a decrepit old bastard and transitioning into the adventurous old bastard we all know and love. I have come to realize I do have a soft spot for characters earlier appearances, seeing what changed, what was there all along, and what was tweaked. It can be a mixed bag: with Marvel for instance sometimes you get Spider-Man, who was starkly anti-social and on the verge of understandably lashing out at the world a LOT in the first few issues, and prone to issues you wouldn’t see in a superhero comic back then. Hulk started out much smarter, greyer and meaner, eventually leading to the Joe Fixit persona being created as a result of this decades later.

On the other hand some examples are less enjoyable like Sue and Reed Richards, who back at the start were a sexist “panicky female” stereotype and a sexist mentally distant jackass, while Hank Pym and Wasp were again, a sexist mentally distant jackass, and another stereotype this time thinking almost entirely about fashion and boys. All four would go on to be MUCH better characters with age, with the occasional slip up. I bring this up because Scrooge... is still a good character even here. While he’d become even BETTER, he’s not bad at all here, just a bit different is all.

Back at the plot Scrooge reveals his plan by scaring the shit out of his butler: To dress up as a bear, head up the mountain and scare his nephews to see if any of them have any bravery. While Donald whimpers over the thought of bears and we get an okay gag of him thinking a squireel was one, Scrooge is forced to turn around due to the weather and gives a villain monologue about never having given anyone nothing in his entire life. I swear to god he’s basically Mr. Burns in this one.

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Then again I would also FULLY expect Scrooge to do this to Donald in the barks stories, just maybe not have it be lethal. MAYBE.

While Scrooge harumphs over his bad luck the boys and Donald enjoy a wonderful sleep. Despite Donald’s fear of bears, which the boys insist are hibernating, accurate, the boys force him to go out and get a Christmas tree by the age old tradition of whining until he does so. After going out back to find a tree to chop down Donald finds dead, ugly looking tree that’s weirdly heavy. To no one’s suprise, and to Donald’s natural luck, there’s a baby bear inside and as Donald gets a nice Christmas eve dinner ready for the boys, though after hearing some rustling he assumes a bear is present.. which it is. A baby bear. Awww. The little guy toddles around, and we get af ew pages of antics, with the boys chasing the bear, donald being a coward, and the bear getting into things and ending up on a rollerskate, which is referenced in life and times. However while the boys eventually find the baby.. it’s MOTHER, angry it’s cub is missing finds them and once Donald finds her, the four naturally hightale it out of there. The bears then eat all their food.. though the boys assume “there goes our presents”. Uh guys.. the presents aren’t gone you just don’t have them right this second. They aren’t showed destroying them or anything just leaning on them slightly. I mean the well stocked pantry and any candy in the presents are toast but there’s still a pretty sweet saxaphone there. Take a look.

See the most their doing is likely wrinkling some clothes, at worst flattening that skateboard.. or whatever that Mama Bear is sitting on. I mean I get in the larger sense they can’t get them because bears, but still. Once they pass out the boys send in Donald to get ripped apart by a bear.. er to tie up Mama Bear so they can get the house back, rightly pointing out that they’ll freeze to death anyways.. even though they you know have a car and could just leave. Then again knowing Donald’s luck i’td probably jsut lead to this.

The boys aren’t slacking though and are going after the cub while Donald passes out in fear next to the bear. Scrooge arrives, but is spooked by the cub and is proud to see his young nephews valiantly chase the bebe, and is impressed by Donald’s seeming bravery, decides, after fleeing in terror which is funny. Not in line with what he’d become but STILL really funny. But anyways he decides to throw them a proper christmas as a reward. So the next day and, thanks to Don Rosa one part of life and times later, we end on Christmas Day as for the first time in decades, Scrooge basks in the warm glow of family, and is happy probably for the first time in years. He gifts Donald a bear skin, he faints, haw haw haw the end.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This story holds up extrodinarly well. While some aspects like Scrooge being generous or cowardly don’t jibe with his later character, it’s forgivable since, again, first appearance, and it’s an entertaining story. Granted his plan hasn’t aged well, but it’s still a fun Christmas set story with some good gags and an entertaining villian. While not Scrooge or Donald or Barks finest hour, it’s still a good bit of hollday fun that gave us one of the best characters of all time. And for that, ill be forever greatful. If you liked this review, you can comission one of your own via my ask box, direct message or discord (technicolormuk#6550), if your more comfortable not doing buisness on here. UPCOMING REVIEWS TO KEEP AN EYE ON THIS SPACE FOR Loud House Coverage: Band Together/ The Other One Ducktales: The First Adventure! Ride of the Three Cablleros: The Three Cablleros Ride Again!

Until then you can check my backlog on my various pages and remember, there’s always another rainbow.

#ducktales #scrooge mcduck #christmas on bear mountain #carl barks #donald duck #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #christmas #comics #reviews

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winchesterbrotherstan · 5 years ago

Text

Supernatural- Provenance (1.19)

b.. a. by.

Pairing: Olive Winchester (OC)

Summary: While working a case, a girl catches Sam’s eye, Dean and Olive butt heads, and Olive goes into attack mode.

Warnings: cursing, screaming, creepy little ghost, slit throats, olive is a monster, the usual

Word Count: 8163

I yawned, dropping my head onto the table of the bar. Dean was flirting with a pretty girl while Sam and I were elbow-deep in research. Sam made a face at Dean before gesturing to him. Dean only held up a hand, laughing at something the girl whispered to him.

“Dean!” I called, annoyed.

He rolled his eyes before coming back to us, dropping a beer in front of Sam.

“Alright, I think we’ve got something.” Sam sighed.

Dean glanced back over his shoulder. “Yeah, me too. I think we need to take a little shore leave, just a little bit.” He grinned. “What do you think, huh? I’m so in the door with this one.”

I rolled my eyes, biting back a snarky comment. Sam sighed.

“So what are we today, Dean? I mean, are we rock stars, are we army rangers?”

Dean’s grin grew, and I rolled my eyes again.

“Reality TV scouts, looking for people with special skills. I mean, hey, it’s not that far off, right?” He leaned toward Sam. “By the way, she’s got a friend. Possibly hook you up. Whatcha think?”

Sam sighed. “No thanks, Dean. I can get my own dates.”

“Yeah, you can but you don’t.” Dean made a face.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Sam shot back.

“Hey! Dean’s just being a jackass. Don’t pay him any attention.”

Dean tried to protest, but Sam rolled his eyes. “Mark and Ann Telesca of New Paltz, New York were both found dead in their own home, a few days ago. Throats were slit. No prints, no murder weapons, all…”

Dean was distracted, staring back at the girl at the bar. I kicked him under the table and he turned back to me with lips curled, angry.

“Dean! Pay attention.”

“No prints, no murder weapons, all the doors and windows locked from the inside.”

Dean took a sip from his beer with a shrug. “Could just be a garden variety murder. You know, not our department.”

“Dad says different.” I spat, flicking through his journal.

“What do you mean?”

Sam pointed to the map on the page. “Dad noted three murders in the same area of upstate New York. First one here in 1912, second one here in 1945, third in 1970.”

“Same MO as the Telescas. Throats slit, doors locked from the inside. So much time happened between the two that nobody checked for a pattern.”

“Except Dad.” Sam sighed. “He kept his eyes peeled for another one.”

“And now we got one.” Dean pouted. “Alright, I’m with ya. It’s worth checking out. Can’t we pick this up first thing though?”

I sighed, and Sam shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Good.” Dean patted Sam’s arm and circled the table to me. “Love you, kid. Even when you’re being a brat.”

I scoffed back at him, and he pulled me into a hug. “I love you.”

“Fuck off.” I spat, pushing him away.

He rolled his eyes and flipped me off as he walked back to the bar. Sam bumped his elbow into my side.

“What’s the deal, bug?”

I sighed and leaned against him with a huff. “Just not in the mood for his shit.”

“The flirting? Aw, bug, are you jealous that you don’t have all of Dean’s attention?”

I rolled my eyes again. “No, you big idiot. I’m just sick of him being a horny fucker all the time. It’s really annoying.”

Sam only snickered.

***

I snuggled further into Dean’s side, kicking my shoes off. He was asleep, slumped in the passenger seat with a pair of sunglasses on. He went out last night with two girls and came back to the motel beyond drunk. He had thrown up countless times. I stayed up with him, rubbing his back and wiping the sweat off his forehead. Taking care of a grown man was frustratingly difficult when you only had one arm.

Sam walked around the car, knocking on the hood. I looked at him through slitted eyes. He put a finger up to his mouth before leaning in through the window and slamming the horn. I let out a squeak, and Dean jumped up, spooked. Sam got into the driver’s seat, cackling. Jinx howled, and Sam turned around to pat her head.

“Man, that is so not cool.” Dean grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“God fuck, Sams.” I hissed.

“I just swept the Telescas with EMF. It’s clean. And last night, while you were… well, out…”

I pushed my head further into Dean’s chest. “We checked the history of the house. Nothing strange about the family.”

“Alright, so if it’s not the people and it’s not the house, then maybe it’s the contents. Cursed object or something.” Dean mumbled.

“What?” Sam asked, leaning in.

“No, bubba, house is clean.” I groaned, sitting up.

“Yeah I know, Sam said that.”

“No, I mean it’s empty. No furniture. Nothing.” Sam shook his head.

I blinked, suddenly awake. “What?”

“Where’s all their stuff?” Dean squinted.

***

I wiggled my nose, trying to move my glasses back into place as I followed Sam around, hand in his. I squeezed, a signal to wait for Dean as he picked a piece of finger food off a tray. Sam squeezed my hand back. Jinx was asleep in the Impala, and I was hoping it would stay that way. The last thing we needed was somebody with a stick up their ass calling animal control on her. We were out of place.

This fancy auction house, with women in fancy flowing dresses and men in tuxedos. I kept myself behind Sam. We were in our scratchy canvas jackets, dirty flannels, ripped jeans and scuffed boots. Dean grumbled as he caught up.

“Consignment auctions, estate sales. Looks like a garage sale for WASPs if you ask me.” He plucked more food off another tray.

A man in a tuxedo popped up behind us, and we spun around. Sam pulled me closer to him as we forced matching polite smiles.

“Can I help you gentlemen?”

Dean eyed him and cleared his throat. “I’d like some champagne please.” He spoke in a posh accent.

Sam’s jaw clenched, and I dug my arm into Dean’s side, ignoring the throb that radiated from my bones. “He’s not a waiter.”

Dean cocked an eyebrow, and Sam held his hand out. “I’m Sam Connors.”

The man blinked at him, not taking Sam’s hand. I popped out from behind him and squared my shoulders.

“I’m Olive Connors, and this is our brother Dean.” I nodded to Dean.

“We’re art dealers, with Connors Limited.”

“You are… art dealers.” The man repeated, eyeing us.

I sighed, and Sam squeezed my hand again.

It’s okay, just stay calm.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Daniel Blake, this is my auction house. Now, this is a private showing, and I don’t remember seeing you on the guest list.” The man cleared his throat, the look of disgust clear on his face.

“We’re there, Chuckles. You just need to take another look.” Dean snapped as he swiped a glass off a passing tray. “Oh, finally.” He sniffed the glass, raised his eyebrows, and walked off.

“Cheers.” Sam forced a smile as I yanked on his arm, trying to follow Dean.

“What is wrong with you?” Sam snarled at Dean.

“Hey.” I tugged his arm. “Relax. He’s just being a prick again.”

The three of us fell silent as we stared at an old painting of a family. Our heads tilted the same way, identical looks on our faces.

“A fine example of American Primitive, wouldn’t you say?”

The three of us turned up to see a very pretty girl about Sam’s age coming down the spiral stairs. Her dress was black and sleek, hugging her body. She gave off classy vibes, and I was immediately entranced. I blinked as her back turned to us. Dean slapped Sam on the back, and Sam ignored him.

“Well, I’d say it’s more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses. But you knew that, you just wanted to see if I did.” Sam smiled.

“Guilty.” She smiled back. “And clumsy. I apologize. I’m Sarah Blake.” She held her hand out to him.

He took it, and my heart softened at the twinkle in his eyes. “I’m Sam. This is my little sister Olive, and our…” He sighed as Dean continued to stuff his face with food.

“This is our brother, Dean.” I grinned.

Sarah chuckled. “Dean. Can we get you some more mini-quiche?”

Dean shook his head, in the middle of chewing. I giggled.

“He’s okay, thank you.”

Sarah smiled widely as she turned back to Sam. “So, can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, actually. What can you tell us about the Telesca estate?”

Sarah grimaced. “The whole thing’s pretty grisly if you ask me, selling your things so soon. But Dad’s right, sensationalism brings out the crowds. Even the rich ones.”

“Is it possible to see the provenances?” Sam asked.

Dean and I eyed each other, confused.

What the fuck does that word mean?

“I’m afraid there isn’t any chance of that.” Blake came back up behind us.

“Why not?” I asked, shuffling around to be in front of Dean.

“You’re not on the guest list. And I think it’s time to leave.”

“Well we don’t have to be told twice.” Dean spoke poshly again.

“Apparently you do.” Blake took a step toward us.

I backed up, running into Dean’s front. Sam reached for my hand.

“Okay. It’s all right. We don’t want any trouble. We’ll go.”

Dean rolled his eyes and walked off. Sam and Sarah stared at each other until I grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled him along to follow Dean. I glanced over my shoulder to see Sarah staring right at Sam’s ass. I shivered, uncomfortable.

***

“Grant Wood?” Dean spoke to Sam as they walked behind me.

“Yeah, Sams.” I called over my shoulder. “The hell was all that?”

“Grandma Moses?”

“Art history course.” Sam smiled. “It’s good for meeting girls.”

Dean shook his head as I unlocked the motel door. Jinx ran in, wagging her tail.

“It’s like I don’t even know you.”

We shuffled into the room and blinked. Retro 70s disco fantasy room. The Do Not Disturb sign was a silver outline of John Travolta. Jinx watched us as we took the scene in, all heads tilted.

“Huh.”

I shrugged and tossed my bag at the feet of the bed furthest from the door. Sam and Dean did the same, still staring at the room.

“Sams, what was… providence?” I stumbled over the word.

“Provenance.” Sam sounded it out. “It’s a certificate of origin, like a biography. Ya know, we can use them to check the history of the pieces, see if any of them have a freaky past.”

I frowned. “Huh.”

“Well, we’re not getting anything out of Chuckles, but Sarah…” Dean made finger guns at Sam.

I giggled, and Sam smirked at Dean. “Yeah, maybe you can get her to write it all down on a cocktail napkin.”

Dean laughed, and I shook my head.

“No no no, pick-ups are Dean’s thing.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t Dean’s ass she was checking out.” I dropped onto the bed.

Sam narrowed his eyes at me, and Dean grinned. Jinx jumped onto the bed and barked in Sam’s direction.

“In other words, you two want me to use her to get information.” Sam sighed.

I shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta take one for the team.”

Dean grinned wider. “Call her, Sam.”

***

I put my glasses on as I left the bathroom and turned the lights off. Dean was sitting on our bed, sharpening his knife. Sam was criss-cross on his own bed, rustling through papers.

“Hey, Sams!” I grinned. “How’d it go?”

He had gone out to drinks with Sarah while Dean and I stayed at the motel, showering and fixing weapons.

“She just handed the providences over to him.” Dean grinned.

“Provenances.” I corrected.

“Provenances?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, turning to Sam. “Okay, so?”

“We went back to her place, I got a copy of the papers-”

“And?” Dean wiggled his eyebrows.

“And nothing. That’s it. I left, told her I had to get home to my little sister.”

I giggled, and Dean made a face.

“You didn’t have to con her, or do any… special favors or anything like that?”

“Dean.” I chastised, trying to keep the smile off my face. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”

Dean laughed as Sam rolled his eyes. I dropped on the bed, next to Dean.

“You know, when this whole thing’s over, we could… stick around for a little bit.” He offered.

“Why?” Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

“So you can take her out again.” I shrugged. “Duh.”

“It’s obvious you’re into her, even I can see that.”

“I think I’ve got something here.” Sam ignored us, holding a paper up.

I switched over to sit next to Sam, taking the paper from his hand. “What am I looking at here?”

“Portrait of Isaiah Merchant’s family, painted in 1910.” Dean read off the paper.

“Wasn’t the first murder in 1912?” I tilted my head.

Sam nodded. “First purchased in 1912, Peter Simms. He was murdered in 1912. Same thing in 1945, oh, and 1970.”

“Then stored, until it was donated to a charity auction last month. Where the Telescas bought it.” Dean read from Dad’s journal.

“So, what do you think? Haunted? Cursed?”

Dean dropped the paper and grabbed his knife. “Either way, it’s toast.”

I grinned. “I’ll get the gloves.”

***

Dean lept halfway up the metal gate, easily climbing the rest. He sprinted into the fog, then called back to us.

“Come on!”

Sam dropped onto a knee, helping me get a step up onto the gate. I climbed it faster than he did, anxious to be back on solid ground. I balanced on the top, knuckles white. Although I had gotten used to being down an arm, scaling fences became a lot more difficult. I had to rely mostly on the weight of my body against the fence and the soles of my boots. I took a breath before getting a grip and climbing down the other side. Dean helped me once I was halfway, and Sam jumped off, hitting the ground and rolling back to his feet.

“Stay with Dean.” Sam whispered as he went for the security alarm.

He fidgeted with the wires, and I watched with a smile on my face as he worked.

“Alright, go ahead.” He turned back to Dean.

Dean picked the lock with ease, pushing the door open. I led the way, flashlight low as we looked around. Dean tapped my arm and pointed up the stairs. I grabbed Sam and followed as he sprinted up the same spiral staircase from earlier. Dean went to put his flashlight in his mouth but I took it, handing him a switchblade.

He flicked it open and cut the painting from the frame. Sam helped him roll it up, and I pulled a hair tie off my wrist with my teeth and wrapped it around the painting. Dean tucked it under his arm and patted my shoulder.

Let’s go.

***

“Ugly ass thing.” Dean spat as he struck a match. “If you ask me, we’re doing the art world a favor.”

Sam sighed, aiming the flashlight. “Dean, just hurry up.”

Dean dropped the match without a word, and the painting began to curl at the edges. We stood in a huddle, watching it burn.

“Alright. We can head back to the motel, take the night and then pack up and hit the road.” Dean wrapped his arms around himself.

I nodded, smacking at a mosquito. “Let’s go.”

***

“Bug?” Sam’s voice was a whisper.

“What’s up, Sams?” I mumbled.

I was wrapped in Dean’s arms, buried under three different blankets.

“Can we share a bed tonight?”

I grunted as I shuffled out of Dean’s grip and rolled onto the floor. Sam sat up and pulled the blankets back.

“Thank you.” He whispered.

I nodded as I curled up in his bed, snuggling into his side. He threw the blankets back over us and sighed.

“You okay?”

He nodded, resting his chin on the top of my head. “I’m just not feeling great.”

“Upset?”

He nodded again, wrapping his arms tight around me. “Yeah.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry, Sams.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got you guys.”

I snorted and pushed my head into his neck. “We’ll find you a girl, Sams. Don’t worry.”

***

“We’ve got a problem!” Dean rushed out from the bathroom.

“What happened?” I asked, clipping Jinx’s collar on.

“I can’t find my wallet.”

Sam didn’t look up from his duffel bag. “How is that our problem?”

“Cause I think I dropped it in the warehouse last night.”

Sam’s eyes went wide and his head snapped up. I stumbled backward, dropping onto the bed and struggling to breath.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” Dean shook his head.

“Dean! That’s got your prints all over it, your ID!” I ran a hand through my hair.

“Well, my fake ID, but yeah.” Dean nodded.

“We’ve gotta find it before somebody else does. Come on.”

***

“How do you lose your wallet, Dean?” Sam hissed.

I rubbed the back of my neck as we rushed around the auction house, eyes scanning every possible surface. Dean threw his hands up and kept looking. I groaned, ready to duck and check under tables.

“Hey guys!”

We turned around to see Sarah with a huge smile on her face. We all smiled back, trying to act cool and collected.

“Sarah! Hey!” Sam’s smile came naturally.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, glancing at Dean and I, who were still looking around.

“Ah, we uh… we’re leaving town, and you know, thought we’d come to say goodbye.” Sam stumbled.

“What are you talking about, Sam? We’re sticking around for at least another day or two.” Dean grinned as he tugged me along.

Sam looked at us, confused. Dean fished his wallet out of his pocket and smiled at Sam. “Oh, Sam. By the way, I’m gonna go ahead and give you that twenty dollars I owe you.” He turned to Sarah with a smile. “I always forget, you know.”

Sam only blinked, and Dean held the cash out with a grin. “There you go.”

Sam snatched it, glaring at Dean.

“Well, I’ll leave you two crazy kids along, I gotta-”

“We should go check on the dog!” I grinned, patting Sam on the back. “See ya!”

I grabbed Dean by the hand and tugged him to follow as we scrambled away, toward the parking lot.

“Are you insane?” I asked, eyes wide.

“He likes her.”

“I know he does, De, but you almost gave us both heart attacks.” I hissed.

“Oh my God!” Sam shouted.

I whipped around, hearing my teeth crackle inside my head. Dean grabbed my wrist and yanked me back his way, shaking his head.

Relax.

“Yeah, and now you’re just going to sell it again?” I heard Sam again.

I blinked, swallowing the blood in my mouth. Dean let out a breath, and Sam hurried into view, grabbing us both by the wrists and tugged us along.

“We’ve gotta go, now.”

He dragged us to the Impala, dodging our questions. Dean slid into the driver’s seat, and Sam shoved me to sit in the middle of the front bench. Jinx yapped as Sam slammed the door shut.

“Sams, what happened?” I asked.

“The painting.” Sam hissed.

“What?” Dean made a face.

“The painting is back.”

I shook my head. “Sammy, that’s not funny.”

Sam glared. “I’m not playing. I saw it.”

Dean let out a breath. “What the hell?”

“I don’t understand, Dean. We burned the damn thing!”

“Yeah, I got that, Captain Obvious!” Dean spat.

“Hey! Both of you relax. We just need to figure out another way to get rid of the thing. Ideas?”

“Okay, alright.” Sam sighed. “Well, um, in almost all the lore about haunted painting, it’s always the painting’s subject that haunts ‘em.”

“Yeah.” Dean nodded. “So we just need to figure out everything there is to know about that creepy-ass family in the creepy-ass painting. What were their names again?”

***

“You said the Isaiah Merchant family, right?” The proprietor asked.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Dean circled the table, a huge smile on his face as he flipped through an old book full of pictures of guns.

The proprietor put down a large book of newspapers clipping down on the table. “I dug up every scrap of local history I could find. So you kids are crime buffs?”

“Kinda.” Dean shrugged. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“Well…” He held up a newspaper article, pointing to a side article.

Father Slaughters Family, Kills Himself.

“Yes.” Dean piped up. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“The whole family was killed?” I asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“It seems that Isaiah, he slits his kids’ throats, then his wife, and then himself. He was a barber by trade. Used a straight razor.”

I shivered. Dad was a bit crazy, that was true, but there was no way he’d ever kill us.

“Why’d he do it?” Sam asked as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Let’s look… uh,” He skimmed the page, “People who knew him describe Isaiah as having a stern and harsh temperament. Controlled his family with an iron fist. Wife, uh, two sons, adopted daughter… there were whispers that the wife was going to take the children and leave.” He made a face. “Which of course, you know, in that day and age… so, um, instead, the old man… well, he gave them all a shave.” The man dragged a finger across his throat and made gagging noises.

He kept his eyes on Dean as he laughed, and Dean laughed back, maintaining eye contact. He was flirting. I blinked, holding back a smile. Sam gave Dean a bitchface, and Dean immediately stopped, clearing his throat.

“Does it say what happened to the bodies?” I asked, rubbing Dean’s arm.

“I’m sorry?” The proprietor blinked, looking at me.

“What happened to the bodies?” Dean repeated.

“Just that they were all cremated.” The man shrugged.

I sighed, and Sam groaned. “Is that all?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Dean, then back to Sam. “Actually, I found a picture of the family. It’s right here… somewhere.” He flicked through the book. “Right, here it is!” He pulled out a paper and showed us.

It was a picture of the painting. I sighed, and Sam asked him for a copy. The guy nodded before turning around and disappearing into the back room.

“Hey.” I smacked Sam’s arm. “Be nice.”

“What?” He squinted.

Dean was looking through the book of guns again, his demeanor sad. His shoulders were dropped and a sad look was on his face.

“Why’d you give him a bitch face?” I whispered.

“Because he was laughing at a dead family.”

I rolled my eyes. “You idiot. He was flirting.”

“With … a guy?”

I rolled my eyes again. “What, I can be bi, but Dean can’t be?”

Sam shook his head. “Olive, that’s not what I’m saying. I just… I’ve never seen him be forward about it.”

I snorted. “That’s cause you haven’t seen him without Dad in a while.”

Sam blinked. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

The guy came back with a copy of the picture and handed it to us with a small smile. “Here you go.”

I smiled back as Sam took it. Dean smiled at the guy as we left the store.

“Come on.” I held my hand out.

Dean took it with a soft smile and held the car door open for me.

***

“What the hell?” I squinted, bringing the copy of the photo closer to my face.

“What?” Dean looked over his shoulder as he stood in front of the sink, washing the coffee mugs from earlier.

“The pictures are different.” I rolled from my stomach onto my back and sat up.

Dean snorted. Sam reached out across the beds and took the paper. Jinx whined, popping her head up as Sam stopped petting her.

“Holy shit. Olive’s right.”

Dean shook his head. “No way.”

“I’m telling you, De.”

“The painting at the auction house, the dad is looking down. This copy, the dad’s looking out. The painting changed, Dean.” Sam squinted at the picture.

“Alright, so you think that Daddy dearest is trapped in the painting and is handing out Columbian neckties like he did with his family?” Dean turned the tap off.

“Well, yeah, it seems like it.” Sam sighed.

“But if his bones are already dusted, how are we gonna stop him?” I asked.

“Well, if Isaiah’s position changed, then maybe some other things in the painting changed too. Ya know, it could give us some clues.”

“What, like a Da Vinci Code deal?” Sam began to pet Jinx again.

“Uh…” Dean stammered, staring at Sam with a blank look. “I don’t… know, uh…”

“He’s still waiting on the movie for that one.” I giggled.

“Anyway, we gotta get back in and see that painting.” Dean threw himself on the bed and crossed his arms behind his head.

I dropped onto my side and snuggled up to him, curling up and placing my cheek on his chest. He wrapped one arm around me and kissed the top of my head.

“This is a good thing.” I mumbled.

“Yeah, cause Sam gets more time to crush on his girlfriend.”

“Dude.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Enough, already.”

“What?” Dean asked.

“What do you mean, what? Ever since we’ve gotten here, you two have been trying to pimp me out to Sarah. Just back off, alright?” Sam snapped.

“What, you don’t like her?”

Sam rolled his eyes and dropped onto his back, annoyed.

“Alright. You like her, she obviously likes you. You’re both consenting adults…” Dean trailed off.

“What’s the point?” Sam raised his voice. “We’ll just leave. We always leave!”

“He’s not talking about marriage, Sams.”

“You know, I don’t get it.” Sam turned to us. “What do you two care if I hook up?”

Dean sighed, calm as he talked. “Cause then maybe you wouldn’t be so cranky all the time.”

Sam glared, let out a huff, and looked back up to the ceiling.

I bumped my head into Dean’s chin and sat up with a sigh. “Sammy, we’re serious. This isn’t just about hooking up, okay? I mean, we… we think that Sarah could be good for you.”

Sam scratched his head, staying silent. Jinx whined, sensing the tension. I shot Dean a look.

Say something.

“And…” Dean spoke as he sat up, voice soft. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but… I’m sure this about Jessica. Right? Now, we don’t know what it’s like to lose somebody like that, but…”

“Sams, I know you miss her.” I whispered. “But she would want you to be happy.”

Sam said nothing as he listened, tears in his eyes. Dean sighed.

“God forbid have fun once in a while. Wouldn’t she?”

Sam gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, I know she would.” He sighed. “Yeah, you two are right. Part of this is about Jessica. But not the main part.”

“What’s it about?” Dean asked.

Sam said nothing, and Dean huffed.

“Okay.” I laid back down, and Dean followed.

He wrapped his arm around me again and yawned. I closed my eyes as Sam flicked his phone open and cleared his throat.

“Sarah, hey.” Sam spoke, awkwardly. “It’s Sam.”

A pause, and I cracked my eyes open.

“Hey, hi.”

Another pause.

“Good. Good, yeah, um… what about you?”

I watched as he paced around the room.

“Yeah, good, good, really good.”

Dean huffed. “Smooth.”

I thumped my head against Dean’s chest. “Be nice.”

“So, uh, listen… my siblings and I were uh… thinking that maybe we’d like to come back in and look at the painting again, I…”

Dean shook his head again, then turned to me with a smile.

“I think maybe we are interested in buying it.”

My nose wrinkled up.

“Buy it and be haunted? No thanks.” I whispered.

“What!” Sam snapped, and I pushed myself up, eyebrows furrowed.

“Who’d you sell it to?”

I rolled over Dean and got to my feet, digging through the duffel bag. Jinx jumped off the bed and ran toward me, sniffing the bag.

“Hey, no.” I pushed her nose away. “Don’t do that.”

“Sarah, I need an address right now.”

***

Dean slammed the brake and put the car in park. He moved slower than Sam, and I scrambled out past him.

“Sam, what’s happening?” Sarah asked as she jumped out of the car in the driveway.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come.” He ran past her, bolting up the porch steps.

“Hello? Anyone home?” I asked as I pounded on the door.

Dean tried kicking at it, but it didn’t budge.

“You said Evelyn might be in danger. What sort of danger?”

“I can’t knock this sucker down. I’ve gotta pick it.” He groaned.

I sprinted back to the car and dug through the backseat. Jinx tried to lick my face, and I pushed her away again.

“Stop it.” I mumbled as I fished out the pick case.

“Here.” I shoved the case into Dean’s hands and joined Sam at the windows, which were covered in security bars.

“What are you guys, burglars?”

“I wish it was that simple.” I scoffed, hitting the window.

“Look, you really should wait in the car. It’s for your own good.” Sam tried to get her out of the way.

I rushed to Dean’s side as he got the door open.

“The hell I will. Evelyn’s a friend.” Sarah ran in after us.

“Evelyn?” Sam called.

“Evelyn.” I inched into the lounge.

She was sitting on a couch, half turned away from us. The painting moved, the dad’s position changing again. Sarah reached for Evelyn, and Sam tried to get her to stop. Evelyn’s head tipped back, and her slashed throat was exposed. Sarah let out a scream, jumping back into Sam’s arms. He led her out of the room.

***

There was a knock on the door, and I shifted. Sam opened the door, and Sarah stormed in past him.

“Hey. You alright?”

“No, actually.” She crossed her arms over his chest. “I just lied to the cops and told them I went to Evelyn’s, alone, and that I found her like that.”

Sam let out a huff. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” She growled.

I sat up and yawned. Jinx was on her back next to me, kicking in her sleep.

“I’m about to call them back right now if you don’t tell me what the hell’s going on. Who’s killing these people?”

Sam glanced at Dean, who shrugged.

“What.”

“What?” Sarah looked at me.

“Not who. It’s a what. A what is killing these people.”

She looked at me like I was insane.

“Sarah, you saw that painting move.” Sam spoke softly.

She shook her head, becoming agitated. “No! No, I was… I was seeing things. It’s impossible.”

Dean snorted. “Well, welcome to our world.”

“Sarah. I know this sounds crazy, but…” Sam stumbled.

“We think the painting is haunted.”

She shook her head at me again. “No. You’re joking.”

The three of us sighed, faces dead-panned as she looked at each of us.

“You’re not joking.” She wiped fresh tears out of her eyes. “God, the guys I go out with.”

“Sarah, just think about it.” Sam tried to reason with her, and she took a step back.

“Look. Evelyn, the Telesca’s. They both had the painting, and there were others before that too. Wherever that butt-ugly painting goes, people die.” I shrugged.

“We’re just trying to stop it. And that’s the truth.” Sam sighed.

“Then I guess you’d better show me. I’m coming with you.” She pulled her purse over her shoulder.

“What? No! Sarah, no, you should just go home. This stuff can get dangerous, and I… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Sarah snorted. “I’m sorry, how old’s your sister?”

I rolled my eyes as I moved to sit next to Dean at the table. “I’m fifteen.”

“Look, you guys are probably crazy. But if you’re right about this?” She sighed. “Me and my Dad sold that painting that might’ve got these people killed. Look, I’m not saying I’m not scared, because I am scared as hell, but… I’m not gonna run and hide either.” She took two long strides to the door and turned back to us, arms crossed over her chest. “So. Are we going or what?” She walked out.

“Sam?” Dean got his attention.

Sam looked up at us, eyes wide.

“Marry that girl.”

***

“Uh, isn’t this a crime scene?” Sarah asked, looking around as Dean picked the lock.

“You’ve already lied to the cops once.” I shrugged. “What’s another infraction?”

Dean pushed the door open and stepped inside. I followed, and Sam and Sarah came in last, looking nervous.

“Aren’t you worried that it’s… gonna kill us?” She asked as Sam lifted it off the wall.

“Nah, it seems to do its thing at night. I think we’re okay in the daylight.”

I pulled the picture out of my back pocket and unfolded it, trying to flatten it out over my thigh. I compared it to the picture and my lips curled up.

“Yeesh. Sams, check it out. The razor. Closed in this, open in that.” I pointed to the razor blade in Isaiah’s hand.

“What are you guys looking for?” Sarah asked.

“If the spirit’s changing aspects of the painting then it’s doing so for a reason.” Dean explained.

“Hey, hey, hey. Look at this.” Sam pointed at something. “The painting in the painting.”

I huffed and looked around. Dean picked up a glass ashtray and held it up to the painting. I squinted.

“What is it?”

“Merchant.” He read.

***

Jinx pulled hard on her leash, and Sam pulled back. She sniffed one headstone before jumping around to another.

“This is the third boneyard we’ve checked.” Dean groaned. “I think this ghost is jerking us around.”

“So this is what you guys do for a living?” Sarah asked.

“Not exactly.” Sam shrugged. “We don’t get paid.”

“Well, Mazel tov.” She sighed.

“Hey.” I hit Dean’s arm as I spotted the mausoleum. “Over there.”

I hurried over, leaving the others to catch up. I tugged on the lock, but it was solid. Dean moved me aside and slammed a knife handle into it, breaking it open. He stepped in first, and I followed. There was a bunch of name plates, and four urns in small glass boxes. I flinched as I noticed the dolls set up next to each urn.

“Okay. That right there? The creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Sarah shuffled.

“It was a… tradition at the time. Whenever a child died, sometimes they’d preserve the kid’s favorite toy in a glass case, put it next to the headstone or crypt.”

Jinx began to bark. A breeze blew in, and I shuddered as the cobwebs fluttered around us. Dean wrapped an arm around me.

“Notice anything strange here?”

Sarah giggled. “Uh, where do I start?”

Sam laughed, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“No, that’s not what he means. Look at the urns.”

“Yeah.” Sam noticed. “Only four.”

“Mom and three kids.”

“Father dearest isn’t here.” I sighed.

“So where is he?”

***

I yawned, then giggled as Jinx did the same. Sarah and Sam were sitting on a short wall next to the office buildings. I was sitting on the ground next to them.

“So what exactly is your brother doing in there?”

“Searching county death certificates trying to find out what happened to Isaiah’s body.” Sam fiddled with his fingers.

“How’d he even get in the door?” She chuckled.

“Lying and subterfuge mostly.”

I snorted. “Dean’s really charming, actually. Especially when he wants to be. He can get himself wherever he needs to be.”

She nodded, turning back to Sam.

“You have a, uh… you have a right… no, uh, you know what…” Sam smiled at her. “Do you mind if I get it?”

“No.” She smiled.

He brushed it off and held it out on his finger. “Okay. Got it. Make a wish.”

Sarah laughed and then blew it away.

“Sam, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m gonna… take Jinx for a walk.” I rushed to my feet and pulled Jinx along.

We circled the block. Jinx wanted to sniff everything, but there was nobody around, and being alone freaked me out. I hadn’t been alone for more than a few hours, come to think of it. I grew up stuck to Sam and Dean. When Dean started going on hunts, Sam stayed with me. When Sam moved away, Dad and Dean would go on hunts, and I would stay with Bobby or Pastor Jim.

I circled back around to the front of the building, where Sam was in the middle of a heart-felt sentence, and Dean was standing with his hands in his pockets.

“Are we interrupting something?” Dean asked.

“No.”

“Not at all.”

Sam and Sarah spoke at the same time.

“Huh.”

“Oookay.” I let out a breath and shuffled back to Dean.

He bumped my arm as Sam asked what he had found out.

“Paydirt.”

“Oh, do share.” I grinned up at him.

“Apparently the surviving relatives of the Merchant family were so ashamed of Isaiah that they didn’t want him interred with the rest of the family. So, they handed him over to the county. County gave him a pauper’s funeral. Economy style.” Dean clicked his tongue. “He wasn’t created. He was buried in a pine box.”

“So there are bones to burn.”

“There are bones to burn.” Dean nodded.

“Please tell me you know where.”

***

I flung dirt over my shoulder with a huff. It was hot, and I was sweaty and gross. I could’ve sat out on digging, Dean and Sam understood that doing that with a single arm was difficult, but I didn’t want to engage in small talk with Sarah. Dean took a second, and Sam crawled out of the grave, standing next to Sarah.

“You guys seem to be uncomfortably comfortable with this.” She noted.

“Well, uh, this isn’t exactly the first grave we’ve dug.” He chuckled. “Still think I’m a catch?”

She laughed, and Dean tapped his shovel against something hard.

“Think we’ve got something.”

“Wanna crack it open?” I asked Dean.

“Nah. Jump.” He tossed his shovel up to Sam.

I did the same, and Dean held his hands out to me, holding onto my forearm and elbow. I giggled as he smiled.

“Ready?”

“Are they… laughing?”

“She grew up in this life. We all did.” Sam sighed. “Olive tends to find joy in the very little things.

“Alright, come on.” Dean gave my arm a squeeze.

I anchored my feet down before hopping. The heels of my boots cracked through the wood. Dean gripped me by the middle and held me back up. Sam reached down and helped me out. I shook the dirt off my boots as Dean got himself back on solid ground.

I rustled through the bag and yanked out the rock salt. Sam poured the kerosene all over the coffin, and I dumped the container of salt in. Dean struck a match and watched it burn for a second.

“You’ve been a real pain in the ass, Isaiah.”

“Good riddance, bitch.” I grinned as Dean tossed the match down.

The coffin went up in flames.

***

“Keep the motor running.” Sam instructed as we rolled up.

“I thought the painting was harmless now.” Sarah tilted her head as Sam got out of the car.

“Better safe than sorry. We’re gonna bury the sucker.” Sam shut the door.

“I’m going with you.”

“You sure?” Sam was taken aback.

“Hey! Hey, hey!” Dean called Sam. “Olive and I will stay here.”

“Go make your move!” I grinned, punching his arm.

Sam rolled his eyes.

“Sam! We’re serious!”

Sam flipped us off behind his back at he and Sarah jogged up the stairs. Dean flicked the station and turned the radio up. I giggled as a love song blared. Sam turned around and glared. Dean shrugged, and Sam pulled a finger across his throat. Dean sighed and turned the radio off. I threw my head back against the seat as Sam and Sarah disappeared inside the house. Dean sighed.

“He’s never gonna get laid.”

I rolled my eyes. “We can’t force him to go on a date if he doesn’t want to.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but a child’s loud laughter cut him off. We sat up straight to see the front door slam shut. We turned to each other for a second, and then busted out of the car, bolting up to the door. Dean pushed at the door, and I shoved it with my shoulder. Something on the other side, hopefully Sam, was trying to pull it open.

“Dean! Olive! Is that you?”

“Sams!”

“Sammy, you alright?”

Sam didn’t answer, but Dean’s phone rang. He flicked it open and put it on speaker.

“Tell me you slammed the front door.” He shoved the phone into my hand and began to work on the lock.

“No, it wasn’t me. I think it was the little girl.”

“Girl?” Dean echoed. “What girl?”

“Oh fuck, the girl in the painting!”

“Yeah! She’s not in it anymore. I think it might’ve been her all along.”

“Wasn’t the dad looking down at her?” Dean glanced at me. “Maybe he was trying to warn us.”

“Hey hey hey! Let’s recap later. Just get us out of here.” Sam pleaded.

“Well I’m trying to pick the lock, but the door won’t budge.”

“Well then knock it down.”

“Okay, Sams, let us just grab the battering ram.” I spat.

“Guys, the damn thing is coming.”

“You’re just gonna have to hold it off until we figure something out. Get salt and iron.” Dean instructed.

I slammed my shoulder against the door, and nothing happened. I shook my head as I took a breath. Dean paid no attention, again trying to take the door down. My teeth shifted inside my mouth, my jaw splintered, and blood came down in streams.

“Uh, guys, gimme a sec, don’t go anywhere.”

Dean walked around the porch, looking for a way in. There was a shout over the phone, and I clenched my fists, head spinning.

“Sammy, you okay?”

“Yeah, for now.”

“How are we gonna waste her?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. She was already cremated, there’s nothing left to burn.”

“Then how’s she still around?” Dean hit the door again.

“There must be something else.”

I opened my eyes and let out a breath. I could feel fangs in my mouth, digging into my bottom lip.

“Guys! Sarah said the doll might have the kid’s real hair. Human remains, same as bones.”

“The Mausoleum!”

“Dean, you’ve gotta go.” I shut the phone and shoved it into his hand.

He blinked, stumbling backward. I breathed heavily.

“What-”

“I’m in control right now. Go burn the doll.”

“What are you gonna do?”

I ran my tongue over my teeth and squared my shoulders. “Get in there and get Sammy safe.”

“Olive, you can’t-”

“I can take a ghost better than Sam can right now.” I huffed. “Dean. Go.”

He stared at me for a second before turning and dashing back to the car. The engine roared, and he peeled out of there in record time. I struggled with the sling before managing to fling it off onto the ground.

“Hang on, Sams. I’m coming.”

I sprinted down the porch and to the windows. I had to jump to get a good grip on the security bars. I slipped my legs in through them, anchoring my feet on the glass. I kicked as hard as I could, and the glass shattered. The alarm began to go off, and I flinched. It was worse than it would’ve been normally.

I tucked my legs back under my body and tugged at the bars with my full weight and strength. They broke at the connections, and I slammed my shoulder into them. They fell into the house, and I scrambled as I hit the floor, skimming across a layer of broken glass.

“Sammy!” I called.

“Sam!” Sarah shrieked from another room.

I followed the noise. A wardrobe was pinning Sam to the ground, and the little bitch of a ghost was staring Sarah down, razor in hand. Sam strained under the wood, trying to get it off. The girl raised her hand, and Sarah was thrown up into the air like a rag doll.

“Hey, kid!” I spat.

The ghost’s head turned to me unnaturally fast, and a rage filled her dead eyes. Sarah took the opportunity to scramble to Sam, helping him push the wardrobe off. The girl ran at me, blade up high.

“Olive!”

I took a swing at her, feeling metal slice against my forearm. Sam knocked me to the ground, away from the ghost. She stumbled backwards, burning up. Her figure reappeared in the painting. I hissed as Sam’s hand clamped down on my skin. His phone rang, and Sarah fished it out of his pocket for him.

“Sam, you good? Did Olive-”

“Right here, De.” I snarled, teeth bared as I tried to squirm away.

Sam grabbed me and held me down in his lap and yanked his flannel off, tying the sleeve around my arm. I blinked, coughing on my blood as my teeth began to go back to normal, bones cracking.

Sarah stared, and Sam sighed as he leaned his head back against the wall. I pushed off of the ground and onto my feet, heading right for the painting.

“Olive?”

I took it down and flicked out a switchblade. I spat the rest of the blood in my mouth onto the little girl’s face, then drove the blade right into her face.

“Rot in hell.”

***

“This was archived in the county records.” Dean smacked my head with a paper.

“What is it?” I asked, snatching the papers away as he stood next to me.

Sarah and Sam turned their attention from the painting, which was being crated up, to us.

“The Merchant’s adopted daughter, Melanie. Know why she was up for adoption?”

I flicked the papers open and read off the paper with a snort. “Her real family was murdered in their sleep.”

“Think she killed them?” Sarah asked.

I shrugged, and Dean nodded.

“Who would suspect a sweet little girl? She kills Isaiah and his family. Old man takes the blame.”

“You’re right, his spirit must’ve been trying to warn people ever since.”

“Where’s this one go?” A worker asked as he patted the crate.

“Take it out back and burn it.” Sarah didn’t skip a beat.

We blinked at her, taken aback.

“I’m serious, guys. Thanks.” She nodded at them and they shrugged at each other before lifting the crate and stumbling away.

“So why’d the girl do it?” Sarah turned back to us and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Killing others? Killing herself?” Sam tilted his head and shrugged. “Some people are just born tortured. So when they die, their spirits are just as dark.”

“Maybe.” Dean huffed. “I don’t really care. It’s over, our time to move on.”

“Oh…” Sarah’s shoulders fell. “I guess this means you’re leaving.”

Dean and I glanced between Sarah and Sam. Sam blinked at us, then cleared his throat. Realization dawned on me as I grabbed Dean by the hand and smiled.

“See you around, Sarah!”

“Oh. Yeah, we’ll go wait in the car. Bye, Sarah.” Dean grinned, wrapping an arm over my shoulder and leading us out of the door.

She said nothing, and Dean rolled his eyes. I snorted.

“Not like I got sliced and almost dislocated my shoulder, but it’s fine.”

“And I’m the one that burned the doll, destroyed the spirit, but don’t thank me or anything.” Dean grumbled under his breath.

I shook my head. “Some guys just get all the glory, don’t they?”

Dean laughed as we leaned against the car. I stifled a yawn as Sarah let Sam out of the house, closing the door behind him. I sighed as Sam stood on the porch, hands in his pockets.

“Alright, come on.” Dean pushed me into the car. “Guess he didn’t wanna make his move.”

“Wait, wait.” I smacked his hand away and watched.

Sam knocked on Sarah’s door. She opened it, and he stepped in and kissed her. I smiled and slid into the car. Dean grinned.

“That’s my boy.”

“Go Sams.” I giggled as they continued to kiss in the doorway. “Think he’ll ask to stay?” I leaned against Dean’s shoulder.

He shook his head. “No. He won’t.”

Previous Ep: Something Wicked (1.18)

Next Ep: Dead Man’s Blood (1.20)

33 notes · View notes

karenpage · 6 years ago

Note

the way you said "i love you": prompt 22. muffled, from the other side of the door

Sorry I that I can’t believe that anybody ever really starts to fall in love with me.

It’s six months after she’d told him to make it mean something. Six months, since he’d fallen a mile short of delivering and Karen’s got her footing in a life built without him. Not that she’d ever seriously entertained the alternative.

That, maybe, just maybe, she’d done her waiting, paid her dues in heartbreak and loneliness. Maybe just this once she gets to win, and Frank would be there by her side. A couple times a week at best, she knows he’d never stay, knows he has to keep moving, like a shark in bloodied water - at rest, they can’t breathe. At rest, they died.

But it has been six fucking months and the only way she sees the passage of time is that her bi-annual hair appointment is coming up next Tuesday, just a trim, keep it healthy. Cut off the dead ends.

She’d laugh at the irony if she wasn’t so entrenched in her unwillingness to let him go.

Karen’s not the girl who waits around and pines. She’s been in love with a dead man for years and that’s not about to change. So she does as she always has in the past; throws herself headlong into work. Freelancing for the Bulletin, doing private investigation for the law offices of Nelson, Murdock & Page, there are no shortage of distractions. Because that’s what her adult life has amounted to. Not being happy, but being focused on something else so wholly she didn’t have time to look at the shape her world has taken for too long.

She’d said it. Said love out loud, to Frank Castle, and she immediately should have known better. Caught up with him facing down death for the thousandth time, seeing his motivations skewed and all the leg work she’d done to prove his innocence, again, amount to nothing -- she was at her wit’s end. Worn to the bone and so sick and tired of pretending that the things people say and do to her don’t have a lasting impact.

No more silence, she’d made herself heard. And he’d thrown it in her face. Karen should have been fuming, spitting angry at the person she had and would stick her neck out for time and time again. Wishing that her love didn’t then feel like a guillotine.

Karen had anger, yeah. She’d had plenty of that but it had slowly ebbed until it became a dull ache, a nagging want that sits cold and lonely behind her heart. Karen moved on, moved forward, a good luck Frank whispered into the nascent glow of hospital lights, a kaleidoscope of primary colors painted by her unshed tears.

This isn’t her first choice, cradling a bottle of merlot in between her thighs while trying to reach her laptop and open it, all without spilling wine on her couch. Again. Alone in her apartment with only the pinging of her radiator to keep the quiet from swallowing her whole.

Karen’s mastered the art of pretending her pain away; if she doesn’t look at it, doesn’t give it any of her energy, it can’t twist itself into a big ugly beast. It can’t hurt her if she stays an arm's length away.

Tonight, she’s just picked a bottle of two buck chuck to be the deterrent, armor by way of dissociation. Matt will give her shit in the morning when she comes in smelling like leftover Thai and a distillery but its water off of a WASP’s back; she can handle midtown passive aggressive and is a black belt in smiling her way through rage.

That’s tomorrow’s problem because tonight? Tonight she’s going to watch the bachelor, she’s going to drink this entire bottle, and nothing on heaven or earth will make her feel guilty for stealing back a bit of normalcy into her life. The line between self-care and self-destruction is getting more and more blurred as her thirties continue to throw curveballs her way, but Karen’s smart enough to see it for what it is, even if tired enough to stand back and watch it passively.

She’s forty-five minutes into crying over artificial romance when she hears a loud thudding outside, muffled, but close - it’s on her floor, whatever it is (or, whoever). With walls as thin as these, she’s used to tuning out the lives of her neighbors. But, again, and a couple more times before there’s a knocking on her door and it just about startles a yelp out of her.

Karen grabs the .380 out of her purse and adjusts the hem of her sleep shirt. A washed out Georgetown logo on the front, grey and drab and on the theme with the overall mood of her evening.

“Who is it?” The peephole hasn’t worked right since she’d slammed it coming home from the hospital. It’s askew in the track so all she can see peering through it is the inside of her door. Which isn’t helpful, at all, hence the gun with the safety ticked back, her thumb on the hammer but her palm sitting on the grip, nowhere near the trigger.

There’s no one she expects, too late to be any neighbors or cold calling salespeople.

“It’s me.” A gruff reply.

Frank.

She’s not proud of the fact that she latches the top chain lock loud enough for him to hear it.

He sighs, even with a door between them and her eyes closed tight, Karen can all but see the way his nose twitches when he does it.

“Kar--- please I..” His voice catches, starts on the backend of another grumbled noise and then stops again. This continues as he works through whatever it is he wants to get out, the frustration thick enough that she struggles to breathe through it. “I got some things I need… need to say.” Muttered, sticking to the roof of his mouth like he’s retelling a memory, something distant, broken, far away.

Karen’s heart clenches in her chest, her palms now braced against the door with her gun left forgotten on the floor.

“Then say it.” Failing to keep the hurt from her voice. It’s as sharp as glass, cutting up her mouth on the way out and Karen can’t really manage to be sorry for it. If it’s pain, at least it’s honest. At least it’s something more than another ‘almost’ suspended like a mobile, mocking, just out of reach.

Frank adjusts his posture, pressing his weight onto his good leg with the old wood beneath his feet groans sympathetically, “you really gonna just.. Have me stand out here like a jackass?” Trying at levity, she can even hear the start of a laugh.

Karen shuts that shit down with a quickness, “you are a jackass.” A pause, a beat, like he’s waiting for her to take it back, “so whatever you’ve got to say to me, Frank. You can stand out there and say it.” She does not care that she’s being petulant, stubborn to the bone and maybe Frank has come to recognize that fact; she’s always been a storm.

“Right, okay.” The door shifts in its frame and she can tell that he’s leaning against it, so she does the same, her back to faded wood stain, sliding down until the floor is solid beneath her thighs. It’s strange, this foreign, diluted comfort. Frank’s broad and safe and even with something between them, she can feel the way it rushes up her limbs, a slowly spreading warmth, that, by the time it reaches her heart, is entirely flame.

“When I…” his voice tremors, “when I said I couldn’t tell you how much it meant to me… that you’d been there. That you stayed. I-- Karen you called my bluff in a big way and I gotta tell you, I was really fuckin’ scared.” There’s laughter there, but it’s dry, dusting off the parts of himself vulnerable enough to get through this, “ ‘cuz I know you know. You… you have’ta know. I got to thinkin’..right? That you’re stubborn, but not without reason. Maybe.. Maybe I didn’t have to say it because you already knew…” He trails off, swallowing, and his head sags backward heavily, another ‘thud’, and Karen has to bite her lip to keep from smiling.

Karen hates how quickly he’s come in, her whirlwind of a man, swept up all her sadness like she’s never been anything but glad. All the time he’s been away, gone in an instant and she wants to hold onto it, sharpen that loneliness into a point, anything to remind her why she’s mad. Why he’s saying this from her hallway and not in her arms.

“Talked myself in circles, sittin there in a fuckin’ hospital dress, my ass out, feelin’ every bit the piece of shit that I am and Karen I just--- I guess I was scared of somethin’ else, too. That.. that if I said it, you’d stick around. Put yourself into some maggot scum’s crosshairs again, for me. And I cannot… I can’t…” This isn’t the same machismo shit, not the puffed up chest and sense of guardianship. He’s not her sentinel just then, it’s a part of the confessional she’d never gotten to see. Not before.

“I know you can take care of yourself, Karen. Never doubted that. Not for a single minute. But I can’t -- can’t give you a life like that. Can’t offer you up… whatever the hell’s left of me and say it’s good enough for someone like you. And don’t go givin’ me the bullshit that you can decide that for yourself. I know that. I know you’ll fuckin’ pick me because you have shit taste in men.” It’s meant to be a joke, but Karen knows that Frank thinks about the same of himself.

Karen holds back a whimper; it takes all her mental, physical, and emotional fortitude to slow herself from diving into the deep blue sea of wanting him anyway. Because he’s right. She does. No matter what the fuck happens; gunshots, blacksmiths, bombs and blackbirds, one fact remains true in absolution.

That Karen Page loves Frank Castle, and he loves her the same.

“I should’a made it mean somethin’, Karen. I shoulda and I didn’t and I -- I was a goddamn coward. Couldn’t even look you in the eyes when you left, shit.” He’s crying, too. She can’t see it, but she can feel it, a phantom mirror of the own tracking down her cheeks.

She’s quiet, and he’s quiet, but it isn’t the same silence that’s been eating away at her for weeks. It’s an understanding between what he’d said, and what she hadn’t.

“Karen?” Frank’s voice is hardly recognizable just then, rough and soft, somehow, less a whisper and more a plea.

She answers him with the sound of her three sets of locks clicking, and the groan of the door, and Frank scrambles up to his feet.

No words exchanged, he’s said enough, and when he steps through the threshold and into her home it feels a bit like he’d never left. Like her life had been holding its breath, waiting for him, and now it can let it out in a sound like relief.

“Hey,” she wipes at her face with the heel of her hands as he’s turning around, lowering the hood that had kept his face in shadow.

“Hey.” Frank offers her a weak smile in return.

And just like that, he’s home.

#kastle #kastle ff #kastle fanfic #*writing #i'm so rusty please forgive this hot mess #but i cried a bunch writing it so there's that #ninzied

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thenixkat · 5 years ago

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Animorphs notes 21

David trilogy

Book 21

A Jake book

Huh, starting directly from where the last book left off

No remembered that they have wings, Ax and Cassie are correct that the fall won’t kill them with their mass

Rachel and Tobias spot the falling cockroaches and catch them

And then we get the opening speal

And again making no fucking distinctions between hork-bajir and hork-bajir controllers

Is there a reason teh yeerks don’t just use their stunning tech from here and book 44 to freeze groups of people and infest folks on mass?

So it is possible it wasn’t the actual president but a decoy

Tobias steals David some clothes. And again giveing the fucker time to practice while not in life threatening danger would have been a better idea

Marco continues to be a jackass

If only there existed insects with good eyesight that were incredibly common and known for flying distance like say? Wasps? Too bad those don’t exist.

Is that the same controller with a bald spot from 44?

So they had David sleep over at Marco and Jake’s house, and now in Cassie’s barn. I mean can’t ask any of their allies to help out with shelter

Jake continues to not make a distinction b/w his brother and the yeerk enslaving his brother

Wow David didn’t like having to sleep in a barn, who’da thunk

Actually, cat poop is rather interesting to dogs as a snack b/c of teh extra protein in it

Honestly, this could have just been David trying out his morphs b/c practicing is good. But the writers aren’t good and I already know they’re putting shit in place to make him Satan so they don’t have to keep him around after the plot they wanted was over

So you put him in this situation, forced him into yer ranks, and now definitely threatening to get rid of him b/c he has other ideas for his life than you

Really, a fucking dragonfly is the first thing you come up with intead of wasp or bee?

… that’s not really how dragonflies hunt. They use their legs to trap prey, not headbutt things

...that’s not how spider

Jake just cause you and the rest of the animorphs are little bitches who think insects are gross doesn’t mean that they’re inherently gross looking

Fleas have cute little fang mustash esque faces

Ah so Visser 3 aquired a middle management dude… to organise how the room the meeting takes place will go. And didn’t just have the fucker infested

Jake randomly doesn’t feel like killing a bunch of helpless people for once

It was demonstrated with the firefight at David’s house that the kid and his dad are more fight than flight kinda people

… You know for a fact that David morphed lion b4 when he left the barn in the night

I don’t care about the foreshadowing. I have already voiced how uninteresting what the writers are doing is.

Again, portable kadrona things are a thing. Even if the charcters don’t know the yeerks should.

Cassie, the fuck does typical males apply to a slug alien that you don’t actually know if they even have a gender. Huh, i miss read that but not deleating what i typed.

Also the motherfucker can take credit b/c he orchastrated shit and the minions are working for him.

Ax made a joke

Also those controllers that were envenomated, I’m just calling straight dead.

And also the knows they knocked out with those weights? Probably certainly dead from brain damage

Jake... you got infested once, you absolutely fucking know that their minds aren't pure yeerk. Jackass'

Heh. It was a trap.

And of course, Visser 3 isn’t allowed to be competent

So why the fuck does Visser 3 not react to ‘SHE bit me’ with all that he should have cause this motherfucker knows how fucking sexist andalites are

And there we see Jake decide that the new kid needs to die

On the one hand I hate false surrenders, on the otherhand the Animorphs have done that shit before so Visser 3 should know better

I mean Visser 3 isn’t wrong andalites are shitbags who’ll use you as a tool and toss you away when no longer useful

Yeah Jake’s definately decided to kill David by this point

See there’s a reason why even tho Rachel is my least disliked Animorph I won’t say that I like her

i'm still reminded that at no point have the Animorphs even suggested helping get David's parent's baclk

David clearly doesn't trust them and has no reason to

and frankly this coulda just been him trying to see his fucking parents again even its just from afar

Of course Tobias does say, morph owl

Yeah, i mean him catching the Animorphs spying on him would likely uh not go over well given he can't trust them and he knows that they'd hurt him to at the very least keep him in line. And he's aware that he knows to much for them to really let him live

i know his character as canonicly written is just gonna get worse but i'm going to enjoy him causing the Animorphs suffering

David’s actually a fairly good morpher if he can manage that, just not super knowledgable on the anatomy

Oh the writers remembered that horks are arboreal again. That’s convenient

Ax has jumping skills

Again David is a pretty good natural morpher

David beat Jake

To be continued

#nix reads animorphs #animorphs #david trilogy

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mst3kproject · 6 years ago

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Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo

I tend to associate this movie with Killer Fish – probably because I originally watched them on consecutive days, but they’ve got many other things in common. Both feature dull 70’s actors facing off against small animals that aren’t nearly as dangerous as pop culture would have us believe. Both go out of their way to avoid showing us anything genuinely exciting or cool. Both have boring, contrived climaxes, and both have titles that are technically accurate but dismally forgettable. If this one had dropped the Tarantulas and just called itself Deadly Cargo, that would be ten times better already.

A couple of crooks fly out of Ecuador with no idea that their cargo of coffee beans and illegal immigrants is, for some reason I cannot even begin to fathom, infested with spiders. A bad engine and the aggressive spiders lead to a crash landing in Finleyville, California. This is a sleepy little hick town that depends on the citrus industry, and they clearly haven’t had an emergency in about twelve years but they do their best to rise to the occasion. Unfortunately, their attempts to help only unleash the deadly arachnids on their community. Eventually, the townspeople find that the spiders have made themselves at home in the town’s fruit warehouse. If they cannot be somehow removed, the oranges will be unsalable, and Finleyville will go broke without a crop.

No shit. The greatest threat presented by the spiders in this movie is to the town’s economy. I don’t know why I find that so funny. Most spider movies present us with the horror of a slow venom death, often while playing up the omg, it’s touching me! angle. Giant spider movies give us huge monsters that can entangle and devour us. Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo threatens that not only might we be bitten by spiders, we won’t be able to afford health insurance afterwards!

The economic angle is the key to what this movie is. It’s trying to be something, and the first time I watched it, I wasn’t paying enough attention to pick it out. On the second viewing, when the owner of the orange-packing plant refuses to shut down operations because of a few spiders, it clicked – this was a Jaws ripoff! It’s got the shark and the Fourth of July Weekend and the whole thing! There’s even a Little Alex Kitner, in the form of a kid who climbs a truck to see one of the spiders after the driver assures him it’s perfectly harmless. Deadly Cargo has changed enough details that it could have been an interesting variation on this formula, but by the time the movie’s over its choice of shark stand-in has pushed it into a couple of corners it just can’t get out of.

I’ll come back to that – first, it’s Spider Nerd time again, and I actually do have to give Deadly Cargo some points for research. Characters present a dead spider to some sort of scientist, who identifies it as a Brazilian Wandering Spider, Phoneutria nigriventer. This species can be dangerous to humans, but usually only to small children, and they’re one of the few spiders capable of delivering a ‘dry’ bite that’s intended to scare rather than to kill. They’re sometimes called banana spiders because of a reputation for hanging out in shipments of fruit, but I don’t think they’ve ever been found hiding in coffee beans. Why would a spider hide in coffee beans? Spiders like small spaces to crawl into, such as those you find in between bunches of bananas or oranges in a box. Coffee beans are too small to create spider-sized hidey holes!

The Nondescript Scientist also notes that Phoneutria isn’t a tarantula – another reason why the word Tarantulas should not have been in the title. It also got a snort out of me because almost all the spiders we see in this movie are in fact Mexican Red-Knee Tarantulas (there are also a couple of Chilean Rose-Hairs). These are the same spiders we saw in Ator: the Fighting Eagle, and are the spiders of choice for horror movies because they are docile, easy to handle, and don’t bite. So yeah, if you ever actually see one of these in real life, you can just push it the hell over.

As long as I’m talking about the spiders in this movie, I’d like to know how they got into town so fast. One minute the spiders are at the crash site in the middle of empty fields, the next they’re harassing the faculty at the School for Autistic Children (are you already cringing? Wait until you see the kids marching in lockstep to an obnoxious whistle). Spiders move at like one mile per hour. Did the plane explosion just spray them across the entire state?

Plane explosion? Yeah, of course there’s a plane explosion in this movie, and it’s fucking annoying because they came so close to not having one. After the crash the plane develops a fuel leak – but the town’s fire chief immediately notices it, and directs people to dig a trench the fuel can flow into so it won’t pool. He goes around making sure nobody lights a cigarette or anything, and for a moment I really thought this might be a movie in which common sense prevails… but then some jackass on a motorcycle drives straight into the trench. Seeing a giant fireball in a movie has never left me more disappointed.

I have digressed, though. Let’s talk about the climax of the movie, which is one of the places where it most strongly resembles Killer Fish. Killer Fish had the whole cast trapped with piranhas all around their boat. Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo has them all in a warehouse full of spiders, as a power outage simultaneously shuts down the noise that had paralyzed the creatures and locks the doors.

This situation is so forced that it probably requires more explanation. The spiders must be removed from the oranges so that they can be shipped, but the townspeople cannot just spray the fruit with insecticides, because their buyer specifically paid for chemical-free (somebody does try to argue that he didn’t pay for spider-free, which amuses me more than it should). Therefore they paralyze the spiders with the sound of angry wasps and go around shoveling them into buckets of booze.

Like Banana Spiders, Spider-Wasps are actually a thing – the family pompilidae lay their eggs inside living spiders so that the larvae will hatch surrounded by something they can eat. What I can’t find when I looked these up is any reference to the spiders being paralyzed by terror when they hear the wasps coming. This seems pretty counter-productive from the spiders’ point of view – if you hear your deadliest enemy closing in on your, wouldn’t it be far more effective to run and hide, rather than roll over and present your belly to be ovipositored?

So that’s all ridiculous, and then we don’t even get a real sense of anybody ‘winning’ at the end. The supposed moment of triumph isn’t the spiders being out of the oranges, it’s the trapped people escaping through the roof. In Killer Fish the piranhas ate the human villain and Kate escaped with the jewels. Deadly Cargo doesn’t have a human villain – the greedy plant owner looks like he might be able to fill this role, but no, he’s later treated as vindicated when they almost lose the orange crop! This means the only ‘bad guys’ here are the spiders, and dropping their helplessly paralyzed bodies into poison just doesn’t feel like a victory. Neither does watching boxes of oranges go out on a train. It’s just lacking something.

It doesn’t help that the end of both movies also just leaves the killer animal problem lying there. In Killer Fish the whole area is still infested with piranhas – what does that mean for the tourism industry? Is there any way to get rid of them? In Deadly Cargo we can’t possibly be a hundred percent sure all the spiders are gone. Some might still be hanging around in somebody’s fruit bowl. Someone in another part of the country might find a hairy leg in their organic marmalade. We never knew how many spiders there were, so we can’t be sure they’re all gone and not out invading ecosystems where they have no natural predators.

Another big part of why Deadly Cargo is so unsatisfying is not only does it lack a villain, the good characters are never well-defined enough for us to really identify with any of them. There’s a young couple and a fire chief and the plant owner, but I can’t remember any of their names. The only people we get a sense of are the spider victims, who are introduced just enough to tell us that they either deserved to die (Mrs. Beasley, cheating on her husband) or didn’t (Little Alex Kitner). We can’t even feel for the girl weeping over her dead brother.

There’s a heap of other silly bullshit in this movie. Like the guy who opens a trapdoor in the ceiling and then just stands there screaming like an idiot as three or four spiders fall on him – a shot that probably looked way cooler in the director’s imagination. Or the straight-faced implication that the spiders could sense the warehouse full of oranges from four miles away and headed directly for it. Most of this is just mildly amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny. I’m sure Jonah and the bots could make a diverting episode out of this, but I don’t know if even they could make a memorable one.

#reviews #mst3k #tarantulas: the deadly cargo #episodes that never were #tw: spiders #70s

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fullmoonfireball · 7 years ago

Note

Okay so, I remember your mirror Adeleine, but which other characters you have mirror versions of and what they are like? (Also, if you've written on canonical mirrorers such as Shadow Kirby or Dark Taranza, that counts too!)

Oh boy, this is gonna be a long one, so I’m putting it under the cut.

OCs

Lace: Mirror World Ribbon

Edgy, kind of a jerk, but in that way little kids are.

Goth™

Has never even heard of Shadow Kirby

Not very fleshed out, tbh

Shadeleine: Mirror World Adeleine

Mostly summed up in this post.

Also I apparently write her with a Texan accent? Oops

Her name was Shado when she was younger, and she hated it

Shadow Marx: Guess Who

Kinda grumpy, but is nice at heart

A very tired insomniac

Just Let Him Sleep

Dating Mirror Magolor

lots of incomprehensible late-night rambles

Syzzle: Mirror World Gryll

The nerd to Gryll’s jock

Probably owns a library or something

Also not very fleshed out

Theatra: Mirror World Claycia

An actress

Overdramatic, very flamboyant

Has a coloured redesign I still need to post

Overprotective of Shadow Elline, who she loves very much

Shadow Elline: Guess Who (2)

An author. Writes a lot of what Theatra performs

An inkbrush fairy, as opposed to her counterpart being a paintbrush fairy

Much more reserved than her girlfriend or her other world counterpart, doesn’t talk too much

the ‘straight man’ of the duo

Very easily flustered

Mirror Magolor: Guess Who (3)

Mostly summed up here

Myrdinia: Mirror World Drawcia

A robot made by Wiz, meant to be their assistant before Shadeleine took that role.

Bitter about the disappearance of her little sister Muse (a robotic dancer, MW!Paintra, who is waddledab’s character). Muse was made as a response to Myrdinia’s requests for a sister, and was loved dearly by her.

Even if Muse was kidnapped by some Floralian fuckwad, Myrdi still blames Wiz for what happened

Absolutely has at least five throwing knives on her at all times, even if she never uses them

More or less a magically animated automaton. She needs Wiz to ‘recharge’ her magical energy every now and then.

Shadow Sectonia: Guess Who (4)

Actually really nice, despite being a parasitic wasp. Hasn’t stolen anyones body

Was friends with Other World Sectonia, unfortunately leading to her corruption

Dead™

Shadow Taranza: Guess Who (5)

Nervous as heck

Unhealthily loyal to Shadow Sectonia

Definitely not doing so well after her death

Vivian: Mirror World Cordelia

Wiz’s (adopted) mom

Specializes in water magic, despite being a simirror

Supports her weird kid’s career wholeheartedly

Tea Person™

HeadCANON

Before starting off, here’s some general headcanons

Dark Meta Knight

An edgy jackass

Likes terrorizing people

Doesn’t like SDDD that much but works with him anyways

More headcanons here. they’re kinda old, though

Shadow Kirby

Nervous lil orb

Trying his best

Needs to hang out with better people

The Mom Friend™

Wiz (Mirror World Paint Roller)

Wiz is just their stage name. Their actual name is Shadow Nuru. Most people know them as just Wiz, and they’re fine with that

Physically, they’re just a pair of eyes and invisible hands. The clothes are levitated.

Probably a Madoo? but has no clue what a Madoo is

They do Real™ magic tricks. Their powers could probably be considered reality-bending, but they seem to think it’s “not much”.

Has anxiety issues, but they’re surprisingly good at hiding them… Most of the time.

They’re actually a really bad teacher, being the main reason Shadeleine hasn’t actually learned anything from them. The other reason is that Shaddy has no magical abilities whatsoever.

They’re surprisingly good with machinery, especially when it comes to clockwork and the like.

Probably sells some of the smaller devices they pull together. If not for their passion for prestidigitation, this could easily be their main job.

Really worried about Myrdinia and how resentful she’s become. They hope she’ll get past this 'bitter’ phase at some point.

Copes with Muse’s kidnapping by trying to pretend she never existed. They’re quite distressed by Myrdinia blaming them for it, as Muse was similarly dear to them.

A complete pushover to authority, no matter how questionable it is. They don’t even like Dark Mind (in fact, they’re quite scared of him), but would follow his rule unquestioningly. This is how they ended up guarding one of the Dimensional Mirror’s shards during KatAM.

Dark Mind (Mirror World Nightmare + Mirror World 0)

No one knows who put them together, but it wasn’t much before the events of KatAM

Mirror World Nightmare wasn’t even That bad, but most of his personality seems absent from Dark Mind

Despite The existence of a MW!0, no other members of the Dark Matter species seem to have counterparts. Presumably, MW!0 lacks the ability to produce them.

Pretty Dang clearly corrupted, as is usual for shard fusions. This is most apparent in his ego.

Shadow Dedede

Pretty apathetic

Not King in any way, shape, or form.

Would be capable of restraining DMK’s rage, but couldn’t care less

I’m not super sure of what to think of him

Dark Taranza (Shadow Sectonia + Shadow Taranza, only exists in the TKCD universe)

Unstable disaster

Ridiculously bitter

Floralia’s new regnant after Sectonia’s ‘passing’ (though they technically are her)

They’re fair to their subjects, but should anyone else wrong them, they would not hesitate to brutally punish them

Notably bigger than Other World Taranza

King D-Mind (Shadow Dedede + Dark Mind, only exists in the TKCD universe)

A DDDisaster. Possibly more so than DarTar.

Barely-functional, mentally speaking. Being a three person shard fusion is incredibly difficult.

Ridiculously corrupted

Not actually a King in any way, shape, or form. DarTar easily outranks them.

I also don’t know what to do with him, either

#long post #headcans #not gonna bother tagging everyone #but yeah! im deep in the fuck #and this probably isnt everything but Yknow #katyahina #ask

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sky-writes-daydreams · 7 years ago

Text

Thank you.

A/n: Hey.... sorry I haven’t been active. Trying to get my Ao3 off the ground plus work and just low spells don’t make for very good inspiration. So I finally decided I was going to post this. It’s a vent piece of mine so it could be kind of triggering.

Adult language, Suicide mention, Physical Violence, Depression, Are just the ones I can think of. Don’t like? Don’t read. Plain and simple. So.... Yeah. For those of you who do read, enjoy and let me know what you think.

Ardyn X Skylar (oc) Angst and healing.

@themissimmortal @artistic-fangirl-shenanigans

This was fucking reckless. Beyond normal levels for sure but hey. It wasn’t going to stop me. I couldn’t care less if they found out. It’s not like they could stop me. They haven’t hiked this spot as much as I have. I felt my phone go off in my pocket and as soon as I could safely, I pulled it out and tossed it into the trunk. I didn’t want to deal with anyone. I was done with humans. Maybe that’s why I wanted to go camping on a Volcano.

Only it seemed those idiot royal boys ratted me out. Right by the parking spot, was Ardyn. I didn’t even have to fully see him. I knew his car considering how many times he followed me home after dates. I just parked behind him and killed the jeep jumping out and getting everything quickly. I heard his car door open and close but I didn’t look up as I stashed my phone in my backpack.

“Skylar.”

“Fuck off.” I slammed the trunk gate up then and looked up glaring. He was giving me this odd look.

“Skylar…. Why haven’t you answered? I’ve called everyday at least once now.”

“Phone died. A monster smashed it.” I got the pack on then and just started walking. I heard him sigh and follow.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Up. There’s rumors of a tomb. I wanted to check it out for those idiot boys so they didn’t almost die for nothing.” I was focused. I knew he wouldn’t be able to make it up there. His dress boots weren’t made for volcanic rock.

“Well I can tell you right now it’s not a rumor. It’s up there. So there. No reason for you to go up.”

“They want photo evidence. Sorry. Still have to go.” I heard him groan then. I didn’t care. I started finally going up and just kept powering on. I was going to be sore later I knew it but it was going to be worth it. Maybe it would finally get rid of all of this inside. I didn’t expect him to follow though.

“You know, I might have a photo. Save you the trouble.”

“I’ve got a hunt up here as well so nope.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No Ardyn. Now please… Just go.”

“Why?”

“Cus humans suck ass and I want to be alone. Is that so hard to understand?” My voice had an edge to it. I couldn’t hide the frustration at all now.

“When you send out a text saying that you’re done with everything and now you’re heading to a very high spot with lava? Yes.” I stopped then right as the path shrank and sighed. Why did people always jump to that conclusion?

“I’m coming back down in a few days so don’t worry… This is a shitty spot for that anyway.” He went to say something but I didn’t catch it. I started running up the path quickly pulling my weapon out ready to fight. He was going to have a hard time to get to me with all these damn demons up here. Maybe they would finally get me the peace I needed.

To be perfectly honest, I came up here to blow off steam. Life was getting me down and everyday my own demons got louder and louder in your head. I had already trashed the house in a fit of pure rage at being completely useless and a failure. The words of my father haunted me calling me worthless and everything else. All over a bad hunt and a messy house you didn’t have the energy to clean. Then it didn’t help that ardyn kept calling and wanting to know what was wrong. He said I sounded different. Even ignis said something the last time I saw him. So now I was leaving. I was ditching them all and going someplace where it didn’t matter. I could kill everything that bugged me up here and if I got hurt, so what? A few new scars wouldn’t be a shock to anyone. I just couldn’t take these voices in my head telling me all of this when it had to be a lie.

Even now though as I kept powering up the mountain, my head was screaming that I was too out of shape. I needed to lose weight. It didn’t care that the slope was at an angle and jagged. No, I was overweight and that’s why It was hard to breathe or keep going. I finally got to where It widened out and I didn’t stop. The fighting spiracorns didn’t even faze me. I just charged straight into them and got into a fight. I had just finished when I saw him. Panting but looking pretty decent still was ardyn. He stopped to breathe and looked up.

“Got into a fight?” I shrugged.

“Stay down here. It’s worse up top. If you can’t make it to here like that, then you won’t make it to the next part.” I put my weapon away then and got a surprise. He wasn’t wearing dress boots. He had on fancy hiking boots. Now that his coat was off I could see them. He was tying it around his waist then.

“Try me.” I just rolled my eyes and kept going further up. This next part was the real bitch. The path was mostly covered with sand meaning that your feet could slide and send you down the side of the mountain if you weren’t careful. Let’s just go with… Fuck being careful. I took off running up.

“Skylar!” I didn’t dare look back. I just kept going grabbing onto hidden rocks with my hands when I felt myself sliding and pushed onward. I wasn’t going to stop. It took me a few with a couple close calls but finally I got up there and just kept going. My legs were burning by now but I couldn’t stop. Not yet. I got across the rock bridge and kept running hearing his curses at the slick ground as he still tried to make it up. I walked right into the harden lava flow area and flinched. It was so damn hot up here. I kept forgetting that. I sighed and quickly looked finding my path blocked by demons. I just sighed adjusting the pack and started towards them. I couldn’t hear ardyn so I was assuming he was back towards the bottom now. I took the reapertails on easily. A few well placed blows usually sent them to meet their maker. The demons inside the dead end were going to be the issues.

“Why is it always Wyverns….?” Five were flying above as spiracorns were fighting with three Reapertails. I sighed then and took a second to breathe before walking into that.

It was a mess. The spiracorns was a major pain but added onto the Wyverns, I didn’t really have much of a chance alone. I was still trying though, swinging when it came charging at me cutting off it’s horn making it go up on two feet screaming. I took my chance and pulled a gun and shot it under the chin. The Spiracorn finally died but that left me with the flying bastards. At least until one fell with a crossbow bolt in its eye. I looked back from where it fell and was shocked.

“What the fuck!?” Ardyn just smiled and aimed again taking out the last four. They fell around me then and I growled. He sent away his weapon and started walking over.

“I made it. So you willing to talk yet? Or should we go look for another fi-?!” I couldn’t hold it back. A well placed jump and I slugged the hell out of him. He stumbled back and I dropped my weapon and went for a kick. He somehow dodged it but not the fist to his gut. He doubled over and I got his hair tightly.

“Listen up jackass!!! I’ve been nice! Now I’m not! Leave me the fuck alone!!!! This is what I’m done with! I’m sick and tired of having to act like shit isn’t wrong! So back off!” I let him go then and turned.

“Follow me again and a bruised face is the least of your worries! I’ll make sure you don’t make it back down.” I ran and jumped then getting a hand hold high above my head and pulled myself up the rock wall climbing. I could feel tears threatening to fall but I wasn’t going to let them. I couldn’t let anyone see me that fucking weak.

I finally got up the walls and found the haven. I just ditched my pack there and kept going. I avoided the killer wasps barely and found the nest. I slid down into it and stayed there in the shadows for a second. This is why I wanted to really come up here. I could be perfectly alone and if I did throw my sword or kicked something, no one else but me would be hurt. That was the main part. I was going to be the only one hurt if things kept going south.

She didn’t realize it. It was in her eyes. The anger, and the sadness. I had always seen it. Ever since I had started to get to know Skylar, I had seen that sadness in her eyes. She hid it well with a trained smile and laugh but I knew. When no one else was around, it would fall and She’d feel the loneliness all over again. It was almost laughable how much I understood what she felt. Even now, as I felt the sting of her blows, I only wanted to be there for her. If she was this upset then there was no reason for her to deal with it alone. I waited though. After her explosion, I knew she would be feeling regretful. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do either. So I waited, walked around a bit until about sunset. I headed up then. Climbing like this was hard but well worth it once I reached the top. I could see the haven she was camping at. She was trying to set up the tent now but I could hear her talking to herself. I walked forward and she looked up. A first there was shock but it quickly changed to anger. She threw down the poles then and stood up.

“What the hell did I tell you? Why didn’t you leave you dumbass!?” I shrugged then smiling.

“Maybe I’m making sure you do come back down this mountain.”

“Why!? No one would even notice if I didn't! The jeep would be towed in a week! Everyone would assume the fucking Zu ate me if I didn’t fall in the damn lava!”

“You’ve thought a lot about this huh?” She huffed then.

“Like you wouldn’t…”

“I’ve had my time to think about it. Now I deal better than trying to make myself believe that no one gives a damn about me.”

“I don’t have to make believe anything Ardyn! I know it! So once again, why the hell are you here? Bored? Wanting to help?” Her voice was cracking and I could see her shaking. She looked down then, hands in tight fists.

“Gods damn it…. Go to hell you nif bastard!!!!” She looked up then with tears streaming. It almost destroyed me seeing her like this. She was so pissed off at her own weakness and depression that she couldn’t see straight. I just moved closer then. She backed up then.

“Don't you dare touch me! You stupid man!” I laughed then. She couldn’t even come up with a decent insult right now. That only set her off worse and she came at me. I was ready and caught her fist. She jerked trying to get it free but I wasn’t letting go.

“Let me go!!!”

“Nope.” She growled then and kept trying. It was almost hard to keep her on her feet with how hard she was trying to fight me. Finally though, I had her pinned against me tightly with her feet off the ground. She was only a few inches shorter so it wasn’t hard. She was still squirming but it wasn’t as strong as before. Finally I heard it. She was sobbing. I sighed then and eased up.

“You stupid stupid man…. Just let me go… please!!” Her voice was strained but you could hear it. She was breaking inside.

“Skylar… what is going on? Please… tell me.”

“Too damn much…. Just….Too much.” I felt her touch my arm shaking then. She was gripping it lightly like she was scared of hurting me.

“I can’t…. I’m not strong… I don’t care what anyone says… I’m not as strong as they think…. I can’t keep lying to them...” The wall she built had cracked. She was finally going to let someone in it seemed.

“You’re stronger than you know Skylar… The hike up here proved that. By the six, did you ever slow down?” She laughed a bit then getting distracted. I wanted her mind off those thoughts. She didn’t need them right now.

“After the rock walls yeah… My legs were killing me. Still are.” I let her down gently then but I kept her in my arms. She wasn’t fighting now.

“Why…?” She didn't even have to finish asking. I knew what she wanted.

“I had a feeling… I’ve seen that same look before and when you sent that text… I got worried. You didn’t answer so… I tracked your phone.” She looked up then confused.

“Wait…”

“Empire tech. I can’t use it on the prince but for you, I can. You’re a civilian and I have your number. Wouldn’t work if the thing was smashed though.” She went red then and looked back down.

“So you knew…”

“That you lied? Yes.” She was silent. I pulled her closer then and hugged her. She was still shaking like a leaf.

“Skylar…. You need to listen to me. You aren’t ever alone. I know the signs… I see them every time I look in a mirror. Things seem hopeless sometimes but there is always something that can keep you going. People care. If you went missing, I know those idiot boys would come looking for you. I would as well. So don’t ever think we don’t care. Even if they can’t fully understand..” She nodded slowly then. I knew she was trying to calm down. I let her go gently then and untied my coat.

“So… Since I’m still here… Mind if I camp with you?” She shrugged then.

“If you want… After what I did…”

“Stung but nothing more. I don’t even think I’ll bruise.” She looked up then stunned.

“What!? That was my best punch damn it!” I laughed then as she pouted. I gave her cheek a small kiss then.

“Relax. It caught me off guard at least.. You’re so much shorter after all.”

“I’m five eleven! I’m not that much shorter!” She stepped on my toes then giving me that fake glare.

“Keep this up though and I’ll have you on your knees! Short my ass…” She huffed then and turned away. I smiled and dropped my coat on her head. She yelped but slowly let it fall over her. She got her arms into the sleeves and I smiled.

“Looks better on you… Though something's missing…”

“What?” I smirked then and gently moved her face so it looked like a smile.

“There we go. A smile… now it looks amazing on you.” I felt her really smile then before moving my hands away.

“Dork… Come on. If you’re staying, You can help with this stupid tent…. Damn thing doesn’t want to work.” I nodded and followed her over to the location.

The rest of the night was relaxed. We got the tent up and got the sleeping bags in there as well. Dinner was nothing fancy but it was worth it. I got her to start talking to me about everything bugging her. She had baggage for sure but it went well with mine. I think she slowly started realizing that as well because she didn’t lock up ever. Finally when she was all talked out, we brought the sleeping bags outside and laid out watching the stars above us. It was an amazing spot for stargazing honestly. I knew more than she did and was telling her what stories I could remember when I felt it. She had moved closer to hang onto my shirt a bit. I looked over and her eyes were closing.

“Someone tired?” She nodded, not even arguing. I chuckled and got my arm around her and held her tightly.

“It’s safer inside the tent Skylar.”

“Hm… Didn’t know that. Smart boy.” She patted my chest then giggling. I sighed then and sat up holding her. She wasn’t even trying to move.

“Come on. Let me go and then you can sleep on me ok?” She sighed deeply then before letting me go.

“Fiiinnneeee….” It took everything not to chuckle. She was such a child right now honestly. We got everything back in and she quickly got comfy after zipping the tent closed. The fire would burn itself out through the night but it was a warm night. She was still in my coat as well. She had refused to give it back. I didn’t mind. As long as it kept the smile on her face. I never wanted to see her cry like that again.

“Hey Ardyn…?” I looked down then.

“Yes?”

“... Thank you.” I felt my heart skip a beat then and she opened an eye.

“I’m sorry I lashed out though…. But thank you… You didn’t have to.” I gently moved onto my side then and kissed her forehead.

“Just don’t forget ok? I might be a stupid Nif but I do give a damn… So don’t do disappearing on me.” She nodded then and moved closer, not that there was anywhere to go.

“I won’t... Freaking idiot...” I felt her relax then and slowly Her breathing steadied. I didn’t move. If this is what it took to keep her alive and safe and happy, then it would be the price I’d pay. Even if we had barely started seeing each other… I loved her and that was all that mattered.

#writing #sky vents #ardyn x oc #ffxv fanfiction

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aion-rsa · 8 years ago

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The Buy Pile: Super Science For The Win!

WHAT IS THE BUY PILE?

Every week Hannibal Tabu (winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt/blogger/novelist/poet/jackass on Twitter/head honcho of Komplicated) grabs a whole lotta comics. These periodicals are quickly sorted (how) into two piles — the “buy” pile (a small pile most weeks, comprised of planned purchases) and the “read” pile (often huge, often including comics that are really crappy but have some value to stay abreast of). Thursday afternoons you’ll be able to get his thoughts (and they’re just the opinions of one guy, so calm down, and here’s some common definitions used in the column) about all of that … which goes something like this …

THE BUY PILE FOR FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Transformers Lost Light #2 (IDW Publishing)

Jump from the Read Pile. With amazing character moments as the guide, half of the cats is stuck in a dystopian alternate universe and the other half are at each other’s throats. This leads the story to an interesting place as the overarching quest for a lost legacy of their mechanical race continues. Watching the drastic shift in roles for Cyclonus and Tailpipe, or the exhausted nature of Megatron (perhaps, now, the most developed character in the entire property) as he sees what happened when he did not act as he did, all these moments wove an interesting parable about the nature of Cybertronian life and how it’s almost a curse unto itself. Heady stuff wrapped in whimsical trappings by James Roberts, Jack Lawrence, Joana LaFuente and Tom B. Long.

Nadia Pym is the best in “The Unstoppable Wasp” #2.

Unstoppable Wasp #2 (Marvel Comics)

Jump from the Read Pile. Nadia Pym is an orphaned super genius on a mission, as unflappable as Kimmie Schmidt and smarter than Lena Luthor. When she fails to notice her own myopia — planning on using fellow genius Moon Girl as a recruiting prop without ever thinking to talk to her — it’s a moment that could be played differently but sticks to the light tone. The action is balanced with the kookiness and Jarvis makes a perfect exasperated foil for the inexorable drive of the titular character. Writer Jeremy Whitley has the tone down pat here as the visuals from Elsa Charretier, Megan Wilson and Joe Caramagna make this bouncy, energetic script come to life.

WHAT’S THE PROGNOSIS?

Smart stuff to get us started, all good so far …

THIS WEEK’S READ PILE

Honorable Mentions: Stuff worth noting, even if it’s not good enough to buy “All-New X-Men” #1.MU had some cute quotes and character moments but was stuck with a crossover-inflicted plot that’s easily forgotten.

The “Meh” Pile Not good enough to praise, not bad enough to insult, they just kind of happened … “Shade The Changing Girl” #5, “Blood Blister” #1, “Champions” #5, “Everafter From The Pages Of Fables” #6, “Spider-Man 2099” #20, “A&A The Adventures Of Archer And Armstrong” #12, “Monsters Unleashed” #2, “Justice League” #14, “Nova” #3, “Star Wars Darth Maul” #1, “Invincible” #132, “Deadpool And The Mercs For Money” #8, “Green Lanterns” #16, “Big Trouble In Little China Escape From New York” #5, “Midnighter And Apollo” #5, “Karnak” #6, “Jem And The Misfits” #2, “Flintstones” #8, “Aquaman” #16, “Unbelievable Gwenpool” #11, “Vampirella” #0, “Death Of Hawkman” #5, “Jem And The Holograms Annual 2017, “Avengers” #4, “Goldie Vance” #9, “Harley Quinn” #13, “Faith” #8, “Ghostbusters Annual 2017, “Flash Gordon Kings Cross” #4, “Star Wars” #28, “Hard Case Crime The Assignment” #2, “Marvel Universe Avengers Ultron Revolution” #8, “Superman” #16, “Moon Knight” #11, “Jungle Fantasy Ivory” #6, “Deadpool” #26, “Electric Sublime” #4, “Bullseye” #1, “Fall And Rise Of Captain Atom” #2, “Assassin’s Creed Uprising” #1, “Nightwing” #14, “Planet Of The Apes Green Lantern” #1, “Old Man Logan” #17, “Walking Dead” #163, “Hawkeye” #3, “Cyborg” #9, “Back To The Future” #16, “Green Arrow” #16, “Planetoid Praxis” #1, “Batman” #16, “All-New X-Men” #18.

No, just … no … These comics? Not so much … No alarms and no surprises.

SO, HOW BAD WAS IT?

Well, while a lot of books just muddled along (and, honestly, “Moon Knight” was a hair from being reviewed much more harshly), it wasn’t so bad as a light week.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Two jumps beat the blahs of the Meh Pile, so the week essentially wins.

THE BUSINESS

Yeah, there are now 24 pages of the astonishing new web comic “Menthu: The Anger of Angels online and ready to roll. 48 pages remain, all done already, as this web comic shares a page a week throughout 2017, alongside a monthly newsletter from the Operative Network that includes giveaways and more. Hoo hah!

The writer of this column isn’t just a jerk who spews his opinions — he writes stuff too. A lot. Like what? You can get “Project Wildfire: Enter Project Torrent” (a collected superhero web comic), “The Crown: Ascension” and “Faraway,” five bucks a piece, or spend a few more dollars and get “New Money” #1 from Canon Comics, the rambunctious tale of four multimillionaires running wild in Los Angeles, a story in “Watson and Holmes Volume 2” co-plotted by “2 Guns” creator Steven Grant, two books from Stranger Comics — “Waso: Will To Power” and the sequel “Waso: Gathering Wind” (the tale of a young man who had leadership thrust upon him after a tragedy), or “Fathom Sourcebook” #1, “Soulfire Sourcebook” #1, “Executive Assistant Iris Sourcebook” #1 and “Aspen Universe Sourcebook,” the official guides to those Aspen Comics franchises. Love these reviews? It’d be great if you picked up a copy. Hate these reviews? Find out what this guy thinks is so freakin’ great. There’s free sample chapters too, and all proceeds to towards the care and maintenance of his kids … oh, and to buy comic books, of course. There’s also a bunch of great stuff — fantasy, superhero stuff, magical realism and more — available from this writer on Amazon. What are you waiting for? Go buy a freakin’ book already!

Got a comic you think should be reviewed in The Buy Pile? If we get a PDF of a fairly normal length comic (i.e. “less than 64 pages”) by no later than 24 hours before the actual issue arrives in stores (and sorry, we can only review comics people can go to stores and buy), we guarantee the work will get reviewed, if remembered. Physical comics? Geddouttahere. Too much drama to store with diminishing resources. If you send it in more than two days before comics come out, the possibility of it being forgotten increases exponentially. Oh, you should use the contact form as the CBR email address hasn’t been regularly checked since George W. Bush was in office. Sorry!

The post The Buy Pile: Super Science For The Win! appeared first on CBR.com.

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#Aion_Rsa

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thatweirdocryptid · 8 months ago

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NOOOOOO!

DEAD BUG WARNINGG

Yo this guy's name is Gerald

Or nickname: Jackass

#Gerald the dead wasp #he's a silly little guy #he's a silly guy #Jackass the dead wasp #important little guy #NOOOOOOOO NOT GERALD!

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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #212: Men of Deadly Pride!

October, 1981

Here they are -- the new Avengers!

But not the New Avengers (the difference is that the hairy monster they have is Tigra instead of Wolverine).

And they are having difficulty.

I don’t know what they did to piss off Galadriel over here (I mean yes I do, she says it right on the cover) but she is kicking their asses.

A dark queen indeed.

Not much to actually say about the cover. Uh, the composition looks neat! There we go. A thing.

So lets jump inside.

Where in a moody dawn scene, Jarvis walks alone through a nearly empty Avengers mansion, little knowing he is being stalked until

RAWWR! IT IS CAT!

Tigra jumps out to do him a startle.

C’mon, Tigra. Be nice.

You’re the only Avenger actually staying in the mansion so try not to terrorize the butler.

And he was bringing you a glass of milk for your breakfast!

Although he says that he’s dealt with a lot of unsettling things and he’s learned to maintain him composure. He didn’t even spill a drop.

Jarvis: “I must say, madame, that I find you rather more unsettling than our previous resident Avengers!”

Tigra: “Oh? You a cat-lover, Jarv?”

AND DON’T FLIRT WITH HIM EITHER TIGRA GEEZ

Poor Jarvis is even allergic to cats which seems to include giant cat women.

Jarvis asks how she got this way, prompting Tigra to give a very laconic backstory that once there was a human Greer Nelson who got almost dead and then the cat-people saved her life by turning her into a cat-person.

Tigra: “And, so, here I am, one pretty kitty! But, c’mon, Jarv, does it matter how I got this sexy?”

Jarvis clarifies that he meant how she got this way as in her upbringing. Like, why you so rude.

I guess I’ll just be grateful that this is just playful Tigra flirtiness as opposed to ‘i must make out with someone 24/7 oh hey a supervillain sure I’ll make you with you’ hypersexuality she’d have while on the West Coast Avengers, in the future.

Elsewhere, Tony Stark is decompressing from his one night stand, Teri. Admiring her very comfy couch, grateful that she’s still asleep so he can sneak out (Tony, you cad), and lamenting being on the wagon. When all that’s left to drink is scotch, bourbon, and half a can of warm, flat Dr. Pepper, you drink that Dr. Pepper if you’re Tony Stark.

Tony calls his secretary to have a janitorial crew clean up after the party and to send up a dozen roses for Teri.

And then he flies out the window as Iron Man, the Man Who Kisses and Runs! as Teri wakes up and is like ‘hey tonykins what the hell was that whooshing sound?’

Tony, you cad.

And elsewhere meanwhile, Steve Rogers wakes up promptly at six o’clock in the damn morning bright as the sun and raring to go. Disgusting. Truly disgusting.

I joked about Steve getting up at 6 to run ten miles and whatever because of him criticizing Beast that time but its sickening to see it in action.

Anyway, after he damn sings in the shower like the perky morning man he is, he bounces out the window to the first Avengers meeting since the roster shake-up, musing how little they know about Tigra and how he’ll have to keep an eye on her because he doesn’t know if she’ll crack under pressure or not.

And then onto, ok wow, we are just having full pages of individual Avengers going about their mornings.

So we’re onto Normal Human Man Dr. Donald Blake reaching the end of the night shift he just pulled at a hospital.

Nurse Wilson pretty blatantly flirts with him (thinking to herself “C’mon, doc! Notice that I’m a woman! I dare you!”). Normal Human Man Dr. Donald Blake doesn’t seem to notice but his thoughts are on her, wishing he could take her out for lunch but that he has important Avengers business.

He then taps his walking stick and transforms into Thor and flies off towards the mansion.

And that brings us to Cresskill where Janet van Dyne aka the Wasp and Hank Pym aka Yellowjacket are going about their morning.

Befitting her blase attitude last issue, Jan just wants to stay in bed longer and cuddle but Hank is desperate not to be late to his first meeting as a newly active Avenger again.

So he’s in costume and ready to go while she’s still choosing which of her many many costumes to wear. Albeit with the ulterior motive that she’s trying to look good for him. She does put in like 90% of the effort into the relationship.

So she’s narrowed her choices down to a red and blue costume and a green and purple outfit that looks like maybe she raided the Green Goblin’s wardrobe. She asks Hank to decide for her.

And he does. In a sense.

He blasts the green and purple number to shreds and yells “Wear the other one!” and when she protests the destruction of her stuff he goes “So what? Like you said you’ve got lots!”

Hmm. We haven’t seen Hank in a while. And he didn’t talk much last issue what with all the Moondragoning. But he’s taken a bit of a level in being a jackass.

And then on the ride to the mansion, the limo gets stuck in traffic.

Yellowjacket: “That does it! You can ride in your blasted chauffeured limo so your two-hundred dollar hair-do doesn’t get mussed -- but I’m flying to Avengers Mansion under my own power!”

And then he ditches. He ditches hard. Leaving Wasp to fly after him begging him to wait.

You’re a bit of a rude, Hank.

Like Hank feared, the two do arrive late to the meeting and he is gently ribbed by sudden class clown Captain America.

Captain America: “Well, look who’s finally here! Now the Wasp has arrived with her new partner -- uh, Yellowjacket, right? We can get started!”

Is funny joke. Its been a time so they’re pretending he’s a new guy and ha ha he’s being described as Wasp’s partner instead of vice versa. What an upset.

And it is an upset. Tigra notices what the other Avengers seem to miss, that Cap’s joke just pissed Yellowjacket off.

And its not helped when Cap mentions that its time to elect a new chairman but Iron Man interrupts to say that he and Thor have agreed that its better for Cap to remain chairman. They did just reorganize the roster and all. Some stability is fine.

Thor: “We choose to waive the elections! Such is our right as founding members!”

And this sets Yellowjacket right the hell off.

Yellowjacket: “Is that so? Well, I resent not being consulted! As the Ant Man I was a founding member, too!”

Iron Man: “uh, of course Hank... you and the Wasp! But you came in late... we’d already decided...”

Yeah! The Wasp too!

But Yellowjacket has some kind of insect in his bonnet and he yells that he’s done being forgotten and treated as a has-been while Janet just silently cringes. She wonders what’s happened to the man she loves. And why he won’t let her reach him anymore.

The meeting continues but the scene transitions.

To a cottage in an isolated glade among the wooded hills of Virginia. Where the olde talking power couple of Gorn and Linnea wake up. Linnea wants to lay in bed with Gorn a while longer but he decides NAY TIME TO GET UP NOW.

Hey wait.

Hmmm.

I’m sensing... thematic parallels. I’m sure its nothing, though.

Anyway, Gorn is tired of living a quiet idyllic life in a beautiful glade with a woman who dearly loves him, as they’ve done for ten thousand years. His dander is up and he wants battles to fight and glory to win! He’s tired of being safe in the glade, protected by Linnea’s power. He’s a warrior, not a farmer!

(I see no evidence of farming around the cottage, just saying)

And since its either be ditched or go with him, Linnea decides to go with him.

Gorn: “You are beautiful in that gown, Linnea. Men shall again call you Elf-Queen as they did in ancient days!”

Linnea/Elf-Queen: “They also called me witch and devil-spawn! They are ever so cruel to my kind!”

Gorn: “Aye, and once we fled them! This time, if we must, we shall fight them!”

Ah, geez, Gorn. The cover implies this won’t go well for you.

So Gorn and Elf-Queen, him on foot and her on horseback) wander into Washington DC literally looking for trouble.

But before trouble, something to eat. Looking for an inn, they wander into a random restaurant.

Gorn, being Gorn, immediately starts yelling at the maitre d’, who he assumes is the innkeeper.

And here’s a bit of an interesting and not often used touch. Even though all speech bubbles are rendered without <> as is sometimes used to denote someone speaking a different language, Gorn and Elf-Queen Linnea are in fact speaking an ancient language.

Nobody can understand a thing they say.

And they can’t understand modern English.

This is a perfect setup for some farce.

Gorn ends up just yelling that he wants food and the maitre d’ gets the gist even though he doesn’t understand the words. This is Washington DC. A lot of people from other countries wander through. So he shows them to a table.

Linnea and Gorn decide that the maitre d’ is probably the innkeeper’s idiot brother. I mean, that’s probably why he can’t understand normal language, right?

And there’s more culture shock to be had. Linnea is realizing how differently dressed everyone is in this era. None of the men are even wielding swords!

Elf-Queen Linnea: “And the women, Gorn -- ! The way they’re dressed --! Like -- like harlots!”

Gorn: “Aye! Hmmm...” -totally staring at a butt and not paying attention-

Linnea: “Gorn... ?! I-if we stay here... would you like me to dress so? I do not know if I can learn the ways of these women... but for you my love, I would try! Gorn... ?”

Gorn: “Mmm...” -still not paying attention-

Linnea: (Oh, Gorn! For ten thousand years we have dwelt together in solitude, as one in our love! Am I to lose you now, here in this city of temptresses?)

Hmmm.... this reminds me of something.... but what?

A Barry Kaplan interrupts her inferiority anxiety by coming up and trying to hire her as a fashion model.

And neither Barry nor Linnea can understand each other still.

But she senses something of his intentions and warns him that this isn’t a good idea since she’s sitting next to a warrior and all.

Barry is like ‘maybe if I try other languages?’

And then Gorn notices. And Gorn is displeased.

Gorn: “NO ONE TOUCHES GORN’S WOMAN!”

Barry: “I warn you, I’ve had six jiu-jitsu lessons!”

Wow!

So Gorn gets up from that and just bodily lifts the guy over his head (Barry lamenting that he dropped out before jiu-jitsu lesson seven). But if you get the barbarian or warrior dropped into a modern setting trope they’re usually just way better than any soft modern man. So its funny to see this random dink get the better of Gorn, even if its just the preamble to what would have been Gorn delivering a thorough beatdown.

Its just not what you expect to see in this story.

Linnea magics Barry out of Gorn’s hands, trying to defuse the situation but Gorn interprets the situation as her ‘unmanning’ him.

Gorn: “Why, Linnea? Why do you seek to unman me? Is it not enough that your power has preserved my youth and kept me for centuries? Must you now interfere in my battles?”

Linnea meekly apologizes.

And then the maitre d’ comes pissed off that this loud, shouting weirdo started a fight and is going to call the police on them. Until Linnea goes ‘oh right we should pay for the damage we caused’ and gives the maitre d’ a gold and diamond necklace.

And the maitre d’ mentally goes cha-ching and reroutes an order about to be served to give to the big spending non-English speaking weirdos.

When Gorn and Elf-Queen finally leave the restaurant wouldn’t you know it, someone stole their damn horse!

What kind of city is it where you can’t leave a horse tied to a parking meter without someone making off with it??

Linnea once again is like ‘hey lets go home to our nice glade where nobody ever stole our horse’

Gorn: “It is your home, Linnea, where I am but a guest -- nay, a pet kept by your grace. Ages ago, I was a renowed warrior, honored and feared by nations and kings! If I am to be a man in my own eyes I must regain the glory I once knew!”

And then a cop comes up to Gorn because you can’t just carry a sword around Washington DC.

Gorn: “Eh? His words are gibberish but the intent is clear! This blue-clad warrior issues me a challenge! Have at thee scoundr- AHH!”

And then the cop just maces Gorn.

Its not funny like the talent agent tossing him into a salad bowl because: cops. Its still a little funny because: Gorn.

Anyway, while Gorn is screaming and coughing the cop just slaps some handcuffs on him.

And Linnea magics the cop away from her boyfriend and worries over him.

Given this new horrible thing that has happened to them, another in a line of horrible things happening to them once they left their home, Linnea begs Gorn again to give up this quest to fight a random thing to make himself feel manly.

Linnea: “I am so worried, Gorn! The world has grown so strange! There is so much here that we do not understand! Please, let us go back before something terrible befalls us!”

He again refuses and she asks if he would die for his pride.

So he slaps her across the face.

And after all that she’s meekly gone along with his whims and tantrums and whatever else ways to describe Gorn’s exceptionally gornish way of being, she draws the line here.

Linnea: “Go ahead, Gorn -- stay! Win your stupid ‘glory’! I do not care! Farewell!”

And she just walks away into the sky, twinkle, because she can do that.

When she’s too far to hear he whispers an apology but its too late and he sadly trudges off alone into the city.

Wow, that was six pages of just Gorn and Linnea, Elf-Queen. That’s nearly a fourth of the whole issue! We spend a lot of time with these two new characters!

Back at Avengers Mansion, Iron Man and Yellowjacket prep the Quinjet to fly.

Wasp: “You mean we’re going all the way to Washington, D.C. just because somebody there claims they saw a woman walking on air? What’s new about that? I do it every time my sweetie Hank gives me a wink! Then, again, they do have some wonderful stores there! Last time I went there I bought six fur coats!”

Tigra: “Sounds expensive! I’m lucky! Mine’s built in!”

Iron Man chimes in that the air-walking woman also assaulted a cop so clearly this looks like a job for the Avengers.

But when they finish up checking the Quinjet, Yellowjacket says that he’s discovered the ‘sonomodulator circuit’ on his disruptor gun is acting up.

He’s pretty sure he can fix it but Wasp chimes in with a more different idea.

Wasp: “I’ll just ring up Jeeves over at the East Side Penthouse! He can grab one of those doohickies from your lab there and zip right over in the limo! It’ll just take a few minutes!”

Yellowjacket: “You love doing that, don’t you? You love taking every opportunity to flaunt your blasted money! Well, I don’t need your butlers, your cars or your money -- and I don’t need you!”

And Wasp runs off crying that she only wanted to help. Yellowjacket storms into the Quinjet telling the other Avengers to forget Wasp and get going.

Making the other Avengers feel very awkward about witnessing this fight. Cap even feels as if he should do something but doesn’t know what since its a personal matter.

A suggestion? Mandated couples counseling since this kind of thing could affect the team, will be the reason you give? Like. This clearly is something that’s going to cause trouble. Get ahead of it, Cap.

Meanwhile, back in Washington D.C. because yes Gorn didn’t just walk out of the book forever alone. He walked into a very honestly uncomfortably stereotypical gang who decide hey maybe we should mug that guy with the sword, it’ll probably pawn for something.

Gorn still can’t understand a thing anyone says but they’re carrying weapons and finally here’s a situation he understands. And finally he also doesn’t get played for a chump. He just wades into the crowd of six and starts laying them out with his bare hands.

This is what you’d typically see for a warrior type dropped into modern world thing.

Oh and then the cops hear the fight and go hey its that guy with the sword that there was an APB about.

And Gorn goes, hey its guys wearing the same livery of the guy that got me with that stinging vapor. Time to run at them with a sword.

So they shoot him five times.

And he dies.

It turns out that Linnea has been watching Gorn from a distance this whole time, apparently unwilling to actually ditch. So she sees him get gunned down.

She floats down from the sky to his side and realizes that he is already dead. The cops mistake sky woman for an angel (but there was an APB out for Gorn so why didn’t the flying woman warrant a mention?) but if Linnea is, she’s an avenging one.

She turns on the cops with her magic and makes them sink up to their necks into the concrete.

Elf-Queen: “Are you begging? It is for naught! He’s dead! DEAD! My love is dead -- and this city, this world shall PAY!”

And she turns her magic on Washington D.C., blasting a building and a helicopter, lashing out in grief at the world that killed her dickbag boyfriend.

This is when the Avengers finally arrive to the Plot, in this Avengers book.

The Avengers just see someone breaking property and go to stop her.

Captain America: “Avengers... attack!”

Of course, Tony being Tony, and kind of a loose man immediately gets distracted at the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

Iron Man: “Excuse me, miss! Couldn’t we discuss whatever’s bothering you... say, over dinner at the diplomat club?”

Its... not a bad idea. A little bit of empathy. Its just his motive that’s bad.

And also, his inability to speak ancient languages. Elf-Queen still can’t understand a thing anyone says. She does think a flying man in armor is something Gorn would have liked. But that just makes her mad.

So she magics a railing to wrap up Iron Man.

Thor grabs Elf-Queen from behind, pulling her arm behind her back. Its strikingly reminiscent of the Standard Female Grab Area trope but Elf-Queen doesn’t believe in that trope.

Elf-Queen: “You are strong, jackal! Your strength might have been enough to hold even me -- had you not presumed I was as frail as I appear!”

And she throws Thor into what is probably a monument.

Hmm, Iron Man and Thor got dunked so far because they really underestimated this woman because she’s a woman. Maybe don’t do that?

Meanwhile, Yellowjacket is thinking that this is his chance to prove what a star he is, if he’s the one that takes the threat down with his disruptor blast.

While Elf-Queen distracts herself with the dropped Mjolnir, Yellowjacket tries to shoot her with his disruptor from behind.

But it shorts out again!

Maybe he should have gotten the replacement part instead of trying to jury-rig a repair!

Elf-Queen senses the power in Mjolnir and tries to pick it up to better smash the world but finds she can’t lift it.

She guesses that there’s some enchantment on it since it doesn’t crumble the ground beneath it.

So she magics the ground to form a hand to grab and lift Mjolnir.

And then she hits Thor in the face with his own hammer. Hah.

Another for the list of silly Mjolnir loopholes.

Linnea monologues about her backstory because. Look. She may not be a villain. And people may not be able to understand a word she says. But people in comics have to comic.

Elf-Queen: “I am Linnea, called Elf Queen and great is the power I was born with! It transported my love and me across the ocean to this land ages ago in search of solitude! It preserved our youth! It kept us hidden when civilization spread its taint hither! The forces, forms and sustenance of the world bend to my will -- but all my power cannot help my Gorn now! Now, my gift serves only as a means for vengeance!”

Iron Man manages to tear free of the railing wrapped around him just as Tigra loudly pounces at Elf-Queen.

And Elf-Queen just gestures and sends Tigra flying into the air. High, high into the air. So high, so into the air that Iron Man has to fly after her to make sure Tigra doesn’t end up asphyxiating in space.

With all of the other Avengers out of action (or standing around uselessly like Yellowjacket), Elf-Queen turns out wrath on Captain America.

She blasts a building, sending a whole wall at him.

Cap dodges through the rain of rubble and berates himself. He realizes that he should have attacked sooner but he’s been holding back, trying to figure things out.

She’s speaking a language that doesn’t sound like any he knows of. Her clothes seem to be of ancient design. And he’s wondering if she maybe just popped out of the past, somehow surviving from some age undreamt of.

And hey, relatable, kinda. He spent decades in suspended animation.

Elf-Queen throws a lake of fire between her and Cap and Cap figures hey she’ll expect me to go around. So he jumps over it, doing her a startle.

Cap: “Good! I took her completely off guard! This is a perfect chance -- to show her that we want only peace!”

So he stands in front of her, hands to his side, palms showing. Showing no aggression.

Elf-Queen: “You did not strike when you had the opportunity! I could slay you easily now! Unflinchingly you face death! How like... my Gorn... my brave warrior!”

The fight could have ended here. Could. Could have. Could’ve.

Because Yellowjacket has been focused entirely on fixing his disruptor this whole time and has not paid any attention to how the fight has been going.

So when he gets the disruptor fixed, he doesn’t think ‘oh hey Cap is standing there and nobody is currently fighting!’ he thinks ‘wow this is a really easy shot’ and shoots Elf-Queen in the back.

And turns out that Linnea - a person who can toss Thor around - can also weather a disruptor. So she’s just mad. Furiously.

She figures that Cap’s courage was just a bold ruse. So she’s going to kill him. AFTER she throws a car at Yellowjacket.

Yellowjacket: “Oh, no! My sting’s shorted out again! No time to dodge! I’ll be crushed!”

But before Hank can be crushed like some kind of insect, can’t really think of a specific example, he is saved by Jan, who comes out of nowhere and blasts the car away with all of her might.

And apparently car blasting is under that umbrella.

But it takes it out of her and she weakly flutters to the ground.

Hank has mixed feelings about not being dead.

Yellowjacket: “You -- you saved me! You shattered the truck with your bio-electric sting! You saved me! You! She must have followed us down here... probably chartered a plane! She followed us down here, and when I was dead meat for sure, she saved me! Why her? WHY?”

Where are you in your life where you have to ask that, Hank?

Elf-Queen is like well that just happened but I’m just going to try to kill him again.

But Cap jumps in front of her again and very assertively non-aggressives.

Captain America: “Don’t do it! Don’t you see? It was a mistake -- an accident! If only you could understand me! Don’t kill him!”

Elf-Queen: “You dare stand in my way? Can you not see the rage in my eyes?”

But nonetheless, she subsides. The Avengers all re-assemble, ready to rush her but Cap tells them to stand down.

Elf-Queen Linnea starts crying and just walks away from the team.

Feeling a bit awkward, Cap decides to follow her to see what’s what. And they find her crying over Gorn.

Thor: “A fallen warrior! Her husband, perchance?”

Captain America: “Somehow I -- I think I knew! I mean... I’m not surprised! She seemed... grief-stricken!”

Iron Man: “I -- I wonder how this all came to pass?”

They’ll probably never know. The shot isn’t wide enough to say for sure but I think that if the Avengers saw, they’d say. I’m pretty sure those cops Linnea sank into the concrete have finished sinking. So it goes.

Cap says he’s sorry for what happened, knowing that his words will probably mean nothing to her. Language gap and all.

Linnea: “I hear compassion in your voice, brave champion! Is there such a thing in this cold, cruel place, save in your own heart? I cannot forgive your world for what it has taken from me.. but, for you, who are so much alike my beloved... for you, I will go in peace... for now!”

Yeah. She’s never coming back.

This is her and Gorn’s only appearance.

So despite Tigra wondering if she’ll be back and despite Iron Man’s suspicion that she might be a mutant, it doesn’t matter.

She’s done her role in the narrative and she’s gone.

But as the Avengers try to figure out what this was all about, Wasp looks at Yellowjacket with worry. For the issue ends with him still consumed in bitter thoughts and oblivious to Wasp.

And the big next time teaser says COURT MARTIAL! so. Yeah.

We’re coming on to a storyline that anyone who knows at least two things about Hank Pym knows. You probably already know it or will be able to guess it.

I was familiar with this story but only the moment where Hank shoots Elf-Queen in the back and makes things worse for himself. I hadn’t absorbed via osmosis how much of a shit he was being throughout. And nobody ever talks about Gorn.

Which is a shame.

The title of the issue comes right out and connects the obvious dots.

“Men of deadly pride!”

And that can only be Hank Pym and Gorn.

Much of this issue doesn’t actually feature the Avengers. There’s this long stretch in the middle that just has Gorn and Linnea leaving their home, traveling to the big city, Gorn’s attitude getting worse and worse, and finally his death.

Its clear enough that Gorn represents Hank Pym.

Hank rails against Janet for flaunting her money and emotionally withdraws from her and even becomes angry with her. He rankles at the idea he might be perceived her partner instead of vice versa. Feels he’s not being given the respect he deserves.

While Gorn resents that Linnea is the one caring for him. He emotionally withdraws from her. He perceives himself a pet to her. That he was once renowned and desperately needs to regain his glory.

And he just gets angrier when Linnea has to rescue him from his dumb mistakes.

Much like Jan had to rescue Hank in this issue, something that basically made Hank check out of the rest of the issue.

I don’t know what Gorn may have been like ten thousand years ago that Linnea sees him in Captain America most, but he’s a shadow for Hank Pym.

And what’s interesting is how the story looks at Gorn and his machismo. His obsessive preoccupation with proving himself. The story highlights the problems he creates for himself eventually leading to his death. It shows a person that just can’t live in the modern world.

And then the story looks at Hank Pym. One of the 60s style manly men holdovers. Paints him in much the same light. And seems to ask. “Can you live in the modern world?”

The question is in the air.

Its not particularly deep symbolism. But it surprised me that nobody ever mentions it.

Interestingly, if Hank is Gorn then Jan is Linnea. Their personalities are different enough that this might seem strange.

But they both draw the line in a similar place with their partners.

And there was a What If? based on this issue What If? #35 where Hank did die, much as Gorn did. And Wasp became an avenging angel of her own. Taking the identity of Black Wasp and brutally attacking criminals.

She even contemplates letting Cap be killed by falling debris, blaming him for Hank’s death.

All I can say is that this has been one awkward first day for Tigra.

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#Avengers #Elf Queen and Gorn #Yellowjacket #the Wasp #Captain America #essential avengers #Thor #Iron Man #Tigra #essential marvel liveblogging #tigra has a very cat first day #Jarvis not even drop #some thematic similarities happen and they're unfavorable to hank #captain america uses that empathy #its super effective #shooter ain't wasting any time

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