#even with the baron being made monstrous rather than human

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Review: Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein (1931)

Approved by the Production Code Administration of the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/10/review-frankenstein-1931.html>

Score: 5 out of 5

Frankenstein. What else is there to say? It's the original mad scientist movie, adapted from the novel by Mary Shelley that invented modern science fiction and, by extension, sci-fi horror. One of the biggest changes it made from the book was to make the monster a lumbering brute rather than give him human intelligence, and in doing so, it foreshadowed the zombie as an iconic monster of horror cinema and later gaming. It's a film that not only left an indelible mark on its source material and how it's perceived, but also, together with their adaptation of Dracula earlier that year, enshrined Universal Pictures' status in the '30s and early '40s as Hollywood's masters of horror who shaped the genre's contours in ways that are visible to this day. Nearly every scene in this 70-minute film is now iconic. It's been imitated, homaged, parodied, dissected, and simply ripped off so many times over the years that one might think it would lose some of its impact watching it in 2023, ninety-two years after it premiered.

One might think.

I decided to finally watch this film for the first time last night, and while so far I've enjoyed my trip into the classic Universal monster movies, this one has easily been the standout for me. It moves at a surprisingly brisk pace that builds a constantly escalating tension as the consequences of its protagonist's crime against nature become clear to everyone involved, Boris Karloff's take on the title character's monster is iconic for a reason, and the cast and production values all around remain impressive even after nearly a century of advances in special effects technology. It's a film that's at once beautifully gothic, larger-than-life, and treads close to camp, yet remains distinctly grim and melancholy throughout, without ever feeling slow or plodding. So far, I'd easily rank this as not only my favorite of the Universal monster movies, but as one of the all-time great horror films in general and sci-fi horror films specifically.

While this film may have a literal monstrous creature at the center of its plot, there's a reason why, as generations of pedantic nerds have pointed out, he's not the title character. No, that would be his creator, Dr. Henry Frankenstein (swapping first names with the supporting character of his friend, who is here named Victor), who's played brilliantly by Colin Clive and, despite being perfectly human, may well be the film's metaphorical monster. Henry is guilty of many sins, the big one being pride. He's nakedly out to prove himself as the greatest scientist who ever lived and the man who conquered death, not least of all to his former professor Dr. Waldman, his father Baron Frankenstein, his friend Victor (with whom he swaps first names from the book), and his fiancé Elizabeth. He compares himself to God in the mother of all blasphemous boasts shortly after he brings his creature to life, one that several state censorship boards ordered to be cut. He genuinely cares about the life of his grand achievement, but chiefly as a trophy of his accomplishment, and soon finds that he is in no way ready to care for him. He's an egomaniac high on his own supply, one who's set up for a terrible, well-deserved fall in the third act as the consequences of his creation come back to bite him and the horror of what he's done starts to sink in.

Even here, however, rather than swallow his pride and admit he made a mistake, he sets out to salvage it instead, not merely joining the mob of angry villagers but insisting on leading it. Whereas once he made the bold claim that he now wielded the power of creation in his hands (just don't ask about how he was too careless to check the quality of the brain his assistant Fritz gave him), now he insists that only by those same hands can this horrible creature be destroyed. After all, only Dr. Henry Frankenstein, the most brilliant man who ever lived, knows how to stop the monster he made! At risk of getting sidetracked into a rant, watching Henry's transformation I couldn't help but be reminded of the far more recent phenomenon of tech gurus who made their fortune with advanced technology, from social media to self-driving cars to AI, insisting that their expertise as the creators of these technologies leaves them uniquely qualified to manage their deleterious consequences on society. Watching this movie today, its portrayal of Henry was one of the most frightening things about it, a shockingly prescient portrait of what a lot of the boy wonders of Silicon Valley who convinced everyone around them, not least of all themselves and each other, that they were saving the world and uplifting humanity were actually like. He may mean well and have a ton of technical knowhow, but outside his area of expertise, he's a fool. I'm specifically reminded of Larry Fessenden's recent Frankenstein homage Depraved, which I saw four years ago at Popcorn Frights' 2019 festival, and which updated the basic plot to the present-day world of Silicon Valley biohackers but otherwise hewed very closely to this movie's themes.

A great monster isn't enough to make a great monster movie, though. And that brings me to the other monster. If Henry is a self-serving jackass with a bloated head, then his creation is a different story entirely. Boris Karloff's performance brought to mind nothing less than a dog, specifically one who's been mistreated for so long that he can't help but be violent and has no idea that he's doing anything wrong. Drs. Frankenstein and Waldman horribly mistreat him, Fritz the assistant hates him and tries to kill him, and it's no wonder when he starts to lash out like a chained-up junkyard dog with the strength of ten men. Even when he tries to be friendly, such as when he escapes his creator's castle and meets a little girl on a farm, his lack of knowledge of how human beings operate has terrible consequences. Make no mistake, Frankenstein's monster is just that, a monster who, at the end of the day, needed to be put down and never should've been created in the first place, much like the rest of the Universal Monsters. But if Jack Griffin was the trollish monster and Imhotep was the sexy monster, then Frankenstein's creature is the tragic monster, one whose entire brief existence on Earth was practically engineered for suffering and whose ultimate fate may as well be mercy after everything he's gone through. Even after what he does, you can't help but root for the monster, if not to prevail than simply to find peace.

The look and feel of the film are exactly what you'd expect from a classic, classy 1930s monster movie. The sets are lavish, and director James Whale incorporates a lot of clear influence from German expressionism into the film, giving many locales a heightened, creepy, and unreal feel to them of a sort that Tim Burton would become famous for decades later. The film is short, and it moves briskly, focusing on building up a situation that slowly but surely spirals out of the control of everybody involved due to their own hubris. It gets moving early, and scarcely lets up from there, with only a brief lull in the middle after the monster escapes and everything suddenly starts to sink in for Henry just as his wedding to Elizabeth is about to get going. Whenever the monster was on screen, I knew in my heart that he didn't mean any harm, but that didn't change the tension in the air at the knowledge that he could still snap and turn on the characters around him at any moment, as he often did. This wasn't really a slow burn, but it wasn't a "jump scare" movie either; a lot of the frights were built around the characters and the mood, and Whale pulled them off.

The Bottom Line

Even now, Frankenstein is a film with no less power to frighten and amaze, its themes still relevant to this day and the performances by Colin Clive and Boris Karloff crafting a pair of legendary monsters. It's a must-see not just for fans of horror interested in its history, but anybody who wants to watch a sci-fi horror classic that still holds up.

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let's take this a step further and go with both Universal's Frankenstein Creature AND Hammer Films Baron Frankenstein

Universal's Frankenstein actually starts off similar to the book, he's very sympathetic as he is a creature who didn't ask to be brought into the world, but was and faced nothing but cruelty and fear.

he also starts off fairly innocent as we saw during the infamous scene with the young girl throwing flowers into a river, he genuinely had fun like a child would, but because he was exactly that, a child in a hulking monstrous body, he had no idea him throwing the girl into the river was bad. this would lead the villagers to assume the worst and see him as a monster.

even in the sequels that followed, Frankenstein would dive further into becoming a villain of sorts, as we would see in the Bride of Frankenstein

wherein, he not only found a companion in a blind man, whom he would lose, but soon he would yearn for a companion like himself.

tragically she would reject him pushing him so far into despair all he wanted to do was die.

then he would have himself resurrected again but not long after he would be used as a means to an end when Igor would put his brain into his body, which effectively killed the creature we knew from the first film.

Universal's Frankenstein does villainous things, but only after he experienced so much evil and was denied companionship. His first from others taking that friend away from him because they feared him and the 2nd companion rejected him simply because she was in his position and only saw him as a monster.

Now we come to Baron Frankenstein from Hammer Films.

Contrast to Universal, Hammer chose to follow the creator rather than the monster, and The Baron is every bit of a villain as he was in the books.

In Curse of Frankenstien, it's fairly established that the Baron wants to pursue his research of playing god much like in the book, he also displays very morally shady methods to do so, killing his own mentor to use his brain and staging it like an accident, killing a maid (whom he was sleeping with) to hide his secret from his wife.

Victor does many things that makes you see him as a villain.

BUT you do see shades to him in other entries of the franchise that shows he is capable of some measure of humanity.

In Revenge of Frankenstein after the Baron escapes his execution, he simply wants to continue doing his research in peace and in doing so he takes on an assistant who offer his brain if Frankenstein will put him in a body that isn't crippled.

In Frankenstein created Woman he acts as a character witness to his then assistant Hans when he was being accused of a crime he didn't commit.

and while trying to push his experiments further (this time trapping souls before they fully leave the body) he helps in restoring Hans's lover, who killed herself after Hans was executed, to life and helping to fix her disfigurement and disability

granted this is all in the pursuit of his goals as he uses said lover's lifeless body to house the soul of her lover that he captured (the Hammer films can get weird) which ended up turning them both into a killer who sought vengeance on the ones who killed Hans

and things only get worse from there for The Baron as his entire legacy devolves into him becoming madder in his quest to make his work a success.

I could list more on Hammer's Frankenstein, but I'll leave this link for Dark Corners Reviews who did a brilliant retrospective on the character and probably does a better job showing the complexity of The Baron's character than I could.

Bottomline for why I brought these two up is that no matter where you look The Book, The Films that deviate from the book.

Frankenstein and his Creation are both synonymous with Tragedy, Villainy, among other things, that absolutely fulfill the requirements that Lily Orchard did when she made that stupid post as a gotcha.

To understand the complexity of both characters regardless of which version you look, you would need to have a broader understand of media literacy. Which I do not believe Lily does, he understanding goes so far as the media she takes in, which if you know what she watches and go by her responses to Ant and Crimson's lists.

seriously she classifies Godzilla as "Nuke" which if you are a G-Fan or even someone who knows what impact Godzilla has and what he means, is an insulting remark only matched by her own description of Kong as "just an animal"

See, Lily, this is a perfect example of great discourse you tried to shut down. Frankenstein's Monster is a perfect example of what you were asking for, right down to being good. Let's have the discussion anyway.

The Monster is one of the most sympathetic characters in literature. He is shunned by society, abused by others, and abandoned by his creator. He'd be very justified in killing Dr. Frankenstein.

Instead, he kills three other people. He kills the doctor's brother. He kills the doctor's best friend. And he kills the Doctor's wife and frames someone else for that murder.

Victor actually dies from grief.

The Monster's anger is justified; his actions are villainous.

Now you could have argued, he doesn't meet the "why are they the villain," condition, if fact, you probably added it for cases like this, but you didn't even bother to do that. Instead you pouted that the Doctor is the villain. Believe it or not Lily, a good narrative has room for two.

And one can even create the other.

[feralthoughtdump]

Sign of The Times

Part One: Kiss With A Fist

Part Two: Only Angel

Part Three: Arsonist's Lullaby 

Bucky and his Angel’s time in Riga is coming to an end and possibly their little fling.

CW: violence, slight angst, John Walker being rude, fluff, slight smut, nightmares, slight allusions to religion and maternal trauma, crying, Sign of The Times by Harry Styles, time jump

Word Count: 6.6k

Angel wakes up next to Bucky and her heart is filled with regret.

No, not regret over the sex, rather what happened after the sex.

You’re the only one who’s made me feel human.

Why did she say that? Why did she admit to that?

She hopes that he didn’t hear her. She hopes that he’ll forget what she said to him. 

Never in her life, even after the sex that she’s had, had she ever admit to something so stupid. Something so personal.

But then again, she’s never had sex with someone like Bucky until now. 

He’s made her feel something. He’s made her feel full in more ways than one. 

He’s made her feel good, and never in her life, has anyone made her feel good. 

Bucky stirs next to her, pulling her body close to his. 

He’s warm, and his embrace makes her feel warmer. 

She turns around, careful not to wake him, so she can see his face.

She can’t stop thinking about him. He had managed to crack the hard shell that was ingrained into her. He had managed to reach into her and pull out someone else. Someone she was unfamiliar with. 

Someone human. 

Thirteen years ago, when she would study the blurry images that were put in front of her, She would have assumed that they were cut from the same cloth. But now? As he is lying right next to her, holding her in his arms, they couldn’t be more different.

Bucky killed because he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t in control.

But her? That wasn’t the case. Violence was a part of her. It ran through her blood.

She needed it like a shark needs to swim.

As for you, you seem to have this, how do I say it, a compulsion to kill. It will always stick to you.

She thinks about Zemo’s words and a bitter taste fills her mouth. 

He’s right. She was ruled by anger and compulsion.

She knows that when this is over, she would go back to killing. She wouldn’t be able to stop no matter how hard she wanted to. 

Bucky’s metal hand clasps over hers, pulling her from her thoughts. 

“What are you thinking about sweet Angel?” 

She quickly paints on a smile and kisses him. 

“Nothing, Buck. Just admiring you.”

How could she, a monster, have pulled a man as good as him, she thinks, staring into his bright, blue eyes. 

“Well, I’ll lie here and admire you too.” He smiles. 

His words improve her mood, practically melting her stress away. He doesn’t mention her confession at all and it fills her with relief. 

She basks in his warmth and gentle gaze until a knock on the door startles them.

“Alright lovebirds, it’s half-past ten,” Sam remarks. “We’ve got some work to do.”

Angel smiles and gives Bucky one final kiss. 

“I’m going to get dressed. So get out.”

She closes the bedroom door and sits in front of the mirror, quietly dabbing concealer around her under eyes. Her tongue slightly pokes out from between her teeth as she meticulously fills in her brows. She turns her head to the side and grins. 

“Pretty.” She whispers to herself. 

Pretty made her feel nice. It made her feel sweet. Feeling pretty made her feel slightly less monstrous. 

As she twirls in front of the mirror, she grins at her appearance. Sure, the pink puff-sleeved dress was obnoxious and the volume and ruffled hem made it slightly impractical, she thought it was lovely. A cute little number she bought the second she saw it in a store window in Paris. A reward for herself. A little ‘good job’ gift after her twenty-fifth kill. 

It almost made her look angelic. 

She grabs her white heeled boots and opens the door, lacing them up as she hops through the entrance. 

“Nice dress.” Sam notes, peering at her outfit.

“Really?” Angel grabs a Turkish Delight from the counter and pops it into her mouth. “Thanks. I got it in Paris.” She chirps.

“You’re in such a good mood today,” Sam mutters. “Does it have anything to do with your wild night with Bucky?”

Bucky chokes on his water and coughs. 

“You heard us?”

“Of course I did. You two need to learn how to control your volume.” 

She walks over to the couch and sits down, the dress poofing around her. 

“Bucky needs a good lay anyways.” She ties the laces of her boots into a bow. “It’s good stress relief.” 

The sun casts a colorful light onto the floor and Angel admires him, bathed in reds, blues, and greens. 

“Well, I saw a crepe place nearby.” She stands from the couch, balancing on her boots. “I’ll be back soon.” 

… 

Sam and Bucky were deep in conversation when she walks through the door, a bag of crepes in tow. 

“Something’s not right about Walker.” Bucky says. 

“You don’t say.” Sam replies. 

“Well, I know a crazy one when I see one.” Bucky looks down at his plate. “Because I am crazy.” 

“Oh hush.” Angel giggles, passing him a box of crepes. “You’re a little rough around the edges but that doesn’t mean you’re crazy.”

Zemo chuckles and leans against the dresser, a glass of whiskey in his hands. 

“You’re an assassin who kills with no hesitation”

“Baron, just because I kill with no hesitation doesn’t mean I’m crazy.” She laughs, placing another box in front of him. “I’m able to stay cool and calculated and need I remind you, it’s my job.” 

She walks past Sam and hands him a box. He mutters a quick ‘thank you’ and shuts his laptop closed. 

The four of them have a long-overdue debrief of the events that happened the day before. They go over what went wrong, and what went right. 

When the conversation shifts to the serum, the mood changes. 

“Hypothetically, if you were offered it,” Zemo asks Sam, “Would you have taken it?” 

“No.” Sam says.

“No hesitation,” Zemo notes. “Impressive.” He turns to Angel. “What about you?”

“No.” She sets her fork down. “I don’t like the idea of becoming, you know, more of myself.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bucky questions.

Her mood is quickly soured when John Walker kicks his way through the door. 

“Alright.” He commands. “That’s it. I’m ordering for you to turn him (Zemo) over.” 

“Here we go again.” She mutters, standing up to pour herself a tumbler of whiskey. 

“Hey,” Sam stands up. “Slow your roll. Shield or no shield, the only thing you’re running is your mouth. Now, I had Karli and you overstepped. He’s actually proven himself useful yesterday. And we need all hands on deck for whatever’s coming next.”

“And what exactly has Princess Peach over there done to help?” John scoffs. “How does strutting around Latvia in her little outfits and playing with knives help?”

“Hey!” Angel snaps. “Shut your mouth. At least I have more than one outfit to wear while sauntering around Europe.” 

John speeds over to her and raises his hand, but she catches his wrist.

“Ooh,” she chastises. “Hitting women, huh? Not very Captain America of you.” 

Bucky stands from his seat and crosses his arms. 

“Don’t you dare touch her, Walker.” He seethes. 

“I can hold my own, Buck.” She narrows her eyes. “Step away John, or I’ll break your fucking wrist.” 

“Listen here, John.” Sam walks over to him as John pulls his arm from Angel’s grip. “She’s been helpful this entire time, keeping an eye on Zemo, helping us track down Karli, and defending us when our lives were put at risk. Yet, you’ve been nothing but hostile to her. If you want us to work as a team, I expect you to at least show her some decency.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, trying to push away her anger. All she wanted was to punch him in the face, maybe stab him in the neck, but she knows she shouldn’t. At least not when Bucky and Sam are around. 

“Thanks, Sam.” She mumbles. 

“If a fight is what you want, why don’t I put down the shield huh?” John fumes. “Make this fair.” 

As the shield touches the ground, a spear whizzes past Angel, the momentum fluffing the edge of her dress. 

She turns around to see a woman clad in red. 

The Dora Miaje. She’s heard the stories about them. The female warriors of Wakanda who had fought the titans after the blip. 

Angel had always been one to prepare for any outcome, but this? She wasn’t expecting this. Not that she didn’t mind.

Her head whips around as two more walks past the doors, brandishing spears. 

One speaks in Wakandan, and Bucky looks down in shame. 

She may not understand her, but she knows that they were not happy with him.

“Release him to us now.” The woman demands. 

“Bucky?” Angel turns to look at him. “What did you do?” 

He doesn’t answer her, he only looks at the table, avoiding her eyes. 

She sighs and takes a sip of whisky, scowling at the taste. 

“Hi. John Walker.” 

Angel quirks a brow as he walks up to the Dora Milaje, holding out a hand. He receives no handshake nor a verbal reply. 

“Well, uh,” John holds out his arms. “Let’s put down the pointy sticks and we can talk this through, huh?” 

“Hey, John, take it easy,” Sam says, a frustrated smile on his face. “You might want to fight Bucky before you tangle with the Dora Milaje.” 

John rolls his eyes. 

“The Dora Milaje don’t have jurisdiction here.”

Angel internally winces. She may not have expected this, but she knows this won’t end well.

“The Dora Milaje had jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be.” 

“Okay.” John scoffs. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“John,” Angel warns. “You really should shut up right now.”

Her warning falls on deaf ears as he places his hand on the woman’s armor. 

Within the blink of an eye, a fight ensues. 

She observes from afar, deciding it was best that she doesn’t involve herself. 

 Her drink is placed on the counter as she walks over to Sam and Bucky.

She stands back with an amused look while John faces off with the Dora Milaje. 

Sounds of clanging metal and fighting echo throughout the room. 

“Do I have your permission to join them? Any excuse to fight Walker is a good excuse.” 

She whispers to Bucky. 

“Best you stay out of it and enjoy the show.” He whispers back. 

Sam turns to them. 

“We should do something.”

“Looking strong, John” Bucky yells over the fighting and Angel claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh. 

“Bucky.” Sam scolds. 

In the corner of her eye, she spots Zemo reaching for his coat. 

He’s making a run for it. And she’s not letting him get away. 

Before the doors of the bathroom close, she wedges her foot in between them. 

“You’re not going anywhere.” She glares at him. 

Zemo sighs. 

“I really liked you. So please don’t take this personally.”

He pulls her through the doors as they close and slams her head against the edge of the tub.

She tenderly touches her forehead and winces.

“You son of a bitch.” 

“I need to visit my home.” He says as dark spots form in her vision. “Just one last time. I hope you understand.” 

All she can do is lie there, head on the tile, as her vision fades to black. 

… 

She wakes up with a concerned Bucky hovering over her. 

“Oh, doll,” He murmurs, brushing his fingers over the developing bruise on her forehead. “I shouldn’t have strung you along.”

“It’s okay, Bucky.” She murmurs, pain rushing through her head. 

“Now I’ve dragged you into this… this mess-”

“Hey, hey.” She sits up and cradles his face in her hands. “If I didn’t want to be here, I would’ve gone back to Amsterdam right after what happened in Madripoor.” He looks down, refusing to meet her eyes. “Bucky,” She lifts his chin with her finger. “Look at me. I’m here on my own accord. I want to be here. With you.” 

Sam walks over to them and hands her a wrapped ice pack. 

“Are you okay?” He asks. 

“Yeah, yeah.” She accepts it and places the cool towel against her head. “What time is it? How long was I out?”

 “For a few hours,” Sam answers her. “You hit your head really hard.”

“What’s next, what else do you need me to do?” 

“No,” Sam shakes his head. “You aren’t going anywhere. You need to rest.”

“I’m fine.” she stands but Bucky places an arm on her shoulder, pushing her back onto the bed. “Guys, I let Zemo get away, I need to-”

“Hey,” Sam crouches down next to her. “I meant what I said, about you being helpful. And Zemo getting away isn’t your fault. Stay here and rest. I just don’t want you to be putting yourself in danger.”

“He’s right.” Bucky agrees. “You need to take care of yourself, doll.”

“I can handle it.” She struggles against Bucky’s hold on her. “I promise. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Hey,” Sam places his hand gently on her forearm. “We don’t know if you had a concussion, but concussion or no concussion, we’re not letting you endanger yourself.”

She lies back down on the bed and shuts her eyes, giving in.

“Fine. Just don’t get hurt.” 

… 

She lies there for what feels like hours, staring at the ceiling, reading her book, drawing in her sketchbook. But when she turns to the clock, it’s only been twenty minutes

She’s bored. And nothing good comes out of being bored. 

You’re the only one who’s made me feel human. 

God, why did she say that? 

Why was she feeling this way?

Despite their hostile reunion 

An angel? Sure. But not the angel Bucky thinks she is. 

She wasn’t like the beautiful angels hanging in the Louvre. Ones who brought peace and lights. She was the angel the world had painted her to be. One of death, rage, and destruction. 

How could he ever see her as an angel? How could he show her this gentle, tender love that no one else has? 

Does he love her?

Does she love him?

“Love.” She mutters to herself. “Such a funny word.”

She doesn’t even know what love is. How could she know what Bucky has been showing her is love? The gentle touches, calling her Angel, holding her close when they fall asleep. That was love, right? 

Deciding that her thoughts have gone too far, she reaches into her bag to find an orange bottle of sleeping pills. She changes out of her dress and reaches for Bucky’s dark red henley that was bunched up on the floor.

Her nose buries into the fabric as she inhales his woodsy smell. 

With a sigh, she pulls it over her head and walks to the bathroom to wash off her makeup. 

Her fingers roll the pale pink pill between her fingers. Deciding whether or not sleep was worth it. 

Finally, she just decides to take the pill, swallowing it dry and a grimace crosses her face at the bitter taste. 

She lies down, covered in Bucky’s smell, and closes her eyes. 

… 

Angel doesn’t know where she is. 

Well, she does. The house is still the same, only this time, it was up in flames. 

Screams echo around her.

“Look at what you’ve done!” They tell her, voices distorted. 

“Monster!”

“Devil!” 

“Evil!” 

She turns around to face a woman in a black dress, her face obscured by a matching veil. 

“Oh, my dear.” She says, voice croaking and broken. “Why didn’t you save me? Why did you leave me there to die?”

“I-” Angel stammers. “I’m sorry.”

The woman sinks to the ground and Angel runs after her, crouching down to see where she went. 

When she stands, she sees that she’s surrounded by broken mirrors. 

No matter where she looked, she was faced with her distorted reflection.

“Look at yourself!” The voices return. “Look at what you are!” 

“No!” She screams back. “No! No! No!” 

A force knocks her onto her knees and she sees that the floor has turned into a mirror as well. 

The fire burns her, making her skin peel. 

She claws at her face, trying to peel the reddening skin away and she scrambles back when it reveals the cracked gray skin. 

“This is who you are!” They scream. 

“Stop!” She sobs. “Shut up!” 

Angel looks down at her hands, fingernails growing into long black claws. When she looks up, she screams at her appearance.

Her soft, glowing skin and peeled away to reveal a pale, ghostly face. Her eyes, once bright, are now pools of black. 

“You’re a monster!” A different voice booms throughout the room.

“Mama?” She whimpers. “Mama, is that you?” 

“You were always the bad seed. You were always filled with darkness. Evil.”

“No Mama!” She cries. “Mama, please! I’m sorry!” 

The mirrored floor cracks around her. 

“I never wanted you! I should’ve killed you the second you came out of me!”

Angel scrambles around the mirrored room, avoidant the cracks around her feet.

"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea,” 

“Stop!” Angel covers her ears.

But her mother’s voice is louder “having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy."

“Angel?” 

“Please stop!” She begs her mother.

“Angel! Wake up!” 

“Angel!” 

She screams, batting her arms, trying to push anyone and anything out of her path. 

“Get away from me!” Her voice is hoarse from screaming. “I’ll only hurt you.”

“Angel,” Bucky places his metal hand against her heated skin. “Angel, you’re okay, you’re safe. You aren’t going to hurt anyone.” 

Tears stream down her face as she meets Bucky’s gentle, blue eyes. 

“Bucky?” She shakily whispers. 

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s Bucky.” He gently rubs at her cheek with his thumb. “You were having a nightmare.” 

She reaches out with a shaky hand and places it against Bucky’s cheek, rubbing at his stubble. 

She needed to know he was actually there. She needed to know that he was real. 

As her sleep-clouded vision clears, she sees the bruises and cuts on Bucky’s face and she starts crying again.

“Oh, Bucky,” She pulls her hand away. “Did I do this to you?” 

“No, no you didn’t, doll.” He gently smiles at her and presses a soft kiss to her forehead. 

“Then who did this to you?” She whispers.

“Sam and I had to get the shield back. John decided to get a little scrappy but I’ll be okay.” He moves her sweaty hair out of her face. “I have enhanced healing, remember?”

Angel gives him a shaky nod and burrows her face into his chest.

A loud sob leaves her lips as she shakes in his arms.

“Oh doll,” he coos at her, reaching his flesh hand under her (well his) shirt and tracing his fingers up and down her back. “Shh. It’s okay, honey. You’ll be okay.” 

When her sobs subside and she’s left a shaking form in his arms, Bucky presses a kiss on the top of her head. 

She looks up and sees Sam peaking at them from over his shoulder.

He’s got a look of sympathy in his eyes.

“Nightmare?” He asks.

Her throat hurts too much to speak so Bucky answers for her.

“Mhm.”

Sam walks over to them and places a glass of water on the nightstand. 

He takes a seat next to them and places a supportive hand on her shoulder. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Angel shakes her head. Talking wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to burden them further. 

“Sam?” She quietly asks. “Can I have a hug?”

“Of course.”

Sam wraps his arm tightly around the both of them and rubs Angel’s back. 

“I don’t know what you’re dealing with, and I don’t know what you’ve gone through, but I just want to let you know that it’s okay to feel weak.” 

He gives Bucky a gentle look.

“I’m, uh, I’m headed back to Louisiana in a few hours. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

Sam gives Bucky a soft pat on the back and turns to Angel.

“And if you ever need to talk, I’m here for you. So is Bucky.” 

When Sam leaves, the crying returns. She’s much too tired to sob, but silent tears stream down her face, wetting Bucky’s soft t-shirt.

“Come on, doll. Let’s sleep.”

She vehemently shakes her head. Not wanting the nightmares to return. 

“No, no.” Her breathing quickens. “I- I don’t want to. I’m scared.” 

“Okay, okay.” He strokes her back. “Let’s just stay like this for a while.”

They sit in silence, holding onto each other. She feels vulnerable, weak, and tired. Oh, so tired. All the years of building up her walls, pushing people away, destroying anything good in her path, had finally caught up to her. 

She wants to strip her skin away and emerge as a new person. She wants to open up her body. Take out all of the ugly, the evil, the darkness, and stitch herself back up. She wants to destroy herself. 

And maybe, after she pays the price in her own blood, she can finally be good. 

This world wasn’t made for her, she thinks, and though she gave up on faith a long time ago, she thinks that after all the things she’s done, she’ll never end up in heaven.

And having Bucky here? Having him hold her, and caress her, and call her his Angel?

That was the closest to heaven that she’ll ever get. 

Bucky pulls her back to reality when he lifts her chin up.

“I have an idea.” He smiles. “Now, I haven’t done this since 1943, but why don’t we dance?” He helps her stand up and brushes her hair back. 

Angel looks away from him bashfully. 

“I- I don’t really know how to dance.” 

“Here.” He hands her his phone, Spotify open on his screen. “You pick the music and I’ll show you how. It’s really easy.”

“Should it be a 40s song?” She mumbles. 

“No.” He smiles and shakes his head. “It can be any song that you like. I just wanna make you feel better, doll.”

She quietly browses through his song library and then, turns to the search bar. 

“Here you go,” she hands it back to him. “I think you’ll like this one.” 

“Sign of the Times.” He chuckles. “Can you dance to it?”

She shrugs. 

“I hope so.”

Bucky places his hands on her waist and pulls her close to him.

“Okay, Angel, so I’m just going to hold your right hand like this.” He intertwined his right hand with hers and raised it to his shoulder. “And your left hand goes on my life shoulder.”

As she places her left hand against the metal of his shoulder, Bucky keeps his left hand on her waist. 

“Now what?” She quietly asks. 

“Now, we just sway.”

He quickly unlinks their fingers to press play on the song. 

As the sounds of a piano fill the room, Bucky starts swaying and Angel follows along. 

Just stop your crying

It's a sign of the times

Welcome to the final show

Hope you're wearing your best clothes

“You were right, I do like this song.”

“You do?”

“Mhm.”

You can't bribe the door on your way to the sky

You look pretty good down here

But you ain't really good

If we never learn, we been here before

Why are we always stuck and running from

The bullets?

The bullets

Angel closes her eyes and allows herself to rest her head on his chest. Even with the music playing, she can hear the quiet thumping of his heart. It calms her. She relaxes her shoulders and smiles, humming along to the song. Bucky holds her tighter as the chorus approaches.

Just stop your crying

It's a sign of the times

We gotta get away from here

We gotta get away from here

Just stop your crying

It'll be alright

They told me that the end is near

We gotta get away from here

Just stop your crying

Have the time of your life

Breaking through the atmosphere

And things are pretty good from here

Remember everything will be alright

We can meet again somewhere

Somewhere far away from here

Peace. She feels at peace in Bucky’s arms. He is her sanctuary and she hopes that she can be his. 

We never learn, we been here before

Why are we always stuck and running from

The bullets?

The bullets

We never learn, we been here before

Why are we always stuck and running from

The bullets?

The bullets

She hopes that this won’t be temporary. She hopes that this moment can last forever, being held by him. 

Just stop your crying

It's a sign of the times

We gotta get away from here

We gotta get away from here

Stop your crying

Baby, it'll be alright

But even though she can hope, she knows it won’t last forever. Bucky, this man, this man who is filled with good, even with all he’s been through, never let that good fade away. He will see her for who she truly is, how she was never good. He will see how she was born with darkness and he will see how the darkness overtook her. 

They told me that the end is near

We gotta get away from here

We never learn, we been here before

Why are we always stuck and running from

The bullets?

The bullets

We never learn, we been here before

Why are we always stuck and running from

The bullets?

The bullets

We don't talk enough

We should open up

Before it's all too much

Will we ever learn?

We've been here before

It's just what we know

“I’m…” Her voice wobbles. “I’m a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.” He places a kiss on the top of her head. “You were never a monster.”

Stop your crying, baby

It's a sign of the times

We gotta get away

We got to get away

“I’ve killed a lot of people, Bucky.”

“So have I.” 

We got to get away

We got to get away

“But you didn’t have a choice. I did.”

We got to, we got to, away

We got to, we got to, away

We got to, we got to, away

The music comes to an end and Angel pulls Bucky over to the bed. 

“Have you ever thought about what you’ll do after you stop?” He asks her. “You know, when you retire, I guess.”

She sighs. 

“I’m not sure. I have enough money to live a quiet life in Paris. That’s the closest I have to a retirement plan.”

“When will that be?”

Angel lies down. 

“I’m not sure.”

Bucky braces his arms around her head. 

“We’ll figure it out. Okay?”

“Okay.” She pulls him in for a heated kiss. “But first, I want to feel you.” 

Her hands cradle his face and she kisses every cut and bruise on his face. 

“My sweet Angel. You’re too kind to me.”

He litters kisses down her neck, onto her collarbones, down her sternum, and onto her scar. 

“So beautiful. So, so beautiful.” He murmurs. 

Angel cards her hands through his soft hair as he rests his head on her lower stomach. 

She giggles when he nuzzles at her tummy. 

“Tickles.” 

“Can’t help it. You look so pretty in my shirt. I just want to make you feel pretty.” 

He places his fingers along the waistband of her panties. 

“Can I?” 

“Mhm”

As he pulls them down her legs and kisses along her thighs, she reaches out with her free hand and links her flesh fingers with his metal ones.

He’s gentle with her this time. 

She can’t speak, only gasping his name. She arches her back and pushes her hips closer to him, silently begging for more. 

Instead of teasing her, he gives her what she wants. Never forced her to beg. 

He handles her delicately like she’s made of glass. 

He calls her sweet names, doll Angel, honey, as he licks into her. Her moans are soft and sweet. 

He coaxes an orgasm after orgasm out of her and she lays back, relishing in the pleasure, in the love he gives her.

It feels like heaven. 

He feels like heaven. 

And when he unbuckles his belt and pushes inside of her, he is still gentle, slowly rocking himself back and forth. 

Though she’s still sore from the night before, the pain never overpowers the pleasure. 

She wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him closer, silently telling him that he is hers and much as she is his.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” He groans into her neck. “I never stopped thinking about you.” 

“I can’t stop thinking about you too.” She pants. “You make me feel human. You’re the only one who’s made me feel human, Bucky.” This time, she wants him to hear her. She wants him to know. 

The skin on skin contact, feeling his body pressed against hers, it’s all everything she’s ever wanted. It’s everything she’s ever needed.

“You’re mine.” He rocks his hips faster. “You're my Angel. Say it to me.”

“I’m yours. I’m your Angel.” 

She doesn’t think she can cum one more time, but she does. Walls clenching around him, making him gasp with pleasure. 

“I’m…” he murmurs against her lips. “I’m gonna cum.” 

She presses her lips against his.

“Come on, cum for me, my love.” 

… 

Bucky quickly fell asleep. Tired from the fighting and tired from the fucking. 

Angel spends the rest of the night caressing his face and playing with his fingers. 

They spent only a few days together but she’s been able to fall for him in this short time. 

Though she doesn’t know what love feels like, she thinks she loves him. 

Being with him, it’s changed her.

She knows that she’ll eventually have to leave, go back to Amsterdam. He’ll go back to New York.

They will be apart again for who knows how long. 

But she doesn’t want that to happen so now, all she can do is live in the moment, and pretend that they can live in this moment forever. 

“I love you.” She whispers. “I love you, James Bucky Barnes.

… 

On the drive to the Sokovia memorial, they’re quiet. But it’s a comfortable silence. They listen to Bucky’s 40s music and admire the scenery. 

She’s decided that she doesn’t want to kill anymore. At least not kill as much. 

She’ll settle down somewhere. Somewhere on her own. In her fantasies, it would be with Bucky, but realistically, she thinks, it’s best that she’s on her own. 

“I’ve been thinking, when this is over, we’ll go back to Amsterdam.” He says, breaking the silence “You can pack all of your things and you can stay with me. In Brooklyn.” 

Her heart stops. He wants to go home. He wants to go home and take her with him. 

“I’ve never been to New York.” She says over the sound of Dream A Little Dream of Me. 

“I’ll show you around.” He turns to look at her. “We can start a new life together. I- I know someone you can talk to. Someone who can help you work through whatever you’ve been through.”

It’s too good to be true. Yet every part of her urges her to accept his offer. 

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You don’t need to give me an answer now, and you don’t have to come back with me immediately, but know that I’ll be waiting for you.”

She sighs.

“Bucky, you have so much in you. You have all this love, this kindness, this goodness. I don’t want to be the person that ruins it all for you.”

He pulls the car over. 

“Sweet Angel,” he caresses her face. “You could never do that. You-“ he looks down and takes her hand. “I believe that you have the same good inside of you. You just don’t know it yet.”

She looks away at him, eyes finding the memorial in the distance. Maybe he’s right. Maybe she does have that goodness inside of her. She just needs time to find it. 

“You sound so sure of yourself.”

“I am sure. Yes, you actively chose to kill, but the people you killed? They aren’t good people. They’re people who had no qualms about harming others to get their way. Do I agree with killing them? No, but you did what you thought was right.”

She shakes her head. 

“It’s not the fact I kill people for money that makes me a bad person, Bucky. It’s what I did that got me that job.” 

“So what did you do then?”

Angel gulps, not wanting to meet his eyes.

“I don’t remember much because I was a kid. I… I don’t really like talking about it.”

“Hey,” He tilts her head towards him. “Look at me.” 

She averts her gaze, shame bubbling inside of her. 

“Angel,” Bucky’s tone is more authoritative now. “I need you to look at me.” She finally allows her eyes to meet his. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s alright. There are things I’ve done that I don’t want to talk about either.”

Angel nudges her cheek deeper into his hand, wanting to feel more of the contact. 

“I want to believe that I’m good, and I want to believe that I won’t hurt you.” She bites her lip, no longer wanting to discuss the subject. “We can talk about this later. Right now, I think you have some unfinished business. 

… 

Angel went back to Amsterdam alone. 

The two had gone to the airport together, bags packed, and hand in hand, but after Bucky had gone to buy a cup of coffee, she disappeared. 

She didn’t leave him empty-handed. She went to the airport toy store and bought a small brown bear. When the stomach was pressed, Bucky could hear her voice say “I’ll come back to you. I promise. Love, your Angel.” 

He had found it in his duffel bag along with a small bottle of apple cinnamon body wash and a note written on a napkin. 

I hope you won’t be mad that I left you, but if you are, I understand. 

I need to figure things out, tie up some loose strings before I find a lasting home. Maybe a lasting home in New York. 

But I promise you, I’ll see you again. And I never break my promises. 

I hope you’ll wait for me.

I love you, Bucky

He felt his heart shatter, but he understood. She needed time. 

So he went home, back to his Brooklyn apartment. And he waited.

When he woke up, he waited.

When he’d listen to the voice in the bear, he waited.

When he’d go get lunch with Yori, he waited. 

When he went to Louisiana to help Sam with the boat, he waited. 

“Did you find your Angel?” Sam had asked him, looking out into the sunset. 

“Not yet.” Bucky had replied. 

Even after the events in Lower Manhattan, he still waited.

For days on end, he waited. Constantly checking his phone, calling Sharon, scouring through European newspapers, looking for any sign of her. 

But he found nothing. 

He wanted to give up, but a small part of him knew that Angel would come back. He could feel it deep within him. 

She made him a promise.

Five Months Later

Angel stares at the red water rush down the shower drain, the metallic stench of blood permeating throughout the bathroom. 

There was so much of it, not even her body wash could cover the smell. 

She had said ‘one last kill’ three days after she stepped foot back in Amsterdam. And then she had said it again three kills later. 

And now that her body count had reached a perfect two fifty, maybe this would be her last kill.

Two fifty was a good number, she thinks as she pulls Bucky’s red henley over her head. A good number to stop at. 

The buzzing of her phone turns her attention away from the soft fabric.

She picks it up, brow furrowing at the ‘unknown number’. 

Cautiously, she answers. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, it’s me, Sharon.”

Angel stands.

“Sharon? How did you get my number?”

“I was a hustler in Madripoor. I have my ways. Don’t worry though, I’m using a burner phone.”

“Why are you calling me?”

There’s the sound of a refrigerator opening and closing from Sharon’s end of the line. 

“I just want to let you know I’ve been pardoned.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“And I’m back in the CIA.”

“Congratulations.” Angel’s voice is tinged with sarcasm. “Now you’ve got an entire database of American government secrets at your disposal. Have fun with that.”

Sharon laughs. 

“You know me too well. Which is surprising considering that we spent less than twenty-four hours together.”

“Well, knowing how to read people is a part of being an assasin.”

There’s a sigh on the other line. 

“I don’t want you to panic, but there’s word that MI6 reopened your case.”

Angel closes her eyes and pulls the top of Bucky’s henley over her nose. In the beginning, when she had left him at the airport, she had taken the shirt with her. After a really bad job, or when she needed to feel okay, she'd bury her nose into the fabric and inhale, clinging onto the only piece of him she had with her. 

But his smell had started to fade away and it filled her with sadness. 

“So you’re telling me that they’ll come for me.”

“I doubt they’ll find you. After our talk in Madripoor, I managed to erase almost all of their progress. Still, I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks.”

Silence fell in between them. 

“So, what are you going to do now?”

Maybe it was time. Time to put her weapons down, pack her bags, and start over. 

She thinks about Bucky’s offer. How he said that he would be waiting for her in Brooklyn. Maybe he’d still be waiting for her. Plus, she had made him a promise. She never broke her promises. 

“I think it’s time to retire.” 

... 

Bucky had come home from late-night grocery shopping when he could smell the unmistakable scent of apple cinnamon body wash. 

It could’ve been him. He found himself using it regularly. But this time, the smell was stronger. Sweeter. 

He opens the door to his dark apartment, the only light coming from the city lights peeking through the curtains. 

He quietly sets his bags down and turns on the lights. There, sitting on his kitchen counter is a cake box. 

The fancy gold script indicated it was from one of the expensive bakeries in Midtown.

He hesitantly approaches it and gently opens it, revealing a fancy white cake covered in delicate piping and rosettes. 

In the center, iced in simple pink script were the words ‘Miss Me?’

She’s here. She kept her promise.

The sound of his front door closing made him jump. 

He whips around to see Angel. His sweet angel, wearing the same pink dress from their last day in Latvia, leaning against the door, arms crossed, and a wide smile on her face. 

“Hey, Bucky.” She chuckles. “Thanks for waiting.”

... 

Once again, a huge thank you to @sojournmichael for being my beta read, check out her writing, it’s amazing <3

[multiverseforger]

The United States and the world of Earth-807128 has been conquered and divided among supervillains, with territories belonging to the Abomination (later conquered by the Hulk), Magneto (later conquered by a new Kingpin), Doctor Doom, and the Red Skull, who has named himself President of the United States. Superheroes have been wiped out of existence, with the few survivors in hiding. Logan lives with his wife Maureen and young children Scotty and Jade on a barren plot of land in Sacramento, California, now part of the territory known as Hulkland. Needing money to pay rent to his landlords the Hulk Gang (the incestuous hillbilly grandchildren of the Hulk and his first cousin She-Hulk), Logan accepts a job from a blind Clint Barton to help him travel east to the capital of New Babylon and deliver a secret package (which Logan assumes to be drugs).[4]

Logan and Hawkeye encounter several diversions on their journey. They rescue Ashley Barton (who seems to be an aspiring Spider-Girl) from the clutches of the new Kingpin. She murders Kingpin and reveals her intention to seize his territory of Hammer Falls (formerly Las Vegas).[5]

They escape a cluster of Moloids who are destroying cities by sinking them from beneath the surface. They then get chased by a Venom symbiote-infused dinosaur (imported from the Savage Land), but they are rescued and teleported by the White Queen and Black Bolt.[6]

Throughout the story it is reiterated that the "Wolverine" persona died the day the villains attacked and that since then, Logan has refused to use his claws (yet is shown in Old Man Logan #14 (2016) using his claws once after this event, albeit briefly, to destroy the Silent Order's leadership). Flashbacks reveal that on the night the attack happened, a group of 40 supervillains attacked the X-Mansion. Unable to locate his teammates, Logan slaughtered the attackers to ensure the safety of the mutant children. As the last "attacker", Bullseye, was killed, Logan realized that the entire assault was an illusion created by Mysterio and his perceived enemies were actually his fellow X-Men. This destroyed Wolverine emotionally and mentally, and he fled the mansion and wandered away to a train track in shock and shame. Though he made a subsequent suicide attempt by allowing a freight train to run him over, Logan could not actually kill himself, but had effectively killed "Wolverine".[7]



Writer Mark Millar signing a copy of the collected edition during an appearance at Midtown Comics in Manhattan

When they arrive at the capital, Hawkeye delivers his package to an underground resistance group hoping to begin a new team like the Avengers. The package contains Super-Soldier Formula, enough to form an army, but Barton's clients expose themselves as undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. They shoot and kill Logan and Barton.[6] Logan's body heals, and he awakens in Red Skull's trophy room amongst the armaments and costumes of fallen superheroes. Without using his claws, he kills Red Skull's men and engages Red Skull himself, eventually decapitating him with Captain America's shield. He grabs a briefcase of money (their intended reward for the delivery) and uses pieces of Iron Man's armor to fly back home.

Upon arriving, Logan discovers that, in his absence, the Hulk Gang murdered his family and left the bodies unburied. His neighbor, Abraham Donovan, states that Logan's family was killed when the Hulk Gang got tired of waiting for their payment. This results in Logan finally unleashing his claws.[8] He seeks out and slaughters the Hulk's grandchildren Beau, Bobbie-Jo, Charlie, Elrod, Eustace, Luke, Otis, Rufus and Woody before encountering Old Man Banner himself who displays monstrous strength, even in his human form. It is implied that the gamma poisoning in his body had begun to deteriorate his sanity in his old age. Banner reveals that while the murder of Logan's family was intended as a message to others, he really just wanted to get Logan angry enough to fight him because he had gotten bored with being a "super-villain landlord", like the others. In his Hulk form, Banner easily defeats Logan and then consumes him. Logan recuperates within Banner's stomach and bursts out, killing the Hulk. Afterward, he discovers a baby Hulk named Bruce Banner, Jr. A month later, Logan and his neighbors hold a small memorial for Logan's family. With nothing left of his old home, Logan then says he plans to defeat all the new world villains and bring peace to the land—with himself and Bruce Banner, Jr. being the first members of a new group of superheroes—before riding off into the sunset.[9]

Earth-21923 versionEdit

When the Multiverse was destroyed and Battleworld was created, a different version from an altered universe version of "Old Man Logan" called Earth-21923[a][10] is reborn on the Battleworld domain called the Wastelands, a re-creation of his native reality with his memories still intact, although he does not know how he arrived in Battleworld. After having declared to set his world right, Logan disrupts a poker game between the Gladiator and his Flying Devils, and he ends their human trafficking ring by killing them, freeing those imprisoned. While on the way back to meet with Danielle Cage, Logan witnesses the head of an Ultron Sentinel fall from above. Wishing to investigate further, he brings it along with him back home, where Bruce Jr. and Danielle also reside. After explaining this new development, he investigates the head's origins. He visits Hammer Falls and meets with the dying Emma Frost, and he learns that the head is from beyond the Wastelands, so he begins traveling beyond his domain.[11]

When Logan trespasses upon its borders, he is approached by an unidentified Thor of the Thor Corps. She attacks Logan with a lightning bolt for breaking Doctor Doom's laws, falling into the Domain of Apocalypse in the process. Already healed from the burns caused by the Thor's attack, Logan is attacked by Victor Creed (who is one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse) and his soldiers, but Logan is rescued by the X-Men and taken to their hideout, where they are attacked by Apocalypse and his other Horsemen.[12]

The battle that ensues is intervened by the Thor who attacked Logan earlier and as she argues with Apocalypse, Logan flees and hides. The Thor then demands to know to where he had run, but no one answers. Angry, she attacks both the X-Men and the Horsemen with a lightning bolt and then looks for Logan through the domain. When she is near the domain's walls, Logan climbs it and attacks her from behind. Enraged, the Thor attacks him with another lightning bolt and lets him fall into the neighboring domain of Technopolis, as she is attacked by Apocalypse's Infinite Soldiers. Logan is taken to Stark Tower by Baron Stark and Grand Marshal Rhodes, the Thor of that domain. After healing from his injuries, Logan awakens only to find himself in a totally different domain from the one where he was. He ends up fighting Rhodes, but is defeated and sent to the Deadlands as punishment for breaking Doom's laws.[13]

Due to his healing factor, Logan succeeds in fighting through hordes of zombies in the Deadlands. He takes shelter inside a cave where he finds an uninfected She-Hulk who has been there for a long time. He tries to convince her to throw him out of the Deadlands when the zombies find them. In a desperate attempt to save Logan's life, She-Hulk grabs him and jumps as high as she can to throw him out of the Deadlands as he had suggested, ultimately sacrificing her own life to do so. Afterwards, Logan finds himself in the Battleworld domain called the Kingdom of Manhattan.[14]

While wandering the city he has not seen in years, Logan meets this domain's Jean Grey and Emma Frost. They take him to meet the rest of the X-Men, as well as "his" son Jimmy Hudson. Logan later leads the superhero population of the Kingdom of Manhattan in a rebellion against God Emperor Doom. Subsequently, Logan finds himself in a new world.[15]

All-New All-Different MarvelEdit

Learn more

This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.

Logan awakens on Earth-616 in New York City. He is not sure how he has been relocated, but he knows he is in the past. He decides to prevent his post-apocalyptic future. His first target is a minor villain named Black Butcher who, in his future, stole Scotty Logan's baseball cap. Logan easily kills him.[16]

Logan uses Black Butcher's workshop to prepare. He hears on the radio that the Hulk is in Manhattan. Logan confronts Hulk and after a brief fight, learns that the Hulk in question is actually Amadeus Cho and not Bruce Banner. After evading the police, Logan goes to Hawkeye's apartment in Brooklyn to ask for his help, but he finds Kate Bishop.[17]

He explains his situation and drops exhausted on Hawkeye's couch, awakening 33 hours later. Knowing that Logan is seeking Mysterio, Kate accesses the villain's last known whereabouts on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database. She demands to join Logan on his search. When they arrive, they find a man named Eddie and his unnamed partner there. Logan immediately attacks them, cutting off one man's hand despite them denying that they knew who Mysterio is. A horrified Kate tries to stop him, but Logan quickly neutralizes her as the two men escape. Logan chases them, but he is stopped by the arrival of Commander Steve Rogers.[18]

After gaining Logan's trust and bringing him to Alberta, Canada, Rogers reassures Logan that this is not his past by showing him the adamantium-coated corpse of his younger self. The sight reminds Logan to enjoy life, rather than brood over his own past ghosts. Although he tells Rogers what he had experienced in his timeline, Logan declines Rogers' offer of help.[19]

Logan later appears in Extraordinary X-Men where he decides to remain under the radar, believing his destiny was to kill the X-Men and determined to try anything to avoid it. He also vows to take out those who would orchestrate the villain uprising.[20] Logan catches the X-Men's attention when confronted by Cerebra. The X-Men believe Logan to be their late Wolverine.[21] Storm wants Logan to rejoin the team, but he declines.[22] The time-displaced Jean Grey of the past convinces Logan to change his mind and promises to stop him from killing the X-Men again.[20]

After taking a momentary leave, Logan decides to head to the old Weapon X facility where he initially met Maureen. He finds her, but she is still a child. The Reavers arrive at Killhorn Falls with Lady Deathstrike and attempt to hunt down Logan.[23] When Logan searches for Maureen's missing dog, he discovers its corpse which was killed by the Reavers. As the Reavers massacre the town, Logan singlehandedly kills them all and confronts Lady Deathstrike before saving Maureen. He is wounded multiple times, but Logan defeats Deathstrike. As she leaves, limping, Logan falls unconscious. Realizing that he failed to protect Maureen from the chaos, Logan decides to hunt down Lady Deathstrike.[24]

Logan returns to X-Haven where he has a nightmare about the villain uprising which quickly alerts Jean. In order to calm Logan, Jean assists Logan's travels to Manhattan where in his timeline, Daredevil, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight had been killed by Enchantress and Electro. While Punisher managed to kill Electro, he was stabbed by Kraven the Hunter. Cerebra then teleports Logan and Jean to Connecticut where Pym Falls would be established in Logan's timeline. It is here where Crossbones, and the rest of the villains with him, killed Wonder Man before Crossbones was stepped on by Giant-Man who also crushes Vulture with his hand. When Wasp was killed after shooting down Hobgoblin, Giant-Man was devoured by the Moloids that emerged from the ground when Avalanche shook the area around Giant-Man. Again not assured, Jean and Cerebra teleport Logan to Westchester County, New York where Logan was tricked by Mysterio into killing the X-Men. As Jean manages to assure Logan of no invasion, she takes Logan to Madripoor where he is greeted by Puck, Hawkeye, Steve Rogers, and Jubilee. Logan realizes that if and when the villain uprising comes, he will not need to face it alone.[25]

Logan goes to a bar in Tokyo as Patch, where he meets Eito, a minor crimelord. Logan attempts to bribe him for information on Lady Deathstrike's whereabouts, but the meeting turns out to be a ruse. He is gunned down by Eito's henchmen, but he heals and then slaughters them all. Before he kills Eito, Logan interrogates him and learns that Lady Deathstrike is in a remote village. Logan travels there, noting that it is where he and Maureen had attempted to find refuge in his past. The village is seemingly abandoned, but he finds Yuriko chained to a wall, begging for his help. He is then ambushed by a ninja clan, the Silent Order. Four days later, he awakens in a well and attempts to climb out, but he is shot down by Sohei, the Order's leader. Once Logan succeeds in climbing out of the well, he sees he is in a temple and Lady Deathstrike is in a cage. He is attacked by Sohei and the rest of the Silent Order. Logan is overwhelmed by the horde of ninjas, so he has no choice but to free Lady Deathstrike. After Logan and Yuriko manage to kill all of the ninjas, she attempts to kill Sohei, but is cut down by him, causing her to stumble back into the well. Just as Logan attempts to confront Sohei, he is telekinetically assaulted by his unwitting enforcer, a mutant child called the Silent Monk, whose older self Logan had killed in his timeline. The Monk has had a vision of his death and tries to kill Logan by throwing him into the well over and over again. Lady Deathstrike throws an arrow into the Silent Monk's thigh, causing him to fall in. Logan then threatens to kill the young mutant unless Sohei releases he and Yuriko. Sohei calls Logan's bluff, but knows that Yuriko is more than willing to murder a helpless child. Sohei agrees to their demands, just as the Silent Monk regains consciousness and lashes out. The Monk transforms into a giant creature as his powers run wild. Logan convinces the young boy to read his mind, assuring the Monk that Logan's future will never likely come true. The young boy then realizes that Sohei has been manipulating him and subdues Sohei and the remaining Silent Order ninjas. Logan offers to take the Silent Monk to X-Haven, to which he accepts.[26]

One day at X-Haven, Logan is approached by Cerebra, who informs him of Jubilee's disappearance. Logan begins his search by going to Jubilee's apartment, only to find her infant son, Shogo, by himself. Logan leaves the baby in Cerebra's care before telling her to teleport him to wherever Jubilee was last located, which is Romania. Soon after arriving, Logan encounters the Howling Commandos who mistake him for a vampire and attack him. After the misunderstanding is cleared, their leader Warwolf informs Logan of their war with Dracula. Dracula has been psychically calling all vampires to his castle which, Logan deduces, must include Jubilee. The Commandos attack Dracula's castle while Logan sneaks in, but are subdued by his army, led by Vampire by Night, who is under Dracula's control. Logan finds Jubilee who, also under Dracula's control, begs him to save her. Just as he lets his guard down, Dracula attacks Logan from behind, biting him. Logan fights Dracula as his healing factor fights off the vampirism. The Vampire King easily beats the weakened Logan, who then passes out. Logan wakes up in the dungeon, along with the Howling Commandos. As Dracula taunts them, Jubilee begins resisting his control. Logan encourages her to fight back just before Man-Thing and Orrgo break in to free everyone. Dracula threatens to kill Jubilee as Logan approaches him. Now free from his control, Jubilee throws Dracula towards Logan, who then impales him. After a brief scuffle, Orrgo grabs Dracula and exposes him to the sun. Logan then proceeds to decapitate Dracula, freeing his thralls. Logan instructs Cerebra to throw Dracula's head into the sun in order to prevent or at the very least, delay his resurrection. Later, Logan spends time with Jubilee and Shogo over dinner.[27]

Logan awakens in a desert, his memory hazy. Logan realizes that he is somehow back in the Wastelands, as he is attacked by the Venom T-rex. After killing the beast, Logan retraces his steps and remembers receiving a distress call from Puck, who he and the rest of Alpha Flight were trapped in an abandoned space station formerly owned by Reed Richards. After going into space and entering said space station via X-Shuttle, Logan found it infested with the Brood. He managed to kill the Brood drones that attacked him and proceeded to look for Alpha Flight, only to find most of them encased in cocoons. Logan was then attacked by Sasquatch and Abigail Brand, who had been converted into Brood drones. He was saved by Puck at the last minute and the two escaped through an air vent. After finding a safe place to regroup, the hull was ripped open, causing Logan to be pulled into space. Logan regained consciousness aboard the Alpha Flight Squadron Jet, piloted by Puck, who had saved him. The two then snuck back onto the station. Logan and Puck were discovered by the Brood, forcing them to fight. The Brood then inexplicably disappeared. Logan goes back to his old house looking for Dani Cage and Bruce Banner Jr. only to find it seemingly abandoned. Logan then hears a noise and finds Dani bound in the closet. She tells him that Bruce has been kidnapped by Kang the Conqueror. Logan then sets out to hunt down Kang down and rescue the baby. Logan's search leads him to Niagara Falls, where he is assaulted by some thugs and kicked down a cliff. Logan regains consciousness and soon encounters a hysterical Puck, surrounded by the corpses of Alpha Flight. Puck warns Logan about the "Warlord of the Wastelands" just before Kang reveals himself. Kang claims to have taken the baby in order to prevent the Warlord's rise to power, confusing Logan. They are confronted by the Warlord, who is revealed to be a fully grown Bruce Banner Jr. As the Warlord beats Logan, Puck urges him to remember what has happened. It is revealed that the X-Men came to help, but were converted by the Brood and that Logan's experiences in the Wastelands were an illusion created by Jean Grey. Jean telepathically assaults Logan by forcing him to relive his greatest crimes and failures. He resists the attack and kills the parasite controlling Jean. Jean shuts down the Brood hive mind, freeing everyone from its control. In the aftermath, Logan resolves to go back to the Wastelands to save baby Bruce.[28]

Logan seeks help from the foremost experts on time travel and sorcery, including Magik, Beast, Shaman, Cable, Wiccan, Doctor Doom, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange, who all refuse to help him, due to how his plan might affect the timestream. Desperate and left with no options, Logan breaks into the Cellar: a maximum-security super-prison. After subduing the guards, Logan is confronted by Spider-Man, whom he distracts by freeing some of the inmates. Logan then enters the cell of Asmodeus, a servant of Satannish and makes him an offer.[29] Asmodeus states to Logan that he would help him in his mission if he picked up some of his things. Afterwards, Asmodeus begins to help Logan in his mission to rescue Bruce Banner Jr.[30] After reliving each moment, Logan finally arrives in the current time, where he finds that the remainder of the Hulk Gang are now working for an unidentified version of Maestro. Logan discovers that Maestro has rounded up the remaining members of the Hulk Gang in his plan to make a paradise for all Hulks on Earth-616. Hearing about what Logan did, Hawkeye followed Logan to his timeline and helped to fight the Hulk Gang. With help from the Cambria Banner (A member of the Hulk gang who defected), Logan and Hawkeye of Earth-616 were able to defeat Maestro and the surviving members of the Hulk Gang went their separate ways. Afterwards, Logan and Hawkeye returned to Earth-616.[31]

During the "Civil War II" storyline, Maria Hill recruited Logan to investigate the missing S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. He was saved by Wolverine (X-23) before he can be eaten by Fin Fang Foom. Ulysses Cain's vision stated that Logan would kill X-23's clone Honey Badger. This led to Captain America and the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents to show up to arrest Logan moments after Logan, Wolverine, and Honey Badger defeated the burglars. While a similar event happened during the conflict, Honey Badger survived Logan's attack as Logan commented that he killed the X-23 of his world due to his hallucination. After Wolverine threatened to have Logan thrown in jail if Honey Badger is harmed again, Logan quoted to Honey Badger that he will come after her if Wolverine is harmed. After Honey Badger threatened Logan, Wolverine and Honey Badger told Captain America that they are not partaking in the second civil war.[32] Ulysses Cain's latest vision has him in the Wastelands where he meets Logan after he saves Ulysses from a Hulk. Ulysses learns that the Inhumans left Earth when Tony Stark "pushed her too far".[33]

During the "Inhumans vs. X-Men" storyline, Inferno and Iso escape through Eldrac to get away from Wolverine, only to end up running into Logan.[34] While Inferno distracts Logan, Iso discovers Forge nearby with a device that the X-Men are planning to use to destroy the Terrigen Cloud. Iso and Inferno manage to defeat Logan and Forge, then flee as they take Forge prisoner.[35]

During the "Monsters Unleashed" storyline, Logan is seen fighting Leviathons in Louisiana and receives help from Monstrom.[36]

During the "RessurXion" storyline, Logan is seen as a member of Kitty Pryde's new Gold Team of X-Men as they fight Mesmero's incarnation of the Brotherhood of Mutants. It was discovered that the members were under Mesmero's control on behalf of Lydia Nance. After the Brotherhood of Mutants was defeated, the X-Men track down Lydia Nance and state that they will come for her if she tries anything against them again.[37]

While spending some alone time in the woods as part of the "Weapons of Mutant Destruction" storyline, Logan is attacked by Weapon X cyborgs, forcing him to team up with Sabretooth to confront the current iteration of the organization, whose goal is to hunt mutantkind to extinction.[38] This experiment led to the creation of Weapon H.[39]

Logan later went on the trail of the Regenix drug which took him to Ikebukuro where he fought the head of the operation and the Crazy Thunder Gang. After being directed to Touku Kenmochi, he learns that he has died and meets with his widow Asami where she stated that Touku was coerced into bringing the Regenix samples to the Crazy Thunder Gang. Their conversation is crashed by the Hand Ninjas led by Gorgon and Scarlet Samurai. When Logan was subdued, Gorgon ordered Scarlet Samurai to remove her helmet as Logan discovered that Scarlet Samurai is the resurrected Mariko Yashida who hesitated to attack Logan enabling him and Asami to get away. When the Silver Samurai wanted to ally himself with Logan, he agreed in exchange that he doesn't kill Mariko and that Touku and Asami's child is taken care of. When Logan and Silver Samurai attack the Hand's Regenix operations, Silver Samurai fought Gorgon while Logan fought the Hand Ninjas to confront Mariko. After Gorgon got away, Silver Samurai injected nanites into Mariko to break the Hand's control over her. Afterwards, Logan and Mariko sent Silver Samurai to destroy the Regenix shipments in Madripoor.[40]

Recently, Old Man Logan, Lady Deathstrike, and Sabretooth were captured by a group of anti-mutant terrorists called the Orphans Of X and were all killed, having all their heads blown off by bullets covered in Muramasa metal and their healing factors nullified temporarily, until being rescued by X-23 Wolverine. They were later revived.[41]

Dead Man LoganEdit

After defeating an alternate version of the Maestro, Logan recognized that he was dying of old age, now relying on regenix to supplement his failing healing factor. He decided to set out to return to his original timeline after sorting out a few loose ends in this one, which included eliminating Mysterio so that the villain could never attempt the same feat he accomplished in Logan's past. Mysterio was recruited by Neo-HYDRA and Miss Sinister when they learned about Logan's history, but Mysterio eventually turned against Neo-HYDRA to aid the Avengers when he learned that Neo-HYDRA intended to kill him once they had won. Mysterio subsequently faked his death after Logan and the Avengers defeated Neo-HYDRA.[42]

After a meeting with his resurrected counterpart, Logan asked Mariko to keep an eye on the version of his future wife in this timeline before he returned to the Wasteland via a time portal created by Forge.[43] Returning to the Wastelands, Logan engaged the Joseph Manfredi and his henchmen who are allied with Lizard in Florida, the Creel Gang in Georgia, and the Phantom Riders in Nashville, Tennessee. When Logan was captured by cannibals operating in the Ozarks, he is saved by Danielle Cage and Bruce Banner Jr. who inform him that a lot of villains like the Punisher Gang are looking for him after what he did to Red Skull and Hulk. What happened to Red Skull and the Hulk Gang caused a power vacuum in the Wastelands. After a fight with the Tranquility Temple that tried to kill him and Bruce Banner Jr., Logan drove his group to the Badlands where they met with Forge and Dwight Barrett. Forge's lair was attacked by Sabretooth and his clones. Forge unleashed an unstable Speedball from him container who destroyed the Sabretooth clones as Sabretooth made off with Bruce Jr.[44] Tracking Sabretooth to a Weapon X facility, Logan and Danielle discovered that the head of the Weapon X facility is Mister Sinister who created the Sabretooth clones and claimed that he orchestrated the villains' rise to power which Red Skull took the credit for. After Logan and Danielle Cage rescued Bruce Banner Jr., they got chased by the Sabretooth clones until Danielle picked up Mjolnir and became the new Thor.[45] Logan would eventually meet his end after killing Sabretooth and Mister Sinister, weakly affirming that his healing factor has finally worn out and he just exhausted his final vial of Regenix. Dani and Bruce take him back to the graves of his deceased family and he dies looking up into the sun. After burying Logan with his family, Danielle Cage, now acting as the new Thor, Bruce Banner Jr. as the new Hulk, and Dwight Barrett as the new Ant-Man, formed a new incarnation of the Avengers and vow to keep fighting the opposition until they can find a place they can call home.[46]

[educated-ella]

Battle Tendency review

(Image courtesy of Shueisha)

Set in 1939, Battle Tendency follows Joseph Joestar, a lazy yet brilliant Ripple user and the grandson of Jonathan, and his journey to defeat the Pillar Men, the Aztec gods of fitness a race of vampiric superhumans and the original creators of the Stone Mask. It takes a while for us to get to that point, though; after receiving intel that Nazi soldiers have his parental-figure Speedwagon held hostage, Joseph sets out to beat up some krauts and rescue the old man. Turns out that the only reason he’s being held hostage is due to his knowledge on vampires, and the Nazis have a Pillar Man (named Santana, Santviento in localizations) and a plethora of Stone Masks held captive. Surprise surprise, Santana escapes, and Joseph teams up with Nazi general Stroheim to stop him from eating everyone there. Yes, eating. Not only do the Pillar Men eat humans, but they eat vampires as well. So them awakening after thousands of years of rest presents a bit of a problem. Before defeating Santana, Stroheim informs Joseph that there are three more Pillar Men resting underground in Rome. So Joseph sets off, now joined by the arrogant Caesar Zeppeli, the grandson of Baron Zeppeli and fellow Ripple user. However, the other three Pillar Men, Wham, AC/DC, and their leader Cars (spelled Wamuu, Esidisi, and Kars in localizations), prove to be much more of a threat than either of them had anticipated. Joseph manages to convince them to spare their lives, but at a cost. Namely, two poisoned rings placed in his heart and throat that will break in 30 days unless Joseph defeats Wham and AC/DC and claims their antidote rings. So now Joseph needs to properly train himself in the Ripple so he can save his ass, and maybe save the world from this new threat along the way.

By now you’ve probably noticed some quirks in the names of some of the characters. As a running trend in the series, nearly every character is named after a popular band, song, or musician. This makes for some fun and sometimes clever name choices, but has made the series a bitch to localize due to copyright issues. It’s part of the reason why the series has only recently garnered popularity outside of Japan.

Battle Tendency is just plain fun. Joseph is a much more compelling and interesting protagonist than his grandfather and much more fun to watch in battles, as he delivers snappy one liners and psychologically messes with his opponents. The difference between the two is made abundantly clear by their introductions. When Jonathan is introduced, he comes to the aid of a girl being picked on by a group of bullies, even though he had never met her and was horribly outmatched. During Joseph’s introductory arc, when his opponent has a woman held hostage, Joseph dismissively says he doesn’t care if she dies since he’s never met her. This baffles his opponent and gives him an opportunity to counter attack. He also goes through a definite arc throughout the part, starting as an apathetic, self-centered delinquent and growing into a hero to make his grandfather proud, all while never losing his snarky and hotheaded attitude. This same mentality goes for the rest of the cast as well. While I could care less about Baron Zeppeli from Phantom Blood, his grandson Caesar is the perfect foil to Joseph, being an irritable traditionalist hiding behind the façade of a cool Casanova. They play off of each other extremely well and grow alongside each other, and more importantly, feel like actual characters rather than thinly veiled plot devices. Their mentor, Lisa Lisa, is also hilariously cruel in her methods, essentially throwing Joseph and Caesar down a giant hole and saying “if you two don’t start to get along and climb out of there, you’ll both starve to death” as a part of their training. The villains as well, all of the Pillar Men feel distinct and memorable. Oddly enough, they don’t feel nearly as monstrous as Dio, but this makes them feel all the more threatening. For example, there’s this great little moment where Cars slices the hands off of a drunk driver to prevent him from crashing into a stray dog. Things like this help characterize him and the rest of his kind; they do appreciate the beauty of nature, but only see humans as a source of food. Hell, Battle Tendency managed to make a god damn Nazi soldier likeable. The characterization here is wonderful. This is also the first JoJo part to really feel like JoJo by weaponizing the mundane, both literally and from a meta standpoint.

It’s far from perfect though. Rules of the Ripple feel very lax, with new usages being made up on the fly, often being used once then never again and occasionally even contradicting itself in its rules. This sometimes results in Joseph winning fights only because the plot says he has to, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the ending which, as funny as it is, is more of an asspull than anything in retrospect. The characters are fun, yes, but they aren’t particularly deep. It also starts the trend of characters having their backstories dumped on the reader right before they die, a trend I’ve never been fond of. This is the peak of the early era of JoJo, but I’m very glad that we got what we did next.

[typewriterghcst]

Title: A Very Small Wish Fandom: The Cat Returns Characters: Baron, Muta, Toto, Haru, plus some OCs Rating: PGish maybe??  Words: 2797 Summary: A pleading request from a parent whose daughter has been cursed by a resentful witch is nothing truly out of the ordinary for the Cat Bureau— in fact, it might be so common so as to be routine— so why does something feel inherently off about this particular one?  Notes: Second chapter of six of a Secret Santa gift for @deedee-sunflowers. I had the realization that it actually takes a Bit for the witch part of this to show up, and I apologize for that orz That said, I'm so glad you liked it! Especially that they're all in character and that Vanya is interesting, aha. I worry a lot that he might be too grating, bc I definitely get a lot of enjoyment out of writing those kinds of characters, but I don't want them to also be irritating to sit through rip Anywho, a chapter in which Haru has a chat with a beloved monster i’m sorry that was a very vague shrek reference

                                      Ch. 2: Virtuous Siree

She might be hesitant to admit it, but Haru is almost disappointed to meet the cursed daughter, having halfway convinced herself in her unshakable unnerved skepticism that the Vanya creature had crafted her existence wholesale from lies and nothingness. Yet here she is, standing before them with her hands (hands? it’s hard to tell) folded in a mannerly fashion in front of her. Her long, golden veil is in much better shape than her father’s handkerchief, though the odd snag and rip is perhaps inevitable when one is in possession of what appears to be a pair of curly horns.

She is otherwise far from inconspicuous, as well; the gauzy shroud masking her person still reveals the aforementioned horns, and a pointed snout, and little hands adorned with inch-long claws. A long, hairless tail snakes out from behind her, curling at her feet like a sleeping dog.

Perhaps the most pressing thing, however, is that the same uneasy chill runs through Haru within this strange, half-concealed child’s presence as it does when her father is around. For the first time, she wonders if it’s not, in fact, her blunted human instincts furiously trying to warn her of Vanya’s true nature and simply a facet of his kind’s existence.

Vanya wanders into her line of sight again, standing beside his daughter with a laughably manic, skittish energy and reaching for her clawed hand. Haru notes the two are very nearly the same height. Yet, to hers (and probably the Bureau’s surprise, as well), he appears to have little trouble lifting her off the ground and holding her out to them, as if he’d worried they wouldn’t understand just how truly monstrous she’d become should he not bring her closer to their eyelines.

“This is my daughter, Virtuous Siree.” He seems to take a certain, special glee in saying so. “She is exquisitely cute! Like a baby. I’ve had her for years now.”

Virtuous Siree, though her face is obscured by the veil, seems unbothered by this treatment, inclining her head politely to their guests.

“Pleased to meet you.” Her voice echoes much like a lonely call in an empty stairwell, resulting in the definitively disorienting effect of two separate people speaking in unison.

“...And you, as well.” Baron is the first to recover from the oddness of the situation, removing his hat and bowing, and the rest of them follow suit shortly after (sans Muta, anyway, who gives a more characteristically terse greeting).

“Thank you, by the way,” Virtuous Siree then continues, as casually blithe as her father. “For taking the case. We are beyond aromatized to have obtained your assistance!”

Behind her, Vanya utters a noise somewhere between a squeal and a sob, and then hugs her close to him. “Cute! She’s too cute! Virtuous Siree, did you have a good day today?”

“Yes, Papa, I worked in the garden. The cherries are ripening on the vine! And I started a new painting when I was done.”

“Your funny prickly face horns are sticking me through my fur!” Yet, he appears to make no motions to pull away. (Haru sneaks an amused look at Muta; sure enough, the mystified frown on his own face makes it clear he’s as lost about how to feel about this interaction as she’d expected him to be.)

“How far of a journey is the Sown Forest from here, Vanya?”

The fox glances at Toto only from the very corners of his eyes at first, but the expression lacks even the most minuscule hint of suspicion. He pulls his face away from Virtuous Siree’s veiled one, placing her back on the ground with a happy coo.

“I can’t tell you how far, but it will take….” Here he counts futilely on his tiny paws again. “...eighteen-twenty minutes!”

“...You mean, eighteen to twenty minutes?”

Vanya hesitates, and here, now, it becomes obvious he’s beginning to pick up on Toto’s skepticism. When he answers this time, he’s back to his by now expected plaintive offense.

“Time works differently in Oostal! I’m only a little creature from Oostal, and I don’t know your Earthical time measurements!” He cries.

“Papa’s trying his best,” Virtuous Siree interjects with the modest passion one might expect from a shy girl her age, patting her father on the paw.

“To focus on the pretty Vanya Creature’s tenuous grasp of a time he’s never used before when his cute daughter is at risk of being cursed forever!”

“Yeah, birdbrain, that’s real heartless of ya,” Muta can’t help but add (a marked testament to how much he enjoys antagonizing the crow, if even his antipathy for the Vanya creature doesn’t see him pass up the opportunity.)

“But if time works differently, how are we meant to keep track of how long we have?” Toto asks, side-eyeing Muta with no small degree of smug amusement. (For his part, Muta seems uncertain whether to take this abrupt subject change as a surrender or a snub.)

“Use a pocket watch,” is Vanya’s dismissive reply.

Baron finds himself rather suddenly the object of vested interest for three pairs of eyes; Muta, Haru, and Toto all three almost instantly turn to him. He looks from each one to the other in moderate bemusement for mere seconds before his shoulders relax in a subtle show of resignation.

“Yes, I have one with me.”

“Wouldn’t have been you if you didn’t,” Toto teases with a smile.

“Of course,” Baron deigns to play along with a faintly put-upon tone.

“Where’s that witchy paper you said you got, anyway?” Muta asks Vanya. “The one that says it’s okay for you to get help from strangers. Don’t think I forgot about it,” he ends with crabbily.

“I left it on the table!” Vanya replies with a matching huff, less than humored by Muta’s skepticism.

Here Virtuous Siree jumps to contribute, expression molded into a contrite, abashed frown, “Oh, no— Papa, those papers got blown away earlier today! I-I opened the door to go out into the garden, and a bigly strong gust blew in!”

“Seriously—?”

“They blew up into the surrounding trees,” Virtuous Siree continues, more chastened than before in the face of Muta’s apparent exasperation, a reaction which seems to give the cat some considerable pause. “I couldn’t reach them.”

Vanya pats her head.

“It’s no significant loss that they did! We can search for them when I go to pick up the leg up in our sleeves.”

The perplexed silence which settles after Vanya’s words lingers heavily, but at least only briefly.

“Oh,” Toto first responds with a dawning amusement and the slightest of laughs. “You have something in mind to help make these tasks less of a struggle.”

Vanya nods enthusiastically, giving no indication of having discerned their earlier confusion, nor why Toto then felt the need to clarify. His tail, also, curls into an excitable question mark shape before relaxing again.

“It will take just a moment— I hid it in the root cellar with the other cates.”

“And the root cellar is—?”

“At the edge of the property, by the fence.”

“Very well. It shouldn’t take us long, I think, but we ought to depart right away. Please lead the way, Mr. Vanya.”

“I’ll stay here,” Haru speaks up. “I’d feel a little bad leaving Virtuous Siree all alone again, even if it is just a few minutes— I don’t mind keeping her company. I mean—” Here she turns to the girl herself with a sheepish expression, hands folded bashfully behind her back. “ —if she doesn’t mind my company, of course.”

“I don’t mind!” Virtuous Siree responds with a resolute shake of her head.

“Good, goods!” Vanya agrees in delight. There’s yet another almost cat-like expression of affection from him, rubbing his cheek against Siree’s as he swings their joined hands. “Play nice, Cute Siree. We’ll be back before you know it!”

                                                          &&&

The little house in which Vanya and Virtuous Siree have made their home is in all honesty not all that strange to Haru. At least, in the sense that it has walls and doors and windows, and furniture with purposes that are easy enough to grasp upon laying eyes on them. Yet two things still stand out to her as unusual. 

The first is that the walls, if not the house entirely, give the rather distinct impression that the entire thing had been carved from an enormous gourd or another hardy vegetable of sorts. When Haru furtively lays a hand on one of the few unoccupied walls, she finds she can’t discern the material by sight or touch.

The outside of the house hadn’t struck her as so outlandish. It certainly hadn’t appeared to be a massive vegetable.

The second, as previously alluded to, is that almost every available surface is buried beneath an arbitrary variety of countless objects— threadbare coats, rusted silverware, broken trinkets.

Distantly, Haru recalls Vanya’s pithy words regarding his shattered teacup— waste not. Seems he kept that particular aphorism close to his heart.

Vanya’s daughter has claimed a spot at the round table in the middle of the room, perched precariously on a wobbly stool with a set of messy watercolor paints and a well-worn brush.

Her face is still hidden, but Haru can still tell her companion (Virtuous Siree, as her father has stubbornly referred to her, and it’s still a terribly odd name to Haru) is shyly stealing glances at her, one after the other, before quickly looking away again, back to her painting.

“Can I draw something, too?” Haru eventually asks to divert the tension.

Virtuous Siree jumps on the distraction. “Oh, yes! You can! Papa always keeps plenty of paper and paints around for me!”

The girl jumps off her stool and scurries to a cabinet across the room, behind a pile of ostensible scarves and socks (the cabinet itself also piled high with an unimaginably diverse array of items— hairbrushes, hats, and tattered books, just to name a few.) In a snap, Virtuous Siree has an identical spot to her own set up at the table beside her for Haru.

“Here you are! Would you like a flat or a round brush..?”

Haru, having never been much a painter, finds herself somewhat stumped at the question, glancing back and forth between the two brushes for a half-minute before sheepishly speaking up. “Actually, this is silly, but do you have anything more fit for an amateur? I don’t do much drawing, and I’d hate to waste some of your good materials.”

Virtuous Siree laughs, a short, girlish noise that quite comically clashes with her unnatural-sounding voice, and waves her hand. “Don’t be silly, I have plenty of materials. You can’t waste them if you used them to do something fun.”

“O-Oh… Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“If you want to start slow, though, hmm…” Virtuous Siree scampers across the room again, stooping to look in her cabinet; Haru hears her shuffle various objects around as she searches for something specific. “Oh! I have some wax crayons. They’re a little used, though.”

“Oh, that’s okay. They’ll be perfect.”

It’s when Haru is settled again, this time staring down at a sheaf of brown, grainy papers— thick, heavy, with a distinct weave to the tiny fibers that must make up the sheets— that she finds herself beset by another stumbling block. She hasn’t drawn anything since she was a child, and those childish scribbles had consisted mostly of attempts at whatever animals had caught her eye.

Absently, she wonders if her skills have managed to budge past their old level. Probably not. But, there’s no time like the present to find out, she supposes. She’ll try drawing Baron.

“What does the name Virtuous Siree mean?”

Virtuous Siree gives a pensive noise. “You don’t have to call me Virtuous Siree. Just Siree is fine. Only Papa calls me Virtuous Siree-- he added the first part a little while ago.”

“Okay, Siree, then. If you like, you can call me just Haru.”

“I’ll do that!” Then, remembering what Haru’s original question was, she adds diffidently, “‘Siree’ is just a filler word in Oostal’s language, but it has a-- umm, an implication of emphasis. It’s what you use to boost the feelings in what you’re trying to get across when you can’t remember a word.”

Haru pauses in her attempt to color in one of Baron’s eyes. “Does that mean your name with the addition of ‘Virtuous’ is kind of like saying ‘really virtuous?’”

“It is!” Siree admits with an almost embarrassed laugh. “Papa’s very silly sometimes.”

To herself, Haru thinks that sounds like yet another vast understatement.

“...Have you ever dealt with witch’s magic before?” Virtuous Siree asks.

“Not…. witch’s magic, no. At least, I don’t think so. But I was transformed into a cat once,” Haru says, carefully drawing a spiral on her paper with a yellow crayon (her interpretation of the sun. It won’t do to put crayon scribble Baron into a rainy, sad environment, after all).

“What’s a cat?” Siree asks.

“Oh— um. It’s an… an animal from my world. They look a little like your father, but a little bigger. Oh! Actually, Muta and Baron-- well, Muta is a cat, but Baron just looks like one.” Then, abruptly remembering Siree has been cursed and must therefore look quite similar to her father under normal circumstances, Haru hastily adds, “I-I guess they’d look like you, too, wouldn’t they?”

Siree nods slightly, even though she hasn’t looked away from her own painting. When she speaks, her voice is soft, shy again.

“They're cute. I wish I could be cute, too, like Papa. Or, um, like I was.”

Somewhere, that gentle, beseeching string of words tugs at an old fear, one that had been allayed rather completely with the return to her normal form but not altogether forgotten— that of losing her familiar reflection. What was on the inside ultimately wouldn’t have changed, and there had always been little flaws in her human appearance she could have spent hours complaining about, but… in the end, her face, her humanness, had been held more dear by her than she could ever have realized without being transformed against her will.

“Don’t worry,” Haru finds herself saying. “Baron and the Bureau managed to rescue me from becoming a cat. They’ll do the same for you, no problem. You just wait. You’ll be your old self in no time.”

Siree’s brushstrokes slow and then stop altogether. She moves so that Haru knows she must be studying her thoughtfully, and the very knowledge of Siree’s no doubt unblinking, pensive gaze trained intently on her is enough to give her goosebumps again.

“...You’re very kind,” the girl eventually remarks. Then, finally looking away (Haru’s pretty sure, at least), she adds, “I like that. I hope you make it out safe.”

“I have the Bureau,” Haru says surely. “I’ll be fine.”

“Well, I hope they stay safe, too,” Siree adds.

As if wise to the fact they’d been the subject of the past few moments of conversation, the Bureau (accompanied, of course, by Vanya) arrive just seconds after with the familiar sound of the beginnings of an altercation between Muta and Toto. Vanya again wastes little time in hugging Siree.

“You’re back,” Haru says in the meantime. “Are we good to go now, then?”

“Yeah,” Muta breaks off his disagreement with Toto to answer with a shrug. “Whatever the pipsqueak picked up, it didn’t take long.”

“It’s a surprise!” Vanya protests, turning a haughty gaze upon Muta. Then, thoughtfully, he amends, “...A good surprise.”

Haru, thinking of Vanya’s original haste in returning to his daughter, and seeing perhaps the same veiled concern in Baron’s and Toto’s faces, nudges the avian Creation beside her, and… well, bless him, Toto takes very little time to speak up for them all.

“Will Virtuous Siree be alright here all by herself?”

Vanya rocks back and forth a few times, dragging poor Siree with him (though she seems unbothered, at least). “Yes, yes, Virtuous Siree is safe here. There are neighbors! ...In fact, if she feels scared, she should go next door to Mr. Gleb.” This spoken directly to Siree, despite the odd choice in phrasing.

“I will, Papa,” Siree answers without hesitation.

It’s here that Vanya lets her go with one last delighted chirrup, bounding over to the door and the Bureau and darting outside. Before following suit (...somewhat), Haru turns back to the girl and flashes her a reassuring smile.

“Bye, Siree! Stay safe, and don’t worry— we’ll get you all fixed up.”

“I know you will!”

As far as Haru can tell, Siree continues waving until they can’t see each other, and something about the dedication instills a certain amount of similar sentiments in Haru.

[aion-rsa]

How Wonder Woman 1984 Treats Its Villains Sets the Movie Apart

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains Wonder Woman 1984 spoilers. Our spoiler free review can be found here.

It’s widely acknowledged that between DC and Marvel, DC has the best villains. From the volatile anarchy of the Joker to the delicious anti-heroine of Catwoman, some have even become worthy of their own spin-off movies. So it was a fascinating decision by co-writer and director Patty Jenkins to take a different route with the baddies for Wonder Woman 1984. Namely, that neither are truly villainous.

Max Lord

Ok, Pedro Pascal’s Max Lord is a selfish, greedy con man who doesn’t care about what he does to society in the pursuit of money and power. He’s not evil per se, isn’t out for revenge, doesn’t actively wish death upon anyone; he just doesn’t care about the consequences of his actions. He is the embodiment of corrupt ‘80s capitalism and the pursuit of more, more, more, regardless of the harm this might do to the environment, to society, or to the world as a whole. 

Lord might nearly bring  about the apocalypse, but he can’t be held solely to blame. He doesn’t force the President to ask for more nukes. It’s not his fault the Egyptian oil baron wishes for land restrictions. He didn’t make the sex tape the televangelist wants erased, right? Lord is completely self-serving and amoral, but it is society as a whole – the ‘80s society of which Lord is a product – that ultimately causes its own downfall, and eventually its own redemption, too. It’s Diana’s job to remind us to be our better selves, the film says, but she can’t do it for us; we, ultimately, have to take action and responsibility for ourselves and for the world. 

By the close of the movie, Lord has learned his lesson just like every other citizen who has made a wish. And just like them he is delivered – he survives the movie and is reunited with his son, who still loves and needs him. Diana may have been the reminder of kindness and reason that most of the world needed, but, for Lord, it was Alistair who is the tangible reminder of the abundance he always had. And, in the world of Wonder Woman, Lord, despite the chaos and pain he has caused, deserves that chance at redemption.

Barbara Minerva and Cheetah

The character of Cheetah is far more complex.

In the comics, Cheetah is often considered Wonder Woman’s arch nemesis. She’s had various incarnations but Barbara Minerva from the comics is powerful, wealthy, and ambitious and, rather than being given powers thanks to a wish, she gains them via a plant god on an expedition to an ancient African tribe. This comics-based version of Cheetah wants to steal Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth and sometimes goes head to head with her because of her damaged pride. 

But the Barbara Minerva of Wonder Woman 1984 isn’t like that at all.

Embodied by Kristen Wiig, Barbara is instead a good hearted dork. She is highly educated and specializes in a number of different disciplines (it’s hinted at that this might be because she didn’t have much of a social life at University), but she’s often forgotten or overlooked. This Barbara wants to be friends with Diana, and when they do spend an evening together both women have a good time and a good laugh. 

Despite being beautiful and strong, it turns out Diana doesn’t have much of a social life either. These two women could be firm friends and allies, and indeed for most of the duration of Wonder Woman 1984 they are just that, with Diana calling on Barbara for help to investigate the mysterious citrine that appears to grant wishes. 

Barbara, though, has allowed Max Lord to take it, who has now become one with the stone in order to wield power over anyone who uses it to make a wish. Barbara is attracted to Lord and her judgment is clouded, but she is not a “less actively developed” woman, as Wonder Woman and Cheetah creator William Moulton Marston once described the character. While his Cheetah embodied the dangers of jealousy, our Barbara, at first at least, doesn’t want to beat Diana, she wants to be like her. She wants to be strong, sexy, cool, and special. Who doesn’t want that? 

Before Barbara even really realizes the extent of her new powers, the way they manifest is in the way people respond to her. Suddenly her colleagues at the Smithsonian listen to what she’s saying. People notice how she looks. This isn’t a ugly duckling to beautiful swan transformation. This is Barbara putting on a tight dress and learning how to walk in heels, and having the confidence to do so after a shop assistant is nice to her. Barbara already was sexy, cool, and special, she was just never treated that way. 

Diana, on the other hand, has always been treated that way. It’s worth remembering that Diana grew up entirely among women. She has no confidence issues, she is not used to being objectified, insulted, or rejected, she takes her strength and power for granted and has no reason to ever feel inferior to a man, or indeed another woman. Barbara is a product of society just as much as Max.

However, it’s notable in the film that while she is obviously beautiful and a total clothes horse, even in the ‘80s, Diana isn’t exactly cool. In WW84, Diana is almost willfully unfunny. The exchange that she and Barbara have when they agree to go for dinner about the citrine is hilarious in its crapness. Neither woman has nailed small talk. Diana eats alone, has few friends, and presumably hasn’t dated since the first world war. 

Both women make a wish that they desperately don’t want to undo and both struggle, together and apart, to prevent ever having to do so. Barbara is not evil. She has no villainous intentions. She does not plan to use her power to do harm. And although she commits an act of violence on another person it’s a guy who has harassed her and other women in the past; it’s a flavor of on-screen vengeance that is not only becoming increasingly encouraged to root for, but that is deeply and recognizably human. 

It’s only when Barbara is threatened with having to give up her newfound power that she becomes monstrous. In this desperation, it’s not enough for her to be the same as Diana, there’s too much risk of being bested (she doesn’t have a lasso of truth, for starters). Barbara becomes an Apex Predator so that there’s no one above her that can take her down, put her down, and make her feel like prey ever again.

The downside of wishes made with the stone, we understand, is that there’s always a catch. For Barbara, it’s that, in gaining powers, she loses the warmth of her humanity. Or that’s what Diana reckons, anyway (the rules of the stone are wooly at best). 

But Barbara’s fights with Diana comes from a place of desperation to keep her powers rather than any malice. It’s telling then, and important, that Barbara/Cheetah survives the film. She’s not evil. You can’t even really call her selfish, for just wanting to be seen – she’s certainly no more contemptible than all the city boys who wished for Porsches and it would feel terribly unfair to her if she were punished that much more harshly. It is important she is portrayed with compassion (and Wiig is perfectly cast) not vilified. 

This is Cheetah’s origin story, as much as Wonder Woman was Diana’s. It is what she will do next that will define her path – villainous or otherwise. At the end of the movie, after Diana has convinced the world to take back their wishes, that unearned success comes at a price. As the revelation comes that we must behave as a society and not just selfish individuals, the camera lingers on Barbara. Max takes back his wish, and in doing so is allowed redemption with his son. Did Barbara take back hers though? 

“We didn’t want it to be this typical mousy girl turned villain” explained Kristen Wiig at the Wonder Woman 1984 press conference. “What is it about her that makes her so lonely and so invisible, and then what does she really, really want? She goes through three really big stages.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Barbara’s villain arc does not end with the third stage, instead that could be only just beginning. If she takes back her wish, she will be Barbara again, deserving of Diana’s forgiveness and perhaps even friendship. But if she doesn’t – even after seeing the damage done to the world, even after seeing Max rescind, even after Diana’s impassioned speech – then Barbara has made a choice that might lead her to becoming actually villainous, rather than accidentally so. It’s a fitting way to introduce an iconic baddie with the nuance she deserves.

The post How Wonder Woman 1984 Treats Its Villains Sets the Movie Apart appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[icathiaism]

Is it my idea or the Void is in the depths of the sea according to the new Nami comic? The supposed chosen tidecaller had three eyes?

Much does point to this in the new comic actually and I’ve always thought that it was. I just find poetic irony to escape from the void once only to find another weakness in the world. Under the cut I’m going to analyse each of the panels where stuff appears, but tl:dr yes I think it is void.

WARNING: VERY LONG!

So our first mention of what lies deep in the ocean ( besides the fish ) comes in the story of the tidecallers. Nami’s mother tells her that before her birth “… the Marai were plagued by attacks from monstrous creatures in the deeps.”

These creatures are illustrated as immense serpentine beings, creatures with rigid bodies and multitudes of limbs. Such traits have all been seen within Void creatures and some even resembling a few known species. Coupled with this Riot has depicted them in purple. Riot has often given colour schemes to different sects to give them instant recognisability. For instance, noxus often being red, green and black and demacia being white, gold and blue. This is not untrue from the Voidborn with most being depicted in purples, blues and other dark colours.

The Void is also a plane without light and a place where its denisens are not used to it. Cho’Gath remarks that the sun’s light actually burns him and we also know that Vel’Koz misses the Void’s darkness ( possibly out of home-sickness, if they can experience that, or out of discomfort ) from in-game quotes. And, in conjunction with this, the monsters retreating when flooded with the light from the moonstone and again from Nami later in the comic ( panels I can’t include for post size reasons ) further supports the case of them being Void.

Further evidence comes from the Lunari. It is already well ingrained that Targon knows of and actively fights against the Void. Pantheon commands Aurelion Sol to close Void rifts, Taric now stands ever vigilant against the insidious corruption of the Void, and Diana hunts them to cleanse the night and seal their way to do the ‘night’s work’. So it is not a stretch of the imagination that a Lunari ( and assumingly previous aspect of the moon ) would help the Marai against the Void. ( also Leona may know which is something she may want to talk to Diana about but that is up for speculation. )

The next instance of evidence comes with her meeting with the seaweed monster.

The creature Nami faces appears to be a clump of sea-weed surrounding a glowing core. Its weed acts like tentacle-like appendages which grab and constrict around Nami until she is able to slice her way free and distract it long enough with her light. This creature falls under one of two categories - a being born in the Void or something created by its influence - but I am leaning towards the latter.

In Riot’s description of the Void, it states:

In places where the mystical barriers between Runeterra and the Void have been worn thin, the air feels charged, and fantastical occurrences are the norm. Rivers run with vibrant colors, flowers bloom with incredible perfumes, and living beings experience psychedelic visions and surges in magical power. For a time, such places are wondrous and brimming with miracles, but soon the landscape is twisted into new and deadly forms, and if the Void is able to consume enough biomass to survive, it can grow and evolve into something ferocious and terrifying.

I believe this is what has happened to the creatures of the deep such as this sea-weed monster. An example of this seen in-game with the skuttle-bug and the rift-herald as a result of latent energies left by Baron Nashor. And, I think this given its appearance. It is quite obviously sea-weed evident that is looks like a clump of kelp and with how easy Nami was about to slash it. Further more, the creature did not bleed when it was slashed meaning it lacked any circulatory system or blood / blood-like components, nor did is recoil from being cut which suggesting it lacked nerves which plants do not have. ( plants do however recognise they have been injured just through different channels and often fight back with chemical warfare rather than reaction. )

Furthermore, I think this based on assumptions of Void-born hunting styles. Creatures born of the Void are born in darkness and often do not rely on sight. The Xer’Sai feel where their prey are through the ground, there have been various mentions of them sensing prey through magic or some other means, hearing and smell but never have they been hindered by lack of light. Also, their need to consume and their hunger for blood and flesh has usually always taken precedent over their own lives or motives. Which makes me think it is not born of the Void rather it is made of native biomass and kept some of the mannerisms from the hunters in the area. Another part of the comic ( which I am unable to show you as Tumblr is finding this post too big to save ) has it using similar hunting methods to the previous lantern fish which supports this.

( also, the next part supports this for obvious reasons )

While I have been posting all panels then talking about them, this next part will be too long and so I will talk about each idea as it comes up.

Besides the obvious portal in the ground, the warped scenery and insidious purple glow, This line - “I’ve never seen anything so BEAUTIFUL.” - is another thing that drives this down that this is the Void. This line pairs perfectly with how Riot describes the Void’s effect on the world and people. The world about the tear is beautiful, tantalising and alluring to those that see it. It warps how people view it and it digs into the viewer’s mind and corrupts it.

Also, something to note, the portal seems to be leading onto the image of the Void we received with the universe hub with the massive skeleton to the bottom left. This is just speculation but I do think it’s cool.

Here it is implied that Nami was in a sought of trance until she comes to her senses about the true nature of what she is looking at. Her own pain allows her to free herself from the Void’s grasp, something which is evidently quite fast acting in how quickly it enthralled her. Another thing which enforces that this is the Void to me is the use of words such as death and nightmare. The Void is often compared to nightmares through the lores of many Void-affiliated champions from Malzahar having nightmares of the Void forced upon him to others having it referenced to as a nightmare or nightmarish place in their lore.

The use of death, or rather that the Void is NOT DEATH but a nightmare, leads itself to the idea that death would be better than a fate by the Void since some quotes and flavour stories suggest that the Void collects / feeds on souls - a quote from Cho’Gath even suggesting that those afflicted will suffer eternally / there will be no end to it. This is also interesting as the way a Void-born ( and Void-touched ) dies is also different to the beings of this world, with Aurelion Sol even claiming the Void-born don’t understand how this universe works, and their bodies rapidly disintegrating or decomposing with their deaths. I’ll touch on this again soon.

I really, really enjoy the addition of this new character ( and would love to have someone write for him ). So, if you were still with doubts that this is indeed the Void his existence and what he says should blow those completely out of the water.

Firstly, his design largely mirrors that of the two canon Void-touched humanoids we have. Like Kassadin he has extreme bodily changes from his fins degrading to either spikes or nothing at all, his body mass deteriorated to look sickly and starved ( I am assuming that he did not look like this two weeks ago based on that he was the chosen strongest Marai ), his scale colour has changed from his natural yellows, blues and greens and his eyes have gone glassy and purple. Not to mention the very Malzahar-like trait of the third eye which glows with purple energy. I am also basing my assumption that he did not look like this prior as a result of Nami asking “unscathed, huh?” at his claim so suggesting he is very scathed.

Secondly, his choice of words are very similar to how other characters talk about the Void. He refers to what’s beyond the portal as the Beyond. The word is often used to describe the Void, calling it ‘what lies beyond’ or the Unkown or the Outside. Furthermore, he mentions SEEING beyond, something which almost drove Kassdain to become a mindless beast, was used to torture and break Malzahar through his visions and is said to be able to cause madness and immense fear at just a glimpse. His speaking of the truth and not having fear is very similar to Malzahar whom has forsook all human emotion and claims what he sees as true.

( Also, Rasho’s continued use of calling it death implies he is still under the control which Nami was able to break from when she thought it was death - something very cool. )

Finally, he mentions having great power. This is probably well like what Kassadin experienced where the Void’s energies have given him other-worldly strength, something canon to all Void-touched and described in the Void’s blurb on the Universe Hub.

Now, coming back to how Void-born and Void-touch die it is obvious his body was fully assimilated during his two weeks at the portal. His body seems to disintegrate ( similarly to Malzahar’s own death animation ) and turn into a black substance when he was pierced by the staff. This is similar to the Void-born in Diana’s flavour story where upon killing them they dissolved into a black, tar like substance. So from all of this, it should be quite clear that Rasho was indeed a Void-touched of some description, however more along the vein of the rift herald than the unique circumstances surrounding Kassadin ( where he resisted ) and Malzahar ( where he was purposely targetted ).

Unfortunately, there are some sections I was unable to cover due to post size restraints ( or something - I wasn’t able to save the post ) but they were largely minor or had details previously covered. 

But, again, do I think the rift is Void? Heck yeah, I do, and I love it!

[nanenna]

Since @tcrmommabear ​ shared her Little Buttercups AU I thought I'd share the Undertale/TCR AU I've been dabbling with. I have no plans to actually write it out, but it's been a fun thought exercise and if it inspires others to do  their own thing it's well worth it. I've been calling it:

Cake Walk

Mostly because for Haru it's going to be a cake walk, just an excuse for a bunch of cute fluff. Now, aside from Haru in the role of Frisk there aren't really a lot of 1-1 character replacements because I think the story is more interesting when you don't try to fit characters into molds they don't really fit, so this is more about fitting an ~aesthetic~ than anything else. And as always: rounding out this huge cast with other Ghibli characters. So I'm going to be tackling this by location rather than characters.

The Underground

Starting this off with the Underground as a whole: TCR. TCR characters populate the whole of the Underground. Cat King is the Monster King, his wife left years ago but Lune and his fiancee Yuki are still around (sorry, no Flowey in this AU. I told you it's a cake walk!) Of course most of the Cat Kingdom characters will appear in and around the palace, but you will see Cats all over the Underground.

Also the ferry(wo)man is replaced by CatBus because I love Catbus. Random Monsters like Moldsmol or Froggits can easily be replaced by Totoros or those weird head bobble things from Princess Mononoke or coal sprites. So cute!!!

 The Ruins

Years ago for some unknown reason the Cat Queen, Persephone, just up and vanished. There are lots of rumors about where she went and why. The answer is she became disgusted with her husband and ran off... with Louise von Gikkingen. Now they live together in a cozy little home in the Ruins, it's Sephi who finds Haru (an adult in this AU) and welcomes her with open arms. Haru can't help but feel this motherly Monster cat lady is very familiar though she can't quite figure out why...

It's Sephi who gives in and shares a royal secret with Haru: the barrier doesn't affect humans at all. They can pass through it at will as if it weren't even there. It's Louise who insists that Haru prove she can defend herself before they let Haru try to cross the Underground and get out.

 Snowdin

This area won't be snowy, instead it will be replaced by the forest of Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime), with wolves replacing the dogs and San replacing the boss fight (though she's not Papyrus. Or Sans.) When Haru leaves the Ruins the first person she runs into is a dapper Monster named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, the brother of Louise. He was just heading into the Ruins for a visit and, being a gentleman, offers to escort Haru to town. Unfortunately San and her sisters have other plans for Haru.

I thought a fun little twist to this would be that San is still a human, someone who fell into the Underground as a child (before Sephi left the King and moved to the Ruins) and was found and adopted by Moro. San doesn't realize it but until Haru fell she had the power of load and reset. Honestly it's the only reason she survived her childhood.

Also before leaving town (and thus when the San fight actually happens) Baron takes Haru to his home to settle her nerves. Obviously it's the Bureau and that's when Muta and Toto get brought along for the ride.

Waterfall

Replaced by the Spirit World of Spirited Away. It's wet, and swampy, and full of water so it makes sense. After Haru and Baron get past San and her sisters, Baron decides he's just going to have to take Haru the rest of the way to the capital. Together they travel through the wet, swampy area. They meet Zeniba (instead of Temmie village) and have a nice cup of tea and a cozy chat. Then to get out of the area they have to pass through the bathhouse and Yubaba doesn't like these interlopers wandering through so she sicks Haku on them.

 Hotland

Replaced by Howl's Moving Castle. Mostly we're skipping over the conveyor belts and puzzles and this area is just city near and around the capital. I'm actually a bit torn, what better to replace a royal scientist with than a royal wizard? But then Howl would really make such a perfect Mettaton and then who do I have actually be the royal wizard? Sohpie? Only if she's not human, I suppose she could be a crone Monster like Zeniba and Yubaba, they could all even be sisters. And yet... Howl already is a royal wizard. Either way Howl would be incredibly flashy and charismatic, trying to charm Haru the moment he sees her. Of course that causes a lot of jealousy from Baron and eye rolling from Sophie.

Calcifer would fit right in with the fire theme if it were kept. But mostly imagine the CORE being replaced by that weird dream Sophie had, or Howl being replaced by his monstrous form in general if he's gonna be a Monster. And yet he's still so charming and flirty! I love it!

 New Home

Replaced with the Cat Kingdom palace, of course. But here I'm mostly interested in the plot: this is when we find out when/why Sephi left CK. A small human child fell into the Underground years ago (not San) who was found by a young Cat Monster and brought to the capital. The child quickly befriended the young prince and introduced him to the young Cat Monster who brought her to the palace. The queen wanted to adopt the child, the king wanted ordered his wizard at the time (Suliman) to use the child to find a way to break the barrier and release Monsterkind. The queen was outraged, helped the human child get out the barrier, then left the kingdom. That child was Haru, and Lune insists on helping her get out once more.

Haru doesn't want to, she made so many friends on her way here and she wants to break the barrier just as much as anyone else. Through the power of friendship (and lots and lots of magic) she breaks the barrier and everyone goes free! And then they all lived happily ever after, the end!

[poeticsandaliens]

A Pirate’s Life for Me Ch. 4

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11405793/chapters/26085165

Notes: The organ was another twisted myth borrowed from Pirates of the Caribbean. If it wasn’t obvious, I’ve been stealing legends, altering them, and applying them for my own purposes. The other night I was listening to the Davy Jones theme, and it occurred to me that in a different context, such a haunting song would be kind of a perfect dancing song (instead of a grisly tune played with a squid monster’s tentacle beard). 

I took some creative liberties with Jim Burns (more specifically, Jim Burns’s limbs), and I tried to portray what kind of pirate he would be in historical context. Of course, I’ve more or less thrown historical accuracy out the window at this point, but I imagine his chauvinistic side would be a bit more pronounced in the early 18th Century.

At first, it felt as though time was dragging its feet. Scully woke each morning at the crack of dawn to the sound of wood creaking and the deck scrubbing itself of salt. She lay awake long into the nights, sometimes emerging from her cabin after dark to watch the stars pass her by. One such night, she stood at the bow of the ship; behind her, the steering wheel turned lazily, as if it would rather be asleep. Pale fish swarmed beneath, picking a glowing green substance off the bottom of the ship that Scully could only assume was some odd plant the Dutchman had picked up in waters far from her own. 

She squinted at the horizon and tried to pick out any speck that might be the ship they searched for, imagining Mulder in the brig, trying unsuccessfully to pick the lock of his jail cell with a piece of coral. Even worse, she imagined him chained to a smooth, ornately carved wooden table, surrounded by maps, a sour-looking pirate captain with a scraggly silver beard hovering over his shoulder and waiting for him to lead the way to Stella’s heart. She always forgot, when fear for Mulder overcame her, that the Stella was as pressed for time as she was, racing the Claudius to her physical beating heart. Remembering made her stomach turn.

She noticed the owl before she noticed Stella. It perched on the railing and greeted her with a soft coo. She had become accustomed to its presence; it slept atop the mast from dawn til dusk, then flitted peacefully about the ship. She’d seen it catch a fish once; Stella had told her it, too, had adjusted to the open ocean.

“Never gets old,” said a wistful voice behind her, and she turned to find Stella, clad in a white linen shirt and loose breeches, standing behind her. In the moonlight, she looked almost translucent, pale face and blonde hair fading into the grey of her ship. “I’ll never tire of the horizon.” She stepped up to the helm and traced stars with her eyes—constellations twinkling above them and reflected in the rippling ocean below. “That’s why I’m here.”

Scully didn’t ask what she meant—why she had chosen the Dutchman, or why she hadn’t abandoned it after however long she’d spent aboard. It frightened Scully sometimes, that Stella could be ageless, how little she knew of Stella’s life—not even when she had lived it.

Stella placed her hand on the wheel. “Sometimes I spin it to feel as though I’m in control of my destiny.”

“You can sail wherever you want,” Scully pointed out. It was more than she could say for her own life, if she ever returned to it.

“But I can never go ashore. I can reach any port without capsizing; I can walk along any beach I please as long as I stay in the waves. I have seen the most rugged of mountains and the greenest of rainforests. I have seen oceans of sand and countries of ice, but I cannot explore them. I have all the freedom in the world, but for that.” Her fingernails drummed on the wheel. “I may only have the horizon, but the horizon I have forever.”

* * *

After that night, Scully forgot the date. She measured hours only by the sun beating on her face and days by the tanning of her shoulders and the pink of her cheeks and chin, where her hat could not quite protect her at midday. A couple weeks passed, she presumed, as the rock of the ship on windy days ceased to unnerve her, and when she walked barefoot on the deck her feet no longer blistered or picked up splinters of damp wood. She began to sleep soundly on calm nights, but still, when clouds hid the moon, and the horizon roiled, and she could hear heavy waves slap against the wall of her quarters, she would go on deck and cling to the netted shrouds and watch lightning reach for the sea and the sea reach back.

Stella would always join her, and she never questioned the pirate’s company. They kept to themselves during the day, they dined together in Stella’s cabin, stood together on the deck during storms, passed long hours on the open ocean, and they hardly spoke. Scully had come to realize Stella spoke everything deliberately; she only conversed when she felt something needed to be said. Otherwise, she let the ship guide itself on the course she had set.

* * *

Scully eyed the cliff that rose perhaps ten meters from the Dutchman. She looked down at her shirt—it was her brother’s shirt and thin trousers she’d worn in Los Barriles. She looked apprehensively back up at the cliff. When she was three years old, she had nearly drowned in the freezing waters of the English channel, just beneath a wall of dark rock. At five, she had learned to swim beneath sheer white cliffs in the warm bay of Port Washington. Wobbling on the plank, of all places, the waters beneath her feet reminded her of home, and she couldn’t decide whether she liked that or not. But the sun was unusually scorching that morning, and she could see no other solution to the heat piercing her down to her bones. In this heat, it was a wonder she hadn’t been baked to nothing but bones. The once-cold spring water she had collected at a small port the day before was hardly a relief.

Scully disliked having no proper shore in sight, but she considered herself a strong swimmer. Not to mention, were she to find herself caught in an unexpected current, the Dutchman would catch her faster than any human crew could. It wasn’t as though she feared she might drown; no, she simply disliked diving off a moving ship into water she could not see the end of. This newfound uncertainty, a product of spending time on a ship that defied the laws of death, caught her off guard. It occurred to her for the first time, that she had no idea what monstrous creatures lurked in the depths of the sea.

She bounced a little on the plank and lifted her arms to dive.

“Fuck! We have a tail.”

She froze as Stella’s harsh curse carried from the bow. “We’re being chased?”

Stella lifted a scope to her eye. “So it seems,” she called. She lowered the scope and met Scully’s eyes. “Best not to go for a swim at the moment.”

“Who in God’s name would chase the Flying Dutchman?”

“No one who knows its the Dutchman.” Stella put her hands on her hips. “You being the exception.

Scully stepped off the plank and looked out behind them. Sure enough, a massive ship followed in their wake, pointing toward the same horizon as their own. “Does this happen often?”

“I don’t often sail above the surface on a clear day. The Dutchman is much quicker underwater.”

“Could Mulder be on board that ship?”

Stella took another look in her spyglass. “It’s certainly not the Claudius,” she said. “We won’t catch up to it for at least a week.” She slipped the spyglass back into her belt and opened up her pistol. “I need more bullets. Do you?”

Scully nodded. “I’ve been three short since the Blue Baron.”

Stella passed her the spyglass. “Keep a weather eye on our tail. I’m preparing for the worst.” She secured her hip holster and stalked toward the captain’s cabin. She pointed to the hatch below deck. “Guns at the ready! Full canvas; the wind’s with us today. Try to lose them if we can.”

Scully put the scope to her eye. The ship looked as though it belonged to the British Navy, with clean white sails and cleanly painted flanks broken by two rows of cannons. She noted the Union Jack flying upon the main mast, but below it the Jolly Rodger fluttered in a building wind. Privateers—and to her horror, they seemed to be gaining. Realistically, Scully knew the Dutchman could be neither sunk nor captured, but as the only mortal thing aboard, she could be.

“They’re getting closer!” Scully called as Stella emerged from the cabin carrying a handful of bullets and a cutlass in a sling. She pressed three bullets into Scully’s open palm, which Scully quickly loaded into her pistol.

“Those’ve not yet been lodged in me,” Stella said with a humorless smile, then passed her the cutlass. “You said you knew how to handle a sword?”

Scully nearly dropped it as she took the handle. It was thicker, wider, and heavier than the rapiers with which her father had taught her swordplay. But she told Stella, “yes” and strapped the holstered cutlass over her shoulder. It would do in a scrap.

It wasn’t long before the ship had nearly pulled up beside them, within range of their cannons. “I know that crew,” Stella muttered to Scully’s surprise, drawing her pistol. She fired a warning shot at the bow sprit. Scully closed her left eye and peeked through her right, waited for the sound of cannon fire and splitting wood. The privateer crew only tied up a sail to slow themselves, keeping alongside the Dutchman. The gap between the two ships was now slim enough to swing across.

“Be on your way or we’ll blow you into the water!” Stella shouted, clinging with one hand to the webbing, her pistol raised in the other. “Davy Jones’s Locker will collect your souls!”

Scully snorted. Davy Jones sounded far more spectacular and ominous than Stella Gibson, although she had found Stella Gibson to carry many a foreboding mystery of her own. Truly, she didn’t know what she’d do if it came to blowing a privateer’s ship into the water. She hadn’t considered coming into conflict with the British Crown for she certainly didn’t consider herself a pirate, and she had no desire to kill a man (although she liked to think she’d do it, if her own life was on the line, and suspected she’d have to eventually).

A dark-haired, sea-weathered man in a tricorner hat emerged from the buccaneer crew. He wore a deep blue captain’s uniform, though his peg leg and disheveled open coat suggested he was more pirate than king’s man. From her vantage point on the Dutchman, Scully noted white seeping into his beard and worry lines settling above permanently forlorn eyebrows. “Stella!” he called across the gap, and Scully pursed her lips. How did Stella know this man? Was he friend or foe? If nothing else, he’d not yet fired on them. “Stella, hold your fire!” Stella said nothing, and the captain turned to his men. “Hold your own fire,” he ordered brusquely.

“Captain Burns, the Crown must be serving you well!” Stella shouted, gun still in hand. “I see you’ve a new ship!“

“As do you! Might I come aboard?” the captain shouted back. “We would like to offer you a bargain to end any hostilities that might otherwise take place!”

“You were a pirate last I saw you, Captain Burns! Have you forgotten how to stave off a battle?”

“I’m an honorable man seeking an audience with you for both our benefit!”

“Perhaps,” Stella called, “but I’m still a pirate!”

Captain Burns sighed heavily. “All right, Stella! Parlay! I demand parlay.”

Stella gestured expansively to the Dutchman. “Come aboard, then!”

The captain tossed a hook and rope over the railing of the Dutchman and climbed onto the deck. He was adept at dealing with his peg leg, Scully would give him that.  

Burns turned to Scully. “Who are you?”

“Scully,” was all she said.

Seeming satisfied, he glanced about the ship. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“Busy,” Stella said and ducked into the captain’s cabin. Burns opened his mouth as if to protest, furrowed his brow suspiciously, then changed his mind. He gave one last look to the wheel before disappearing behind Stella.

Scully crept up to the door and pressed her ear against it—if her quest was at stake, she wanted to know. Clearly Captain Burns’s arrival was unexpected, his call for parlay even more so.

“I didn’t know this ship was yours until I heard you threaten to sink me,” Burns’s voice, tinged with something akin to hurt, resonated clearly through the cabin door.

“You did chase down our ship like a huntsman” Stella said in a business-like tone, and Scully could picture her clasping her hands together and resting them on the table, sizing up Burns with the cold blue gaze of Davy Jones, her thoughts tucked safely away. “My threat was not unjustified.” A pause. “Nor was it empty.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Burns with a chuckle. “But nonetheless, I’d like to make you the same offer I make to every pirate vessel I encounter. Sail for England, receive a full pardon from the king, and reap your rewards.”

“You’re wasting your own time, Burns.”

“Stella, what happened to the Ophelia?” Burns pressed.

“I replaced it.”

“You mean you lost it. You wouldn’t have left the Ophelia and its crew unless it sank or it was captured—a captain and his ship are inseparable until one of them dies.”

“How true.”

“I can promise you’ll never lose a ship again, Stella. You just have to join beneath the Crown, as I have. Look,” he implored, and Scully heard a clunk. “A French privateer took my ship, my leg, the lives of men. You remember Jimmy Olson, my first mate aboard the Beatrice after you left? He died in battle; sword went right through the middle of him.”

Scully heard a weary sigh. “Pirate’s life,” she said quietly, with sorrow and respect. That, Scully had come to realize, was how she honored the dead. She couldn’t bring herself to do so any other way.

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Jim, we rob for a living. We capture vessels and amass treasure. We bury and hoard and spend; we’re not noble, but we are free. The best we can do is honor that.”

“Don’t you ever feel remorse, though, firing upon the vessels of your motherland? I’m asking you to take an oath to the Crown, sacrificing only your freedom to sink a British ship at will. You’d be a pirate but under the protection of the Navy.”

“The motherland has never shown me respect,” Stella said icily. “I will make no such alliance.” Scully swore her voice dropped half an octave, bore the same dangerous ring as it had when she’d threatened John Jack, and she stiffened at the door. Stella continued, “I would advise you, Captain Burns, to go easier on the rum.”

“Stella, for God’s sake I am trying to keep you safe! I care for you. When you left the Lady Fortune I would have come after you in a heartbeat. I would have left my crew to their own capable hands sailed with you until death. I could have protected the Ophelia; you and your crew would never have been forced to find a new ship.” The rustle of papers, awkward clumping on the floor, the thump of a body against the wall. A harsh smack filled the air, followed by a thick, dank silence. That was the final thread for Scully; she would not stand outside in ignorance. She kicked opened the cabin door and stopped in the doorway, as if struck by lightning, at the sight before her: Burns hunched over, clutching his now swollen nose. Stella stood against the wall, watching him, one hand balled into a fist and the other wrapped around her pistol. She looked every inch a terrifying scourge of the seas. Her hair was tangled, her hat askew, and her face a worn map of fury.

“Stella,” Burns pleased hoarsely, “I’m simply asking you for peace. You would have the HMS Helena—myself and my crew—as your sister ship, if you ever found yourself in trouble.”

Stella lifted her proud chin and set her jaw. “The Flying Dutchman needs no sister ship,” she said imperiously. “This parlay is over. My crew will see you off, unless you want a bullet in your chest.” A chair slid over to Burns and pushed him toward the cabin door. Stella swept out the door, and Scully moved to follow.

“D’you want to know where the Claudius is?” Burns called after her, his face ruddy and unnerved and full of desperation.

Stella froze in her tracks. “I’m following it.”

Burns’s cracked lips split into a tiny smile nearly hidden by his beard. “It’s you Spector wants, isn’t it? When he said in Tortuga he wanted the treasure of Davy Jones, I never suspected it’d be your heart he was after. He’s nearing the island, Stella; he has a navigator aboard who knows every myth and treasure these waters have to offer. He has the knife.”

“I know that,” Stella snapped. “He ripped it from ‘round my very neck.”

“All he needs is to know where you buried it. Stella, you cannot touch dry land. You need help if you’re to protect your precious heart from Spector. You’ve made mistakes, and now you can’t correct them on your own. My crew can go ashore, walk the beaches like your curse forbids.”

Stella glowered at him. “I need no living man to guard my heart. Scully can go ashore if need be, but I assure you, the Dutchman will destroy anything in its path. Paul Spector will pay for his deeds by the sword and the cannon.”

A flicker of admiration crossed Burns’s eyes. “You’re just, for a pirate.”

“A good pirate knows when to be.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Now get off my ship before I send yours to the bottom of the ocean.”

Burns met Scully’s eyes over Stella’s shoulder. “Never before have I been aboard the Flying Dutchman. But I’ve seen it, and I’ve heard terrible music grind from its belly: Davy Jones’s organ, singing the deaths of a hundred drowned sailors in a burning wreck.” With a grunt, he stood up straight and ambled unevenly to the deck. His peg leg knocked hollowly against the wood.

When Burns had returned to his ship and abandoned its course, their vessel but a spot against the setting sun, Scully couldn’t help but ask: “Was it really your intention all along to send me ashore to do that work you couldn’t?” It wasn’t an accusation—it was the type bargain she had expected when she told the carriage driver to take her to Los Barriles. Still she couldn’t help but feel a bit hurt.

For the first time since she’d boarded the Dutchman, Scully realized how little she knew of the woman before her, how much longer she had been Stella Gibson than Davy Jones. Stella had known Jim Burns when he was a young man with two legs, known the Jimmy Olson who died on the Beatrice, captained a ship called the Ophelia and left it behind for a curse. Scully wondered how much of the Stella she’d met in Los Barriles had come to be since she had become captain of the Dutchman and how much of Stella—her world-weary wit, her contentment with herself—had been quintessentially hers since youth.

“Only if you would do it,” Stella replied, her feet propped up on the table in her cabin. Suddenly, she looked so much older, so much more exhausted. The circles beneath her eyes and hollow beneath her cheeks caught shadows as if they’d been carved with a silver spoon. She twisted a compass in her fingers, turning it slowly around its fixed needle. “I’d not force such a risk upon you, but the thought crossed my mind.” She tilted her chin to meet Scully’s gaze. “You were bold and altruistic when I saw you in the tavern, and seeing how far you’d go to rescue your friend, I thought you might help me at your own will.”

“I would.”

If the answer startled her, Stella did not show it. She ran her fingers through her hair and tugged them free of a tangle. After a dragging silence, she said, “I promise you the organ Burns mentioned is not a sick celebration of the drowned, as he made it out to be.”

“I never made the assumption,” Scully replied.

“The organ plays whenever we go to battle or pass a wreck. Philip Padgett played it as his adversaries burned and sank. Now, it is the Dutchman’s tribute to those ghouls and spirits it cannot join. The souls that man this ship are as cursed as I am, Miss Scully. They cannot join their loved ones in the next life, and those survivors who hear the organ of Davy Jones know they are soon to die.”

It sounded grand and terrible. It left her curious.

* * *

It was in the midst of a particularly nasty gale that Stella showed her the organ. It was obvious the captain hadn’t slept—she was still in her coat and hat, still hard and full of controlled energy, moving like a coiled spring about the sip.

“Do you know how to play?” Scully asked, sizing up the spectacular instrument before her. It was a musical beast, with valves and pipes stacking up against the wall of what would be an officer’s cabin.

She shook her head. “I’ve no teacher, nor the patience to teach myself. I hardly ever ask it to play. When I do, it’s louder than a hurricane.” She ran her fingers over the faded keys and turned to Scully, cocking her eyebrow. “Would you like to hear? Unless you intend to go back to sleep—which I doubt the weather will permit.”

“I would like that very much.”

Stella led her to the deck. “It only knows a couple songs,” she confessed, “but you’ve not tired of them like I have.” She glanced back at the cabin where the organ was tucked away. “Play us a song,” she ordered.

Scully could hardly hear it at first—a soft, haunting tune nearly unfit for the tempest unfolding around them. To her surprise, Stella took her hand and her waist and led her in a slow waltz. “I hardly enjoyed dancing on land,” she said in lieu of an explanation, “but I learned well and appreciate the finesse now.”

Scully didn’t reply, only allowed herself to be stepped in time to the ship’s slow rock. The dance was contained, simple, and Stella’s sharp blue eyes never left hers. Scully had learned to dance as a young child, but she’d avoided it in recent years. It had never seemed a pastime worth engaging in. It had too many rules; it was too strained.

Then the organ took off, ringing and echoing across the ship, breaking thunder with a ghostly rumble in a minor key, and suddenly Stella swung her faster, wilder, about the deck, spun her, led a dance with a purpose. It was the type of song her piano teacher would have been scandalized to hear her play, but the type of song with a story behind it ten-year-old Scully would have longed to hear. Her father would have appreciated it fateful tune. And the waltz was one that didn’t happen in ballrooms, that made her all too aware of the rain sticking to her shoulders and the lightning overhead. This was a pirate’s dance, limitless, death-heralding, and she loved it.

Stella spun her again beneath one rain-soaked arm, and she decided on a dime she wanted to lead this time. She wanted to see Stella’s coattails twirl like a ballerina’s slip beneath her hand. So she pushed the cold hands backwards and the wet, lean waist to her other side and led Stella—who moved without protest—about the floorboards like she’d always watched the little boys do during her lessons.

She spun Stella, and the pirate’s black coattails whipped in a wide circle, splattering Scully’s face. And then Stella was close again, and for the first time she looked to the negligible space between them and saw a deeply cut shirt and three white bullet holes. Two breasts neither fettered nor corseted, one red, jagged scar where Stella had cut out her own heart and put it in a box and buried it on some godforsaken island.

And she let go. Stella in her pirate’s coat, turning on the toe of her boot—that was all she’d wanted to see. She’d already seen her scars, her open chest, but she felt as though she had seen much more.

They fell apart and Scully rested her hands on her knees, catching her breath as the rain beat down upon her, leaking through her hair and down her Roman nose. Stella simply stood, hands clasped behind her back. She had no breath to catch. “You dance like you were forced to learn how.”

“You dance like you regret learning how,” Scully retorted, leaning against the main mast.

“It’s only fun if you’re kept on your toes.”

Scully nodded breathlessly. “No shit,” she muttered, then huffed a laugh.

“And you curse like a Navy officer,” said Stella with a wan smirk. “Unexpectedly.”

Then she retreated to her cabin. When the red sun poked over a strip of thunderclouds, Scully was still standing at the bow, her fingers wrapped around a spoke of the wheel. She almost wanted to spin it, and see where it took her, but Mulder’s frightened face lurked in the forefront of her mind.

Stella slammed the cabin door as she emerged, and Scully turned around. “Careful not to fall in love with that horizon,” Stella said as dawn reached the crow’s nest. “It’ll turn you into a pirate.”

[gilstrad-sanbox]

Right in the middle of Gilstrad, beyond the rolling cliffs of the north and the ebbing shores of the south, is a dense thicket of woodlands that covers most if not entirety of the realm. Known to all as the province of Bardelven, the lands itself are just as mysterious and, more so, as tranquil as the forests that have blanketed it with its verdant providence since they are pretty much secluded and away from the bustling cities of the southern lands and the still growing populace of the northern lands of Ordhovh. Some even say that walking into their territories seems like walking into another world itself. It was as if they have their own customs and beliefs that have not been shared to the other provinces, something that which the Cathedral has looked down upon. While most parts are under the protection of Dea, some still believe in the voices of nature itself – some still seek the counsel of druids who seem to roam the forest like the flittering leaves itself, perfectly attuned with the trees as if their blood is nature’s blood itself. Nonetheless, everyone in Bardelven claims that druids are anything but a threat, so is their rather interesting culture when it came to dealing with the darker forces; may it be from trinkets or concoctions that they have received from nature. What they consider a vile threat to their safety though come in the form of feral rage and beastly howls, in rumored bites that infect and fester, a threat that come in packs as what they lack in undead and grests make up for the monstrous beings that run along the woods that they live in: the werewolves.

WORVALD

The province’s archpriory lies well within the heart of Bardelven. Among the other priories and parishes, Worvald is probably the biggest city within the province with nothing else nearly comparing to it. And as such, like the great city of Highhost, the citizens of Worvald had also protected themselves within the embrace of its fortifications, the Wodenwal. While it is home for its people, the wall is a curiosity on its own especially to the ones who are new to the city. One of the notable facts is the stone wall itself is fortified by wood that is not just embedded with silver spikes, but with sharpened branches as well. It is believed that such engineering would provide them ample protection not just from wolves but from vampires as well. Another is the variety of groves and arboretums inside the walls, small farming orchards that the citizens have built for themselves in which some are given out to those who cannot find their means of survival outside the walls whether it be because of their age or disability. Although within the city, the stone walls stand alone and unfortified by the wood, dividing the city into sections that isn’t as stark and strict like what they have in Highhost. Stories say that the sections just came from the additional settlements that built themselves around the city and while the diversity within is rather blurred, there are areas that are somewhat distinct such as the Merchant’s Square to the west to which the caravans have come from, the vast northern district of the Lumber Mills where the wood workers live, and the central area where the main officials of Worvald hold their office to ensure the protection of the city. Like Reislach, Worvald is also under the jurisdiction by a group of locals, the Worvald Council – though unlike the Seat of Barons, they are not at odds with the archbishop that had been accepted within their ranks, though a notable schism is that the forces of Worvald are not directly answerable to the Cathedral’s representative in the archpriory.

Briarholme is one of three parishes under the jurisdiction of Worvald, named as such with the thorny woods that seemed to have grown around the settlement. And some have said that it was because the forest deemed to protect its inhabitants, though others argue that it must be the forest’s voice asking them to get out of there themselves. With the seemingly imposing trees in which some have grayed with age and with some even hollowed out and alone in the woods, it was a rather sound caution to not just those who were already in it, but also for those who want to venture into it themselves. The parish is rather peaceful though, with its quiet life within the woods and their rather sizable orchards. And while only some believe about the legends within the forest, they are still well protected by Bardelven as they are the town that connects Worvald to its two other priories but to the rest of the west as well.

To the south, to the shores of the Eastirling, is where one would find the parish of Vinstead. Among the territories Bardelven, it is the only parish that makes a living out of fishing, second to woodworks of course. But more than that, it is also the only parish in Bardelven that also delves into the business of ship building. And while the people Bardelven don’t really find use for ships, the adequate ports of the city has been used to make models and test ships from buyers from Gahvol and Ordhovh before the wood is delivered to the provinces to make the successful model in their respective shipyards. Most of the time, they pride themselves in making small but quick and efficient fishing vessels.

Wudvesen lies north of Worvald and along the edge of Ulfen Lake. Within the other two parishes, it is the smallest but the most formidable – second only to Worvald itself. One of the reasons why it was small is because most of the populace had already fled down the archpriory when they noticed that the wolf attacks were becoming even more unrelenting. What is left now is a small township with basic necessities for the weary traveler and the Wudvesen Keep. The keep is a huge fortress that protects whatever was left in Wudvesen and at the same time, serves as the barracks and training quarters for the militia of Worvald and even parts of Bardelven. It was easy to compare it with Sentinel Hill with their set up, but what they lack in Halsmiths as they are only bestowed upon by the grace of the Cathedral, they make up for their impeccable silversmithing.

WENHAM

The northernmost priory of Bardelven is Wenham, yet another farmstead township that is slowly growing in number as some of the citizens of Harrow Lake and Migdeera have moved down to make a living in there instead of staying within their priories. For that reason, Wenham, along with Briarholme, are the places within Bardelven that has a strong active presence of the Worvalden militia – even more so now that it was rumored that a pack of wolves have been hiding within its streets.

To its south lies Hedgrove, the only parish that is within its territory. While simple and rural and devoid of any active presence from the militia and the Inquistors, the sizable town enjoys quite a good amount of protection as it lies between Wenham and Worvald, among other things as the parish prides itself into growing vast orchards of the silverbough tree; a tree that was said to repel evil. And so, it is within this very reason that its population is slowly growing as well, something that Hedgrove accepts with open arms as Bardelven itself is greatly known for its utmost hospitality. In fact, any weary traveler that manages to stumble upon the parish is sure to receive a small charm made from the wood of the tree and a bowl of soup made from the leaves. Not entirely the best of flavors, but they say that it is meant as such as wolves and vampires don’t really like feasting on humans with silverbough soup in their belly.

RIVENSONG

To the west, just along the winding river of the Ulfenling and far from the edge of the Bardevelian forests, is the priory of Rivensong. Bright, gleaming with coursing waters, and very much surrounded with rolling hills and meadows and some patches of woods here and there, one would think that the priory is not at all a part of the province. Even more so as Rivensong is the priory in Bardelven that has the strongest presence of the Cathedral and its Inquisition – in fact, it was said that even the archbishop had found it easier to establish office in the priory, it was just that the Cathedral wanted a solidified connection with the Worvald Council now that they have given him an honorary seat. But despite that, Rivensong remains and shall always remain as a priory of the province as they are still as Bardevelian as Bardevelians go, from silverbough soup to little trinkets. Those who live within the forests even call them the Riverbrothers, in which their little charms are based on as well. While others give out small tokens carved from silverbough wood, the people of Rivensong give out pebbles as it was believed that the sparkling river have been blessed by the angels as they have brought out the sun and moon itself and such little sparks of light had been absorbed by the stones from underneath the currents.

Windig is the southern parish of the priory. While Rivensong had received leniency through its compliance, the parish is currently under strict rules though not by the doing of the citizens itself. With Glasheim’s reputation of being under siege by necromancers, people that have failed to flee to Felborough have found themselves stumbling along the forests and straight into Windig. And while they are welcomed within the parish, the Inquisition has to make sure that they have not brought the cursed undeath with them.

From on exodus to another, Almsreach is also a parish that is well populated by migrants but for reasons other than running away. Almsreach is the northern most parish of Bardelven and it is just well within the distance of the Silver Pass that leads westward into Ordhovh. And as such, Almsreach became one of the main veins that the charitable caravans use during their travels to the rest of Gilstrad and back to Ordhovh. Though in some cases, especially for those who are hesitant to reach the pure city of Highhost, some decide to stay and just make their own lives in Almsreach or even give back by tending to their intuitions. Some serve as groundskeepers to the klaads and the chapels in the parish, some tend to the already weak and weary beggars, some even offer their talents in the kitchens of the almshouses – although the place that had always been open to helping hands of those who decide to stay is the Hall of the Innocents; the biggest orphanage in Almsreach. Taking care of children is not really an easy task to take on, it is nearly every day that a new child shows up in their gates, all from places unknown… although it had been a nasty rumor that any noblemen in Ortensia who wish to rid their bastards usually throw their newborns into the orphanage. One of the biggest Cathedral orders in the parish is the Sisterhood of Martyrs.

KURVIG

To speak about Bardevelian diversity only meant one thing; Kurnvig. Located way south of Worvald and beyond the deathly forests of Briarholme, Kurvig is the final priory of Bardelven. It is the biggest among all the priories but still far from the size of Worvald. And while Rivensong had been mingling with a good amount of the Inqusition, Kurnvig is diverse because of trade as it is the priory that opens to Reislach and the rest of the southern provinces. From caravans, to workers, to merchants, to shipyard keepers, to whoever aims to make business in Bardelven will most likely pass Kurnvig and its surrounding walls. And since they have a heavy population full of different people, they took it upon themselves to even make their own militia to keep order in the priory and to protect themselves from vile beings come nightfall as well. They are all under the orders of the Frater Corvagna, the biggest merchant’s guild in Kurnvig.

When Bardelven was founded, way back before the demons have started to plague the lands, Kurnvig has been the only priory without a parish. But with the changing times and with the Cathedral caravans having the need to have a post to settle in after a trek down the winding river and avoid the chaos of Kurnvig as well, Ielvich was built. It might be a small township that is slowly growing; its Cathedral warrant nearly makes it a stronghold for the church. The Wudwesen militia is not really one of its supporters.