the part i'm currently in the mind to write. and here's a nice teaser of Bruce trying to spend a weekend in metropolis with his 3 youngest and the kents

**bnha spoilers** I'm just sat here with renewed realisation of what All Might is going through. 40 years. /40 years/ he held and refined that power and dedicated his every waking (and sleeping if Vigilantes is anything to go by) moment towards the goal of defeating AfO and creating a society in which people could feel happy and safe. And now as it turns out AfO is still alive, society is broken and he has given a literal piece of his soul to this young boy leaving himself with only phantoms

Yes. I don’t think people quite grasp what all he’s going through.

It’s been shown recently to us that some, if not most, heroes have underlying ambitions in becoming a hero. Whether for money, glory, fame, popularity, doesn’t matter. They’re ultimately in it for themselves. Toshinori’s intentions from the beginning have been the most pure- he wanted to be a symbol that people can look to and know things will be ok. A symbol of hope. This boy was only around 14 years old when he decided this. What kind of 14 year old sees the world that clearly? Sees that people have no hope, that a veil of darkness covers them. The only thing I can think of is- Toshinori did not have a good childhood. Something had to have happened to a boy that young to stop seeing the joy in life so early, and see the world’s flaws. Truthfully, I believe he was an outcast- due to his quirklessness. Most likely an orphan, perhaps abandoned by his parents, as we’ve never seen him have any family. I do truly believe Toshinori has been alone all his life. I don’t doubt more could have happened to him as a child before he met Nana. 

Some may argue that Izuku is the same age, and therefore it shouldn’t be that hard to see why Toshinori wanted to be a hero at such a young age. BUT, Izuku had someone to look up to, ever since he was a child of four years old, to inspire him to be a hero his whole life *cough cough* All Might. Izuku also was quirkless, much like Toshinori, and an outcast because of it (hence where I assume Toshinori was much the same). But ultimately, Izuku wanted to save people because he saw his hero do it. It really wasn’t until Izuku was a bit older, has been in UA, has been on rescue missions, has seen what the heroes see, that I think he’s truly realized how dark the world really is. Toshinori didn’t have that. He didn’t have someone to inspire him as a child, someone to look up to, a hero to inspire him to help others. At that time, heroes hadn’t become as popular as they are in present times. Toshinori saw the world for what it was, on his own, at a tender age. I think that day Nana ran into this blonde hair kid, she eyed him up, noticed his scraggly form, looked into those captivating blue eyes, and saw a man who’s lived through the world’s horrors- experienced the worst it has to offer-, and wants to save everyone he can from the same fate, all in a 14 year old boy. 

Then after only a few short years with the woman he saw as his mother, she’s killed in front of him because of his own weakness- he wasn’t strong enough yet to protect her. The only other person his life, Gran Torino, literally abused him. He beat him to a pulp, taking his own emotions out on a teenager, and I doubt Toshinori said anything of it. He probably thought he deserved it. He’s still afraid of Gran Torino to this day, remembering the beatings and expecting more for his failures- even if he doesn’t know what they are surely he’s at fault for something, but he’s the only person who’s stood by his side for this long. Even while at a distance, and spouting nothing but criticisms along the way. But Toshinori had to put aside his own emotions to be that hope for everyone. He left everything he knew to go to a new country on his own, to learn how to be a hero, to be that hope for someone.

Vigilantes showed us just how hard he worked. Toshinori literally stayed awake with no sleep for days on end- 3 in the chapter I’m referencing- because people needed help, people needed saving, and no one else stepped up. He fought villains, rescued civilians, repaired damage, cleared rubble, (even accept and eat food that was against his dietary restrictions after his injury) whatever the public needed, all while draining himself further. He worked himself to the point of exhaustion because he had no help, once literally falling asleep while mid-leap across the city because he simply could go no further. 

^^These happen in succession of each other^^

No one stepped up to say “Hey, Mr. Number 1, you’ve been working hard lately. Let me help you!” No one tried to take over his position. Even the Number 2 hero, Endeavor, never tried to take some of his burden. His only goal was to try to be better than All Might in terms of power- he was never trying to be the hero that the people relied on All Might for. Everyone relied on him when things looked grim. He was the back up plan. And all of this happened before Toshinori’s injury. 

The only thing he ever wanted to do- help people- he can’t do (at least the way he’s always known how to). The ability to save people has been taken from him in the most gruesome way. He was finally able to fight the man that killed Nana, and in a rage that I’m sure echoed with all of the emotions of the previous users, he smashed that man’s head like a grape. But not without consequence. Several organs are gone. The pain is excruciating. He wears that man’s mark on his body for the rest of his life, never truly able to rid himself of the filth.

Then we have Nighteye’s betrayal. The man that helped him as a sidekick, the man that grew to be his only friend. Now some people may ask why Toshinori flipped like he did to Nighteye looking into his future when he was concerned about him making it through his injury. What I believe is Toshinori didn’t want to know when he would die (and really, who does). Now he knows he’s on a time limit, knows the clock is ticking. Time is running out to keep the world at peace, and with him as he is now, how long can this go on? 

I think the betrayal, doing something that Toshinori specifically asked him not to do, is what hurt the most. How can he trust Nighteye anymore? He already can only count on one hand the people he can trust, let alone befriend.

He’s wasted away into a skeleton, a shell of the man he used to be. He can’t over exert himself without his only lung bleeding in protest. It’s canon in the side books that he really doesn’t eat much, which isn’t good for his diet without a stomach now (he’s supposed to have several small meals a day). He is quite literally punishing himself by starving. (Granted, he doesn’t feel hunger anymore.) He’s a sick man, beyond medical help at this point. They can only stabilize him and hope for the best. For five years now he’s in constant pain, every day. He loses blood like sweat. Surely his veins are bruised and collapsed with how many times he would have needed to be hospitalized. Whether from losing too much blood, being too dehydrated or starved from “forgetting” to eat, or an organ failing as body continues to fall apart. “...even as my body rots and grows frail...” - Toshinori People are bound to stare at him as he walks down the street. A tall, willowy, skeleton with a grimace on his face and blood stains on his clothes as he coughs up more into his own hands. There would be the ones who outright ignore him when they walk by, the people who offer pitying smiles and sympathetic glances or just outright stare, and then ones who are afraid of his appearance- children screaming at the mere sight of him and running to their parents to hide from the monster. Each one is another knife in Toshinori’s side, an ache in his chest. If only they knew who I really am.

Losing Nighteye took a toll on his hero work as well. Mirai was a huge help in the past, and took care of all Toshinori’s paperwork, while also reminding him to take care of himself. Without him, Toshinori was even more buried beneath his responsibilities. Plus, now he was on a time limit. He even snapped briefly in his first meeting with Tsukauchi, accidentally revealing himself as All Might because he was under too much pressure, and telling the detective he literally couldn’t handle doing everything by himself (who graciously took over the paperwork side of things for him). 

He was living a double life now, having to lie to people left and right about who he was while in his small form, about how he became so sickly, why he was here in the first place who the heck is this skinny old guy. Surely he had multiple visits to the doctor while continuing to repair the damage done by AFO (there’s a limit to how much the body can handle at once. And things I’m sure continued to fail as time went on). Then he would be bedridden for as long as the doctors could keep him strapped to a bed, until he couldn’t take the people’s cries for help any longer, and would jump into action. (It’s also revealed he has something of a super hearing- able to hear danger- which may have been a form of danger sense of OFA that was never fully unlocked?. Either way, he surly could sense disasters happening while he could only lay and heal from his latest surgery. Those poor doctors must have had to re-stitch him several times). People blame him for not preparing society for his retirement, that he failed in passing on the torch so to speak, but in reality he did everything possible to keep society from falling for 40 years, doing all within his power just to keep things afloat. He is only one person. One human being, he can’t do everything despite trying to. Society failed All Might.

People blame him for not being a good teacher. He didn’t exactly have the greatest teacher himself to learn from. He’s never had to teach anyone anything, he just punches! He’s learning. And for his own credit, he’s an incredibly wise man, he has years of experience under his belt, and an intelligence score of 6/6, scoring up there with Nezu! He may not always have the right way to bring something up, but he’s doing his best. Yet even he blames himself for Izuku not being able to control his quirk better. Every time the boy hurts himself, it’s just another tally on the chalkboard of Toshinori’s failures. He himself knows the boy deserves better, better than him. Useless. Pathetic.

Then his friend from America, Dave, essentially became a villain trying to preserve Toshinori’s legacy after Toshinori told him about his injury. Dave went behind his back, threatened people, injured people (pretty sure people died), all for Toshinori’s sake. Something he didn’t want to begin with. Having to put your only other friend in jail for trying to help you surely couldn’t have been easy.

Oh, by the way? All For One isn’t dead. All Might will fight him again, publicly, have his weakened form exposed to the world, and have his own emotions toyed with as he finds out about his master’s grandson in the villain’s hands. Would Nana hate him for leaving her son alone like she’d asked, and dooming her grandchild to be raised by the greatest villain? Could he have done anything to save him? But Toshinori isn’t allowed to feel, he has to smile and push his own feelings aside once again, because there’s a villain to be fought, and only he can fight him. Despite coming out on top, he’ll have suffered severe head trauma, broken left arm, destroyed right arm, and several cuts and bruises that are sure to scar. And then, his quirk, the only thing that’s been allowing him to help people, the gift given to him that he carefully held for 40 years and molded into his own until his very consciousness was permanently carved into it, blows out like a match in the wind. And he’s done. Used up. Empty. Broken. Hollow. Alone, again.

He overhears his student, Bakugo, admit that he blames himself for All Might’s retirement. If he hadn’t been captured, All Might wouldn’t have had to save him, and he wouldn’t have had to fight AFO. Of course Toshinori knows that’s not true, his time was about to run out anyway. It would have happened one way or another. But how can he explain to this child that he wasn’t the cause of his hero, the world’s greatest hero, fighting for his sake, bleeding for his sake, being forced into retirement to keep him safe. Every time Bakugo sees the bandages covering Toshinori’s body is another reminder of the pain and sacrifice Toshinori willingly gave to keep him safe. Toshinori wasn’t held when his mentor died. He wasn’t told it was ok to be sad, that grief and mourning was a natural process, that it takes time to heal. He wasn’t told it was ok to cry. Instead his feelings were beaten out of him as he wondered if Gran Torino blamed him for Nana’s death. He already blamed himself How then, does he comfort a child mourning for him? For what he lost.

And then he gets the call to come to the hospital. Mirai, Nighteye, his old sidekick friend, has been gravely injured, much like he himself was only a few years ago, and most likely won’t survive the night. And to his horror, Nighteye is happy to see him, smiles at him, says he doesn’t hate him for what happened, only wants Toshinori to be happy. He can’t accept that, at least let him apologize, reconcile his sins before it’s too late! But it is. Another fractured piece of his heart gone.

Of course, seeing your students beat up and their arms completely destroyed must have hurt. Instead of being able to save these kids, they’re the ones that hurt themselves to save everyone else. And if Bakugo had kept OFA, things could have been very different (especially with what we know now of OFA and people with quirks). Toshinori wasn’t mad at Izuku for transferring it away, he’d never regret choosing Izuku, and I believe he still would have stayed by Izuku and Bakugo’s side should it have stayed in Bakugo, doing whatever he could to help.

As he tells Aizawa, “I’ve decided to live,” -that statement seems so melancholy, besides obvious reasons. It sounds more like another task he has to accomplish. He didn’t die he was supposed to die with the AFO fight, and now the whole life he lived is over. The world has no use for him anymore. If not for Izuku, he’d have nothing left keeping him here. But because his boy made him promise to live, he’ll do so. Though it almost seems like he says those words with regret. “I’ve decided to live.” Not, “I’m going to live!” “Nothing can kill me!” “I won’t go down without a fight!” No. “I’ll live if I have to, only because you asked me to.” The man is obviously and outwardly depressed. He has so many things against him. No doubt has severe PTSD, anxiety, among others. Not to mention his own physical health. Every day hurts. It’s painful to be alive. Why would he torture himself if he doesn’t have to? For you, my boy. You’re the only thing keeping me here. The only light in my dark world.

He tries to help Izuku find out the previous holder’s quirks, to help his boy in any way he can now that he’s worthless, and goes days on end without sleep, running his body into the ground. He even forgets Christmas. Only to find that by giving the boy the same gift he had received, he may have just doomed him to an early death, among psychological torture (danger detection). (Granted, he really doesn’t know how everything works, and he’s afraid to talk to anyone about it). His boy could live only half a life.

It’s only been a few months since he retired, and society has fallen into shambles. People are blaming him. People are dying. He watches helplessly as his colleague fight his fight for him, and end up battered, bruised, crippled, dead. He students, his boy, battle the monster he should have killed. Children are bleeding. This shouldn’t happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Is everything he worked for, everything he fought to protect, to build up, to inspire, is all for naught?! Did he live a foolish dream and doom the world? Was all the the friends he lost, tears he shed, the organs he destroyed, the pain he endures on a daily basis from the hole in his side, and the blood he continues to bleed every day, for nothing? The public, the ones he protected for so long, mourn his absence, but surely there are those among them who also blame him. The statue from his last fight in Kamino one that he never asked for was decimated in a mock of his catch phrase- the one that was supposed to give hope.

Now he can feel his own vestige speaking with Izuku in the OFA realm, even with out OFA in his own body anymore. His clock as nearly reached it’s limit, Nighteye’s prediction is due any day now. The only thing he wants is to see his boy smile at him, to give him some shred of hope. Yet the child remains unconscious, and Toshinori can’t even hold his hand from the bandages covering his arms. Will he still be able to fight? Is there any coming back from this now? Did I break him?

With all Toshinori has been through, I’m honestly surprised we haven’t seen him just outright break down. Anyone, anyone, else should have crumbled under the pressure of holding up the world for 40 years alone. And instead of being able to pass it on to someone when he can no longer bear its weight, it simply falls to into the abyss. People don’t credit All Might enough for everything he’s done. Most don’t realize the sacrifices he’s made. His character is so unbelievably profound and deep, it’s more than just the “I am here!” people focus on. He’s a deeply troubled, layered, complex character. And I can’t find fault within him.

3 birds 1 stone - chapter 12

‘Dick, Jason, and Tim. Supposed brothers 'till the end, until all three fall in love with you. Who wins your heart?

The man who earned it, the man who stole it, or the man who always had it?’

A/N: We continue the three perspectives!!! AND we got special appearances from a few characters today eeeeee we’re so close to the finale. Hope you guys enjoy this one!

WORDS: 12,068  WARNINGS: violence, arm dislocation, muscle injuries, alcoholism, mentions of coffee addiction and insomnia

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST

-----

Dick:

That day, this all ends.

Telling himself he got into this mess because he hadn’t a choice, that he hadn’t already stopped because it was all just too riveting and captivating and not at all within his control, was nothing short of a lie.

He had every say in it.

But not even his fucking conscience could convince him to stop. He wanted this mess. Dove right into the lava. He knew every bit of the heartbreak he’d have to endure and he willingly brought it to himself. To get lost into the deep dark woods, with nothing more than an oil lamp, to be pricked by the many thorns and suffocated by the leaves and trees that crowd about much like a bush. To get lost in her, and never want to climb out of any of it. He knew how slippery the road ahead of him was and still he kept going, kept driving, sped up a little even when he thought he’d actually get to where the stars pointed him to.

But so profoundly was his loss of himself, without much effort at all to escape from those grasps even when he told himself he did; going to another woman, wanting the same arrest of his heart to hopefully take him away, but without halting those thoughts of Y/N and how her smile that he’d seen earlier that day would last until dark, maybe even beyond that. Those flares of her face and her voice and how he let them speak to her every night, change them into burning whispers against his ear when he’s memorized her voice too much to make her say anything he wanted her to, even when they only last in his head.

Dick never tried to stop her from taking her heart like that, even when he had to watch her be with another.

Tonight, it all ends. Every bit of this torture that he brought only to himself, it all comes to this sorry halt.

Dick, standing atop a roof of an office building in Dresher, knew that at that moment, he had to sit this one down. He had to be alone and in the darkness to make this as painful as it possibly could, hoping that if all that pain were to be felt now, compress them into this little tub of static blackness, then perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad the next day, and the day after that. Even when he knew this would backfire, he had to.

No one, especially not Y/N, would want him to end up with her. Tim deserved her. Hell, even Jason’s done a lot more for her sake than he had. He can't hope anymore. He can't let this go on.

All this would have gone better if he’d known this sooner.

So with him on that rooftop, sitting on the ledge fifty stories above as if not at all was he a push away from death, Dick let his finger scroll across his phone’s screen moist from his sweat. The battery was going to run out soon. He’d been there for hours, staring at that same picture of her from the day in the nursery, when the sun had been kind to her, touching the surface of her skin so perfectly, it showed more of the little details that he’d already memorized. Those exact images would be thrown out by the end of tonight. Pack their bags. Scram them out the door.

It had, as expected, proven to be difficult.

The thirty-seven pictures he took that day, he’d already heartly remembered by the end of it. Countless of times, he pulled them out of his pocket just to take a second to look, even at the worst. Another month had passed and nothing had happened much since, nothing out the ordinary, which meant their friendship was back to how it used to be. They were friends.

And that was why it ends tonight. Because if he doesn’t fight these thoughts, if he doesn’t fight her, he loses her. He loses this friendship.

Are you sure you want to delete this photo?

Confirm.

Confirm.

Confirm.

Thirty-six times, he let his finger do the talking. Not his heart. Not even his brain.

At the last one, the screen was too distorted by a fallen tear that had seeped out of his domino mask for him to go on. It was the only hindrance he needed to give up and stop. At least for a second.

But he couldn’t even dwell on it too much, or let himself cry, let it burn his skin off enough so it wouldn’t hurt any more afterwards. He couldn’t even let himself have that luxury when he heard the thudding noise of his brother’s boot-cladded feet, a Bo staff that hit the ground, and a black cape that enforced a gust of wind to blow against the back of his head.

Dick just closed his eyes, and just after that, Tim walked over to stand right behind him.

Greatest Detective in the World. But even an idiot would know what he was up to, sitting in the darkness crying while his feet dangle off a rooftop’s ledge, eyes to his phone like he was reading the saddest sob story in the whole world or that he’d just received a text that one of his loved ones’ lives had been taken away from cancer.

The way Tim was silent, he knew.

And Dick just let him believe it, without even a word to explain himself, he did. He let Tim’s mind do the figuring out and the explaining because not even his own words would be half that truth.

Tim’s voice that night wasn’t the kind he heard often.

“You think this is the right time for that, Dick?”

A crack on his knuckles, his throat sounding rough and beaten, Dick didn’t know what to even say.

“We called you fifteen times over at the bridge. We needed you-“

“Sorry-“

“And it turns out you’ve been at your phone the whole time-“

“You handled it without me.”

“That isn’t the fucking point.”

A month of silence, since that deathly night after they took Y/N home. Several minutes, together in one car, had proven to be one of the most insufferable moments of his life. And not surprisingly, it went on for even more days after that.

Dick turned off his phone, but Tim snatched it away from his hands and walked away so Dick couldn’t grab it.

He stood from the ledge. “Come on, Tim. Not cool.”

“Hmm. Cute,” Tim faked a smile and swiped around the screen, at the last picture of Y/N he had. “Could have sent it to me. And Jason.”

“Tim-“

“But it’s cool,” Tim said. He threw the phone back at Dick and he caught it just before it hit the ground. “All good. Finally, you have something of her all to yourself, right?”

Tim was Tim. Not this. Not someone so angry and grievous and someone who was looking at him that way with so much disgust when he used to be that young boy of fourteen who looked at his older brother like a god. How long, he thought, must he have kept all this frustration bundled up inside, where not even he could reach into. Someone who’s so calm, so in control of what he says, had finally given in and let his annoyance flourish about. He wondered, as anyone would, at what point Tim had finally had enough of all of this.

“Tim, please-“

“You,” Tim pointed his gloved finger right at Dick’s face.

“You were supposed to be my brother.”

.

Tim:

Of course, he’s had enough.

He’s had enough of all this a lot longer than anyone else, even he, would have thought.

It might have been since that day Y/N was crying over an argument they once had, over something he can't even remember, that almost pried them apart, only for Dick to come along and console her without telling Tim where he was, and he only knew because Y/N told him what happened. If she hadn’t, Tim wouldn’t have known.

He wouldn’t have known Dick had long been pining over the love of his life, never mind how she was in his arms and kissing his lips and calling for his name.

Dick, who could have literally anyone he could possibly wish for, just had to want her.

“What do you want me to say?” The asshole started after a moment’s silence, of nothing but a helicopter’s whirl from far above, the lack of light from everywhere around them, and their footsteps against the empty cement.

He couldn’t even look at his brother in the eye with his mask on, but he knew enough to know what he felt. It didn’t matter if he was sincere. It didn’t even matter that he cried.

“Nothing,” Tim said. “You’ve done your damage.”

“Damage?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Enlighten me.”

Tim scoffed and faked yet another laugh. It annoyed himself at that point.

“You are unbelievable-“

“I’m not trying to do anything with her anymo-“

“Don’t even start with that, asshole.”

Tim’s hands were shaking, and subconsciously he tried to repress those tremors, hoping they’d go away if he clenched them enough, but they only got worse.

“She was mine,” he cried. “And you just couldn’t handle that-“

“I never tried anything with her when you were together.” Dick tried to step closer to him but he just backed away.

“So you weren’t just waiting for us to break up so you’d swoop in and be the hero?” he scoffed. “I asked you to make sure she was okay, not take advantage of her hurting just so you’d have your chance.”

“And why did you break up, Tim?” He had the audacity to ask. “You didn’t love her anymore-“

“You knew I still did-“

“Then why hurt her?!”

“Because I was hurting her anyway!”

Never. He’s never been this angry. Not that he could recall.

“I was 17. Everything about me changed. Wayne Enterprises. Red Robin. Fucking Bruce dying and coming back to life. She was there but I was about to lose my fucking mind. I thought she didn’t have a place in all that mess anymore so I broke it off.”

Finally, he stepped close enough to Dick, almost to leveling with his height. His brother had his lips hidden, hands falling to his sides.

He looked terrified.

“Two seconds after that, I never regret anything more my whole fucking life. I thought talking to you would make her feel better, but you just couldn’t help but bat your pretty little eyes at her when she was vulnerable. I wanted to go back but I couldn’t ‘cuz you were already there!”

He was snarling, and a growl escaped his throat by the time he backed away. Tim didn’t even get to hear himself until he saw his own reflection in the white of Dick’s mask.

But Dick. He didn’t even take it as a hint to just shut up and take his rambling.

“I never meant to keep her away from you-“

“I went to you, Dick.” Tim wiped his lips with the back of his gloves, watched over to the next building to avoid his brother’s face. “I always went to you for help. With her. You know how long I’ve wanted her. And I went to you because I thought you were my brother and you’d help me.”

“I did help you!”

“You were helping yourself!”

His hands slammed against Dick’s chest, and it was a good thing he didn’t fight back. He would have just taken that as an excuse to keep hitting.

“Tim,” Dick held his hands up. Tim backed away. “Just go to her-“

“THIS ISNT ABOUT HER ANYMORE, ASSHOLE!”

Hands shoving his chest once again. This time, Dick had caught them, held them by his wrists enough so Tim couldn’t pull them away.

“THIS IS ABOUT YOU AND ME, GRAYSON!” Tim screamed. “WHAT HAPPENED TO HAVING EACH OTHER’S BACKS!”

“YOU THINK IT WAS MY CHOICE TO GET IN BETWEEN YOU!?”

It was from a whip of strength not even he had known prior, but it hurt when he finally could take his hands off of Dick’s grip, and with that, he backed further away, though his eyes couldn’t stray from looking straight into his brother’s.

“IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER IF IT WAS-“

“THEN I’M SORRY!’ Dick swallowed. “IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR?!”

“No,” Tim’s knees hit the railing and so close did he fall, but he kept himself up, rubbed the bottom of his chin with his gloved hand. “You're not sorry…”

Dick’s silence. Even more so did he want to just lunge at him and strangle his vocal chords. No matter how far-fetched, Dick was supposed to tell him all the things he wanted him to say. So far, he’s said none of that.

Dick just watched when Tim turned around to rest his weight onto his palms, looking out into the open seeking for just about any kind of help there was that he could call out from the wind, but there was nothing.

“You're right,” Dick said, and Tim felt the cement crack from beneath his palms. “I’m not sorry.”

“Fucking bold of you-”

“What would have happened to her if I hadn’t stepped in?” He heard Dick’s voice louder and clearer, which meant he was walking closer towards him.

“I would have come back. I always wanted to come back, but by then she was all over you. I couldn’t-“

Tim looked at his own hands. “I had it coming. I can't blame her.”

Another whiff of air, and it blew the strands of his black locks right onto his eyelids. They stung, but he didn’t push them away. He just kept his eyes locked onto the blankness of the gray, the dark that went all the way into his spirit.

“But I do blame you-“

“Tim, you hurt her-”

“AND YOU HAVENT?!”

Dick caught his Bo staff, which Tim had thrown right at him as swiftly as he turned around. His mouth was as dry as his palms were sweating. His teeth were close to breaking. And his eyes dangerously drifting off into some unknown nowhere just so he wouldn’t have to look at such betrayal.

“Tim-“

Tim was shaking, or at least his hands were, when he gave into his impulses and moved so fast, grabbing Dick by the collar and standing him down.

“You stand there blaming me for all that hurt when here you are-“

“What the hell do you want me to say to you?!”

He was strong, stronger than any one of them would have thought. Dick couldn’t even move, much less out of shock than it was out of his hold on him too overwhelming to counter.

“Tim, this isn’t like you-“

“You have no idea what I’ll do,” Tim growled. “Why do you think I became Red Robin?”

To separate himself from the likes of what it used to be. To not be Robin anymore. To stray away from his ideals, ideals and morals no longer his.

Because he was, in his truest capacity, capable of much darker things than people seem to know. Even his own brother.

“I hate you-“

Dick, who took that second to take advantage of weakness, grabbed him by the wrists and pushed him off with the soles of his feet, not enough to send him to the ground but enough to almost topple him. And when he looked up, immediately, Tim’s fist headed for his brother’s head, but again it was caught by Dick’s palm.

“HEY, HEY, HEY, ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU!”

A much deeper, louder voice, the third one to be heard that night. It was that, and two strong arms that grabbed Tim by the shoulder and Dick by his suit’s back. Even when it wasn’t even to much effect, they stopped.

At least, for a second they did, before Tim started for Dick’s neck and he had to be held back with a strong hand right against his chest. “Let me go!”

“What the hell is going on with you two!?”

“Stay out of this Jason!”

It was easier for Jason to stand right in between, just to stop either of them from going after their skin. Dick had stopped. Tim, on the other hand, had to be held back by the shoulders. “Tim, calm down!”

“I said stay out of this!”

.

Jason:

“One of you pinheads tell me what’s going on!”

“Are you really gonna let Jason fight your battles, Dick?!”

Tim tried to push Jason out of the way. He was lucky, in fact, that none of them could see the irate look on his face hidden behind the safety of a red helmet. Otherwise they might have started for him too, just at how disgusted he looked at them both. And he had every right to be. He knew exactly why they were fighting. It was the devil in him who felt like asking.

Jason held him back with his cape. “Hey, KNOCK IT OFF-“

“Let go of me!”

“You don’t think I wanna bash this asshole’s brains out everyday, Tim?!” Jason hauled him to the floor. “Trust me. You can hold back.”

“Oh, fuck you, Todd.”

“You shut up.” Jason pointed at Dick. “If this is about Y/N I know exactly why Tim wants you dead.”

“And why am I the one you two’re ganging up on?!”

“If I was, Dick, I’d just let this one have at it with you. Thank me later.” Jason said, nodding over at Tim. Tim shrugged off his brother’s hold on him and frowned.

“You were never the one to trust, Dick,” Tim gulped. And Jason knew Dick would have thought the same. His flaring eyes, the burn that was almost never there from someone so usually calm. It was unnerving seeing Tim this way. “Look at everyone you’ve hurt. Y/N. Kori. When are you going to stop?”

“Don’t you fucking start with me, you little-“

“Hey! Knock it off!” Jason pushed Dick again with a shove of his hand. Dick stepped back.

“Jason, just get out of here -“

“I don’t know, man; Feels like I have to be the responsible one. For once.”

Tim grabbed Jason’s hand and hauled him to the side so he could step closer to where Dick was standing. “You don’t want to be a part of this.”

Jason, if not at all wanting that to be true in the slightest sense, didn’t fight back and took Tim’s shoving. But, as he’d thought, Dick was the one who looked at him so slyly he wanted to grab his lips and use them to haul him over the building.

Suddenly, every part of his skin wanted to burst, blood beating through every inch of vessel and flesh so much it burned him. His mouth sewed shut, ears hurting at the redness. Again, if not for the helmet, it would have been a dead giveaway.

But Dick wasn’t having it.

“Trust me, Tim. He already is.”

“What the hell do you mean-“

“I said, enough. You two settle this at home.”

Jason tried for Dick’s shoulder just to push him to back away, but he threw his hand off.

“Don’t fucking act like the good guy between the three of us,” Dick said. “What are you gonna say next? That this isn’t what Y/N would want?”

“You think it is?!”

Dick chortled and he turned away. Tim still wouldn’t let his glare away from his brother and if Jason would let him, he’d have mauled him to death.

“You always did think you knew what was best for her, didn’t you?”

“Jason, what the hell is he talking about?”

He never told him. The bastard never told Tim when he was so sure he would, when he basically told him that night outside Y/N’s doorstep that by the end of the hour, Tim would know what he’d done and he’d have found Jason by the next, even when he tries too hard to disappear, which he had tried to do for four months, hiding from his brother, and not long after he’ll never be welcomed into the manor as so much as a guest. It did surprise him, after many months, that Tim hadn’t so much as acknowledged it. Part of him wanted to believe Tim didn’t care, or had already forgiven Y/N and in turn forgiven him.

But, of course, Dick hadn’t told him. The asshole wanted this to drag out as painfully long as he possibly could. Make him carry that burden himself just because he thought it was right, as Tim’s brother, even when he wanted no part of those niceties.

“You wanna tell him?” The blue leotard wearing ass said. “Or should I?”

“Don’t fucking bring me into this shitshow-“

“Brother, you walked right into it yourself.”

“I will kill you,” Jason growled. “One of these days.”

“Tell me what?”

Tim’s voice, the softest it had been since the start of that night.

He shouldn’t.

His little brother, one whose relationship had proven far too difficult to build, if there was ever a chance at a good relationship at all. His brother. An established brotherhood he once despised so much, took too many years just for it to be something tolerable. His little brother.

He never had a little brother like Tim. Perhaps even now, he wouldn’t. Not once he knows.

“Tim, I-“

“Jason, tell me what’s going on.”

Dick no longer even had that smirk on him. He just looked sad for the both of them, as he should be. As anyone should be.

“Just tell him.”

So much did his fist want to just fly and land straight at Grayson’s perfectly chiseled cheekbones, break his face so much he wouldn’t live to stand a day.

But Jason had grown too silent, too guilty.

He couldn’t even take off his helmet and look at either of them in the eye.

Tim stepped right in front of him and on his face kind of worry that often lingered prior to it being the worst rage to ever engulf into.

Was there a way out of this? To counter the impact? Make it so it didn’t hurt so much?

If Grayson had just told him, it wouldn’t have to be this way.

“Jason-“

He looked up, and through the slits of his visor, he knew Tim wanted to look at him in the eye, to find something out of this truth.

“I…”

His throat, it hurt to even breath. And when this happened, he usually takes the helmet off. This time, however, he couldn’t do that. Not when he had so much to say despite him not wanting to.

“I slept with her…”

It was a shame Dick didn’t look too much like an ass right then. If he did, he’d have a reason for himself to just jump at him with a knife. But all he could even see, all he could bring himself to watch, was his feet.

Nothing else. Not when Tim was looking at him that way.

“What?”

“I slept with her-“

Tim.

Was it even Tim anymore? The boy in front of him? Who never looked at him with so much betrayal?

“When?”

“A few months ago…” he said. “Lasted about a month.”

Then, it wouldn’t even have mattered if it were him who broke the news, the asshole that Dick was, or the Gotham Times.

Tim.

No longer his little brother. Never will be again.

Right for the neck. That’s where Tim pounced a second less than he was smart enough to move away.

 .

Dick:

That asshole deserved it.

But if anyone deserved it more than Jason did, it was Dick.

Was it to divert Tim’s attention from himself? Give him a breather and a while for Tim’s anger to mellow down taking it out on Jason so he doesn’t take it out on him so much? Possibly.

But the moment Tim’s hands squeezed the living daylights out of Jason’s neck, he knew he shouldn’t have brought it up. It was wrong. This was all wrong.

He started for Tim’s arms, grabbing them both just to at least give Jason enough time to breath, but this newfound strength certainly wasn’t one he’d expected. When he did manage to pull them off, Tim swung his fist right at Dick’s face.

Then, he went back for Jason, who then took that short time to grab both his fists and stop them for hurling him over the roof.

This was his fault. This was his doing.

And all the more did he want this to end when Jason held Tim strong enough to make him scream, and with that, he threw another punch right for his helmet, shattering the visor beneath his bruised knuckles. Jason tried to kick him away with his knee, but Tim was pushing him.

Jason, who should have been a lot stronger, was not doing much to fight Tim. And instead, he tried talking him out of it.

“Tim!” he coughed. Tim still holding both fists went on to push him. “Tim, stop!”

Head slam against his helmet, and it broke, enough for a part of it to be chipped off and expose his forehead.

Jason finally hurled Tim over to the ground just so he could wipe the blood stain off from seeping down his eyes, but that wasn’t much of a good idea. Not when Tim took that as a chance to jump for his brother, grabbing him by the shoulders, and with the forces of their own bodies flying across the wind, the railing wasn’t enough to stop their fall.

Tim and Jason fell over the building, down fifty stories with one’s hands wrapped around the others throat, and Tim went on to strangle him even as they fell.

Dick, without even thinking much, dove into that same abyss. Did he have a plan? No. Was this going to work anyway? Probably not. But he had to try.

At least, it was all he had to do. When Dick leapt, head soaring straight down for a car so miniscule that wouldn’t be so small the more he wastes time, his brothers thrashing bodies that broke the speed of their fall worked to his sorry advantage and Dick managed to catch up.

He grabbed Tim off, thankfully with the fall lessening his grip but not at all did it change the murderous look on his face. This wasn’t his brother. This can't be him. This was someone who had all his frustrations bottled up in the form of coffee addiction, insomnia, and workaholic tendencies, someone who hadn’t vented out his hurt and anger at him, who he apparently had been hating for a while.

When he had him in his grasps, Dick grappled up to the next building. “Jason, hold on!”

It was, in actuality, the worst idea he’s ever come up with. Other than the fact that Tim weighed a good 170 pounds, Jason was no lighter. Not even in the slightest. And carrying both of them? He might as well be hauling up a whole tank.

That one single grappling hook showed them no appreciation despite it holding on the best it could. And it was to no help that the hook landed on a building too far.

They were just yards up the ground when the rope tightened, and the impact on Dick’s arm he was sure had the bone dislocated. A scream was all he could muster at the shooting pains that went all the way up his neck, but still, he held on, and even when it lasted no more than a few seconds, it was all too agonizing not to feel like it lasted hours.

All it took was to at least break the fall, but that was all he could handle. Dick let go of the grapple gun and they were falling across the whole block, across the street over to an abandoned lot with junkyard cars and probably some broken glass scattered across the ground.

Tim landed on top of one of the cars, breaking the windshield under his weight. Jason wasn’t so lucky, rolling across the cold cement with it hitting his helmet, enough to expose his face.

And Dick, with it not helping his arm at all, landed right against the fenced border and fell to the ground. Some wire sticking out might have impaled his skin.

He was breathing. Was he still breathing? There was throbbing. Redness. Blood that went to his eyes, most probably. He could hear his heart and basically the rest of his senses going haywire.

When he looked up, already Tim could stand, right on top of the cars.

Now lacking his Bo staff, Tim smashed the broken metal beneath his feet and pulled out a slab hard enough to break bones.

 .

Tim:

If Dick were smart, he should have let him die.

This was always how he was, how this was all going to boil down to. His so many ways of dealing with loss, heartbreak, and stress, it was never going to hold him back enough if he hadn’t an outlet. And this, tonight, this was all part of the inevitable. He did what he promised Y/N. He kept off the coffee and had eight hours of sleep every day. But did it mean it warded off his thoughts on her? On his brothers? On their betrayal and how much he’d been holding that all off for months? Not even close. In fact, they grew worse.

Who does he start with?

Dick was all the way over at the fence. Wounded. Dislocated arm. He pulled himself up and went for a wall he could smash his shoulder against just to pull back the bone.

And Jason.

Shit.

Should have went for him first.

Two glocks in his hands. This man wasn’t afraid in the slightest.

“Jason, don’t!” Dick cried. Too late. He already shot one of the cars.

Tim spun about just to dodge at least the shattered glass. He was aiming for his legs, at all the parts of his body that wouldn’t be so lethal. How kind of him.

Which meant, that if it were the vital parts of him exposed, Jason wouldn’t shoot.

So he didn’t even try to hide himself, his chest especially, when he hurled himself over the many car hoods and roofs. Jason kept going, and this time he went to shooting the glass on purpose. Probably to hit him with the shards.

Tim reached the wall and pushed his feet so he’d roll on the ground. Cape up, he looked through the many places to hide, but he didn’t want to hide. What he wanted was to grab one of them, any of them, by the shoulders, pin them to the ground, and have his fist have at it with their stupid faces.

He ran up to Jason, cape protecting his legs and arms, and just as he did Dick had crept up behind him, grabbing Jason by a headlock. Elbow to Dick’s chest, he took that as a chance to grab his guns and throw them over to the side. So close did he miss one of the bullets, if grazing his shoulder was ever a miss. But he ignored that hiss and landed a hit on Jason’s stomach.

But not even that could last long, with Jason practically subdued. Dick set Jason aside to block Tim’s fist from landing anywhere near either of them. He kept hitting, swinging, it was all a blur after the third time he felt his shoulders hurt. And Grayson’s was no better. So he aimed for it.

What was he doing?

Foot landing on Dick’s pelvis. It was enough for his body to skid across the ground. He looked up at his brother, teeth gritting so much that it hurt, Tim didn’t move fast enough before he could move away from Dick’s fist, which landed a good one right to his teeth.

 .

Jason:

This was the most ridiculous fight he’s ever been on. No different from a fucking pellet gun war over at the gardens that one time they were drunk and stupid. This was a game, one he really didn’t want to play. He should have known, and what he thought that time was that somehow, she was worth going through all this chaos for. That moment of bliss, that month of beauty and serenity and peace, was it worth this? With his own brothers?

It wouldn’t have been if it was just a month of beauty and serenity and peace. But it wasn’t just about that anymore, was it?

So this had to be worth it. In every way. With Dick and Tim over a few yards away, Dick holding his shoulder and trying so hard to avoid being hit there and Tim so unruly and angry and being so taken over with his rage, not at all was he anything like this before tonight.

He had the choice. To grab the gun that had skidded over to his side, shoot them both in the shoulder to put everything to a stop, or join in on their rumble to drag this out as long as inhumanely possible. Three different men who knew exactly what the others’ moves will be, this wasn’t going to last very long if it were to be a good way.

But, if this were to be dealt with bullets, he can say goodbye to either of them of ever being his brother again, to never be a part of this family so hard to love but love nevertheless.

He stopped his hand from reaching for the gun, and with that, he started for the two.

Jason grabbed Tim’s ankle just before it would have landed on Dick’s chin, threw him to the side so he’d land on the floor.

Dick’s fist, which would have hit Tim, instead hit Jason right at the nape of his neck. He almost toppled over to the ground, and with that flash of rage, he struck back at Dick right at his bad shoulder. Might have been too far. But he didn’t care.

Tim hit his back, right up against his sharp knee. He cried out at the unnerving bellows that went straight to his head, picked himself up just before he hit the ground.

Another hit for his head, but Dick had stopped it with his own hand, twisted Tim’s ankle so he’d once again lose his balance and fall.

Three different men.

Three different fights.

Three men who knew each other far too well to be beaten so easily.

They jostled and rolled about, around the junkyard over so many of the cars and the broken glass and even the fence that had long blown over. This wasn’t at all supposed to be what they’d spend the night on, but with the slabs of metal being thrown, the cars almost hurled up with their peak human strength, their limbs flailing, some barely missing a nerve on their head and some wrecking a whole tooth out of their mouth, it was not, to even some capacity, ever going to end as well as any of them hoped.

And with them at the middle of the barren empty grounds, Jason dodging Dick’s fist only to meet Tim’s knee, Dick being absolutely smothered by Tim’s head smashing against his, and Tim being pinned to the ground by either of his brothers larger than him that he hated so much.

It all would have ended in death, after the kind of blur that clouded so much of their moral thought and any kind of sense at all to remind them of what they were doing, if not for something far too strong for them to easily swerve from.

Or, better yet, three things too strong for them to swerve from.

At a whiff so quick for any of them to have possibly even sensed, a flash of purple was the first to wave off that blur from their eyes. And it went for Tim.

Stephanie was first to subdue him, holding Tim down with her knee landing right at the small of his back. He cried out both at the shock he hadn’t expected and the pulsing pain that probably went all the way up his spine, but he was done. Steph had grabbed Tim’s head and pinned him down right against the floor.

The next one was Dick, and before any of them could even turn, something so brightly blinding, a figure of yellow, fell from one of the cars’ hood and grabbed Dick by the neck. Duke was smaller, but not at all was that some disadvantage. His huge armored arms, locking Dick enough for him to just flail his hands about, it was enough to make him stop.

And, just as he expected, the next thing he saw after that flash of a second he was spared, was a blur of black so silently creeping up on him, Jason couldn’t move even when he knew it was coming. No one could have seen it. Not even him. By the next second, he was bent over one of the cars, hands to his back, and Cassandra had a taser stuck to his hip.

“NO, NO, NO, CASS DON’T-“

Barely enough to fry him unconscious, but enough to fucking electrocute his skin off so his muscles could barely move.

 .

Dick:

This should all have ended sooner than it even happened.

And the shame crept in, not even when he stopped struggling against Duke’s hold on him, but when Barbara, the last to come into the scene, flew in from the window right across.

She looked like she wanted to murder all three of them by a rope around their necks. One single rope. Having three just wouldn’t be worth it.

She took off her cowl and let her red hair fall to her back, so they’d easily see just how disgusted she looked at them all, at the look on her eyes, at the look on all their eyes.

“Duke, let me go-“

“I’m sorry, Dick.”

“Please.”

“If we could, Nightwing,” Babs swallowed. “I’ll have you tied to that streetlamp for the rest of the night.”

Jason tried to reach for something in the car just to kick Cass away, but she tased him again. Some smoke flew up from his flesh.

“Cass, that’s enough,” Babs said.

Cass glared at them all, then settled to just holding Jason down with his arms.

“Is anyone going to tell me what the hell is going on with you three?”

“Maybe if you get your foot out of my head, Steph, I’d actually get my brain back and answer her question,” Tim said.

“You lost your brain when you fell down that building.”

“You saw that?”

Steph snorted. “You’re lucky I didn’t jump in until I had all of us on call.”

“Lucky?!”

Steph twisted Tim’s arm and his cries could be heard over to the next block.

Jason tried, again, to break free from Cass’s hold, but her fist wasn’t one to welcome when it landed much like a bat would’ve right up against Jason’s head.

And Tim, who almost pried Steph’s knee from against his back, was just pinned down again not even a second after breaking free.

They were too tired to go up against any of them.

So Dick, knowing there was no other, prettier way out of this, let go of his hands from gripping too hard on Duke’s arm. He didn’t let go, but it had loosened, enough for him to properly talk. Babs went over to him. That dagger-infested glower stuck through, but at least there was some appreciation for his lack of resistance.

“It was a misunderstanding-“

“Was it?!”

Babs clenched her jaw.

“This is about her, isn’t it-“

Tim’s voice echoed. “No!”

.

Tim:

He growled and shoved Steph’s hand away, but they kept on his arms, pushing them down against his spine. She was strong enough to subdue him, stronger now that he was exhausted and his muscles were all strained, but that didn’t mean he was, in any way, going to back down from this fight. This wasn’t over.

He could crane his head up enough to look at Babs.

“This is about these two traitors who lied to my face for months!”

Steph was having too much trouble keeping him down. “Tim!”

“Are you really going to take their side?!”

“No one is taking anyone’s side here.”

Babs eyed Cass at least to make her loosen her grip on Jason’s twisted arms. Cass rolled her eyes, sighed, and still without a word, she grabbed Jason by the back of his collar to make him stand. But it wasn’t without her taser stuck up to his side.

“Cass, I’m not gonna fucking fight you-“

“Just shut up, Jay,” Dick said, and with that, Duke tightened his arm.

“They wanna know,” Tim panted. “Tell them all why we’re in this mess.”

His voice, all broken and rageful and so unlike what anyone would have thought. It turned the heads of everyone around. Steph loosened her hand around Tim’s neck much out of her own disbelief.

“Stabbing me in the back the way you did…”

“Tim, you don’t have to-“ Babs went on, but Tim’s screams were too much.

“Tell them! Say why you’re all a bunch of ass-“

“You’re the one who wanted this to be some shitshow!” Jason’s teeth shouldn’t last long with how much he was gritting them when he hissed and snarled at Cass, who poked the taser just beneath his hip.

“Cass, enough with the taser.”

“Yeah, Cass,” Jason said. “Where the hell did you even get that?”

“Some douchey police officer over at Chinatown,” Duke said to him while still keeping his hands on Dick.

Something so foreign, so unruly and aggressive, it was taking too much control over him. Tim’s eyes were burning, and there weren’t even any tears. His blood pulsed through every vein, strong enough for it to hurt, and loud enough for him to hear it through his bloodied ears.

Tim pushed Steph away and for a moment, he was free. He wasn’t even thinking anymore. He just wanted his hands squeezing the voice out of Jason’s neck.

Babs grabbed him by the cape just as Steph caught up, and again he was on the floor. Still, he screamed, thrashed about because everything within him just yelled for him to finally let it out. He was done being the nice guy, done being the brother they both pushed around, took advantage of, lied to, and picked on because they knew he’d never fight back.

“Tim…” Babs helped Steph holding him down. She looked up at Dick. “What the hell did you do to him?”

“Nothing we can't sort out!”

“Jesus, Dick,” Jason snorted. “You haven’t said one smart thing all day.”

“Like you're any better, you asswipe.”

“Enough!”

Babs stood right between them, otherwise they’d have lunged for each other even if they had a missile launcher aimed for their heads.

“Let me go. Duke,” Dick said. “I’m not gonna fight any of you-“

“Yeah, three seconds ago you were close to running Jason’s head through a windshield.”

“Just let me go and we’ll all calmly-“

“Calmly?” Duke laughed. “I saw you fall down that building from where I stood. None of you know what calm is.”

Duke’s voice was stern and not at all did he sound like he’d trust him enough for that, no different than Steph’s or even just the look in Cass’s eyes. Because, if anything, other than the utter disgust, disdain, and disappointment, everything before them was something not to easily believe.

Not long after, before anything even happened, before Tim heard that first trace of a large black cape and the heavy soles that would have broken the cement floor underneath if he hadn’t purposely landed so swiftly, with the shadow that wasn’t in fact a shadow, but a suit so terrifying, dark, and so close to invisible, it was the night in a physicality no two people could similarly describe.

Tim knew he’d get here first, before anyone else even turned their heads. Because he stopped with his cries and faced his untimely doom. Face to the ground, quiet and unmoving. Everyone else followed but that was after he’d already appeared.

Not even anyone from the likes of the worst villains had seen the look on Bruce’s face as close to the one he had right then.

 .

Jason:

If he were alone, he’d just have snorted. The look on Grayson and Drake’s face. Couldn’t be drawn.

He’s seen that same frown on Bruce every time he shoots a damn gun, which was every night. He could paint it by memory and he wouldn’t miss a detail. The squinted white of his eyeholes, his lips forlorn and flat. His hands, clenched enough for it to hurt, hidden beneath his cape. Oh, Dad. Did I do that?

These guys just needed some getting used to.

And he shouldn’t be amused at the fact that at least, for once, he wasn’t the only one in trouble this time. Tim looked ashamed. Dick looked like he’d seen a ghost. Dick should have known this, at least. He’s steered up a few times of trouble himself. Nothing like what he’s done, that’s for sure. But he shouldn’t be so stricken. Still, he was, which made it all the more inappropriate if he were to smirk right then.

Damian was right beside him. He wasn’t entertained, or intrigued, what he usually was watching his father tell off his brothers. In fact, he looked bothered. Like they’d just taken so much of his time away from what he’d rather be doing, which apparently was more interesting than this.

Ah. Of course. An out-of-town mission. Just Batman and Robin. They left Babs in charge. Probably why she looked just as horrified as Dick, hands to her side and keeping the slight shake of her palms hidden. It seems she prepared for anything to happen on patrol that night, anything Bruce prepared her for being the boss. What they hadn’t prepared for, apparently, was them.

“Batman, I-“ Babs swallowed. “We have this under control. You can go back to-“

“Let them go.”

Chills down everyone’s wobbly spines at his growling voice proved more terrifying under the filter near his neck. Everyone except Jason, of course. But he can't be so relaxed. Cass was getting suspicious. He just felt her hands tighten even more around his wrists.

But perhaps, he should be afraid. He’s gotten into mounds of trouble, but it was never anything like this.

He snorted again. They hadn’t hurt anybody. It was just them three and their lack of brain. They’ll be fine.

He hoped.

“Bruce, they’re trying to kill each other-“

“They can try.”

Babs, right then, might be the one to kill them right after. Maybe with her bare hands. Maybe with a truck. With a deathly, silent scowl at all of them, she nodded.

Duke was first to let go of Dick, and with that a pat on the back. Dick rubbed the back of his neck, stayed put and didn’t even step away. He was relaxed. Ashamed, but relaxed. He just stretched out his limbs and already everyone was satisfied.

Next, it was Jason. With a reluctant Cass finally letting him go, and the taser, Jason tumbled over to the nearest car hood just to keep himself up. That fucking taser robbed him of his knees. How many volts was that thing?

Finally, Steph swung her legs over from holding down Tim’s body and helped him up. She dusted off his back, apologized under her breath. He probably had a lot to say if it weren’t for the seven other pairs of eyes on him, watching him from letting out so much as a twitch.

Tim didn’t shove her away so he could go back to poking Jason’s eyeballs out. He just stood there and stared at him like Jason and Dick were lucky everyone else was around. Which, he probably was. He wasn’t going to deny that.

The last people to be so afraid of Bruce were the three of them, the perpetrators, the reason for this little reunion. So instead of letting out something so cocky and unapologetic, something so at the borders of causing Bruce to have an aneurysm, not one mouth resisted from being kept shut. It was the kind of silence that wasn’t often expected from such an unusual family.

And Bruce looked at the three of them not with anger, or dismay, or even annoyance.

He looked disappointed.

Which, arguably, makes it a whole lot worse. Hell, even for him. He’s been yelled at since the day he came back and all of a sudden a little fight with his brothers is what brings him to shame.

Bruce was unmoving, so his voice startled and shook.

“All this…” he said. “For her…”

No one spoke. Not even a cricket. Even with the horns and sirens from afar, the bustle they couldn’t care less the only noise there was, it was deafening.

“Don’t you think you’ve disappointed her enough?”

Jason ignored the shattered edges of his helmet that poked on his cheek, ignored the blood it drew or the strain on his arms. Everyone did, perhaps.

“Go back to patrol.”

Batman left, as quickly as he’d come. Robin followed right behind him.

Batgirl turned around, nodded at her team, which was all there was out of her, out of anybody. They could see her fists clench, her eyes down and avoiding the others. The Signal flew out of the scene, Spoiler grappled up to the next rooftop, and Orphan disappeared out of thin air, without a word or even a grunt.

Nightwing, Red Robin, and Red Hood left that junkyard lot, and as the brothers they were, and dreadfully still are, they kept out of each other’s ways for the rest of that quiet night.

-----

What was so different about that night, and the many more nights that followed, was how they no longer had each other to turn to, even more now that it seemed they needed their brothers the most. Jason was, in the worst sense, used to the kind of isolation he was forced into after the matter. Dick had to learn to be alone, but it always had been better to have another’s shoulder to lean on and talk to. Tim, not so much. Not when he almost always turned to Y/N. And if not her, Dick. His older brother. One he once looked up to like a being unreachable, now a traitor he’d scoff at if he dared to show up.

So what they did, and what they were forced to do for several nights, was to deal with the cosmos and the whirlwind of thoughts all by their sorry selves. Dick usually could be found in training, spinning about in the uneven bars set up for him at the manor, have the sweat and the strain in his muscles force out whatever it was that bothered him into some physical outlet, how it often had been for many years as he appreciated himself for the care it brought. For the others, however, it wasn’t so much the same. Tim would spend all hours in the office and wouldn’t so much as nap even when his whole body tortured him to at least stop his back from being crouched so much. And Jason, well, had already drowned himself in booze, even more now that the reasons had faded clearer.

Alone in his apartment, over at the nook by the window where he usually spent the day with a book, now his mess of a hair would be plastered against the cold glass and the many bottles that surround him would block the surfaces of the cushion. It never actually got out of hand. He only ever drank to get rid of that noise blaring into his ear the way it was now, the way it was for all three of them.

And Tim couldn’t turn to that same comfort, or whatever it was that caffeine, stinging eyelids, and an unhealthy staring into a computer screen with an all nighter at the office would bring him. That night after the fight, he couldn’t sleep, even when he tried to. Which led to no one’s knowing, a cup of coffee when the day had risen and he was forced to go on with that said day like nothing happened. That cup would turn to two. Three. Eventually it dawned on him that he’d slept what he should have in a single day in a span of three.

Dick’s training, as it turned out, wasn’t so healthy at all. The strain in his wrists began a little over two hours ago. He’d been at the grounds for quadruple that time. For that day alone. Would it kill him if he didn’t stop? Probably not. Would it almost kill him? Probably. But he went on. Kept his hands busy. Forced himself to feel that exhaustion that should be taking his mind out of everything and not amplify it.

But this was only the beginning of what eventually would be that highway to descent, to some slope with no ladder to climb back up to, no guide for them to reverse and no light at the end that would eventually bring some alternative to the truth. They only had the truth to hold on.

Their brotherhood. One so strained. So complicated. One that took far too much time to build and rebuild. They couldn’t, not even if they wanted to, be apart from this family, deny that they were a part of it. They couldn’t escape each other’s presence no matter how many times they’d change their numbers or block out their trackers or find another city to live in. They couldn’t lose something that had grown too strong for them to fight against. That night, they tried. Or rather, the forces tried. The forces run by their bitter rivalry or the want for the same woman.

It was the fifth night after that fight, when Dick let go of the bars, finally giving his hands that rest too many hours overdue. He wiped his sweat, drank from his bottle, and pulled out his phone. That night, he thought it was enough, that this silence and bitterness and sheer negligence over their bond would eventually break for permanence. He knew that this coping was only just the beginning, and that it will, for everything he was certain about, would it become so much more, something so dark, that it would pull the whole family apart. He didn’t want that. For any of them. So that night, he sent a text to Tim and Jason.

Tim’s first account wasn’t on his brothers, though it had crossed his mind many more times than he would have hoped. His first thought, if anything, was how Y/N would have thought if he let himself fall. It’d be in his rule this time, that he wouldn’t let the caffeine get to him or reach to such extremes he’d never otherwise control. But Y/N wasn’t going to believe that, as nobody should. Hell, he probably shouldn’t place that much faith onto himself at all. Even if he does so much as lose an hour of sleep, one for every night until there wasn’t any hours left, if he allows himself one more cup when he had one just half an hour before, he knew it’d be just the beginning.

So, when he got that text from Dick, he realized it wasn’t worth much the risk.

He hated them both like he’s hated no one else, wanted them to realize just how much of a wreck their doings have imprinted on him and Y/N, how the consequences that followed weren’t nearly what they deserved at all. But if he doesn’t fight that hate, if he doesn’t find peace, it’ll be that darkness for him, that same life he hadn’t learned to control, one where he once lost himself to. and in turn, made him lose Y/N. And he’ll lose her again if he won't listen to that conscience. He texted Dick back and told him to meet him at Pauli’s.

Jason, on the other hand, acted as was expected of him. When he saw that text the first thing his lack of conscience told him was to get another phone and forget it all happened, disappear for another few months, show up when it was convenient, and hope that this all blows over before his escapism backfires.

But he never did get to bring himself to throw out his phone and get a new one, much less delete the text before he’s even seen it. A few days after, he let that daft little voice in him to open the text, allow himself a few seconds just to witness its premise. But he’d read through everything in that split second he allowed himself to. Dick didn’t really have much to say. And what else was to come next other than the few days of tussling and fighting and the many more bottles of booze that were not at all helping with those same voices that just wouldn’t shut up.

Was this all worth it? Was anything worth this at all?

Because those few years it took just to have any sort of a conversation with Dick, much more with Tim, certainly wasn’t a few years of a bond rebuilt that he wanted to go through again.

He loved them. In his own, twisted little way. He loved his brothers and actually would go out his way to save them from whatever horrors he’d been forced to face. That love didn’t have to be from occasionally hanging out in the holidays or spent an hour or two in a bar.

At least, in his conscience, if he were to die one day like he’d realize would happen again, knowing life wasn’t exactly his alone to spend and control, he’d know he did whatever was best for the people he loved.

So, despite Dick and Tim not at all expecting so much as a text back, they still had it in them to wait a few hours. In that dimly lit corner of Pauli’s, the aroma of freshly backed pancakes distracting them from their otherwise bland pickup from the rest of their senses. They waited, not hoping for the best.

Jason went into the diner and saw them, ordered a cup, then took a seat across Tim, with Dick in between.

That silence, the same for everyday for the past five, it was haunting and eerie, disturbing, uncomforting, one they knew they’d all have to settle if they wanted to move on and actually bring some light into whatever it was they’ve caused.

Jason didn’t take off his hoodie. Tim warmed his hands with his cup of hot chocolate. And Dick, knowing he’d have to start, cleared his throat and looked up.

.

Dick:

Seeing Tim walk through that door was a surprise enough, much more Jason coming along and not even was he three hours late. Fuck. Fuck. What does he even say? Where does he ever start? Should he even start?

Giving in to his impulses certainly was bad an idea. This was, in every way, what he should have expected when he picked up his phone and thought to call his brothers hoping it was the right thing to do. And, perhaps, it was the right thing.

But was he the right person to start it? Lead this conversation to the direction he wanted so they’d get to a better place? The one that pushed his impulses in the first place?

They were all too awfully silent. Tim’s had his second round of hot chocolate. He doesn’t even like hot chocolate that much. And Jason looks like he’s hiding himself from the cops with his hood down and neck craned to the table’s surface. He’s never been in anything more awkward and uncomfortable in his years. This was just humiliating.

But, he was sure, humiliation should be the first thing they’d have to go through. Setting their prides aside, talk with the other’s stories in mind and hope that by the end of this, it’ll at least be a bit better.

So he started, in the most bland, uneventful way, he tells them both.

“Thanks for coming,” Dick said.

Tim momentarily bit onto his lip, and Jason stayed motionless without so much as a nod. At least Tim glanced over at him, even when it was just a second.

“How are you, Tim?”

Tim’s finger traced over the brim of his cup. He’s finished it. Didn’t seem like he wanted to order another one.

“Alright. I guess.”

“Good. Jason?”

God, this was awful. He doesn’t even ask how their broken bones are healing after a life-threatening encounter in patrol. Hopefully this greyness wasn’t too weird, not when it should be the start of something even more difficult to overcome.

Jason’s order of coffee came into the table and it made Tim shift in his seat, leaning to the back to stay further away from its aroma. Jason took a sip. “Fine.”

As quiet as they possibly could. Dick wished he had something to order, even when it was just a piece of pie they’d displayed over at the counter. But he didn’t want to get up or even call a waitress.

He was, in the most obvious sense, ashamed. Ashamed that he wasn’t either of them, which he wished nothing more to be. He wished he was them so he wouldn’t have to be the man who’d hurt Y/N the most, when he was supposed to be who she’d turn for comfort, because they weren’t the man who’d been in love with her for so long, never thinking he’d have a chance. And when he did finally have her, even for a just a moment, when he finally got to kiss her that one time he’d been waiting for so many years, it all broke down and nearly diminished what he took years to build. Their friendship. Something so great yet so fragile, when their love never could be so easily set aside to make way for a friendly bond.

“I’m sorry,” Tim said, and his voice had gone softer. “I’m sorry I started a fight. And for being so angry. That was uncalled for.”

He did want all this to be right with them. Both of them. Two of his brothers he’s learned to love. And with that love comes many sacrifices.

“You don’t have to be sorry for being angry.”

“Would you like more hot cocoa?” The waitress came in with a pitcher. Tim declined, and she left.

He stared at the empty cup and rolled his lips.

“Yeah, I… I kinda do.”

Further into the day, the less people there were in the diner. And with that came more silence. There were half the people in there than when they’d first arrived. Soon enough, they’ll be the only ones left.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Then, without even a word, Dick and Tim turned over to Jason.

They didn’t expect him to apologize, or even say anything for that matter, possibly for the rest of the night.

But Jason shrugged, looked up at both of them in the eye, and he nodded. It was enough for them both to know what he meant.

.

Jason:

Get this over with. As quick as they possibly could. But he should know by now that this was going to take time. With how difficult it was. This wasn’t going to end any better than when they’d started if they rush through.

Jason took a sip out of his coffee and leaned his arms over on the table. Still, he didn’t take off his hoodie, as if he was going to take off not long from then.

“I don’t exactly know where to start,” Dick said. “But I think we should put this out there now.”

Neither of them looked him in the eye. He and Tim both stared at their cups as if it were any interesting.

“I’m sorry if I’m doing this wrong. I’m just saying what I think is best.”

“It’s okay,” Tim said. “Just go on.”

This was harder than when they had to help out the League face Brainiac. And that certainly was something.

“I love Y/N.”

Okay. Wasn’t what he thought Dick would say. But okay.

“Tim loves her, too.”

Shit. Alright. So that’s what this motherfucker thinks he’s doing.

“And I for sure as hell know, that you love her as well, Jason-“

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jason’s voice was deep, controlled, and as monotonous as he forced it to be. Without a flick of a lie or a speck of truth, as they both would have easily picked up if they listened to him hard enough. That is, if it worked. Which it probably hadn’t.

“We don’t know who she wants…” Dick said. “And frankly, I don’t think she does, too. At least for now.”

“It could be any of us.” Tim didn’t take his sight away from the blankness of the white table’s surface.

He can't take this. No. He never should have opened that text. This was a bad idea.

Y/N will choose one of them. Not him. Not when he was the one who fell in love with her far too late, realized just how perfectly imperfect and how she managed to be this little bundle of happiness for him that he never could find in another. Someone whose presence he yearned for on the days when he thought nothing could be okay. He realized all that when too late, when his brothers already cemented their places and have already gone out of their way to win her love. And, on top of all that, he was the one he didn’t have a close friendship as a ground for something to lean onto. They weren’t close. Not like she was with Tim. Not even with Dick.

“This is ridiculous,” Jason stood up from his seat with his cup half finished. “I’m leaving.”

“Jason-“

“Dick, I want no part of this-“

“You can deny it all you want, but what if she chooses you?”

“She won't choose me. That’s the point-“

“Everyone knows that’s just as much of a possibility than everything else. It didn’t even take much time, and already you’ve wooed her. You think we didn’t notice that?”

Jason stopped and faced the counter, away from his brothers.

“Just sit down.”

“Dick-“

“I know this hurts but what if she actually does choose you-“

“I don’t love her.”

“You do. And she might love you back.”

No. Don’t bring his hopes up like this. This fucking-

“And if she does, are you really going to turn her down?”

Jason closed his eyes. He had nothing to say.

“No matter what Tim and I do, if it’s you she wants, then it’s you who’ll make her happy. Do you honestly think I believe you won't at least take that chance?”

Nothing. No voices whispering into his conscience to fuck everything and leave. Nothing that told him what to do, much less what to say.

He just knew that whatever he was, it wasn’t nearly as strong as that one pull that forced him back on his seat.

This shitshow already hurts as it is. What’s a little more?

.

Tim:

There’s a chance for all of them.

That’s what has always been so hard for him to understand. Never would he have thought it to be true, but it was.

They were both good men, good people, and if he were honest, he’d admit to Y/N being lucky if she were ever to choose one of his brothers in the end. He never, ever wanted to admit that. Not even now.

But for so long, he’s ignored the fact that those choices might be for her happiness, for what she deserves, and that might not always be about Tim. That whatever it was he wouldn’t admit to himself didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Y/N smiles like no other with Dick and no one else understood her like Jason. Even if Tim were her best friend, even if they had together from the very beginning, even if he probably loved her the most. It won't be about that.

So he has to accept all this.

And if it meant her happiness, then that hurt will be a lot easier to deal with.

“He’s right,” he said, and his two older brothers looked up at him.

“I’ve always thought you two… Well, I wish I was in your place. Not always. But, right now I do.”

They were confused to say the least. They didn’t look like they understood. Tim was the one who got to be with her, had years of calling her his love, had her love in return and have her actually show it the same way he did.

But that was just that. He had her. And now he didn’t. Because of him. Because he had her and was stupid enough to let her go, something neither of his brothers would have done if they were him.

And he wanted to laugh at the looks of both their faces. They didn’t have to say anything at all, but he understood. They envied each other in so many other ways, too complicated to map out. Because they’ve all done their own grievances, done so much that they regret.

Which is why this had to happen. Because no one knew what was going to happen next.

“I know it’s hard for all of us…” Dick said. Tim stared out at the window to see the start of the cold evening. “But we’re brothers. I don’t know about you both, but I don’t want this to tear us all apart.”

It already did, he wanted to say.

But it might not be true. It might not be too late. This brotherhood could still be salvaged. And in a way, it might be worth all that hurt.

“The last few weeks have been hard… for all of us… taken its toll on the rest of the family. And we’ve worked too hard on each other. I don’t…” Dick swallowed. “I don’t want to lose Y/N, but I don’t want to lose both of you either.”

It was easier for him to shut his eyes closed.

Neither do I, Tim thought.

“But… Y/N deserves to be happy… We’ve put her through too much.

“And if it means being with the one she loves, one of us, then so be it. We’re done making her decisions. We don’t decide between the three of us. If she wants to choose, then she gets to choose. And we won't have a say in any of it. She decides if it’s one or none of us at all. She deserves this.”

Jason finished his coffee. He no longer sat so stiff.

Tim sat back on his chair and stared out the window.

“And whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. As brothers. We’ll have each other. It’ll be okay. We’ll make it okay.”

That cold night of late November had the first snowdrop of the year. It was light, subtle, and one would have missed it if they weren’t looking out for too long. But they saw it, and never had something so gentle calm what used to be this rageful storm, not since Y/N.

They hadn’t spoken another word in that diner. But for many hours, they stayed.

They continued to wait for many months. They were patient.

October. November. December. January passed.

And on that day of the second week of February, a day Y/N once loved and hated at different times, they put an end to that waiting.

-----

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST

-----

 A/N: I honestly can’t wait for the finale. AHHHH

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Lost Souls: Story 11

Something New

Lost Souls Summary: Merlin awakens early from his sleep. He decides  that he doesn’t want to leaving anything to chance and kidnaps the young  James Lake Jr. to began training his Trollhunter as early as possible.

Barbara  is determined to hunt down the man who kidnapped her son. In her  efforts to get her son back she finds a strange old radio that speaks to  her in a woman’s voice. The radio leads her to an underground society  of shapeshifters.

Mother and son meet again years later as strangers on opposing sides.

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

~~~~

“Head up! Don’t block the blow: redirect it.”

Eli tries to comply but it’s hard when his arms feel like they’re made out of jelly. Instead of being redirected Jim’s staff pushes Eli’s down causing him to bop himself in the forehead with his own weapon.

Eli topples over like a load of bricks and lays there. A low whine seeps through his lips as his tailbone pulses with pain from hitting the ground too hard. That will be another bruise for his collection.

He’s actually managed to get more bruises training with Jim than he has from Steve. Which is really saying something.

“Are you okay?”

He opens his eyes to see Jim hovering awkwardly over him, staff still in hand. He’s shifting back and forth on his feet in a way that tells Eli he’s debating whether to keep pushing him or end the session here.

Eli doesn’t really want to disappoint him, so he tries to sit up. All his muscles protest. He lays back down. Yeah, he isn’t going anywhere. The training montages in movies really fail to capture just how much pushing oneself to the limits hurts.

“We’ll stop for the day,” Jim decides.

He sets his staff against the house before retrieving Eli’s and setting it there too.

“Can you get up?” Jim asks.

Now that he’s not in training mode he stands a little less straight and his expression softens from his previously sharp focused gaze.

“Yeah… maybe,” Eli says, his voice squeaking a little. “Just a second.”

Eli lays on the ground just breathing and trying to summon the energy to make another attempt at standing up. He knows he’s going to be sore in the morning again.

He honestly wants to give up. Clearly he isn’t cut out for this.

There’s movement to his right and Eli looks over to see Jim laying down beside him. The blue skinned troll blends in almost perfectly with the night; except for his eyes which glow a faint, ethereal blue. He settles on his back, head propped just slightly up by his horns.

“So…” The troll says slowly. “You were telling me that human constellations are different than troll ones?”

Eli nods slightly, unable to look away. His glasses slide down his nose. He quickly pushes them back up.

“Do you want to compare?”

“Really?!” Eli squeaks, surprised.

Next to exploring the strange and unusual, stars and space has always been one of his greatest interests. Something about the vastness and boundlessness draws him. He studies every book he can get his hands on.

This is a chance to learn what a being that isn’t human sees. That’s… that’s something beyond his wildest dreams.

But more importantly, it’s a chance to talk about something that he loves with a friend.

“Eli?”

Jim is looking at him rather nervously. Eli realizes that he’s teared up.

“I’d like that,” He says. He pushes his glasses up to swipe at his eyes before giving Jim a smile.

~~~~

As predicted, Eli is very very sore.

He spends the day limping through his classes. He wonders if this is what old people feels like. He’s so glad when it’s time to go home.

His arm positively aches as he transfers the textbooks he doesn’t need to his locker. As much as he enjoys spending time with Jim he’s glad that the Trollhunter won’t be over tonight. He doesn’t think he can take another round of training.

He plans to take it easy when he gets home. He can get his homework done and then he’ll see if he can snag enough of his friends from the forums to play a round of Among Us.

Eli flinches as a hand lands on his shoulder. Without turning around he already knows who it is. Automatically his shoulders draw up toward his ears as he pulls his arms in close to his chest.

“What do you want Steve?”

“Why, I was just worried about my favorite nerd,” The blond bully says with mock sincerity. “I haven’t heard any of your wild conspiracies and was starting to be concerned about your health.”

Eli hasn’t been sharing his theories and discoveries since meeting Jim because he promised Jim to keep trolls and the other creepers… creatures running around Arcadia secret. He still discusses aliens but he’s been sticking with his friends online and Jim now, since they don’t laugh at him.

He figured since he had been keeping to himself Steve would ignore him, but now he’s seeking him out because of that.

There really is no winning, he realizes.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Eli asks quietly.

Steve doesn’t appreciate that.

The blond bully shoves him and he hits the locker hard sending a violent jolt of pain through his back. His books fall out of his arms and scatter on the ground.

“Don’t talk back to me butsnack.”

Eli glances around but there’s nowhere to escape in the crowded hallway and, as usual, no one seems inclined to help.

“I think you need to spend some time in your locker until you remember your manners,” Steve continues with a glint in his eyes.

A whimper escapes Eli at that. He doesn’t want to spend another hour stuck in the locker again. His eyes dart around frantically.

Steve reaches for him and takes a step forward, his foot landing just in front of Eli’s spilled textbooks.

“Use your surroundings as a weapon.” Jim’s voice whispers in the back of his mind.

With no other options presenting themselves, Eli kicks Steve in the shin as hard as he can. The bully lets out a yelp and grabs at his injured leg. Eli doesn’t wait for him to recover. Ignoring the protests of his aching muscles he shoves him hard in the chest. Normally it would have done nothing but Steve, already off balance, stumbles and his foot lands on Lord of the Flies. He topples over backward and slams hard into the ground.

The hallway goes completely silent.

Eli stares, his heart still racing. He can’t believe it. He actually managed to take down Steve.

Steve Palchuck! The boy who’s been tormenting him since kindergarten.

Around him all the other kids start murmuring.

Then someone cheers and then the whole crowd is whooping and hollering.

Steve seems to have recovered from his shock and is getting up. He’s turning a violent red and it’s pretty clear that he’s going to get revenge. Eli has the feeling he won’t get lucky a second time.

“Hey! What’s going on here?”

Eli is about ready to collapse from relief when Coach Lawrance’s voice breaks through the noise. The crowd of students disperses like cockroaches. Steve backs off, shooting him glares.

Eli gathers his books and slinks off to get his bike with the distinct feeling that this incident will come back to haunt him.

~~~~

“Can you believe it?” Mary squeals.

Her fingers are darting rapidly over her phone. No doubt she’s already uploading a video to one of her many social media accounts. Steve is going to be livid.

“Girl, I saw it but I still don’t believe it,” Darci says.

Eli Pepperjack getting one up on Steve was the last thing she had been expecting out of school today.

“What do you think Toby?” She says nudging him in the ribs.

Since they’ve made it to high school and have Claire and Mary to hang out with, she’s determined to get him to come out of his shell.

Toby blinks and looks up from his phone.

“Yeah it was pretty cool,” He says, eying the other two girls hesitantly.

Claire give him a friendly smile and he awkwardly smiles back before quickly returning his attention to his phone.

Darci sighs and shoots Claire an apologetic look. Claire shrugs in response and then she, Mary and Darci continue to discuss the strange happenings of the day sans Toby’s input.

~~~~

“Would it hurt you to try to be a little friendlier?”

Toby winces. Yeah he deserved that one.

“Sorry,” He says, a slight flush crawling up the back of his neck.

Darci lets out a little huff.

“You should be, Mary and Claire are the best. Come on TP you’ve got to give them a chance.”

Toby doesn’t reply. Instead opting to instead focus all his attention on the game. His fingers fly over the controls. He understands what she’s getting at. He really does but well…

“I guess I’m just not ready for new people.”

There’s a ping as they reach the end of the round. Toby hazards a brief glance up and sees Darci looking at him with a puzzled frown.

“But you know Mary and Claire,” She says. “I’ve been friends with them for as long as I’ve known you. You’ve hung out before and never had a problem with them.”

“I know,” He mutters. “It’s just…”

He doesn’t want to admit it. It’s pathetic.

“It’s Jim, isn’t it?”

Toby gives her a weak grin.

“Have you been taking lessons from your Dad? Cause that was some real detective work there.”

Darci snorts.

“It doesn’t take a detective to figure that one out.” She gives him a little poke on the shoulder to emphasize her point.

Toby sighs and drops his controller.

“It’s not just Jim,” He admits in a subdued tone. This is something he’s thought about a lot. “It’s Mom and Dad, too… Heck even Dr. L just up and left. It was fine hanging out with them once in a while as your friends but what’s the point in me becoming friends with them? Once we get done with high school everyone is just going to move on. I just don’t want to deal with that.”

It would be bad enough when Darci moved on.

He can feel her staring at him.

“You know I’m not going to abandon you, right?” She asks.

Toby winces. It sounds bad out loud. She puts her hand on his shoulder and he glances up hesitantly. She’s smiling at him in a very gentle and sad way that makes his chest ache.

“Even if we end up on opposite sides of the world I’ll keep in touch. You won’t lose me okay?”

“You don’t know that.” It slips out before he can stop it.

Darci sighs.

“Look I… I guess there really is no way to know for sure but do you really just want to give up? Just like that? To spend your whole life alone?”

“Not really…” Toby says slowly.

“Then can you give them a try? For me?”

He can’t resist those big brown eyes.

“Okay,” Toby says. “I’ll give them a chance, but no promises on results.”

Darci’s smile and quick hug makes it worth it. Toby just hopes he won’t regret this. He clears his throat roughly and focuses his attention back on the screen. He starts another round hoping he can drown out the uneasy feeling in his gut.

“You know I really could use a larger audience to practice my magic for. You know all of my tricks anyway.”

Darci claps her hands together

“Oh! That reminds me. Mare told me there’s a new bookstore in town. She was going on and on about how cute the guy who was working the counter was, but, more importantly, she mentioned there’s a huge selection of magic type books. Want to go check it out?”

“Sure,” Toby says. “That sounds like fun.”

He doubts there will be anything real there but maybe he can find some cool props to use for the next talent show.

~~~~

~~~~

Author Notes:

Steve has really come a long way. He was a major bully back in the beginning of the series. Hopefully we'll get to see more character development for him in Rise of the Titans. (Also more CreepslayerZ! I miss the CreepslayerZ.)

Jim grew up with Kanjigar and Merlin's training so his version of "going easy" is still really pushing it for an inexperienced human. It's going to be a while yet before Eli is not sore again.

Jim learned the Trollish constellations from Kanjigar. While he never took him to Trollmarket, Kanjigar did start taking him outside within Merlin's barrier. Stargazing was Jim's absolute favorite thing to do with him.

Next chapter we get to see Jim's visit to his old home before he became a troll!

If you like this be sure to tell me what you think :)

Favorite fics of 2012

2012 was when things really started happening in earnest in the fandom. There was a veritable explosion of fic, and many of the absolute classics were posted. I have something like 15 pages of bookmarks from that year, and as such, it was incredibly hard to narrow things down to a manageable number for a rec list. Here are the ones that I felt are the must-reads, that have stuck with me the longest and strongest.

A Cure For Boredom by emmagrant01 (81K, E, Johnlock, John/OCs) They'd never talked about sex in the year they'd known each other. Well, that wasn't quite correct: Sherlock had never said a word about sex; John had bemoaned his personal dearth of it on many occasions.

A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom by Polyphony (52K, M, Johnlock) Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

Across the Sky by Mazarin221b (23K, E, Johnlock) Top Gun AU. After an accident that nearly cost the life of his previous RIO, Lieutenant John Watson (Call sign Doc) has grown reckless and arrogant, but an even better pilot than he was before. A heroic maneuver and complete chance sends him and his new RIO (call sign Copper) to Fallon, Nevada, home of Top Gun.  Problem is, the ghosts of John's past could cost them more than just the Top Gun trophy—it could also cost John a chance at happiness.

An Avalanche Of Detour Signs by gyzym (56K, M, Mollstrade) In which Molly Hooper gets a job, gets a degree, breaks a heart, has her heart broken, falls in love, keeps a secret, saves a life, runs a morgue, falls apart, pulls it together, and finds exactly what she didn't know she was looking for--not necessarily in that order.

Applications and Practices of Basic Arithmetic by 1electricpirate (128K, M, Johnlock) After Reichenbach and in order to 1) Keep Sherlock alive, 2) Keep John alive and 3) Get Sherlock home to England as soon as possible, Mycroft devises a plan that will not only incentivise John's continued sanity and survival but force Sherlock to come running. It is a perfect plan, though perhaps less than ethically sound. He has no doubts that using frozen samples of your younger brother's sperm to create children for his husband to care for falls deeply within the realm of socially unacceptable behaviour, but it is efficient, and that is what matters most.

Ava Watson verse by keeliethompson1 (347K, M, Johnlock) Five year old Ava Watson's life is changed forever when her Daddy's old friend comes calling.

Be Here Now Universe by Todesfuge (181K, M, Johnlock) John Watson was already fighting demons when he and Sherlock met. With Sherlock's suicide, it all comes flooding back, forcing Sherlock to intervene before he's solved the persistent riddles of Jim Moriarty and his game. Together they find that something darker lurks behind Moriarty, forcing Sherlock, John, and Irene Adler into an even deadlier game with a much more dangerous foe.  Begins six months after the events of The Reichenbach Fall.

Burn Down & Reignite by augustbird (20K, E, Johnlock) When love isn't enough.

Castle and Sand by grey853 (158K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock and John both have difficult pasts that affect their evolving relationship. When John prevents a mugging, it sets off a dangerous chain of events that not only impacts him, but his whole family. In the end there's a wedding and a honeymoon, but will there really be a happy ending?

Cinnamon series by lbmisscharlie (150K, E, Johnlock) When Sherlock invites John to live with him, he fails to mention that he's a single father to a four-year-old girl.

Collared by VelvetMace (83K, E, Johnlock, John/Sarah) In a world where the British Empire is still strong and slavery is her economic backbone, John has become a terrorist for the abolitionist movement. He is caught by Mycroft, enslaved, and given to Sherlock for training. The goal: To test a new kind of slave collar with the power to break even the strongest willed fighter. One that will make even John learn to love being a slave.

Common Grounds by couchbarnacle (66K, M, Johnlock) John Watson is working at Holmes Manor for the summer and is caught up in the whirlwind that is Sherlock Holmes. Teen AU.

Electric Pink Hand Grenade by BeautifulFiction (67K, E, Johnlock) "If Sherlock's brain is a hard drive, then these attacks are an electro-magnetic pulse." Sherlock Holmes does not do anything by half, not even a migraine. It falls to John to witness one of the greatest minds he has ever known tear itself apart, and he must do his best to help Sherlock pick up the pieces.

End of the Story by kres (53K, E, Johnlock) Post-Reichenbach. The return, the fallout, the pieces you pick up.

Equilibrium by augustbird (12K, M, Johnlock) At Baskerville, John is infected by a virus that turns him into a genius. But when the infection progresses into neurodegeneration, it's a race against time to save himself. Flowers for Algernon fusion.

Given In Evidence by verityburns (97K, M, Johnlock) Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

Hearts At Home series by yalublyutebya (74K, M, Johnlock, Viclock) A series of stories chronicling the intertwined lives of Father John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Just a Kiss by emmagrant01 (19K, E, Johnlock) Five times John and Sherlock kissed because of a case and one time they kissed for real.

Limping Forward series by bendingsignpost (58K, E, Johnlock) As the newest instructor at St. Bart's, John has been explicitly warned to never do Sherlock Holmes any favours. Too bad the sex is so good.

More Things Than Are Dreamt Of series by 1electricpirate (37K, E, Johnlock) In which John is (reluctantly) a wizard, Mycroft is (apparently) omniscient, and Sherlock is (surprisingly) oblivious.

Murderous Imprint by MojoFlower (52K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock should be focusing on the series of brutal vivisections Lestrade has brought to him. Instead he's distracted by a most amazing and unexpected experimental opportunity from the basement apartment of 221C. Will he figure out the one in time to stop the other? And does he need help in order to do it?

Renegades by augustbird (39K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock Holmes takes down Moriarty’s syndicate.  He also takes John Watson with him.

School For Scandal (orphaned) (222K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock lusts from afar. John tries to fool himself. (Boarding school AU)

Spectrum series by thisprettywren (95K, E, Johnlock) In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Stranger at the Gate by bendingsignpost (85K, E, Johnlock) As far as initiation rites go, kidnapping a human doctor from a defended town ought to seem extreme. When James Moriarty offers him the challenge, Sherlock never considers saying no. (Fantasy vampire AU)

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (95K, E, Johnlock) Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes.

Our Brave Boys by unknownsister (29K, E, Johnlock) John worked himself to the bone to get into military school. He meets Sherlock Holmes, who doesn't want to be there at all. Sherlock simultaneously insults him and turns his curiosity up to eleven, in mind and body. As if John doesn't have enough to deal with.

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish (32K, M, Johnlock) The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.”  The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” One of these lists is not John Watson’s. If John Watson were to put what he really wanted in list form, to live in a land somewhere beyond ‘almosts' now that Sherlock Holmes has indeed returned to him, he would never be able to look his flatmate in the eye ever again.

Tennis series by Jupiter_Ash (216K, E, Johnlock) John and Sherlock are professional tennis players and it’s Wimbledon. One is a broken almost was at the end of his career, the other an arrogant rising star tipped for greatness. It should have been a straightforward tournament. It really should have been. How were they to know that a chance encounter would change everything?

The Bone Fiddle by htebazytook, Vulgarweed (61K, E, Johnlock) Appalachian AU! In November 1973, Vietnam vet John Watson returns to his family's old home in Arthel County, West Virginia, deep in coal country. His low expectations include recuperation and boredom. Instead he finds a ruined landscape, a series of grisly murders, and one of the world's weirdest neighbors.

The Brave and The Cunning series by thequeergiraffe (95K, E, Johnlock, Adlock, Sarah/John, Sheriarty) This series will have one fic per Sherlock episode, with series one being set in John's 6th year (and Sherlock's 5th) and series two being set in John's 7th and final year at Hogwarts. Fics will have similar (but nowhere near identical) plots to the actual BBC Sherlock episodes, with most locations being replaced with HP-universe settings. This series is set well after the Second Wizarding War and involves next to none of the HP characters, instead using Sherlock characters and the occasional minor OC.

The Fabric of Life (orphaned) (156K, E, Johnlock) The fabric of life rearranges itself around the re-emergence of Sherlock.

The Good Morrow series by greywash (216K, E, Johnlock) My post-S2 series where everyone has a lot of feels about everything and plausibility is stretched unto breaking. Also: fucking.

The Great Sex Olympics of 221B by XistentialAngst (58K, E, Johnlock; John/OCs, Sherlock/OCs) John Watson thinks Sherlock Holmes should admit that he, Watson, is more of an expert on sex than Sherlock is.  But Sherlock refuses to concede the point.  He comes up with an experiment plan that will resolve the issue.  The results will determine who wins the prize.  But sometimes even the best thought-out scientific study has unexpected consequences.

The Green Blade by verityburns (72K, T, Gen) As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit...

The Iceman Cometh by Polyphony (60K, M, Johnlock, Viclock) An intriguing puzzle tempts Sherlock to accept Victor Trevor's invitation to the French Riviera, but all is not what it seems. Frustrated by the case and increasingly concerned about an absent John, Sherlock uncovers far more than he was meant to and is forced to become a fugitive, pursued by those on both sides of the law, as he fights for his freedom and the lives of all those around him.

The Making Of by emmagrant01 (58K, E, Johnlockstrade) In the aftermath of Sherlock's death, John Watson and Greg Lestrade take comfort in each other.  But of course, Sherlock isn't really dead, so this is all about to get complicated.

The Paradox Series by wordstrings (98K, E, Johnlock) In which what's in Sherlock's head is never going to get any better, and John is nearly thrown out of his flat.

The Prize by Trillsabells (101K, E, Johnlock) On 29 January 2010 an unknown Event wiped out 98% of the population. This is the story of the survivors, four months on.

The Quiet Man by ivyblossom (157K, E, Johnlock, Warstan) "Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?"

The Sustain Stories by maybe_amanda (151K, M, Sherlolly, John/Sarah) "So now you're behaving like a six year old 'cause he didn't take you along on his honeymoon?"  Lestrade said.  "Grow the hell up."

Through the Looking Glass by obsidienne (106K, M, Johnlock) When you chase criminals over rooftops, death is always a possibility. We woke up in 1889 instead. Which is not a place two men in a relationship want to be.

To Light Another's Path by BeautifulFiction (128K, E, Johnlock) Teaching John to observe seems to be a losing battle, but when Sherlock falls ill and submits himself to John's care, will he realise that there is more to life than the science of deduction? Meanwhile, there is a murder to solve, and John must try and convince Sherlock not to sacrifice his own health for the sake of the case.

Watches 'Verse by bendingsignpost (66K, E, Johnlock) First, he is shot in Afghanistan. Second, he wakes to a phone call in Chelmsford, Essex. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the eighth, he's lost track.

Daminette Songfic: ‘Summer of ‘69’ by Bryan Adams

From the Maribat AU of @ozmav

@maribat-archive I’m back at it again >:)

I got my first real six-string

Bought it at the five-and-dime

When he had first been taken in by Bruce Wayne, he had turned up his nose at the prospect of entertaining some kid superhero from France. She wasn’t going to be impressive.

She wasn’t even going to be good!

Man, Damian thought to himself, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, was I wrong.

Played it 'til my fingers bled

Was the summer of '69

It had taken forever for them to even consider being on speaking terms, let alone friends. That alone had been a marvel in and of itself.

Not that he’d trade it for anything in the universe. If it came to it, he would probably let the world burn for another minute with her.

“Dude,” Dick had whistled. “You are whipped.”

Again, he’d turned up his nose at the prospect. He hadn’t even known what the former Robin had meant.

But yeah. I had been.

Me and some guys from school

Had a band and we tried real hard

She’d never given up, not even when she was flung into the floor. Not that she did now. Ladybug, Marinette, was and is the greatest girl he knew.

Top of her class, an aspiring designer, with the biggest heart he had ever seen. And not only that, but she was a superhero, saving cities on the daily and pulling the croissants out of the oven.

At least he had a family, people who were there as backup. And not to mention the budget of a billionaire.

She managed with a family who barely knew what she got herself into, a class who had turned against her, and the funds of a bakery. Plus public schooling.

Damn, he mused. If she was one of us, look out Joker.

Jimmy quit, Jody got married

I should've known we'd never get far

Dick had befriended her first. Well, second, after Alfred. But he had taken the first step.

His teasing had never failed to make her laugh, giggles scrunching up her nose and a beaming smile that lit up the room. Ladybug and Nightwing would have late-night philosophy talks, making each other think beyond their boundaries.

She’d taught him to bake, always there with patience when he’d fudged a recipe.

The eldest Robin had shown her more complicated gymnastics (not that she wasn’t already more flexible than most of them would ever be), and acrobatics that turned her every slip and fall into a tumble, and she’d roll right back up onto her feet.

Dick had taught her how to get back up.

Oh, when I look back now

That summer seemed to last forever

Jason had taken her under his wing after Dick.

Whenever she’d curled into a ball, shuddering after a hard practice, he would toss her into the air and take off like a shot, careening through the halls of Wayne Manor. It wasn’t long before her laughs rang off the walls, the Red Hood with a wild grin.

They had the sibling dynamic — there for each other, even at their faults.

Marinette had introduced Jason to color schemes and designs, at least how costumes worked. It was most definitely because of that awful helmet.

Jason, on the other hand, had taught her how to shoot. It was out of necessity, he claimed. If she didn’t know how to defend herself, and her yo-yo was out of reach, she may not have a choice.

Jason had given her the tactics nobody thought she would know.

And if I had the choice

Yeah, I'd always wanna be there

Tim had warmed up to her third, although he had been a bit worried about her age.

As her superhero duties became more needed back in Paris, the two of them started working together at night, on cases none of the rest could crack. The Insomnia Buddies, she’d dubbed them. Or, rather, as Tim called them, the Coffee Crew.

Whenever he became stressed to the point of a breakdown, she taught him meditation, she taught him calm.

The Red Robin showed her computers, and how to bypass firewalls with a tap of a key. Underhanded, but in case she needed the information.

Tim had taught her how to think.

Those were the best days of my life

He, Damian, had taken the longest. It had taken years to become as close to her as the other three were.

But they eventually bonded over common interest and curiosity about the other, growing closer every time they spent an hour in each other’s presence.

Marinette opened his mind to possibilities outside simply what had been placed in front of him. You never have only two choices, she told him firmly, eyes narrowed in determination. Never.

The newest Robin may not have been the first to pick her back up after a tough spar, but he would always be there in a real one, whether it was to take the hit or let her rest.

He, Damian, had given her a real partner.

Ain't no use in complaining

When you've got a job to do

The summers she spent at Gotham had become less of a chore and more like a long-lost family member returning to them. They gained inside jokes, and Skype chats between Gotham and France became more common, until it was almost an everyday thing.

They watched each other grow from bratty kids to mature teenagers, from gangly to sure of themselves.

And man, had her almost literal transformation had him whipped.

Watch out, Hawkmoth.

Spent my evenings down at the drive-in

And that's when I met you, yeah

He’d joined an exchange program to Paris, planning on not telling her, but of course the day he had Jason blurted it out on their nightly video call.

She’d gone absolutely red, and fallen off her desk chair with a loud thud. To this day, it brought a smile to his face.

“R-really?” Her voice had been hesitant, but excited nonetheless. “I can’t believe it! When are you coming?”

Dick, from his position out of the way of the camera, gave Damian a knowing look, a wry grin, and a small wiggle of his eyebrows.

Dumbass.

Standin' on your mama's porch

You told me that you'd wait forever

It wasn’t long after that announcement, when she was in her final year of lyceé, that her video chats had started to become more… tired. She’d change the subject whenever they talked about her classmates or, worse, her friends.

It wasn’t only him who had noticed it. Tim had been the first to pick it up, and immediately set off on finding information about the class. Without telling Marinette, of course.

What he found was no concrete proof, but more videos on the Ladyblog detailed a girl named Lila Rossi.

An awful liar if he ever saw one.

Oh, and when you held my hand

I knew that it was now or never

The detective work lasted a week and a half before it was outed. Marinette didn’t get mad about it, but simply hung her head and apologized for not telling them.

His heart had torn to see his angel beaten down like this.

She was across the ocean, president of a class he couldn’t defend her against.

He, Robin, a superhero, was useless.

The exchange program left in six months.

Too long.

Those were the best days of my life

He went to her over winter break, though. Thank whatever higher power he could.

As soon as he had stepped into her room with the door closed, she had broken down in his arms. His brothers were right behind him, and joined the hug with words of comfort and encouragement.

It had taken her half an hour to calm down, but when she had finished, they were tears of happiness. Happiness that they were there for her.

“We’re gonna make this the best two weeks of your year, little lady” Jason had promised her with a crooked grin, the white patch in his hair tousled.

Tim didn’t miss the way she looked away at the word lady. “Mari-bug, what’s going on?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and tugged Damian over to her bed, not wanting to let go of him. “It’s a long story.”

We aren’t going anywhere, angel.

Oh, yeah.

Back in the summer of '69

When she finished, she had had to take breaks three times—three times!—to calm herself down.

“And I’ve almost been akumatised because of this, a few times,” she admitted, her voice a quiet whisper. “I figured out how to not let my emotions get the best of me, though. My parents don’t really know.”

Jason’s expression clearly told Damian he was in need of a skinning knife. Or guns. Guns were faster.

A series of pops filled the room. Dick, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, had popped his knuckles. “I think that it’s time some other people knew the harm Lila caused.”

“And if she gets akumatised,” Damian added, “she’s well deserved it.”

“She can’t keep going like this and not receive the consequences,” Tim put in. “It’s not right.”

Hell’s coming to Lila Rossi.

Man we were killin' time

We were young and restless

And the damned Lila situation didn’t even begin to cover Chat Noir. But Marinette insisted they get away from the topic.

She was on winter break, dammit, and Jason was hellbent on making good on his promise.

Tim had the best idea, oddly enough. An arcade.

While Damian had found the concept childish at best, the way Marinette’s eyes lit up at the prospect quickly stilled any protest.

To the flashy lights and cheap prizes we go.

We needed to unwind

I guess nothin' can last forever, forever, no! yeah!

Once they got there, Dick was quick to pull out his credit card and get a near- unlimited token supply. He nudged Damian with a sly grin. “Get her a big prize, loverboy.”

Thankfully, he said it out of her hearing range. Then he pushed him over, and they toured the arcade together.

Naturally, Jason was a master at the shooting games. Tim was an unexpected genius at Guitar Hero. Dick, of course, managed to beat the highscore on DDR by a good hundred thousand points. Show-off.

You deserve all the joy, angel.

And now the times are changin'

Look at everything that's come and gone

The two weeks had come and gone like nothing. But the two months afterward were an absolute hell of a waiting game.

But Marinette was happier, knowing that her Gotham friends were there for her.

“He’s still whipped,” Dick cackled one night after a video call.

Tim grinned, and ruffled Damian’s hair. “I can see why.”

He’d only growled at them, but they persisted anyway, giving bad advice they knew full well was awful.

But what else were brothers for?

Sometimes when I play that old six-string

I think about you, wonder what went wrong

The exchange program left them in Mlle. Bustier’s class. Well, at least Damian and a few schoolmates.

He could see just how bad the class was for himself.

At his first step into the class, he had been mobbed by a tanned brunette (Lila) claiming to be his lost soulmate, which he quickly and sharply shut down, and proceeded to sit next to Marinette.

Damian could hear her fake sobs from all the way in the back.

“Can you believe it?! He doesn’t remember me!”

Oh, fuck off.

Standin' on your mama's porch

You told me that it'd last forever

He stood, furious, and proceeded to give a thorough explanation on why she was wrong, a liar, and an awful person.

“I’ve never met you, I’ve known Marinette since I was ten, and I don’t see how the daughter of a single French domestic diplomat would ever meet an American at a charity gala in Gotham!”

Silence.

Then explosion.

Not fiery, of course. Of apologies, launched directly at Marinette.

She simply raised a hand to quell them in their tracks. “Some of you I will be able to forgive. Some of you I will not be. Thank you for your apologies.” Her tone was nowhere near the broken girl who had sobbed in his arms two months ago. She was reforged, stronger than steel.

And with a head held high like that, nothing can bring you down.

Oh, and when you held my hand

I knew that it was now or never

Nathanaël, Alix, Ivan, Myléne. They were able to be forgiven easier than the rest.

Sabrina and Chloé, she was neutral to. They, if they wanted to gain her trust, had a neutral starting ground.

Max, Kim, Nino. They were forgiven less easily, and would take weeks to even be on friendly terms again.

Alya, Lila, and Adrien she probably never would.

And he was perfectly fine with that.

They don’t deserve her.

Those were the best days of my life

Near the end of the exchange program, he took her to the Eiffel Tower as the sun set, overlooking all of Paris. He wasn’t nervous, of course he wasn’t. Damian Wayne, nervous in front of the girl he had been absolutely whipped for for the better part of a year?

Oh, you better believe it.

At the top tier, he covered her eyes for the entirety of the ride.

“Damiaan.” She was struggling to hide giggles. “I’ve seen this before, y’know?”

“Nah,” he grinned. “You haven’t.”

The top deck was empty, devoid of any and all tourists.

And then the fireworks started, filling the sky with all the colors of the rainbow.

Worth it.

Oh, yeah

Back in the summer of '69, oh

She grabbed his hand, eyes widening in surprise as a dazzling smile swept any amusement off her face and replaced it with wonder. “Oh my God, Dami.”

“I told you, you haven’t seen this before.”

“Wait— you— for me?”

Don’t you dare freeze.

“For you,” he agreed. “I love you, Marinette.”

Those words had been like weights—saying them the first time was hard.

It was the summer of '69, oh, yeah

Me and my baby in '69, oh

She didn’t say anything, only turned her gaze away from the fireworks and to him, the colorful explosions mirrored in her silver eyes. She was close, he could quite distinctly smell the strawberry lip gloss.

“Dami, I…” Hesitation. Shit.

Then, she launched herself at him, arms going around his neck as she crushed him in a tight hug. His arms came up to pull her close.

“I love you too, you extra idiot!”

Oh.

It was the summer,

They had shared a first kiss then, beneath the fireworks and the stars and the moon.

Neither of them were particularly any good, and she kept giggling, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anybody else.

Nor anywhere else.

Never in the world.

the summer,

This time, after she had graduated université, started as a designer, and finally moved to Gotham, they didn’t have to wait for time zones.

This time, as he caught his breath when he saw her in dazzling white, they would never have to wait again.

And this time, they could face things together.

Was he still absolutely whipped for Marinette Dupain-Cheng?

Always.

the summer of '69, yeah

this is gonna sound so weird but drop some book recs

please, i love giving book recs! here are a few of my favs in no particular order w/ their Goodreads summary 

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

A stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

honestly my favorite book. i can’t recommend it enough. it inspired my username and my blog title both here and on my other tumblr accounts. i’m planning on getting a few tattoos based on it as well. 

tw: sexual abuse, disassociation

Night Sky With Exit Wounds By Ocean Vuong

Collection of Vuong’s poetry

tw: internalized/externalized homophobia, poetic violence, the aftermaths of war/immigration  

The River King by Alice Hoffman

People tend to stay in their place in the town of Haddan. The students at the prestigious prep school don't mix with locals. Even within the school, hierarchy rules as freshman and faculty members find out where they fit in and what is expected of them. But when a body is found in the river behind the school, a local policeman will walk into this enclosed world and upset it entirely. A story of surface appearances and the truths submerged below.

so so so so beautiful and heart wrenching. i read it in sixth grade and have kept my copy ever since and haven’t stopped thinking about it. similar to The Secret History and If We Were Villians.

tw: self-harm, suicidal ideation, brutal murder

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil. 

in my top five favorite book and one of my most reread. my copy is covered in notes and ramblings.

tw: murder, alcohol and drug abuse

If We Were Villians by M.L. Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

it took me a bit to fall into but it’s really good. similar to The Secret History

tw: murder

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out. When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

A wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

The story of a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity.

tw: sad ending, alcoholism

Crush by Richard Siken

Collection of Siken’s poetry

tw: internalized/externalized homophobia, poetic violence

The Likeness by Tana French

Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back—until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more important, who was this girl?

it is part of a sort of series but it isn’t necessary to read the other books, though they’re great. I also recommend Broken Harbour from that series. similar to The Secret History.

tw: murder, one brief scene of homophobia by a main character’s family

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In Entangled Life, the biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view. Sheldrake's exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the "Wood Wide Web," to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision.

tw: will make you stare at the mushrooms at the grocery store for an ungodly amount of time

How All in the Family Changed the TV Landscape

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

All in the Family is roundly considered a touchstone for television achievement now, but when it debuted 50 years ago, even the network carrying it hoped it would fizzle quickly and unnoticed. CBS put an army of operators at phone lines expecting a barrage of complaints from offended middle Americans demanding its cancellation. Those calls didn’t come. What came was a deluge of support from people hoping this mid-season replacement was a permanent addition to the network’s lineup. The premiere episode contained a considerable list of “television firsts.” One of these rarities continues to remain scarce on network TV: creator Norman Lear trusted the intelligence of the viewing audience. To celebrate All in the Family’s 50th anniversary, we look back at its journey from conception to broadcast, and how it continues to influence and inform entertainment and society today.

Actor Carroll O’Connor, who was a large part of the creative process of the series, consistently maintains he took the now-iconic role of Archie Bunker because All in the Family was a satire, not a sitcom. It was funny, but it wasn’t a lampoon. It was grounded in the most serious of realities, more than the generation gap which it openly showcased, but in the schism between progressive and conservative thinking. The divide goes beyond party, and is not delineated by age, wealth, or even class. The Bunkers were working class. The middle-aged bigot chomping on the cigar was played by an outspoken liberal who took the art of acting very seriously. The audience cared deeply, and laughed loudly, because they were never pandered to. They were as respected as the authenticity of the series characters’ parodies.

Even the laughs were genuine. All in the Family was the first major American series to be videotaped in front of a live audience. There was never a canned laugh added, even in the last season when reactions were captured by an audience viewing pre-taped episodes. Up to this time, sitcoms were taped without audiences in single-camera format and the laugh track was added later. Mary Tyler Moore shot live on film, but videotape helped give All in the Family the look of early live television, like the original live broadcasts of The Honeymooners. Lear wanted to shoot the series in black and white, the same as the British series, Till Death Us Do Part, it was based on. He settled for keeping the soundstage neutral, implying the sepia tones of an old family photograph album. The Astoria, Queens, row house living room was supposed to look comfortable but worn, old-fashioned and retrograde, mirroring Archie’s attitudes: A displaced white hourly wage earner left behind by the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.

“I think they invented good weather around 1940.”

American sitcoms began shortly after World War II, and primarily focused on the upper-middle class white families of Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. I Love Lucy’s Ricky Ricardo, played by Cuban-American Desi Arnaz, ran a successful nightclub. The Honeymooners was a standout because Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden was a bus driver from Bensonhurst (the actual address on that show, 328 Chauncey Street, is in the Bedford–Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn). American TV had little use for the working class until the 1970s. They’d only paid frightened lip service to the fights for civil rights and the women’s liberation movements, and when the postwar economy had to be divided to meet with more equalized opportunities there was no one to break it down in easy terms. The charitable and likable Flying Nun didn’t have the answer hidden under her cornette. It wasn’t even on the docket in Nancy, a 1970 sitcom about a first daughter. The first working family on TV competing in the new job market was the Bunkers, and they had something to say about the new competition.

Social commentary wasn’t new on television. Shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek routinely explored contemporary issues, including racism, corporate greed, and the military action in Vietnam, through the lens of fantasy and science fiction. The war and other unrest were coming into the people’s living rooms every night on the evening news. The times they were a-changing, but television answered to sponsors who feared offending consumers. 

Ah, but British TV, that’s where the action was. Lear read about a show called Till Death Us Do Part, a BBC1 television sitcom that aired from 1965 to 1975. Created by Johnny Speight, the show set its sights on a working-class East End family, spoofing the relationship between reactionary white head of the house Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), his wife Else (Dandy Nichols), daughter Rita (Una Stubbs), and her husband Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth), a socialist from Liverpool. Lear recognized the relationship he had with his own father between the lines.

CBS wanted to buy the rights to the British show as a star vehicle for Gleason, Lear beat out CBS for the rights and personalized it. One of the reasons All in the Family works so well is because Lear wasn’t just putting a representative American family on the screen, he was putting his own family up there.

“If It’s Too Hot in The Kitchen, Stay Away from The Cook.”

Archie Bunker dubbed his son-in-law, Michael Stivic, played by Rob Reiner, a “Meathead, dead from the neck up.” This was the same dubious endearment Lear’s father Herman called him. The same man who routinely commanded Lear’s mother to “stifle herself.” Lear’s mother accused her husband, a “rascal” who was sent to jail for selling fake bonds of being “the laziest white man I ever saw,” according to his memoir Even This I Get to Experience  All three lines made it into all three of the pilots taped for All In the Family. When Lear’s father got out of prison after a three-year stretch, the young budding writer sat through constant, heated, family discussions. “I used to sit at the kitchen table and I would score their arguments,” Lear remembers in his memoir. “I would give her points for this, him points for that, as a way of coping with it.”

All in the Family, season 1, episode 1, provides an almost greatest hits package of these terse and tense exchanges, which also taught Lear not to back away from the fray. He served as a radio operator and gunner in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, earning an Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters after flying 52 combat missions, and being among the crew members featured in the books Crew Umbriag and 772nd Bomb Squadron: The Men, The Memories. Lear partnered with Ed Simmons to write sketches for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin’s first five appearances on the Colgate Comedy Hour in 1950. They remained as the head writers for three years. They also wrote for The Ford Star Revue, The George Gobel Show, and the comedy team Rowan and Martin, who would later headline Laugh-In.

Lear went solo to write opening monologues for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show, and produce NBC’s sitcom The Martha Raye Show, before creating his first series in 1959, the western The Deputy, which starred Henry Fonda. To get Frank Sinatra to read Lear’s screenplay for the 1963 film Come Blow Your Horn, Lear went on a protracted aerial assault. Over the course of weeks, he had the script delivered while planes with banners flew over Sinatra’s home, or accompanied by a toy brass band or a gaggle of hens. Lear even assembled a “reading den” in Ol’ Blue Eyes’ driveway, complete with smoking jacket, an ashtray and a pipe, an easy chair, ottoman, lamp, and the Jackie Gleason Music to Read By album playing on a portable phonograph. After weeks of missed opportunities, Lear remembers Sinatra finally read the script and “bawled the shit out of me for not getting it to him sooner.”

The creative perseverance Lear showed just to get the right person for the right part is indicative of the lengths Lear would go for creative excellence. He would continue to fight for artistic integrity, transforming prime time comedy with shows like Good Times, One Day at a Time, and the first late-night soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. He brought legendary blue comedian Redd Foxx into homes with Sanford and Son, also based on a British sitcom, Steptoe and Son, which starred Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, best known for playing Paul McCartney’s grand-dad in A Hard Day’s Night. But before he could do these, and the successful and progressive All in the Family spinoffs The Jeffersons and Maude, he had to face battles, big and small, over the reluctantly changing face of television.

“Patience is a Virgin”

After Lear beat CBS to the rights to adapt Till Death Us Do Part he offered the show to ABC. When it was being developed for the television studio, the family in the original pilot were named the Justices, and the series was titled “Justice for All,” according to a 1991 “All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special.” They considered future Happy Days dad Tom Bosley, and acclaimed character actor Jack Warden for the lead part, before offering the role to Mickey Rooney. According to Even This I Get to Experience, Lear’s pitch to the veteran actor got to the words “You play a bigot” before Rooney stopped him. “Norm, they’re going to kill you, shoot you dead in the streets,” the Hollywood icon warned, asking if Lear might have a series about a blind detective with a big dog somewhere in the works.

Taped in New York on Sept. 3, 1968, the first pilot starred O’Connor and Jean Stapleton as Archie and Edith Justice. Stapleton, a stage-trained character actor who first worked as a stock player in 1941, was a consistent supporting player for playwright Horton Foote. Stapleton originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in the 1964 Broadway production of Funny Girl, which starred Barbra Streisand. Lear considered her after seeing her performance in Damn Yankees. She’d made guest appearances on TV series like Dr. Kildare and The Defenders.

O’Connor was born in Manhattan but grew up in Queens, the same borough as the Bunker household with the external living room window which wasn’t visible from the interior. O’Connor acted steadily in theaters in Dublin, Ireland, and New York until director Burgess Meredith, assisted by The Addams Family’s John Astin, cast him in the Broadway adaptation of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. O’Connor had roles in major motion pictures, including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Cleopatra (1963), Point Blank (1967), The Devil’s Brigade (1968), Death of a Gunfighter (1969), Marlowe (1969), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970).  O’Connor appeared on television series like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, That Girl, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He’d guest starred as a villain in a season 1 episode of Mission Impossible, and was up for the parts the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island and Dr. Smith on Lost in Space.

The first pilot also starred Kelly Jean Peters as Gloria and Tim McIntire as her husband Richard. ABC liked it enough to fund a second pilot, “Those Were the Days,” which shot in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 1969. Richard was played by Chip Oliver, and Gloria Justice was played by Candice Azzara, who would go on to play Rodney Dangerfield’s wife in Easy Money, and make numerous, memorable guest appearances on Barney Miller. D’Urville Martin played Lionel Jefferson in both pilots. ABC cancelled it after one episode, worried about a show with a foul-mouthed, bigoted character as the lead.

CBS, which was trying to veer away from rural shows like Mayberry R.F.D., The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, bought the rights to the urban comedy and renamed it All in the Family. When Gleason’s contract to CBS ran out, Lear was allowed to keep O’Connor on as the main character.

Sally Struthers was one of the young actors featured in Five Easy Pieces, the 1970 counterculture classic starring Jack Nicholson. She’d also recently finished shooting a memorable part in the 1972 Steve McQueen hit The Getaway. Struthers had just been fired from The Tim Conway Comedy Hour because executives thought she made the show look cheap, which was her job. The premise of the show was it was so low-budget it could only afford one musician, who had to hum the theme song because they couldn’t afford an instrument, and one dancer, as opposed to a line of dancers like they had on The Jackie Gleason Show. Lear noticed her as a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, a counterculture variety show which Rob Reiner wrote for with Steve Martin as a writing partner. Reiner’s then-fiancée, the director Penny Marshall, was also up for the role of Gloria, but in an interview for The Television Academy, Reiner recalls that, while Marshall could pass as Stapleton’s daughter, Struthers was obviously the one who looked like Archie’s “little girl.”

Reiner, the son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, was discovered in a guest acting role on the Andy Griffith vehicle series Headmaster, a show he wrote for, but had also played bit roles in Batman, The Andy Griffith Show, Room 222, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Beverly Hillbillies and The Odd Couple. Reportedly, Richard Dreyfuss campaigned for the role of Michael, and Harrison Ford turned it down. Mike Evans was cast as Lionel Jefferson, the Bunkers’ young Black next-door neighbor who sugar-coated nonviolent protests with subtle and subversive twists on “giving people what they want.”

“We’re just sweeping dirty dishes under the rug.”

The very first episode tackled multiple issues right away. It discussed atheism, with Michael and Gloria explaining they have found no evidence of god. The family dissects affirmative action, with Archie asserting everyone has an equal chance to advance if they “hustle for it like I done.” He says he didn’t have millions of people marching for him to get his job, like Black Americans. “His uncle got it for him,” Edith explains, with an off-the-cuff delivery exemplifying why Stapleton is one of the all-time great comic character actors. The family argues socialism, anti-Semitism, sausage links and sausage patties. The generation gap widens as Archie wonders why men’s hair is now down to there, while Gloria’s skirt got so high “all the mystery disappears” when she sits down.

All in the Family would continue to deal with taboo topics like the gay rights movement, divorce, breast cancer, and rape. Future episodes would question why presidential campaign funds are unequal, how tax breaks for corporations kill the middle class, and weigh the personal price of serving in an unpopular war as opposed to dodging the draft. When Archie goes to a female doctor for emergency surgery a few seasons in, All in the Family points out she is most certainly paid less than a male doctor. When skyjackings were a persistent domestic threat in the 1970s, Archie suggested airlines should “arm the passengers.” It is very prescient of the NRA’s suggestion of arming teachers to combat school shootings.

But the first showdown between Lear and the network was fought for the sexual revolution. The first episode’s action begins when Edith and Archie come home early from church and interrupt Michael and Gloria as they’re about to take advantage of having the house to themselves. Gloria’s got her legs wrapped around Michael as he is walking them toward the stairs, and the bed. “At 11:10 on a Sunday,” Archie wants to know as he makes himself known. According to Lear’s memoir, CBS President William Paley objected, saying the line suggested sex. “And the network wants that out even though they’re married–I mean, it was plain silly,” he writes. “My script could have lived without the line, but somehow I understood that if I give on that moment, I’m going to give on silly things forever. So, I had to have that showdown.”

The standoff continued until 25 minutes before air time. CBS broadcast the episode, but put a disclaimer before the opening credits rolled, which Reiner later described as saying “Nothing you’re about to see has anything that we want to have anything to do with. As far as we’re concerned, if you don’t watch the next half hour, it’s okay with us.” Lear knew, with what he was doing, this was going to be the first of many battles, because this was the first show of its kind. Television families didn’t even flush toilets, much less bring unmentionables to the table. “The biggest problem a family might face would have been that the roast was ruined when the boss was coming over to dinner,” Lear writes. “There were no women or their problems in American life on television. There were no health issues. There were no abortions. There were no economic problems. The worst thing that could happen was the roast would be ruined. I realized that was a giant statement — that we weren’t making any statements.”

“What I say ain’t got nothing to do with what I think.”

Politicians and pundits worried about how the series might affect racial relations. The country had experienced inner city riots, battle lines were drawn over school desegregation, busing children to schools was met with violent resistance. Did All In the Family undermine bigotry or reinforce racism? Were people laughing at Archie or with him? Was it okay to like Archie more than Mike?

Lear believed humor would be cathartic, eroding bigotry. Bigots found a relief valve. Lear always insisted Archie was a satirically exaggerated parody to make racism and sexism look foolish. Liberals protested the character came across as a “loveable bigot,” because satire only works if the audience is in on the joke. Bigoted viewers didn’t see the show as satire. They identified with Archie and saw nothing wrong with ethnic slurs. Mike and Gloria come off like preachy, bleeding-heart liberal, hippie leeches. Lionel handled Archie better than Michael did.

O’Connor humanized Archie as an old-fashioned guy trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world. Bunker gave bigotry a human face and, because he hated everyone, he was written off as an “equal-opportunity bigot.” Not quite a defensible title. Archie was the most liked character on the show, and the most disliked. Most people saw him as a likable loser, so identifiable he was able to change attitudes. In a 1972 interview, O’Connor explained white fans would “tell me, ‘Archie was my father; Archie was my uncle.’ It is always was, was, was. It’s not now. I have an impression that most white people are, in some halting way, trying to reach out, or they’re thinking about it.” It sometimes worked against O’Connor the activist, however. When he backed New York Mayor John Lindsay’s 1972 anti-war nomination for the Democratic presidential nomination, Archie Bunker’s shadow distanced progressives.

Archie was relatable beyond his bigotry. He spoke to the anxieties of working- and middle-class families. Archie was a dock worker in the Corona section of Queens, who had to drive a cab as a second job, with little hope of upward mobility. He didn’t get political correctness. The character’s ideological quips were transformed into the bestselling paperback mock manifesto The Wit and Wisdom of Archie Bunker. White conservative viewers bought “Archie for President” buttons. 

“If you call me Cute one more time, I swear I’ll open a vein.”

As cannot be overstated, All in the Family set many precedents, both socially and artistically. The Bunker family is an icon on many levels, Archie and Edith’s chairs are at the Smithsonian. But Archie Bunker is also the Mother Courage of TV. The antithesis of the bland sitcom characters of the time, he also wasn’t the character we hated to love, or loved to hate. Archie was the first character we weren’t supposed to like, but couldn’t help it. This phenomenon continues. The next TV character to take on the iconic mantle was probably Louis De Palma on Taxi. Audiences should have wanted to take a lug wrench to his head, but Danny De Vito brought such a diverse range of rage and vulnerability to that part it was named TV Guide’s most beloved character for years.

We shouldn’t like Walter White, especially when he doffs that pretentious Heisenberg hat, on Breaking Bad. And let’s face it, Slipping Jimmy on Better Call Saul isn’t really the kind of guy you want to leave alone in your living room while you grab a drink. Families across the United States and abroad sat down to an Italian-style family dinner with Tony Soprano and The Sopranos every Sunday night. But on Monday mornings, most of us would have ducked him, especially if we owed him money. Even the advanced model of the Terminator guy was scared of Tony.

The best example of this is South Park’s Eric Cartman. While we don’t know who his father is on the series, he’s got Bunker DNA all over him. He’s even gotten into squabbles with Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner. This wasn’t lost on Lear, who contacted creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to say he loved the show in 2003. Lear wound up writing for South Park’s seventh season. “They invited me to a party and we’re partying,” Lear told USA Today at the time. “There’s no way to overstate the kick of being welcomed by this group.”

“I hate entertainment. Entertainment is a thing of the past, now we got television.”

Television can educate as much as it wants to entertain, and All in the Family taught the viewing audience a whole new vocabulary. The casual epithets thrown on the show were unheard of in broadcast programming, no matter how commonplace they might have been in the homes of the people watching. When Sammy Davis Jr. comes to Bunker house in the first season, every ethnic and racial slur ever thrown is exchanged. In another first season episode, and both the unaired pilots, Archie breaks down the curse word “Goddamn.” But a large segment of the more socially conservative, and religious, audience thought All in the Family said whatever they wanted just because they could get away with it.

All in the Family debuted to low viewership, but rose to be ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings for five years. The show undermined the perception of the homogeneous middle-class demographic allowing shows like M*A*S*H to comment on contemporary events.

All in the Family represented the changing American neighborhood. The show opened the door for the working poor to join situation comedies as much as when the Bunkers welcomed Lionel, Louise (Isabel Sanford), and George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) when they moved into Archie’s neighborhood. Lear reportedly was challenged by the Black Panther Party to expand the range of black characters on his shows. He took the challenge seriously and added subversive humor. Sanford and Son was set in a junkyard in Watts. Foxx’s Fred Sanford rebelled against the middle-class aspirations of his son, Lamont (Demond Wilson). Good Times was set in the projects of Chicago, and took on issues like street gangs, evictions and poor public schools.

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Married With Children, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill continued to explore the comic possibilities of working class drama. Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a successful, upwardly mobile television producer. Working-class women were represented on sitcoms like Alice, but didn’t have a central voice until 1988 when Roseanne debuted on ABC, and Roseanne Barr ushered in her brand of proletarian feminism. All in the Family’s legacy includes Black-ish, as creator Kenya Barris continues to mine serious and controversial subject matter for cathartic and educational laughter. Tim Allen covets the conservative crown, and is currently the Last Man Standing in for Archie. But as reality gets more exaggerated than any satire can capture, All in the Family remains and retains its most authentic achievement.

The post How All in the Family Changed the TV Landscape appeared first on Den of Geek.

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2019 in books

The year’s contenders for the good, the bad, and the rest. I used to make a list of the ten best books I read all year, a tradition encouraged by my mom as far back as high school, but out 2019′s twenty-six mediocre offerings it didn’t really come together. Instead I’ve decided to break my ‘honorable mentions’ category into three subsections that I hope you’ll enjoy. In order of when read, not in order of affection:

Honorable mentions [books I liked; 3+ star material]

The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin was given to me as a Christmas present last year, and I wasn’t sure how much I would like it since I don’t really do high fantasy. Rules need not apply; I loved the world building and narrative structure, and the characters were so much better than I’m used to even when their arcs seemed familiar at first glance. I guessed what was going on with the formatting maybe a little too quickly, but even then it was emotionally engaging and I was eager to keep reading and see what happened next. Haven’t devoured a book that way in years.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi has been on my list for a while; as a memoir told through short stories it’s hit-or-miss, but so worth it. I especially loved getting to read his early attempts at fiction, and the chapter Phosphorus regarding his first real job as a chemist in 1942 (his description of his absolute disgust at having to work with rabbits, the feel of their fur and the “natural handle” of the ears is a personal favorite.) This excerpt is one I just think about a lot because it’s full of small sweet details and so kindly written:

“[my father] known to all the pork butchers because he checked with his logarithmic ruler the multiplication for the prosciutto purchase. Not that he purchased this last item with a carefree heart; superstitious rather than religious, he felt ill at ease breaking the kasherut rules, but he liked prosciutto so much that, faced by the temptation of a shop window, he yielded every time, sighing, cursing under his breath, and watching me out of the corner of his eye, as if he feared my judgement or hoped for my complicity.”

Slowing Down from Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin is a one-page short story, but I’m including it because it’s the best in the book and one of the better stories I’ve read in general. I won’t spoil it for you since it’s more poem than anything else (and you can read the whole thing here.)

A Short Film About Disappointment by Joshua Mattson deserves to be lower in the order because it’s like. Bad. But I couldn’t help but have a self-indulgent kind of love for it, since it’s a book about white boy ennui told through movie reviews. It definitely gets old by the end (one of those things where you can tell the author lost steam just as much as his leading man), but parts of it are so well-written and the concept clever. 80+ imaginary movie reviews and psychosomatic possession by your traitorous best friend. 

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway has one of the greatest twists I’ve ever read in a novel, and no that’s not a spoiler, and yes I will recommend it entirely on that basis. It does its job as a multi-year sci-fi epic; reminds me a lot of Walter Moer’s early stuff in that it’s a bit Much(tm) but still a good mixture of politics and absurdity and absolute characters. Tobemory Trent was my favorite of the ensemble cast (but also boy do I wish men would learn how to write women.)

My Only Wife by Jac Jemk is a novella with only two characters, both unnamed, a man describing fragmented memories of his wife. It has me interested in Jemck’s other writing because even though I didn’t love it she writes beautifully; reading her work is like watching someone paint. The whole thing has a very indie movie feel to it (no scene of someone peeing but there SHOULD be), which I don’t think I’ve experienced in a story like this before and would like to try again. 

Mentions [books I really wanted to like but my GOD did something go wrong]

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou is the most comprehensive history we have of Elizabeth Holmes and her con-company Theranos. It’s incredibly well-researched and absolutely fascinating, but veers into unnecessary pro-military stuff in one chapter (’can you believe she tricked the government?’ yes i can, good for her, leave me alone) and carries an air of racism directed at Holmes’ partner and the Pakistani people he brings onto the company. Carreyrou works for WSJ so I don’t know what I expected.

Circe by Madeline Miller was fun to read and goes down like a glass of iced tea on a hot day, but leaves a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. It says a lot of things that seem very resonant and beautiful but ultimately ring hollow, and the ending is too safe. Predictable and inevitable. 

I was also bothered about Circe’s relationships with Odysseus and Telemachus as a focal point, not because they’re father and son (Greek mythology ethics : non-committal hand gesture) but because it’s the traditional “I used to like bold men but now I like... sensitive men.” Which as a character arc feels not unrealistic but very boring. You close the book and realize you’re not nine and reading your beat-up copy of Greek Myths, you’re an adult reading a New York Times Bestseller by a middle aged straight white woman.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor could have been the best thing I read all year and I’m miserable at how bad it ended up being. The concept is excellent; a thirteen-year-old girl goes missing in a rural English village, and every chapter chronicles a passing year. I knew it would be slow, I like slow, but nothing happens in this book and it ends up it feeling like Broadchurch without the detectives. Plus, McGregor, you know sometimes you can take a moral stance in your story and not just make everything a grey area? Especially with subplots that deal with things like pedophilia and institutional racism?

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor is about a twenty-something who moves from Iowa to San Francisco in the 90s and explores gender and sexuality through shapeshifting. It was something I really thought I would like and maybe even find helpful in my own life, but I couldn’t stand a single one of the characters or the narration so that’s on me! It does contain one of my favorite lines I’ve read in a long time though:

“And anyway, weren’t French boys supposed to be like Giovanni, waiting gaily for you in their rented room and actually Italian?”

Dishonorable mentions [there’s no saving these fellows]

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchinson was supposed to be a fun easy-to-read thriller and what can I say except what the jklfkhlkj;fkfuck. It very quickly goes from ‘oh hey I read books like this when I was 15’ to ‘oh the girl who intentionally gets kidnapped by a wealthy serial killer is accidentally falling in love with his son and can’t stop talking about his eye color now huh.’ I felt like I was losing my mind; why did grown adults give this 5 stars on Goodreads.

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips is supposedly surrealist horror fiction about working an office job in a new town, and reminded me of that rocky third or fourth year when I really started hating Welcome to Night Vale. All spark no substance, and even less fun because you know it’s going nowhere. I’ve also realized this past year that I cannot stand stories about women where their only personality trait is the desire to have children. People will throw the word ‘Kafkaesque’ at anything but here it was just insulting. 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai alternates point of view between Yale, a gay man living in Chicago in the late 80s and watching his friends die, and Fiona, the straight younger sister of one of those friends now looking for her erstwhile daughter in 2018. It was nominated for the 2018 Pulitzer, and part of my interest was in wondering how we were going to connect the plot lines of ‘the personal cost of the AIDS crisis’ with ‘daughter lost to a cult.’

The answer is that we don’t. The book is well-researched and acclaimed beyond belief, but it is SUCH a straight story. Yale’s arc is fueled by the drama of his boyfriend cheating on him and infecting them both, Fiona is painted as a witness to tragedy and encouraged to share their stories with her own daughter. “You’re like the Mother Theresa of Boys Town” one of the men complains bitterly of her, and the claim goes undisputed. It’s a story that makes a lot of statements about love and families and art that I feel we’ve all heard before to much greater effect.

Books I’ve Read in 2019 (A List in Progress)

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes - David Grann (***)

“The course of human events is not permanently altered by the great deeds of history, nor by the great men but by the small daily doings of the little men.”

Killers of the Flower Moon - The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann (**)

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien (****)

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”

“I survived, but it's not a happy ending.”

“But this too is true: stories can save us.”

Every Word You Cannot Say - Lain S Thomas (***)

“There are days when everyone needs you to be strong, even if you're dying inside, and you can only cry when no one's looking because you're petrified of letting them down.”

“I don’t know if I’m ever, really, ‘Here’”

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste NG (***)

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”

“You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.”

Night - Elie Wiesel (****)

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow”

The Alice Network - Kate Quinn (**)

“Poetry is like passion--it should not be merely pretty; it should overwhelm and bruise.”

“What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done”

Love her wild - Atticus (***)

“We are made of all those who have built and broken us”

“A sky

full

of stars

and he

was staring

at her.”

When we Left Cuba - Chanel Cleeton (****)

“For the dreams that slip through our fingers.

May we hold them in our arms one day.”

“You can love someone and still not lose your reason.”

“Not all of us have the luxury of setting the world on fire, simply because we’re angry.”

Crush - Richard Siken (***)

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river

           but then he’s still leftwith the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away

           but then he’s still left with his hands.”

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.”

“They want you to love the whole damn world but you won’t, you want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in a bath who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.”

War of the Foxes - Richard Siken (**)

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

“I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.”

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie (**)

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

Fool Me Once - Harlan Coben (***)

“All love stories,” Maya’s father had told her many years ago, “end in tragedy.”

“There are moments in life when everything changes.”

Pirate Hunters - Robert Kurson (*****)

“They made a sound I’d never heard before but somehow had known my whole life, a waterfall of muted chimes, dense and deep and old”

“When John asked his grandfather about being heroic, Arison told him that he had not done anything special, just what he thought was right”

“The world came alive when a person got a chance to be good”

“Do it now. Tomorrow is promised to no one”

“And promised himself that no matter what, he wouldn’t put off until tomorrow what his heart told him to go for today.”

“He just looked out at the world knowing it was finally too late for his father to have an adventure, and nothing seemed in color anymore.”

The Lost City of the Monkey God - Douglas Preston (***)

“But then the teules [foreigners] arrived and everything fell apart. They brought fear, and they came to wither the flowers.”

Crashing Through - Robert Kurson (****)

“It wasn't who a person believed himself to be or what he pretended he would do in a given situation. It was what he did when he got there that defined him.”

“May opened his eyes. Electric dots of silver-white, as many as the sound of a rainstorm, ran to every space in the world, and when he tried to see where they led there was no world anymore, they led everywhere, across a blanket of night that had no edges, and for a moment May didn’t know where he was among these stars, if he was under them or around them or beyond them, they were everywhere and he was everywhere, he was where he wanted to be.”

Shadow Divers - Robert Kurson (*****)

“This is where the hangers on, and wannabes, and also rans, and once greats keep believing in the sea.”

“I love you and you’re not here for me.”

Ross Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return”

“Autumn lingered on as if fond of its own perfection.”

Demelza - Winston Graham (***)

“Strange sometimes how easy bitter words came, how hard the kind ones.”

“Let me stay a little longer in the sun.”

Love Looks Pretty on You - Lang Leav (****)

“You turn him into poetry because you can’t have him any other way.”

“I have been quiet lately, I know. Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I have too much.”

“I struggle with things that are as easy to others as breathing.”

“Here is the story of my life. Hoping they would care about me or wishing they wouldn’t care so much.”

“When love swept in like the ocean

And left me in drops, like rain.”

Jeremy Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things, which rotted the hands that grasped them.”

“It isn’t where you’re born in this world, it’s what you do.”

Edgar: an Autobiography - Edgar Martinez (***)

“I concentrate on the moment and Don’t let the past or the future overwhelm me.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the greatest mariner of all time.”

Warleggan - Winston Graham (***)

“Their lives had been the tragedy of one woman who could not make up her mind.”

“It was not the cold of the night that she felt but an inner cold that no coat would cure.”

“Remember this she thought. In times of jealousy and neglect, remember this. He said: “so you are not to be rid of me, my love.” “So I am not to be rid of you, my love.””

The Black Moon - Winston Graham (**)

“Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.”

“We can’t alter the world, we can only adapt ourselves to it.”

The Lost Girls of Paris - Pam Jenoff (*)

“It is simply not enough to be as good as the men. They don’t believe we can do this and so we have to be better.”

Emma - Jane Austen (***)

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self control.”

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (****)

“Because he’s more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

“The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë (****)

“beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men;”

“But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.”

“If she gives you her heart,’ said I, ‘you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.”

“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it.  Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.—Will you have it?”

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (*****) {Reread}

“You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so”

“He made me love him without looking at me.”

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.  And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will”

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?  You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!  And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.”

Kimetsu no Yaiba Chapter 158 Review

Chaos is right; this battle is chaos. The last chapter hyped it up greatly, so I was ready. There’s plenty of reasons to be hyped. You have Doma the Upper Moon 2, you have Kanao in a serious fight, and this series is known for intensity, so you can expect great choreographic work. This chapter delivered beyond my expectation and more. It’s an all-out brawl with thrills and chills (no pun intended) with a cliffhanger that got me hyped even more than ever.

Before the battle ensue, we get one last insight on Kanao’s mind and feelings. This is a good way for fans to empathize her pain and anger. Many fans were heartbroken when Shinobu was killed by Doma, who laughed and mocked for all her worth. We are rooting for Kanao to win, even if the odds are against her. It’s also good to understand her viewpoint. As mentioned before, she was a mute earlier in the series. It’s the most emotional expression she ever feel, and it gives her the motivation and drive to fight. These two pages give me chills, shaking for the battle to start, and when it does, I will be glued completely. That’s what ended up happening.

Reviewing this chapter is a bit difficult, due to the heavy focus on the action with plenty of attack sequences to adore. It can be done but that’s resorting to play-by-play commentary. If you have read the chapter, you’ll know how intense it was. With that said, I can comment on the things I like about it.

To begin with, it is clear Doma is overpowered compare to Kanao, despite the early showing. As impressive she was, he is not easy to deal with. I knew that would be case, but I have to address it because some fans were actually afraid that she would defeat him alone. I know I said that I didn’t know if that would be case, but I was leaning more on negative. The one thing that I greatly appreciate this series is the realistic expectation when dealing with a powerful enemy. While it’s about skills and swordplay, if the enemy is tough, the enemy is tough. It doesn’t mean one must be stronger, rather a helping hand is required or a mere luck, which rarely happened. I’ll save the rest for later.

That all being said, it doesn’t have to mean a character have to get steamrolled or be a fodder. Case in point, Kanao is very impressive in her combat skills. She is not only fast, but she has great eyesight to detect and focus well. It’s why she can sense what’s approaching and dodge them swiftly, which she’s also pretty athletic. I said this many times, but speed is key. Although Doma gets the upper-hand most of the time, she still keeps up and barely slows down. I love how she dodged a sick fan slash to her eyes and immediately spins for Whirling Peach to cut his head. It’s crazy but wonderfully sequenced.

Doma is no joke. I know it is common knowledge that he would be powerful, but I didn’t expect his Blood Demon Art would range from simple Freezing Clouds to Cold White Princesses, whom resemble as named but attack like a separate entity. It’s very fitting for his persona, but disgusting at the same time. The creativity is really good, helped by great choreograph. It’s also helped by his despicable personality. He’s not only thoughtful, but he sadistically amuses himself, pinpointing Kanao’s incredible skills and trained body. It’s distasteful, but that’s the point of his character.

I’m really loving this battle with its stellar sequences and suspense. The narrative is Kanao must not slow down nor weaken her strength. It’s why the action is thrilling and non-stop; it keeps you on the edge. One blunder is all it takes to lose. That’s why Doma was amused, throwing crap load of attacks. I didn’t know he can do Lotus Vines. Kanao is so good for keeping up the speed. Every moment feels like her last or at least takes a fatal blow. She escaped swiftly and narrowly, but I was still shaken. The most feared I felt was when Wintry Icicles appeared out of nowhere and she had to dodge in a second. This is Sekiro the video game level of hard; give her a break. Fun fact: I was going to use that reference for my video on the anime, because really, it is, more or less.

While I did say that moment with icicles was when I gasped, that was before the next scene. I gasp hard, probably lost all gasp for a day, once her sword is stolen instantly by Doma. That’s the blunder that will send her to her death bed. It’s sheer suspenseful with her having no sword and Doma uses Blood Demon Art Scattering Lotuses, which is practically flying blades. She has to observe fast or she’s good as dead. Now, I didn’t know what was going to happen. If it was done by another mangaka, you could maybe expect a random power-up on the spot, or the greatest luck in the world. Instead, we got a surprise guest.

You thought asspull or random power-up would save Kanao, but it is he, Inosuke! I laughed at the fact he has to create his dynamic entry, breaking through a ceiling and presenting himself as “Lord Inosuke.” Here he comes to save the day, takes out all the blades coming towards her, and hyped to fight, thanks to the crow. The man doesn’t think about the danger from fighting an Upper Moon 2, but that’s him, alright. The cliffhanger got me excited. The chemistry between him and her should be interesting. Doma is now against a man, which I wonder how he would react. Lastly, Inosuke is so hyped up; a personality that changes the mood significantly. It’s all calm, but with him, expect things to get wild.

This was a really engaging chapter with its intense action from start to finish. Kanao did a hell of a job despite being overwhelmed, and that’s fine since Doma is a serious threat. Give credits where it’s due. It goes without saying, heroines are really good. The artwork is solid and choreograph is stellar. Inosuke joining in the battle should add more diversity and fun factor, and I can’t wait. It’s time for pig assault!

The Bravest In the Land

Author’s Note:Happy Holidays to @ziva-david! You officially got my last prompt/gift I’ll ever be taking on Tumblr and I hope you like it! Since you said canon hurts, I figured I’d give you a cute as hell AU. Enjoy!

~*~

“Long ago, in a faraway land, two babies were born.

The first was born to the Queen and her Consort, both of great beauty and strength. So divine was the child, they believed that the kingdom had been blessed by all the gods.

The second child was also a blessing from the gods, born to a farmer and his wife, who had long thought to be barren. Given such a miracle, they, too, were invited to the palace to partake in the festivities.

Both children, radiant and pure, were set before the people to be praised and celebrated. A great banquet with delicacies from all parts of the kingdom with music and dancing filled the senses of all who attended.

But the great sea witch of old, Circe, was jealous of the happy kingdom, for she coveted the blessings that they received. So, she appeared in a haze of violet smoke and approached the babies in their cradles. And under the sight of all the kingdom, Circe plucked one of the children from the cradle…

And vanished.

The kingdom mourned for the loss of one of the blessed children, so much so that the Queen herself decreed that any warrior in the land brave enough to find the child would be given riches and the greatest of honors.

But first… it would take a warrior of exceptional skill to find the child, wherever Circe had hidden them away.

For years, many warriors would try and fail to find the child. It was said that Circe had created a tall, spiralling tower with no doors save for one window at the very top of it. And yet, even with such information, no one could seem to rescue the child.

It seemed that liberation was far away and that Circe’s prisoner had been long forgotten...”

~*~

The tower stood before him. For years, Steve Trevor had dreamed of this moment. Beyond the thorns, the monsters, and the labyrinth set in his path by the cruel witch Circe… freedom for the imprisoned.

He had rehearsed it a thousand times before, ever since he was big enough to hold a sword. Along with his dogged companions the Oddfellows, there was nothing that could stop them. He had studied military strategy, he had trained himself to be agile, strong like an ox, and could answer riddles like Oedipus.

This time, he would get past the obstacles.

“All right, boys,” Steve said as he approached the first barrier, the thorn wall towering above them. “Let’s get to work.”

One by one, he directed Sammy, Chief and Charlie to their respective positions. Once through the thorns, they would work to distract any of the monsters within until Steve could get past them. But, he knew the path, he knew his guys. They were the best the kingdom had to offer. After all, he couldn’t afford anything less.

The thorns tore at his leather jacket, resisted every strike of his sword, so he would have to leave this to his expert. Without hesitation, Chief stepped forward and threw a firebomb towards it.

WHOOM.

The group braced themselves as the explosion shook the earth, casting thorns and debris over them. As curls of smoke framed their perfect entrance, he gave the silent wave of his hand to send them all running.

The monsters came next, creatures of the sea and the land that Circe had conjured specifically to keep any daring knight or adventurer from the tower. The many-headed Hydra, impossible to defeat without magical intervention, reared its ugly heads and roared at the sight of the intruders. It came at them from the right, claws digging into the charred ground like plows in the field.

“Go, Steve!” Chief called as he lobbed another firebomb at the hydra. “You must press forward!”

His feet remained frozen on the ground as he fought against what he knew was the strategic thing to do versus the watching his oldest friend perish at the hands of the monster. Charlie had remained by the thorns, firing his single-shot rifle as he could before stopping to reload. Steve knew it was only a stopgap. The timing was the thing. It would take bravery, a willingness to risk everything to get to the end.

“Steve, behind you!” Sammy pointed behind them, but Steve was still fixated on Chief attempting to fight the Hydra single-handedly.  Another roar, this one lower and distinctly more… feline… forced Steve to turn.

Steve knew everything written about the beast before him, but he still wasn’t sure how he would defeat it. The Chimera roared again, determined to frighten the trespasser with its lion head. When that didn’t seem to faze him, the goat head in the middle bleated while the snake-headed tail lashed back and forth.

Steve crouched down into a fighting stance, pulling his sword and preparing himself. He would fight the Chimera, the evil jail keep it had been, or he would die trying.

He rolled to the right, barely dodging a billow of flame from the beast’s lion head, then pivoted and used the opportunity to rush the creature. The snake-tail weaved his way and his sword struck clean.  The snake’s head (or tail) dropped to the ground as the chimera howled in pain, turning back towards him.

Thankfully, that was exactly what he wanted. He’d studied every possible way to fight the creature and there was only one solution: letting the chimera’s fire work against itself.

“Now, Sammy!” He shouted as he caught sight of the quickest of the Oddfellows. Sammy pulled a block of lead from his satchel and tossed it to Steve.

The moment he caught it in his glove, Steve dropped flat on his back so that the Chimera would overshoot its target. It gave him just enough time to jab his sword into its lion jaw and pry it open. He dropped the lead into its gullet, then abandoned his sword so he could roll out of the way.

The Chimera turned on him again, lion head rearing and preparing to belch fire his way again. But, as it tried to do that, the flame erupted in fits and spurts as the lead did its work. It melted quickly, enough for him to get even further away.

As Sammy nodded to him, Steve turned and bolted further into the labyrinth as the chimera fell behind him, dead.

The labyrinth itself was easier to navigate than anything else, if only because he knew the right path and had had years to study it. Circe had left one very simple reminder for herself, laughably easy to detect if only one knew the pattern.

Every fork in the path always had one path marked with a singular violet in the hedges. Her favorite color.

Once he was clear of the labyrinth’s many paths, he could see the tower just ahead of him.

Well, almost.

Circe’s reputation as gaudy had been known long before he was born, but the elaborate gate was… ridiculous. Not to mention, it was being guarded by one of the greatest minds ever known: The Sphinx.

“Welcome, mortal. You seek passage through to the other side of these gates.” The Sphinx tilted her head in curiosity, but otherwise remained still. “To do so, you must answer these three riddles…”

Steve stood tall, crossing arms over his chest and shrugging. “Understood. I’m ready when you are.”

“What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?”

It took everything in him not to smile as he calmly replied, “Man. He crawls on all fours as an infant; as an adult he walks on two legs; and in old age, he uses a walking stick.”

The Sphinx’s eyes flashed with magic. Past her, he could hear one of the latches on the gate unlock.

“You seem to be wise. Then, prepare for my second riddle.”

Steve was ready, sure that he could answer whatever came his way. If not because he was “wise”, but because he could lie with the best of them. Which meant he was clever, and he could find a way to get to the answer.

“There is a house.” The Sphinx began. As she continued, the ground began to quake unexpectedly beneath his feet. “One enters it…” The Sphinx’s voice was being drowned out by the quaking.

Steve reached out for something to keep his footing as it grew worse.

“One enters it blind… and blah… blah… blah…”

~*~

“One enters it blind…” Steve Trevor held on tightly to the table before him, increasingly more annoyed as he did so. The quaking beneath this feet was entirely not planned and was throwing off his very carefully constructed narrative. “And blah… blah… blah…”

His hand-carved model of the tower that had been his home for his entire life toppled over as the shaking grew to a fever pitch. His train of thought completely derailed, he watched with resigned disappointment as his carefully constructed model of the world around him continued to take blows from the earthquake.

“Come on,” He breathed in annoyance as he scooped up Chief and Sammy before they fell off the table, setting the ornate figures back in their box for safe-keeping. “It’s not Tuesday, she doesn’t add new things until Tuesday.”

Steve Trevor knew for a fact that Tuesday was the only day that Circe added to her collection of horrors because for his entire life, he had watched her.

From his tower. With no doors, no stairs, and only one window to the outside.

Steve Trevor was a prisoner. With access to every book that Circe would conjure for him (mostly just to keep him from complaining and because apparently he “reminded her of someone” with his intense love of military strategy), Steve had spent his entire life in this tower dreaming of the world outside.

When he’d been younger, several adventurers, rogues and knights attempted to rescue the prisoner in the tower, only to realize all too late that he was… not a princess, but rather a farmer’s son left to rot by a bitter witch, too angry and proud to admit her mistake and return him.

The ones that got far enough to see him, anyway. Even then, most of them had been crushed or eaten…

There was also that one time someone slipped on wet stone and smashed his head against the podium for the Sphinx, killing himself instantly.

Steve learned quickly that he would never be rescued at this rate. So, instead, he tried to envision the world beyond through the tools he had. First, he’d learned how to carve wood, then work metal, then swordplay (in theory, of course, there wasn’t anyone to spar with him). Then, as he’d grown from boy to man in his prison, he had begun to apply those skills to finding a way out.

His elaborate model of the world outside had been his only conduit to attempt success. He wanted to get out on his own, but he realized all too quickly that Circe never left him enough supplies to scale the tower.

As the years had gone on and Circe’s traps became more elaborate, possible rescuers came less and less. And now, it had been two years since he had seen another soul. Except, of course, for the times when Circe would drop off her latest batch of rations. He was surprised she’d let him live all those years, but it seemed that since she was committed to the task, she… enjoyed watching his disappointment at every failed attempt.

And she always added things on Tuesday.

It was Friday.

The quaking seemed to cease for just a moment, only to be replaced with a earth-shattering thud that sent Steve scrambling to get his arms around as much of his model as he could before it went skittering to the floor. As it was, his Charlie figure had been dropped so many times he was pretty sure that was why the man was so skittish in his military exercises.

Because they weren’t idle fantasies if they served a purpose.

After that thud, the earth stopped shaking. As the dust fell from the ceiling, so did silence.

“That doesn’t sound like she’s putting something in…” He muttered before making his way to the window. “That sounds like something fell.”

Steve pulled himself up onto the window ledge and took a seat along the edge, dangling one leg precariously over it as if tempting the witch’s patience. But, since his other leg was straight along the window ledge, it was pretty clear he didn’t really want to escape out the window. That would be, among many other things, painful. And deadly.

He reached into a satchel at his side, rummaging through his tools and inventions he kept with him at all times. Eventually, he pulled free a makeshift spyglass he’d made when he was ten from a wine bottle and some leather.

Peeking through it, he scanned the labyrinth below, looking for signs of the many creatures that Circe kept between him and his freedom. The Sphinx still remained on her perch, the hedges seemed relatively undisturbed. But, there was no sign of the Chimera. Just as well, he thought. That thing gave him the chills. He had probably run countless drills on his model before finally stumbling upon the book in his tower that actually held the key to defeating it. Unsurprisingly, Circe had only halfheartedly tried to keep information out of his hands in the collection of books she kept dropping off. Eventually, he had learned of Pegasus and Bellerophon. His exercises changed dramatically after that, incorporating the lead strategy. No one would ever be able to kill the Chimera without knowing how to stop its flaming gullet. He was sure of that.

Steve shifted his view away from the Chimera’s territory and looked eastward. The Hydra could typically be seen prowling this time of day. What had once started as a monster with one head had quickly grown to a dozen over the years. Steve had a theory that the only way to truly kill the beast would be to either break the necks and crush it, or to find a way of preventing a head from growing, like cauterizing a wound.

Not that he would ever get to test the theory.

The Hydra was strangely absent from its post, though. And past its territory, Steve could see a curl of smoke rising from a section he’d never really noticed before.

Curious, he hmphed a bit as he tried to figure out what he was looking at. But, it was one of Circe’s newer schemes from the last month, so he wasn’t entirely sure.

Turning back to the tower, he swung a leg over and made his way back over to his table so he could figure out where that smoke was coming from.

He spotted Charlie’s figure still somewhere between his hydra figure and the labyrinth and scooped him up. “Sorry about that, buddy. I always seem to put you in the stressful situations, huh?” As he put Charlie to join the others, Steve felt his heart twist a bit as he put the box of figures into his satchel.

Charlie, Samir and Chief were his only friends in this world. He talked to wooden figurines more than he spoke to Circe any given day of the week. He couldn’t even seem to treat them with the respect they deserved sometimes. Steve tried to push that gnawing loneliness away, the sense that he was at the bottom of the sea with nothing to pull him up.

Of course he was alone. He’d been alone his entire life. If he ever wanted to change that, he would need a miracle. Since he seemed no closer to cracking all of Circe’s puzzles, some angel would have to swoop out of the sky and just bestow him with freedom -

Boots landed behind him, a shadow suddenly blocking his view of his table.

No. That was… impossible.

Someone - and it wasn’t Circe because she never actually came in through the window - was behind him.

Steve glanced up at the shadow on the wall ahead of him, the bright midday sun framing the figure perfectly.

Her hair flowed in the wind, the shadow of her figure seemed to somehow convey an air of grace and strength that he’d never seen before. And the light… seemed to halo around the silhouette. I asked for an angel… and I think I got one.

Finally, Steve Trevor turned to face who he hoped was his savior.

And the breath was knocked clear out of him.

She was… breathtaking. Dark hair, dark eyes and smooth features, she stood in the window sill bearing armor that he recognized as from the kingdom of Themyscira itself, the home that he had been stolen from all those decades ago.

After all this time, was it really someone from his own land that had somehow made it up to the tower?

For a long moment, the two of them seemed locked in the moment, eyes trained on each other as if each wasn’t sure the other was real. To him, she was a warrior angel that was miraculously here to deliver him. To her… well, he didn’t know what had her so fascinated but… he hoped it was good.

Finally, she spoke, a curious and puzzled smile on her face. “.... You’re a man.”

The statement caught him off-guard and… considering it was the first person he’d talked to in years… his reply wasn’t exactly smooth. “Yeah.” He replied dumbly. “I mean, don’t I look like one?”  

No sooner than the words were idly out of his mouth, Steve found himself terrified that she’d answer that question in the negative. All these years building himself up to seem like some kind of seasoned warrior and he was replying as if he’d never reached adulthood.

The woman laughed, then jumped down from the window sill into the tower. It was only then that he realized that she was holding something in her hand, a rope that gleamed with its own… magic. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” She stepped forward, slowly reaching out towards him. He realized her hand was approaching his jaw, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. She still seemed so… entranced. “I’ve been hearing stories of the boy in the tower since i was a child. It makes sense that you would be my age, but… I guess in my mind, you were still the little boy.”

The wonder so obviously on her face began to make sense. And his heart began to sink as he worried if she didn’t like what she had found.

“But, you are… nothing like what I expected.” She finished, her fingers running along his jawline for just a moment before she pulled away, as if realizing her own behavior wasn’t exactly appropriate.

“Is that… good?” Steve asked after a moment, trying not to let on that her touch had made his heart flip in his chest.

When she smiled in return, this time an even more genuine grin, Steve could have sworn the floor went out from under him for a second. “Very good. And now, I have so many questions.”

He pointed to the window, cutting her off before she could begin her own interrogation. “So do I! How did you manage to get up here? Who are you? How did you even know to find me?”

Unfazed, she stood a bit taller. “I am Princess Diana of Themyscira. It was I whom Circe wished to kidnap. She wanted the blessings I had received from the gods.”

“I am Steve. Trevor. Son of a farmer and his wife that I don’t even know the names of.”

She shrugged, brow knit in sympathy and regret. “I don’t know why she took you, but I’ve known about you since my parents heard the first rumors of a tower in the countryside.”

Steve found himself leaning against the table, resting a hand on the hydra figure until it began to send a little stab of pain into the middle of his palm.  Hissing, he shook his hand out even as he managed to keep his eyes on her. “I can tell you why. She couldn’t tell the difference between a boy and a girl. And I had really dark hair until I hit like, ten. She thought I was you, then when she realized she’d messed up, she couldn’t just give me back.”

Diana tilted her head, clearly not surprised. “After what happened to you, my family kept me behind the palace gates. I’ve been training as a warrior and as the princess so that I can accept my birthright. But, when I heard the stories about you, I felt terrible.” She reached out once more, her fingers resting against his bicep in a way that instantly helped him decide that he was sticking with her from now on. “You’re here because of me. And I am here to get you out.”

Oh, he was never leaving her side. She’d won a friend for life. And with the way his heart was beating, he was fairly certain this was how Odysseus had felt when he met Penelope as a young man. Or how Orpheus felt when he met Eurydice. Drawn in, completely tied to someone without even realizing when or how it had happened.

The curl of smoke from beyond the tower came back into view at the edge of the window, wrenching him out of his momentary stupor. “Hang on a second,” Steve gently took hold of her elbow and guided her back to the window, pointing at the smoke with his other hand. “How did you even get up here? I’ve done nothing but try to beat Circe at her own game since I was a kid. I mean, you had to get through the thorns, right?”

Diana nodded, crossing her arms over her chest as if talking about the weather. “Of course. I burned some of them down and hacked through the rest with my sword.”

“And the hydra?”

She held out her hand, balling it into a tight fist slowly as she spoke. “I have great strength. I was able to strangle the different necks.”

Steve lit up, facing her directly, all semblance of distrust gone. She had done exactly what he’d planned in his exercises! “You’re kidding! I thought that would work, but I also thought you could cut the heads off and cauterize them.”

Diana grinned. “Oh, that would have worked. I just didn’t have time. I had to get through the labyrinth.”

“And you noticed the fl- “

“The flowers, yes. They’re violet, and they lead to the -”

“The right path! Exactly!” He was having a hard time containing his excitement, but he couldn’t help but keep asking. “And you got to the Sphinx? Was her first riddle the Oedipus riddle?”

“Oh, yes, and I’ve studied my classics. The answer to the first question is man. The second is - “

“A school! Because you enter it blind and come out seeing.”

“Precisely,” Diana smiled. The two of them were in sync, finishing sentences as they followed through the exact same exercises he had rehearsed on his table over and over again. And his strategies had been completely right. “How did you know?”

Steve paused, then stood straight. He sobered slightly before motioning over to the table. Diana spotted it and made her way over to examine the carvings. “I’ve been studying everything Circe has put between me and freedom for a long time. I’ve read every book in here cover to cover several times over, I’ve studied military strategy, philosophy, mythology… anything I thought could help. And you’ve just done every single thing I thought would work.”

Diana ran her hand along the model, pausing on the hedges he had painstakingly carved violets into. He couldn’t see her face, but he watched her shoulders sag for just a moment. “I can’t imagine how lonely you’ve been. How infuriating it must be to know the solution but have no way to act on it.”

And just like that, she’d nailed what he knew about himself. It was… painfully obvious, but she didn’t seem to look down on him about it. She was pitying him, yet it didn’t seem like an insult.

“You’ve quite a talent for this woodworking, too. It would be a shame if no one else ever benefited from it.” Diana breathed, then turned back to face him, more determined than ever. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Steve paused, eyes scanning the room that he had known as his home for his entire life. He’d come close to this point before, but never here. Success was in sight. Freedom… But, it meant giving up what he knew.

He remembered that his Oddfellows were in his satchel. And really, if there was anything that mattered in his tower… they had been it.

He took a deep breath, then motioned to the window again. “After you.”

Diana stepped up onto the windowsill and unfurled the lasso in her hand. It really was some sort of magical relic, because when she flung it upwards, it somehow found purchase on the point of the tower itself and held fast. Turning to him, she reached out and took him by the lapel of his jacket, tugging him forward with no effort on her part but slung him around like a kitten.

“Hang on, I promise to be gentle.” She said with a smile as she pulled him close.

“I believe you,” He breathed, trying to hide his very sudden awareness that he was pressed against her. “Doesn’t this break some sort of social decorum? I’m a farmer’s son and you are a princess, I should be like, across the room.”

“I’m not much for conventions,” Diana chuckled, then stepped off the ledge.

The two of them plummeted down so fast his stomach practically went to his throat before they then alighted on the ground beyond the gate.

He was on the ground. Dirt and grass and… and… the ground.

“I’m… really here…” He breathed, toeing a patch of flowers for a second. He took in the smell of the grass, the way that the dirt gave under the sole of his shoe, then looked to Diana. She’d given that to him. “I didn’t think I’d ever actually do this.”

“I promise you there is much more beyond the labyrinth, Steve. Now, let’s go.” Diana pushed forward, beginning to make her way through the labyrinth, following the violets against the hedges as before.

It wasn’t until they were in the thick of it that he realized he hadn’t asked her about everything Circe had set before them. “Hey, how did you get past the chimera?”

Diana stopped and turned to face him. “The what?”

There was a sudden roar beyond them, then a belch of fire set the hedges ablaze around them.

Steve expected a flash of fear to run through him as it did every time he even through of the thing. But instead, he heard Diana pull her sword and felt exhilaration rush through him.

Grinning, he turned to face her. “I’ve got a plan.”

Pregnancy Miracle: Cure Infertility and Get Pregnant Naturally! Review

I’m a 42 year old woman who has spent the last several years of her life looking to get pregnant. So thats why I’m now writing this Pregnancy Miracle Review. Naturally, when things weren’t going my way, I began to turn to some online solutions that would hopefully do the trick for me. No matter how hard I tried however, I couldn’t seem to take care of the problem. I certainly didn’t want to try any infertility drugs because I felt like they would cause complications beyond pregnancy. In fact, I wanted to do everything I could to dodge expensive medication altogether. I spent so much time looking for a solution, and trying so many different things that I thought this would never actually happen. It wasn’t until I found this fantastic program that I could finally shed a ray of hope on having a baby.

Pregnancy Miracle Review

Never before had I ever realized that there were some many bad habits that I was keeping that could have had a major impact on getting pregnant. After reading this book, I feel like my miscarriages were mostly because of my eating and drinking habits. I immediately turned off of these bad habits and turned to the best foods that were recommended in the Pregnancy Miracle book.

But the Pregancy Miracle goes so much further than that. I couldn’t believe how many simple steps contributed to the hardships I was going through to have a baby. Never before did I believe that exposure to regular household products would actually hinder my hormonal production system and actually cause infertility.

Pregnancy Miracle Reviews

Furthermore, I realized that I was way off on my fertility window. This was one of the biggest things holding me back in getting pregnant in the first place. It felt like conceiving too forever before it finally happened. The simple thing I had to do that was written in the Pregnancy Miracle Book by Lisa Olson was something that I had never read anywhere else, and it was the last thing that I expected when it came to determining the best time to try and get pregnant.

Pregnancy Miracle

On top of it all, the Pregnancy Miracle Program seems to realize that conceiving is a goal achieved by you and your partner and they give you some great tips on increasing your man’s sperm count to give you an even better chance.

Needless to say, I did in fact successfully get pregnant, and at 42, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who is now precious addition to our lives. I never could have done it without the help of this book and I’d recommend this book to anyone.

Pregnancy Miracle Book

If you think that it’s too late to have your long awaited child because you think you are infertile, worry no more because The Pregnancy Miracle is now available to provide you with the best natural methods to achieve pregnancy. Having a child is something that would truly bring great joy to the family. Every couple would want to have their very own child but due to some infertility issues, they simply end up losing hope and giving up in their dream. Through the Pregnancy Miracle Book, you would be able to realize that pregnancy despite known infertility is truly possible.

pregnancy miracle

The Pregnancy Miracle book is made by a researcher of Chinese Medicine, nutrition specialist and health consultant. She once thought that she was infertile and would have no chances of having a child until she figured out a natural way to achieve pregnancy. She decides to share her technique and story through the book entitled , The Pregnancy Miracle.

The Features of The Pregnancy Miracle Book The Pregnancy Miracle Book will teach you natural, safe , effective and quick methods through which yu could be able to achieve pregnancy in just a span of two months. This book will definitely help you give birth to very healthy babies without having to worry about taking any medication or drug that would help you achieve pregnancy. If you think infertility is the end of having a child, The Pregnancy Miracle reverses the situation for you. You could be able to realize that those infertility issues can be truly resolved and you could be able to have the child that you have always wanted. The Pregnancy Miracle is a very life changing book that can help you become more satisfied and happy about yourself, especially as a mother.

pregnancy miracle book

The Pregnancy Miracle book will show you that you could be able to defy the limitations that come with infertility issues which greatly preventing you from having a child. This book will teach you natural ways to get pregnant even if you are already on your late 30’s or even in your 40’s. Age would not be much of a hindrance in achieving pregnancy this time. Even if you have tubal obstruction or even if you have hormonal problems most especially if you have elevated level s of FSH, you could still be able to achieve pregnancy through this book. Other reproductive problems like endometriosis, uterine scarring, ovarian cysts, and even low sperm counts of your partner would not be a hindrance anymore when it comes to achieving pregnancy. Pregnancy Miracle will teach you that you do not need to try out different drugs and medical procedures just to achieve pregnancy. You could be able to do it using a very safe and natural way.

If you think that this is impossible, try to get the Pregnancy Miracle book for yourself and be amazed at the quick and effective results. You can also read about various testimonials regarding the success stories of women who used the guidelines from The Pregnancy Miracle book and later on, was able to have their very own bundle of joy through their child. With all these facts, it is really proven that pregnancy is never too late through the Pregnancy Miracle book.

Pregnancy Miracle Review – Does it really work?

Getting pregnant in giving birth to a child is indeed the greatest feeling for a woman. Motherhood is one of the gifts of nature to womankind. After going through the hardships of labor and pregnancy, a mother forgets all that trouble when she gets the first glimpse of her child. However, due to the lifestyles that we follow, the stress that we face in our daily lives and due to other biological or psychological conditions, many women fail to conceive after trying hard for years. The Pregnancy Miracle Book by Lisa Olson promises to help such women conceive and get pregnant.

Pregnancy Miracle Review

What does Pregnancy Miracle by Lisa Olson offer? The Pregnancy Miracle Book by Lisa Olson offers an opportunity of overcoming infertility problems to people. It utilizes ancient system of medicine followed in China along with alternative medicine systems that fight the root cause of infertility instead of treating only the symptoms. The treatment reverses and cures male as well as female infertility issues without the use of any harmful chemicals or drugs that can have severe side effects on the patient. If you opt for this treatment, you will not have to take any harmful drugs and it is claimed that you should be able to get pregnant, naturally within a month or two. You will receive a 270 page e-book that explains the 5 effective steps for getting pregnant in 4 to 8 weeks, along with 90 days free counseling with Lisa Olson.

Who is Lisa Olson? Lisa Olson is a researcher of traditional Chinese medicine, alternative health, a nutrition specialist and a former patient of infertility problems. She developed this treatment after 14 years of research and she was successful in getting pregnant at the age of 43.

Pregnancy Miracle Review Does Pregnancy Miracle really work? Yes! Based on the response it had received from couples around the world, we can certainly say that the Pregnancy Miracle book really works. Countless women have been able to over infertility problems and become pregnant, even in their 40s, with the help of this treatment. It can work for people with all kinds of infertility problems. Even if you had a few miscarriages in the past, suffer from high FSH levels or have blocked tubes, you will still be able to benefit from it. Men with low sperm – count or sperm – mobility will also be cured of their problems.

Is it safe? The best thing about Lisa Olsen Pregnancy Miracle is that, it is 100 % safe and secure. The treatment uses only natural and herbal products, and it will not make you take any harmful chemical drugs. Hence, it does not have any side effects and is very safe.

What are the benefits of Pregnancy Miracle? It provides step by step, easy to understand and logical approach to overcoming all kinds of infertility issues and becoming pregnant. It will help you in understanding common myths associated with pregnancy and how you can conceive without resorting to any harmful surgical procedures. It will also help you to enhance your overall quality of life by following simple tips and advices.

6 Tips To Help You Get Pregnant

If you truly want to have a child, you should definitely follow the 6 tips to help you get pregnant. You may not be aware of the fact that getting pregnant is not an easy task. It is not something that you can just have anytime you want it. Getting pregnant is a very crucial process as it involves the creation of a new life. For you to be able to achieve pregnancy, you must carefully look into several considerations to make sure that your body is ready for the new life that you are about to bring to the world.

1. See Your Doctor First First of all, you have to ensure that your body will be at its best condition for it to be able to handle pregnancy successfully.  You have to see your doctor so that you can properly be assessed regarding your health. You can have a general check-up to make sure that you do not have any kind of disease or abnormality that will make your pregnancy unsuccessful. You should be treated from any kind of infection that may be detected to make sure that you will have a good pregnancy. The doctor may also give you some supplements and vitamins that will help you become healthier and prepare you for your pregnancy.

Getting Pregnant

2. Stay Healthy In your own ways, you should be able to remain healthy as much as possible so that you can easily get pregnant. It is important that you eat the right kind of foods that will definitely strengthen and support your body for the new chapter of life that you are about to take. It is very important that you achieve the normal weight that is needed for pregnancy. If you are underweight or overweight, it would be somehow difficult for your body to handle the pregnancy. Be fit and stay in right shape for a successful pregnancy.

3. Maintain Regular Sexual Activity If you really want to get pregnant, you should be able to have normal sexual activity. Do not rely simply on your feelings or instinct when it comes to having regular sex. You should make sure that you not miss the chance of being able to get pregnant by having sexual activity for at least 3-4 times a week.

4. Determine your Ovulation Knowing your ovulation is very important so that you will know the best time for you to have sex and be successful in getting pregnant. You can buy ovulation kits or fertility monitors so that you can determine the closest and most accurate period for your ovulation.

5. Do It Before Ovulation Once you already know when is your ovulation, it is highly advisable that you perform sexual activity before you ovulate when you can be most fertile and when your body is more conducive to handle pregnancy. It is advisable that you have sex at least three days before the day your ovulation.

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6. Try Alternative Methods of Achieving Pregnancy Couples should not only rely on using the traditional calendar method to be successful in achieving pregnancy. Women have their own cycles and each one may need to monitor their cycles properly to determine their ovulation day.  It is best to get new alternatives regarding other reliable methods aside from calendar method for you to get pregnant. We recommend Lisa Olson Pregnancy Miracle Book.

Following theses 6 tips that would definitely help you to get pregnant will truly make sure that you can have that blessing of new life that you have been waiting for.

Chapter 12: Elizabeth Liddell

Lizzy's mornings always began early. Far earlier than her fiance's. Then again, Rick's morning routine consisted of splashing water into his face and instantly looking handsome. Unfair.

Before rolling out of bed, Lizzy kissed Rick's cheek briefly. He grumbled in his sleep and rolled together. It made Lizzy smile softly. He was just the cutest. With a skip in her steps did she make her way to the bathroom. Her morning routine was a little longer by now. But that was the cost for having all of that hair. Sometimes – a lot of times – did she envy Jessie. White girls just had it easier with their hair. Sometimes, Jessie didn't even brush it.

Once in front of the mirror, Lizzy paused for a moment and looked at herself. Well no, that sounded too envious. She did love her hair, most of the times at least. By now. It had been a struggle to come to love her hair, but it had been her choice to put up with the hair care routine, regardless of how long it took. Because this was her hair and she was done with having other people tell her what to do with it or make her feel ashamed of it.

When she had been a little girl, she had truly hated it. Oh, that precious little black girl with her poofy, fluffy hair! White people liked to pet and poke it like she was some damn poodle. And what small child would be brave enough to speak up?

So when she grew older, she knew she wanted to get rid of it. And as a teen, she shaved it all off.

Then she got shit from people for looking like a boy. Just because she was tall – had always been tall. She was a tall woman, towering over even most of the men in her life. Tall and, as an early teen also unfortunately flat, and with her hair shaved off, she had been mocked a lot. Called a boy, or treated like she wasn't girl enough.

So she grew it out again. And she tried different hair-styles. Had her mother braid her cornrows, only to have people tease her about it all over again. At least she had filled out by then though, both around the hips and the chest. So no one was mockingly calling her a boy anymore. Still, whether she tried to look girly or tried to be comfortable, someone always had something to say.

That was when she had decided that she was done. She was done having others make her feel like she had to look a certain way. If they couldn't handle her, then that was their problem. Which was easier said than done and some days, she couldn't even convince herself of it. It was hard loving yourself when someone else always had something to complain about. And people always had something to complain about with a black girl. She didn't smile enough, she should do something different with her hair, her skin was either too light or too dark depending on the dipshit talking to her. It was frustrating and it made her want to scream into the void sometimes.

It was also a huge part of why she loved Rick so much. Detective Ricardo Alfaro.

The two of them had met four years ago, when the pack then officer and his partner Mike Maguire had come to the coffee-shop that Lizzy's sister owned. And basically from day one, Rick had treated her like a goddess. He had been smitten from the first moment he had laid eyes on her.

At first, it had made her a little uncomfortable, because he was quite overwhelming. But as soon as he noticed that, he backed off. He wasn't just... loud and overwhelming, he was also quite charming and considerate. He was the cutest and sweetest person Lizzy had ever met, so after a few weeks of flirting, she caved and figured that one date might not hurt. That had been four years ago now.

Her life had changed quite some since he had entered it. She had worked her way up at the company – back when they had started dating, she had still been working at her sister's coffee-shop. She had been studying graphic design, while working and living with her older sister.

Laureen had been the first Liddell to leave New Orleans. Eighteen years ago, she had left for Los Angeles to open her bakery slash coffee-shop. That had always been her dream. She was the oldest of the Liddell children and Lizzy, even though she would never admit it aloud to her sister, had always admired Laureen. She had always been stubborn and found a way to get what she wanted.

So on the day Lizzy turned eighteen, she packed her things and followed Laureen to Los Angeles. Their parents had, admittedly, not been the hugest fans of that. But she promised to stay with Laureen and that seemed to appease them. It had been a bit obnoxious to live with Laureen and to work for her. But Laureen had been very supportive and Lizzy honestly didn't know how well she would have done with college if she would have also had to worry about an apartment.

After college graduation, she applied for her dream job. Didn't get that, but at least an entrance position at the company. The Gold Standard. The greatest company in advertisement in all of North America. They truly were the gold standard in what they did and for Lizzy, who had always been mesmerized by advertisements on TV, it was a dream come true.

And over the past three years, she had worked her way up from the mundane background animations to actually leading her own projects. She had become well-respected in the Gold Standard and beyond that, she had made friends there. She loved her work.

She loved her work, she loved her friends, she loved her fiance and their apartment.

Life was good. Dare she say, it was basically perfect. Even when there were hiccups, even when there were bad days, it was still overall too good to be true, really.

Once done with her hair, Lizzy changed into a dark orange top and a long, yellowish orange skirt. She always loved orange. It was a bright, warm and happy color. Good things were orange. Oranges, the sun when it was setting, the prettiest flowers were the orange ones.

Straightening her skirt a last time and pushing her boobs up just right, she then went on to work on her make-up. The finishing touch. And when it was all perfect, she headed out of the bathroom.

“Lizabella, mi amor. You look stunning as always.” [Spanish trans: my love]

Lizzy smiled faintly as she found Ricky in the kitchen making pancakes. Approaching him, she tilted her head down to kiss him softly. The way he looked at her, like she was not just the most beautiful woman alive but also the very center of his world.

“You're making... pancakes for a whole army”, noted Lizzy amused.

“Oh, I am expecting your girls to come and pick you up and they are like starving wolves.”

Lizzy huffed at that, though she knew she couldn't disagree with that. “Well, you know them. They always go to the gym at five for two hours. You'd be able to eat like that too after two hours of exercise before breakfast, babe.”

“We could... test that theory”, suggested Rick with a sneaky grin.

“Perv”, huffed Lizzy and shook her head. “They'll be here in ten. And you and me both know that you can't do it in under ten. You're far too... mh...”

She sighed and fanned herself with a hand, prompting Rick to laugh. Like clockwork did the doorbell ring exactly when anticipated. They were always on time. Alina Preston, Noxia Black and Joss Parker. Three of Lizzy's best friends and also her co-workers. Alina was, just like Lizzy, in graphic design, while Noxia was a professional photographer exclusively working for the Gold Standard. And Joss was the personal assistant to Miss Sonia Gold, head and founder of the Gold Standard. They had first met and started bonding in the company's gym – a place for breaks, for blowing off steam, the exercise you really needed when working in a seated position all day.

Though Alina, Noxia and Joss had always taken it more serious than Lizzy. For Lizzy, it was just basic exercise, but both Alina and Joss engaged in kickboxing.

“You're looking chipper, girl”, noted Alina with a smile as she hugged Lizzy.

Alina might honestly be the most gorgeous woman Lizzy had ever known and sometimes it startled her that the other rather worked behind a screen than in front of a camera. But she was a total geek who loved programming even more than graphic designs, though she was still an artist at heart.

“Ricky made pancakes”, declared Lizzy with a smile.

“I love that man”, groaned Noxia and inhaled deeply. “If you won't marry him, I will.”

“You're a lesbian, Nox”, called Alina out loudly. “You are a huge lesbian and he is a... well, not a huge man but a man nonetheless.”

“No height digs or you do not get any pancakes, Alina Preston”, grunted Rick offended.

“Right, right. Lesbian”, nodded Noxia. “Say, don't you have a sister?”

“No sisters. Two obnoxious brothers”, offered Rick amused.

“Cousins then?”, asked Noxia. “I'd take them too.”

“Mh, bit too young for you, I'm afraid. Cleo's fourteen”, pointed Rick out.

Noxia heaved a long-suffering sigh and grabbed a plate of pancakes. Alina rolled her eyes and went to raid the fridge for some orange juice. Lizzy all the while checked in with Joss for the day.

“So, how are we feeling today?”, inquired Lizzy.

“You're so awkward, Liz”, sighed Joss, though with an edge of fondness. “Today's a girl-day.”

Lizzy nodded, with maybe a small sheepish grin. She had never been friends with someone who identified as genderfluid before. And while Joss usually broadcasted it in the way she presented herself – skirts and high-heels to the blazer, versus vests and pants and polished flats, but whatever gender she felt like that day, it was always a highly professional look – sometimes, the clothes, hair and make-up were not as indicative. Occasionally, Joss went more for a neutral look, or for wearing pants despite feeling male that day (which was only fair considering Lizzy had never met a woman who always only wore skirts and dresses). So after the first time of accidentally misgendering Joss because she assumed based on the clothes alone, Lizzy had done some digging online.

Turned out that using your words was always the best method. Just ask to make sure. Joss had given her a fond look the first time Lizzy had asked. Lizzy couldn't tell whether it was because she found it adorable how hard Lizzy was trying, or because she was genuinely touched because Lizzy was making an effort – which did mean a lot to Joss, Lizzy knew that, because Lizzy knew that Joss' parents had cut ties with their child based on Joss' gender-identity and sexuality, claiming that Joss simply had to make up her mind, like genderfluidity and pansexuality were only indications of indecisiveness on Joss' part.

“New cufflinks?”, asked Lizzy curiously as she caught sight of something shiny.

Joss rarely accessorized, whatever gender she was feeling. Though all of her clothes had one thing in common; they were shades of gray, somewhere on the spectrum between black and white. Generally, Lizzy found gray rather dull – she preferred loud and bright colors.

Though for Joss, the grays were really working out. Somehow, the lack of attention her clothes were drawing served to underline her natural beauty. Joss was Korean, with sharp features and eyes so dark they never failed to draw Lizzy in. Bright and eye-catching clothes would only... distract.

“Mh, yes. I custom-ordered them the other week”, replied Joss, showing her wrists.

A gray orb, with a Roman number inside. The number two on one link and the number one on the other. They looked pretty, in a simplistic way, yet still elegant. Lizzy smiled at that.

“I am so tired”, sighed Noxia dramatically.

“Ye—es. It must be so hard taking pictures of stunningly gorgeous women”, agreed Alina dryly.

Noxia stuck her tongue out. “No, but since this campaign is so very important to Sonia, so she personally double-checks everything. Never new blondie to be such a control-freak.”

“Miss Gold is a very hands-on person”, offered Joss sharply. “And she is right to try and control this in particular. Working with Chiron Training is an important union. For both businesses.”

“Besides, you're the one who got this whole thing into motion”, pointed Lizzy out.

Noxia rolled her eyes and waved her hands. “Because my mom plays poker with his and nudged and suggested 'oh, my daughter works for this fancy advertisement company!' when Missus di Girasole noted how her son was looking for an image change. Way to be a cliche, mom. Make it look like every native American knows each other.”

“...You and Matteo di Girasole literally grew up in the same street though”, pointed Alina out.

Once again, Noxia rolled her eyes. “So? It still looks bad. Or do you know every Indian in Los Angeles? ...No, don't answer that, I've met your mother, she actually probably does.”

“She's a noisy woman, bless her heart”, grinned Alina. “But yeah okay, I get your point.”

“But no one ever asks a white person if they know every other white person in the state”, snorted Rick and shook his head. “Though I have started asking the obnoxious lieutenant at the precinct whether he knows Bill Gates or el presidente del infierno.” [Spanish trans: the president from hell]

“You shouldn't pick a fight with your superior”, pointed Joss out gently.

“He has asked me for Hamilton tickets eight times, Joss”, stated Rick pointedly. “Not once or twice, but eight times. Just because he assumes that I know Lin-Manuel Miranda personally since he overheard me mention that I am from Puerto Rico before. Eight times.”

“...Fair enough”, grunted Joss beneath her breath.

“Besides, I won't get into trouble. Captain Lacroix loves me”, declared Rick.

“Mh, that woman is a badass”, sighed Noxia dreamily.

“What's with the thirst this morning, Nox?”, asked Alina a little disturbed. “Just how long has it been since you last got laid? This is unnatural.”

“I don't remember. That is how long it has been, Alina. I don't remember”, groaned Noxia. “You know, if you truly were my friend, you'd just... end my misery.”

“I told you I'm not sleeping with you”, grunted Alina unimpressed. “I'm not going to be that big of a cliche and sleep with the only other out lesbian in the company. Besides, you're my best friend. I've seen you chew on your toe-nails... nothing will ever erase those pictures and put me in the mood.”

“Fair points”, muttered Noxia depressed. “Joss? Have mercy on me?”

“I am not having relations with someone I work with. I'm professional”, stated Joss pointedly.

“Lizzy?”, asked Noxia pleadingly.

“I'm afraid I am still straight”, chuckled Lizzy. “But if I weren't, I would in a heartbeat.”

“You are also still engaged! To me!”, exclaimed Rick.

“Eh. You could watch, I wouldn't mind”, shrugged Noxia.

Lizzy grinned amused as she finished her pancakes. She loved those mornings, even though they varied. Sometimes, the others would bring breakfast, other times they'd text ahead that they ran late with training and wouldn't be able to make breakfast and just pick her up. But the four of them always drove to work together. It was just easier, LA traffic and parking considered (also, the costs).

“I guess we gotta get going”, stated Lizzy with a glance at the clock.

“Ye—es. I have gorgeous, mostly straight goddesses to photograph”, sighed Noxia dramatically.

“You're legitimately the most dramatic bitch I know”, muttered Alina.

“Get me laid and I'll quit the drama”, promised Noxia.

Alina, Joss and Lizzy exchanged a pointed look at that, not buying a word, before cleaning the table. Rick accompanied them to the door and pulled Lizzy into one last kiss.

“Be safe and have fun at work, Lizabella”, smiled Rick. “I'll see you today for lunch?”

“You too. And say hi to Mike for me”, grinned Lizzy, pecking Rick's cheek one last time.

~*~

Liddell's Sweets was just a short drive from the Gold Standard. Though usually, Lizzy worked through her lunch, ordering something in with her team. Every now and again however, she made plans with Rick to eat lunch, either at the St. John's Pub or at Liddell's Sweets.

She checked herself in the window's reflection one last time before entering the bakery. Rick was already sitting with Mike Maguire and Matt di Girasole. She supposed that the world really was a small place. That her fiance was partners with Matt's fiance. Matt, also known as one of the richest men alive. It was slightly surreal (but highly appreciated at birthdays and Christmas; hey, a girl was not going to decline the diamond earrings if the guy had the money to spare).

“You two look absolutely exhausted”, noted Lizzy with a judgmental look as she came to sit with them. “Less pre-marital sex, more sleep.”

“Hah. I wish it was sex”, muttered Mike with a tired sigh.

Damn, the boy really did look beat. Dark bags beneath his eyes and his usual stubble was coming dangerously close to an actual beard. He yawned and pulled his dark-blue hoodie closer.

“We're so busy with the wedding plans”, supplied Matt after a beat. “You two wouldn't object to just ditching LA and doing a spontaneous backyard wedding in Cat City, right?”

“It's your wedding”, shrugged Lizzy. “Not mine. Mine is going to take place in New Orleans and it will be entirely planned by my mother and Ricky's abuelita.”

“Sí. If abuelita doesn't get a say in it, she will be heartbroken”, agreed Rick.

Lizzy chuckled fondly. She didn't mind; she loved abuelita Julia. Oh, she loved the whole Alfaro clan. They had accepted her so warmly after Ricky had introduced her to them. Hugs and kisses left and right. And if she was being honest, she really did miss her own family a lot. So having his family accept her like that had... helped with that, in a way.

And in a way, Lizzy knew that it was the same for Mike. Mike and Rick, they weren't just partners. They had been close friends since the police academy, beat cops side by side and now detectives. They were brothers, by anything but blood. Unlike Lizzy however, who did have her family – just in New Orleans and not exactly right around the corner – Mike was an orphan. The Alfaros had happily embraced Mike and taken him in too, knowing that he was the one having Rick's back out there, protecting him on the streets. So Lizzy very well knew that Mike and Matt weren't just going to ditch everything and have a small wedding somewhere. There were fifteen Alfaros who needed to be a part of that wedding, not just one.

“If you two ditch and have your wedding somewhere else, do not make it too short notice, or I will not be able to finish the wedding-cake on time. Be considerate of the other people involved!”

Lizzy rolled her eyes at her older sister. Laureen approached their table with a tablet filled with coffees and sandwiches. She knew very well what her regulars ordered when they came, especially when it was her little sister and her friends. Laureen tucked a dreadlock behind her ear as she raised her eyebrows at Matt with the most judgmental baker-look possible.

“Of course not, ma'am”, assured Matt.

“And don't ma'am me”, huffed Laureen and crossed her arms over her chest. “Also, you two can wait for my husband before heading back to the precinct.”

Both Ricky and Mike immediately turned their heads toward where Laureen's husband sat. Doctor Charles Jones. Both of them had kept their last names even after the wedding, considering that Laureen owned her own shop, named after their family – Liddell's Sweets. And Doc, he had made his name in Los Angeles. He was the head medical examiner of Los Angeles. Lizzy was genuinely proud of her big sister and her husband. A doctor, oh their mother had been over the moon. And a handsome one at that. He was a tall, broad-shouldered black man, bald but with soulful eyes.

“What's up, Doc”, chorused Mike and Rick immediately, waving at Doctor Jones.

And while Doc was his preferred nickname, this particular greeting was one that usually made him roll his eyes in a very exhausted manner. The same Lizzy had seen every single time someone from the precinct called him at home for medical advise – like a cold or a scrapped knee. Lizzy personally found that extremely entertaining – hey, she was an artist, she regularly got the 'can you draw x for me?' from people who expected not to pay a dime.

“I have the autopsy ready for that... vigilante murder”, grunted Doc when he reluctantly moved his chair to their table. “I know this case is important to the captain.”

“It's important to the entire damn city, honey”, stated Laureen pointedly. “These... vigilantes. They're no good. And now they kill people? No.”

“First of all, they're heroes!”, corrected Mike, effectively looking like a kicked puppy.

“Some of them are heroes”, corrected Matt gently, grasping his fiance's arm. “Others, especially the new ones that keep popping up... We should stay weary. You, in particular. You're cops. If you start trusting them and they turn out to work for the bad guys.”

“Bad guys!”, echoed Laureen with a shake of her head. “What, do we live in a comic now?”

Lizzy made a face at that but decided not to argue with her sister. She probably did have a point.

“What vigilante murder?”, asked Lizzy instead.

“It's an on-going case. We can't talk to you about it”, countered Mike seriously.

“The Second Killer”, offered Rick, getting kicked under the table by Mike. “Ouch.”

“...That is a lame name”, argued Lizzy. “But I think I saw something about that on the news.”

“They suspect it to be Gemini. At first, the sprayed symbol was interpreted as the Roman number two, hence the name Second Killer”, offered Matt eagerly. “I read into it. But the killings are new. Before, they just left the criminals tied up and basically mocked. Personally, I don't think they're the killer. I think someone is following Gemini, who is just cleaning up, and killing them. Framing Gemini. Maybe to make them look bad, in this recent uprising of Zodiac superheroes.”

“Enough murder talk. Eat your lunch”, interrupted Laureen pointedly. “You're going to scare my customers away. Eat and go back to talking about the wedding.”

Lizzy rolled her eyes, though she obliged. She was hungry and her break wouldn't last forever.

~*~

It was rare for Jessie to call short-notice. Usually, Jessie was more of a planner, a routine-person. Which suited Lizzy just fine and might be one of the reasons the two were best friends. So of course did Lizzy kick Ricky out of the apartment when Jessie texted her and asked if she could drop by. Ricky had looked at her like a kicked puppy for a few moments before Lizzy kissed him and told him to go do something fun with Mike – it seemed Mike could use a distraction from the wedding plans, after all. Not even twenty minutes later and Jessie stood in front of the door. The freckled Irish woman looked unusually troubled as she shifted from one foot to the other.

“Girl, what's going on? You are not behaving like yourself”, muttered Lizzy.

She ushered Jessie inside and toward the living room. Both women sat down comfortably and for a long stretch, there was simply silence as Jessie seemed to contemplate her words.

“What do you think about all this... superhero-business lately?”, asked Jessie softly.

“It's pretty incredible”, shrugged Lizzy. “I mean, they're heroes. The kind I used to draw in my comics for fun, watch on TV and read about. But these are real. Those are real people, putting their lives on the line to save others. And they have real, actual powers.”

“Don't tell me you'd... want powers”, huffed Jessie with the smallest smile.

Lizzy raised both her eyebrows at that. “Who wouldn't? Seriously. I saw that dragon-chick fly the other day! Crab Boy controlled the stream from a fire-hydrant. And Robin Hood and his unicorn actually command fire!”

“I... guess that could be cool”, hummed Jessie after a moment. “But the whole... risking your life thing? That's insane, right?”

Lizzy paused for a moment to regard her best friend very carefully. “You have never been sneaky, Red Bean. What are you getting at? Don't tell me... Are you one of them?” Jessie looked red-handed and Lizzy's eyes widened. “Jessica Saint John, are you a superhero?!”

“No! I, uh, no I just...”, stammered Jessie while shaking her head wildly.

Urgh, this girl was so bad at this. At that rate, she was going to last a whole two days before all of Los Angeles knew her true identity. Lizzy's grin was sharp as a knife as she leaned forward.

“You need a partner”, declared Lizzy firmly.

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1)SPATIAL POWERS: A) Ability to materialized anywhere across the known Marvel Universe (Fantastic Four-#339, Thor-#165). B) Ability to create Dimensional portals or Rifts (Thor Annual#16, Avengers#309). Also, able to send an entire population to LIMBO for their own protection (Thor#192). C) In addition, Thor’s hammer has the capability to send just about ANY SENTIENT BEING to just about any other LOCATION in the known Universe-Avengers-#180 vs. the Monolith, or DIMENSIONS (the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth, or even the Seventh Dimension- it doesn’t matter) See- Avengers-#9, and Avengers-#16(vol.1), or even an ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE-Avengers-#7 (vol.1). Specifically, Thor doesn’t necessarily need to create a vortex to remove any immediate threat- See-Thor-# 279 vs. Ulik, Thor-#173, and Thor-#425 where a blast by Thor’s hammer ripped wide the fabric of the Universe itself and sent Surtur and Yimir to the Death Dimension. Thus, Thor can literally send anything, or anyone to the other side of the Galaxy thousands of light years away with just a mere magic bolt fired at his enemy. One of the GREATEST EXAMPLE of Thor’s Spatial capability occurred in Thor-#242, when Horus, Osiris, and Isis Giant Pyramid destroyed a significant portion of the Orange Groves (Trees) of San Diego, California when it sprouted from beneath the Earth in their search of Odin. All of then were all fully restored along with the vanishing of the great Pyramid by a vortex created by Thor’s MAGICAL hammer-as if the destruction that took place there never happened. Now, that’s power!!!! Another great example of Thor’s Spatial capability occurred when the hammer passed right through Kang’s Force Field and struck him as if the Force-Field was not present at all-See Avengers-Annual-#21. Kang was near death by the blow from Thor’s hammer. Therefore, characters like Magneto, Graviton, or even the Molecule Man are not, in fact, EXACTLY safe inside their Force-Field. In addition, Thor can call his hammer from even deep space; distance doesn’t seem to be an obstacle- Avengers-#19. 2) TRANSMUTATION OF ELEMENTS: Thor transmuted the Absorbing Man's wood and iron body to helium (a gas). See Journey Into Mystery #115. Emphatically, in this issue, Thor explicitly said that, "I have the power to transmute the Elements themselves". 3) THERMOBLAST: The ability to produce a Planet shaking Thermo-Blast capable of decimating an entire Planet (Ego). See Thor#133. 4) BARRIERS: Thor's hammer can produce barriers a la the Invisible Women (see Thor#181, and Thor#395). In Thor-#181 not even EXTREMELY innovative Earth weapon’s blasts could make even a dent on Thor’s Force-Field that surrounded the U.N. In addition, Thor said that his hammer could surely have contained Stellaris Cosmic Flash that would have consumed the entire Planet Earth-See Thor-#421. However, if you think that’s something, Thor once created an indestructible Mystical Vortex that CONTAINED the explosion of a Life-Bomb that would have destroyed a Fifth of the Marvel Universe-AVENGERS-ANNUAL-#16. If that’s the case, then Thor did managed to save literally millions of Galaxies, as a result. 5) POWER TO ABSORB: A) Thor's hammer can absorb limitless amount of energy. For instance, Thor's hammer absorbed the energy of a Null Bomb that was capable of destroying an entire Galaxy and turn it to Cosmic energy and Re-Ignite a Dead Sun (a Galaxy may contain 200 billion to 400 billions Solar Systems-depending on their relative size). B) In Avengers-#171, from a DISTANCE, Thor absorbed Ultron’s entire energy source with just a single blast from his hammer. C) Thor's hammer can, also, absorb other significant sources of energy including: Cosmic (Silver Surfer-#4), also, when Thor completely absorbed Sky-Walker’s Cosmic raging Tempest into his hammer-Thor-#305. Also, Radioactive energy (Avengers-#304), Magnetism (Thor#387) where Thor absorbed a portion of the Planet of Pangoria’s Magnetic energy, and Magneto’s Personal Magnetic Field-JIM#109; and Mystical- specifically, when he absorbed a significant mystical portion of EVERY Earth’s PANTHEON (Thor#301), and Pluto’s Deadly (mystical) Fire-Flame-#Thor-#223. In addition, Thor can absorb Magic from a DISTANCE-Avengers-#276. D) It’s important to, also, point out that Thor’s hammer can absorbed many of these particular sources of energy, and RETURN IT back to the originator; sometimes amplify many times over. Note: It's really no wonder at all that Thor absorbed the Electromagnetic energies of the Celestial Mother-ship with such ease- see Thor#288. 6) LIFE-FORCE, OR GOD-FORCE: Thor's immortal life force could be more powerful than the mystical properties of his hammer; that when combined with the power of his hammer can release incredible amounts of energy- Thor#388. Galactus tasted defeat when Thor used the Life Force on him- see Thor#161. Thor’s Life-Force, or God-Force, also destroyed the Brain Dome of the 20,000ft. Tall Celestial Exitar; which should be many times more durable than Adamantiun considering their thousands, if not, millions of years of technology ahead of the human race. Also, the Destroyer using ALL OF HIS POWERS at his command could not destroy Thor’s Life-Force- See Thor-#381. 7) REVERSE ENERGY: A) Thor’s hammer can reverse energy polarities (Avengers#70 vs. Hyperion- when Thor reverse the Atomic process that gave Hyperion his powers, and reduced him to the size of an Ant. B) Thor Annual#16 (Beta Ray Bill vs. Ego) In this instance, BRB was in the verge of drawing out all of Ego’s Magnetic Polarities to outer space, and Ego happens to be an entire Planet. C) Thor reversed the Enchanter’s Magic that initially transformed humans to Monsters-Thor-#18. In addition, Thor's hammer can reverse a Psychic attack- see Thor #428. 8) INCREASE THE POWER OF LIGHTNING, AND OTHERS: Thor can increase the lightning effectiveness TEN THOUSAND FOLDS!!!!See Thor#421; or perhaps more, and increase and magnify just about any OTHER type of energy source several times over-see THOR-#22 vs. Thanos, and Avengers-#8 (vol.1) vs. Kang. An excellent example would be when Thor defeated Prime by increasing single lightning bolt a hundred folds, and proceeded by blast him with it (Remember that just a single lightning bolt is equivalent to 15,000,000 volts of electricity and could travel 100 million feet a second). However, the MOST devastating lightning attack ever conceived by Thor is one that involves the "PUREST OF LIGHTNING". In other words, a bolt of "Purest of Lightning"; which is a Magical bolt that emanates FROM THOR’S HAMMER- creates a chain reaction of pure energy causing the ground SURROUNDING the blast to ERUPT like a living VOLCANO; thus, producing a Giant Crater along with a Holocaust of White-Hot Lava. Thor-#156. Thor had to escape not only by running, but FLYING out of the ensuing danger or else he would had, most certainly, forfeit his life. How did the Silver Age Mangog survive, or was not seriously injured, by a DIRECT-HIT of this bolt is beyond me. If some fans were highly impressed by DC’s Captain Marvel effective lightning attack on Superman, what in the world would they think about a lightning bolt such as that one created by Thor against the Mangog? Not even ashes would remain of Superman if Thor would strike at him directly with such a bolt of pure energy, and, to be perfectly honest, Thor doesn’t really need that much firepower to blast, for instance, anything including a Ship to Atoms-See-Avengers-#82 (vol.1). And, finally, Thor can effectively direct multiple lightning strikes as he once did against several Celestials at the same time-Thor-#300. 9) SPY: Thor could spy on people like a closed circuit TV. From same dimension, or another without being noticed- see Thor#278. With such power you could find just about any criminals, serial killers, terrorist, etc. with relatively ease. 10) SPEED: A) Thor could throw the hammer at the speed of light. See Thor#140, Thor#274; and, or can swing the hammer at TWICE the speed of light- Journey Into Mystery#102. B) In Thor -#393- it’s established that the speed of Thor’s hammer TRANSCENDS both TIME & SPACE. C) Also, Thor could appear anywhere across the Universe or other dimensions in just seconds (see- FF#339, and Thor#166). D) In addition, Thor could, visually, detect objects that move at fantastic speeds (this happen when Thor was the target of artillery fire- see Invaders#33- and Avengers-#281- when he saw the speedy Hermes). E) In the early issues of Journey Into Mystery, there were instances that Thor used Super-Human speed, physically speaking-that is. However, it’s impossible to measure his speed based on those depictions. However, in Marvel Team-up#26, it gives a slight more accurate description on Thor’s Super-Human speed, and you could make a similar case in Invaders-#33, where Thor (with his hammer) deflected artillery bullets fired at him by moving his ENITRE LEFT ARM at super-Human speed. Specifically, in Marvel Team Up-#26, the writer makes it fundamentally clear that Thor can move almost faster than mere MORTAL eyes can follow, and in Thor-#354, Thor was toying with Hela using speed that according to her was beyond comprehension. Thor stated that he was swift as the very lightning itself. G) Finally, the High Evolutionary using Thor’s DNA, did create a real Super-Speedster in Zefra. Question is, does Thor possess similar potential to that of Zefra due to his own unique DNA? After all, Thor’s DNA is quite different than that of mortals- Avengers-#14 (vol.1)- that’s for the writers to decide in some future date, I guess. Note: There’s been much debate by fans all-over regarding the difficulty that Mongoose presents on Thor due to his great speed. However, there shouldn’t be any debate concerning any threat that Mongoose can pose on Thor, since it’s firmly established that: 1) Thor can see objects, or beings moving at fantastic speeds, and 2) Thor can react even faster to defend himself against these specific threats. If artillery bullets can go from anywhere from 600 ft. per second to more than 5,000 ft. a second, why would anyone believe that Thor would be in trouble against someone like Mongoose, who could never be hope to attain such speed? Thor said, as the speed of his hammer physically deflected Mongoose, "My mystic mallet can attain velocities which are BEYOND your ability to grasp!" In other words, let us assume that a Marvel character like Gladiator, who can’t possibly defeat Thor from a distance, decides to use super-speed on him, he might just as well be committing suicide- considering how dangerously powerful Thor’s hammer truly is, plus the hammer could reach velocity that exceeds well-above the speed of light. The Kinetic effect would be UTTERLY devastating. Picture an object that weights practically thousands of tons (The Hulk couldn’t even budge the hammer when he tried to lifted using the Full strength of both his arms, and the people of Pangoria’s mightiest Cranes couldn’t budge it either) whirling at fantastic speed and striking someone, or something coming at incredible speed as well; to put it simply (considering the latter), whatever the hammer hits, it DESTROYS. Also, I believe that Marvel should re-consider that non-living things, such as Androids, or Mechanical-Man shouldn’t be able to lift Thor’s hammer, due to the simple fact that they could use the hammer to kill innocent beings. Remember, what makes Thor’s hammer so indestructible is not so much the extreme molecular density of the Uru (a Magical Metallic Substance), but the enchantments placed in it by Odin. Air-Walker (an Android) almost literally killed Thor with his own hammer-Thor-#305). Think what might happen if an Android gone mad would use the hammer on ordinary beings. Plus, the fact that not even Androids could lift Thor’s hammer would definitely make the hammer even more precious and mysterious. 11) INVULNERABILITY: The following are historical examples of incredibly devastating forces that has been used against Thor. Thor has survived each of these highly Lethal attacks, and most of the time have come out unscathed. A) Thor has been on the receiving end of Zeus and Blitziana's LIGHTNING bolts. B) Thor withstood a barrage of ARTILLARY fire with ease, and a Heat Seeking Missile- see Thor#480, and Thor-#247; C) and in the J. Kirby's days Thor used to test his invulnerability by having a Cobalt Bomb explode next to him. D) Kang’s Dissolution blast to the EXTREME did not fell Thor-Avengers-#143, and in Avengers-#295 Mechanosaurus struck Thor with a Megahertz Artillery fire that would easily destroy any vehicle to pieces- with no visible effect on Thor (Note: even bullets from a powerful sub-machine gun can’t hope to accomplish the same amount of penetration or destruction that could a Megahertz artillery attack by Mechnanosaurus). In Avengers-#5-pg 20- it explicitly stated that nothing, not even an ATOMIC BLAST could injure Thor, or his hammer. E) Thor resisted the full power of the Man from Saturn’s Graviton ray-Thor-#255. F) Thor withstood the Thermal Man's HEAT blast that could melt Tanks instantly, also, Thor was insensitive to the Lava Man's attack- see Avengers #5. In addition, Thor withstood a direct hit by Firelord’s Cosmic Flame with absolutely no dire visible effect on him- Thor-#306, and Ghost Rider’s Flame proved to be totally ineffectual against Thor, as well- Avengers-#214, and when the Planet Ego raised his internal heat temperature to the EXTREME, it had no affect on Thor-See Thor-#133. G) Thor was unaffected by an Alien Freeze Ray-Avengers-#14 (vol.1). H) In terms of indescribable sheer Magical, and Cosmic power, for instance, Thor was just temporarily stunned by Ego’s pulsating energy attack that would, physically, have rendered AN ENTIRE RACE UNCOUNSCIOUS- Thor-#133. In addition, Thor withstood blast by Odin-Thor-#241, by the Celestials-Thor-#300, and by a space Armada-Avengers-Annual#7. However, the three most impressive testimony events that showed Thor's invulnerability, however, was when he, almost, took a direct hit by a Doomsday Bomb that was capable of destroying an entire planet, and soon after that explosion Thor felt from space to a planet called Pangoria-see Thor#387. Also, Thor resisted the weight of Multitude of Planets-Thor Annual-#9, and the Gravity of a Neutron Star-Thor-#282. The other event took place when Thor paid an uninvited visit to ATUM in the Sun's core. If you think that this wasn’t enough, Thor has survive incredible physical punishment by the likes of the Destroyer, Durok, the Mangog, Surtur- Thor-#351, by the Devourer-Marvel Two In One-#23, The Thermal Man, Terminus, the 300,000 ft. tall Rhun god when he swatted Thor aside-Thor#220, and the Celestial- The One Above All- when he not only swatted Thor aside, but did hurled at him unnumbered tons of delicate machinery at him with no significant adverse effect on Thor-See Thor-#288. 12) ELEMENTAL POWERS: That can transcend to other dimensions, and or space and time (see-Thor#188). No other Superhero in the Multiverse has that scope of elemental powers. In addition, Thor’s hammer can tap, practically, on just about any Elemental Phenomenon in the Cosmos, like, for example, the limitless energy of a Maelstrom and used that energy as a Cosmic weapon. A Celestial Maelstrom can literally drag large Meteors, or Asteroids around at Fantastic Speed-Thor-#261. The power of a Hurricane is next to nothing compare to the devastating power of a Celestial Maelstrom. Also, Thor’s power can create Thunderstorm, Tidal Waves, and exploding Volcanoes on a Planetary scale-Journey Into Mystery-#94. In fact, if, somehow, Thor’s hammer is unmade the consequences are unthinkable and cataclysmic: Not only Erupting Volcano’s worldwide, Tidal Waves would immediately ensue, but Impact of Celestial bodies, as well- Avengers-#330. Also, Thor can use the power of the storm at a moment’s notice. For instance, Thor used a spear of wind, or an indescribable powerful tornado, that he literally pushed against Surtur, that cause Surtur to say: "NEVER HAVE I FELT SUCH FORCE!" And, in that same issue, Thor used the power of the Storm to divert an Asteroid from it’s course and hurl it against Surtur-Thor-#177. In addition, Thor’s power over the Storm can create enough suction to whisk famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower into the Atmosphere-JIM-#94. 13) TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS: Thor's hammer has the ability to transmigrate souls- see Thor#363. 14) HEALING FACTOR: Thor's hammer can speed up healing (Thor#155). 15) ERASE MEMORY: Thor's hammer can, in effect, erase memory (Invaders#33). 16) SLEEP: Thor's hammer can really put you to sleep (Thor#372). 17) A DETECTOR, OR THOR’S HAMMER ABILITY TO TRACK: Thor's hammer can detect where evil is a foot (Thor#417); or can track anyone who doesn't want to be found (Avengers#14). In addition, Thor’s hammer can track practically all kinds of energy signature-Thor Corps-#1, Avengers-#309, and Strange Tales-#182. In addition, something that is called ELECTRONS FREE FLOWING enables Thor's hammer to detect any Asgardian's Aura by their electron's discharge- See Journey Into MYstery#104. 18) HEARING: Thor can, Mystically, hear when someone is calling his name-Thor-#342 (distance doesn’t seem to be an obstacle). Thor was presently in Manhattan, when an old Viking was calling Thor from the Continent of Antarctica. 19) VITALITY: Thor’s hammer can increase VITALITY to any being that finds himself in a significant weak state. I guess Viagra, and Ginseng would have to take a serious back seat to Thor’s hammer in this case-See Thor-#343. 20) COSMIC ENERGY: Thor's hammer can produce Cosmic Energy (Avengers#5). 21) SOLAR FLARES: Thor's hammer can produce Solar Flares; which is about twice the temperature of the Sun. 22) ANTI-MATTER PARTICLES: Thor's hammer can manufacture Anti-Matter particles. These particles could potentially erase anyone, or anything from existence. It’s little wonder why Kang’s Anti-Matter Screen that’s capable of instantly disintegrating any Earthly matter did not affected Thor’s hammer in the least-See Avengers-#8 (vol.1). 23) ALPHA PARTICLES: Thor’s hammer can harness Alpha Particles from the atmosphere and could use it to Atomize any weaponry, JIM-#102. 24) INTERDIMENSIONAL ENERGY: Thor’s hammer can tap or attract quantities of Interdimensional Matrix energy (In this case, Matrix meaning from the main or principal source). This is certainly an extraordinary significant power and ability-Thor-#395. 25) INVISIBILITY AND INTANGIBILITY: In order to protect the Black Knight, Thor created a vortex surrounding the Black Knight that was completely Invisible and Intangible to all eyes except Thor’s-Avengers-#300. Also, in a quarrel against the Vision, Thor used his hammer to completely disrupt the Vision while he was in a Intangible state, thus rendering the Vision senseless-Avengers Annual-#8. In addition, check LS list below on Thor-#428 regarding Phasing. 26) CROWD MANIPULATION: Thor’s hammer can put literally an entire crowd in a trance, or totally under his control by using the Sun’s rays-Thor-#102. The head of Thor’s hammer lights up like a mini-Sun. 27) MAGNETISM: Thor can attract or magnetize Mechanical constructs into the ground, such as Flying Vehicles, Giant robots (JIM-#101,102), and even sentient beings like Loki. Thor attracted him when he was about to jump from a cliff-Avengers-#no.1. In addition, Thor’s hammer can create a MAGNETIC FIELD (a la Magneto) that enabled him to temporarily transport himself, Captain America, Sersi, Jarvis and Spiderman to a pre-determine destination-Avengers-#315. This makes quite a lot of sense since Thor’s power over Magnetism has been well documented since the creation of his character in the early 60’s. . 28) ANTI-GRAVITY: (SOMETIMES, MISTAKENLY CALLED ANTI-FORCE): A power that can literally Physically incapacitates his opponent, and sent then where they came from. Thor did this to the Super-Skrull when he sent him from Earth to his space ship in Earth's orbit. The Super-Skrull said, "I AM HELPLESS—caught in the grip of a FORCE I cannot begin to comprehend!" This power is similar to that of Graviton. Another such example occurred when Beta Ray Bill-Thor- #440- repelled the Giant Uroc upward against gravity to the surprise of both Dargo and Thundestrike. 29) ANTI-FORCE: The full power of the Anti-Force is so unbelievably powerful and the fury of such blast is so indescribable that Thor, with just one blast, once took out an entire Battalion of Barbarians along with Boulders, and a Giant Tank that was literally ripped to shreds against that devastating onslaught-Thor-#205. In terms of range, Thor’s Anti-Force could cover a wide area. In Thor-#207, Thor was trapped by Giant Boulders, and with just one Power-Blast the Giant Boulders were torn to pieces. Against Ego, Thor destroyed an entire Building thrown at Thor at close range with another Power-Blast-Thor-#203. 30) MIND RESISTANCE: Thor resisted the Mind-Thrust Of the Colonizer, the Mind Blast of the Super-Beast- THOR-#135, and resisted a Mind-Storm Blast that the Beast, Iron Man, and most especially Moondragon could not-Avengers-#138. 31) NETHERWORLD POWER: or power from the dark dimensions (Thor#101). Check on Ghost Rider unique Supernatural abilities. 32) ESSENCE OF LIGHT: Thor’s hammer infused the Demon Darkoth with the Essence of Light to counteract Mephisto’s Essence of Evil. Thus, turning the Demon away from Mephisto’s Evil control- Thor-#325. 33) STAMINA AND DURABILITY: Thor could endure a prolonged battle for a period of months without pause, or respite against Zeus (Thor#Annual#8). 34) THE HAMMER ALWAYS RETURNS: No matter the distance the hammer is thrown, or what it strikes the hammer always returns to Thor. 35) ABILITY TO FLY: Thor’s hammer provides the ability for Thor to fly at such speed that he can literally become invisible-JIM-#94, and can perform complicated maneuvers like performing a Pinwheel around a Flying Trans-Atlantic Jet-JIM-#107. Thor top flying speed has been clocked at THREE TIMES the speed of LIGHT-Thor-#185. In addition, Thor can transport the Avengers by literally flying together from one area of the city to another-Avengers-#58. 36) INTELLIGENCE: Thor's former alter ego Dr. Blake was a highly intelligent, skill physician, who specialized in surgery; plus, he knows the way of this mundane world since he lived among the human race for some time. In addition, Thor is part of a superior advance alien race. This was manifested in Journey Into Mystery#95, where Dr. Blake constructed an Android that could withstand the blows of Thor's hammer; and provided this Android with, almost, unlimited intelligence. Also, in the same issue, Dr. Blake, by duress, helped a scientist with an apparatus that could duplicate anything or anybody; including Thor and his hammer. Talk about instant cloning!!! Also, we must not forget that the Asgardians had, in the past, used highly technical advance weapons against the likes of Surtur, The Mangog, Seth, etc; including, when Odin provided Thor a Star Ship for the purpose of finding Galactus in their second encounter. Furthermore, Thor knows most of Earth’s languages- Thor-#290. 37) MJOLNIR'S STRENGTH: A) Thor's hammer is capable of shattering entire Mountains- Thor-#156, pulverizing small Planetoids (see Thor#400), could shake an entire planet (see Thor#388), or even destroy an entire World- Thor-#125. With just a hard tap (with the hammer) Thor completely broke Loki's arm. Thor simply holds back against his opponent because he doesn't want to take a life- see Thor#305. However, when he decides to end someone’s existence he could do it with just a single blow-See Thor’s-#374, where he killed the Super-Strong Mutant Block-Buster with just a blow from Mjolnir. To really analyze the full strength of Thor’s hammer- in Thor#388, Thor shook the planet Pangoria without even hitting the surface of the planet (the Celestial Exitar took the hit). What this mean is: that you can drop a dozen Hydrogen Bombs in one single place, or point, and that still wouldn't shake a whole planet. B) Also, the power within the hammer can, also, destroy an entire World- Fantastic Four-#339. In fact, the full power of the hammer can radiate with the energy of a THOUSAND SUNS…enough to even destroy an Entity such as Surtur. Thor stated AFFIRMATIVELY that this incomprehensible energy gathered by his hammer would have, indeed, destroyed Surtur… the eldest, and probably the most powerful Elemental in the Marvel Universe. Only the Twighlight Sword saved Surtur from destruction-Thor-#351. 38) WARRIOR'S SKILLS: Thor is an expert at fighting in armed and unarmed combat, and should know most of his opponent vital weakness. At least this is the way it was portrayed in the first famous Marvel vs. DC crossover. He's the best warrior in Asgard. The Absorbing Man, when he acquire Thor's powers and could not defeat him, he said: "It ain't fair!!!" "What's good my strength, my power if I can't land a blow?", "I didn't know it was gonna be like this!!!" The very same thing happened to Warlock, to the Juggernaut (when Thor took his invulnerable force field), Mr. Hyde (Thor#106), also, Pluto and Ares (the god of war) when Thor really cut loose in Blood And Thunder. In addition, Thor outclassed in the strength department, defeated Ares who triple his strength-Thor-#223, and had Ulik on the ropes irrespective of the fact that Ulik augmented his strength several times over, defeated the Android Zotarr-Thor-#238, but the most impressive victory of all was when Thor defeated Grog the god crusher without his powers, super-strength, and being a mortal-Thor-#397. To put it simply, Thor’s skills are simply phenomenal. However, the best testimony of Thor’s power and skills came from the mouth of none other than Captain America. In Thor-#390, Captain America said when he lifted Thor’s hammer, "I’ve never wielded such LIMITLESS POWER before!" "It’s almost intoxicating!" In Avengers-#4 (vol.1), Captain America said, "Thor’s hammer!" "It’s the most AWESOME weapon I’ve ever seem!" Finally, in Avengers-Annual-#18, Captain America stated this about Thor’s skills, "He is an expert combatant, having been trained for hundreds of years in the art of war." "His understanding of tactics and strategies ENCOMPASSES the teaching of cultures over several centuries." 39) SUPER-STRENGTH: Thor is the strongest pound for pound Superhero in the Marvel Universe. It's true that the Hulk is just as strong as Thor, but he probably weights twice as much. There’re many unparallel feats of Thor’s strength that should be worth mentioning. For instance, A) In Thor-#94- with just a slight pressure from Thor’s little finger he toppled leaning Tower of Pisa; B) in Thor-#95, Thor easily ripped apart the door of a special constructed safe that could resist a Ton (2,000 lbs.) of TNT; C) Thor sculpted a hammer from an Alien Tank by compressing together Tons of the Armor plating-Thor-#281, and tossed a Giant Alien Tank a significant distance as if were just a simple toy-Avengers-#219; D) Thor towed away a broken Jetliner full of passengers by flying it out of the Celestial stronghold in South America-Thor-#284. E) Thor, with his enormous strength, broke through wrap-around cables made of an alloy of Adamantiun-Thor-#309. F) Thor lifted and balanced a 40 plus story Building along with Cranes on top of the Building-Thor-#391; G) Thor towed the Entire Avengers Hydrobase-Avengers-#301, H) Thor with his strength closed a fissure that he created in the Planets crust, and then he proceeded by sealing Loki in it under millions Tons of Earth with the might of his limb-Avengers West Coast-#55; I) Thor sent an Alien with such physical force that he went literally flying through Earth’s Orbit and straight outside our Solar System-JIM-#90; J) Thor lifted the Midgard Serpent which girds the entire Earth and holds the Ocean in place-Thor-#272. 40) IMMORTALITY: Thor is an immortal-Nuff said. Others: There are others powers Thor’s hammer has displayed over the years like, for instance, IMPLODING a STARGATE- Thor-#445 (no more SG-1, guys!!!), or creating a Magical Vortex that tightens when the enemy struggle’s away-Thor-#223. In fact, Thor, at one point, used to have the power of TIME, but, mysteriously (and for no reasons, whatsoever) Marvel decided to take that power away from Thor. Also, Thor has, voluntarily, denied himself of OTHER powers- see Annual#15. We might never know what these powers are. But, I guess this has to do with humility. After all, didn't Odin turn Thor to a mortal for that same purpose? And hasn't Thor stated to The Avengers during that Orka issue-Avengers-#149- that he wasn't using his full powers all the time? I guess that's, probably, the real reason Thor denied himself some of these powers. In conclusion, Thor’s full potential might never be known. In fact, in Thor-Annual-#11, Odin said to O’Gea the Earth goddess, “I seek an heir whose powers surpasses Asgard.” Thor being the son of a Sky-Father and the Earth goddess is much more than any Asgardian, and, therefore, his Life-Force must be, indeed, unbelievably powerful. Some of Thor's feats: Journey Into Mystery #86-Uses his breath to cause hurricane force winds. Survives a cobalt bomb. JIM 90-Throws an alien with enough force that he's sent flying from Earth to outside our solar system. JIM 92-Uses his fingers to gouge a Uru hammer out of a boulder of pure Uru. JIM 94-Thor flys so fast that he's invisible. Crushes Uru shackles to dust. Causes earthquakes by striking the ground with lightning. JIM 115-Molecularly changes the Absorbing Man from one element to another with Mjolnir. JIM 131-Breaks the mind thrust (control) of the Rigelian Colonizers. Thor 185-Flies three times the speed of light. Thor 205-Thor defeats the hosts of Hel. Thor 222-Defeats Ares who's strength had been tripled to 210 tons. Thor 242-Teleports the pyramid of Egypt with Mjolnir. Thor 272 & 379-Thor lifts one leg of the Midgard Serpent. Thor 281-Resists the gravity of a Neutron Star. Thor 300-lifts and throws the Odinsword (weighing at least 50,000 tons) Thor 324 & 416-Falls 500 feet and survives without any injury. Thor 327-Pulls the Midgard Serpent off of Midgard with a fishing pole. Thor 387-Survives a bomb blast that destroys a planet. Thor 388-(With Belt of Strength and Iron gauntlets) Hits the Celestial Exitar with Mjolnir with enough force that it reduces nearby mountians to rubble and tears open a hole in Exitar's body. Thor uses his Godforce blast to crack open Exitar's brain dome. Thor 391-Holds up a skyscraper while dizzy from inhaling gas. Thor 400-Creates a whirlwind so big and powerful that it knocks out Surtur. Thor 407-Uses Mjolnir to absorb the energy of a Rigellian "Null Bomb" capable of destroying a galaxy. Thor 414-Beats Ulik who's strength had been increased a thousandfold. Thor 425 lifts and throws Surturs sword Twilight Thor 428-Rearranges his molecules after being phased into the ground by Shadowcat and frees himself. Uses his reflexes to to stop a telepathic bolt fired at him by Phoenix. Those are just some of his awesome feats.

Marvel's 31 Best Monsters

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Marvel is more than just superheroes, they've done their fare share of horror characters, too.

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Halloween isn't just for monsters anymore. For every Frankenstein Monster that comes to your door, there are probably sixteen Iron Men and a few Rocket Raccoons. It seems that Marvel (and DC) heroes have infringed on the monstrous monopoly of Halloween, but that’s OK, because to even things out, the Marvel Universe has its fair share of monsters dwelling under beds, behind walls, and in gothic mansions (mansions usually expertly drawn by Mike Ploog) to even things out.

Starting in the late Silver Age, the Comics Code became less restrictive (because Frederic Wertham was killed by a mummy...actually, no he wasn’t), and Marvel was able to bring in all sorts of boogeymen to share page time with the likes of Thor, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four. These new, Universal-inspired monsters joined the Kirby Kreatures like Fin Fang Foom and Googam as the Marvel Universe became a world where things that go bump in the night became as commonplace as superheroes.

Join us as we journey into the darkest realms of the Marvel Universe and celebrate the greatest monstrous creations that ever sprang from the nightmares of the House of Ideas.

31. The Glob

Listen, I’m not going to exclude a character named the Glob from this list, am I? The Glob was once Joe Timms, a petty criminal, who like every other comic book swamp character ever, was transformed into a muck encrusted monstrosity by a mysterious bog. Glob fought the Hulk a few times before Timms was recreated into the being known as the Golden Brain and used as a weapon by the villain Yagzan and the crazed Cult of Entropists (and holy shit, did I just get an almost sexual rush from typing that sentence).

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As the Golden Brain, Glob was defeated by Man-Thing because of course he was.

The strange bit of business is that there were three other Globs in Marvel history. There was the monstrous Glob from Strange Tales, a creature that was originally known as the Glop from Journey into Mystery, and the young X-Man known as Glob Herman. 

30. Scarecrow

There have been many comic book characters that have used the Scarecrow moniker, but this obscure Bronze Age Marvel creation might be the most twisted. This isn’t the iconic Jonathan Crane of DC lore or the lesser known Marvel villain that fought Iron Man and Ghost Rider many times. No, this Scarecrow is a demonic figure that dwells within a painting and, at times, walks the world of man.

Sometimes known as the Straw Man to avoid confusion with the Iron Man rogue, this Scarecrow only had three Bronze Age appearance but he was bursting at the seams with potential (and with hellspun demonic straw). The Scarecrow first appeared in Dead of Night, where the hapless Jess Duncan purchased the painting and began a story of Lovecraftian cults and cackling madness. But it was a story that was never quite finished as the tale of the Scarecrow has been relegated to the dusty bargain bin memories of the '70s.

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But check out that Dead of Night cover, masterfully crafted by Gil Kane and Berni Wrightson and tell me that this Marvel monster couldn’t have been one of the greats. With his cackling laughter, his smile that reeks of insanity, and his gangly body, this Scarecrow was almost part of Marvel’s monstrous greats. And that’s no straw man argument.

29. Swarm

Swarm is a very obscure villain who made his debut in the pages of The Champions of all places. So why is he on our list? Because he's a freakin' Nazi Scientist MADE OF EVIL BEES! That's absolutely terrifying!

Fritz von Meyer was once one of Hitler's leading scientists who escaped to South America after the War and grew fascinated with the idea of hive intelligence. He tried to enslave a queen bee or something nutty and was devoured by her swarm. He was such an evil piece of schnitzel that his consciousness dominated the bees and he became Swarm.

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Swarm's most notable moment was on the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon of the 1980s. The cartoon changed Swarm into an alien because I guess Nazi bees wouldn't go over well on Saturday morning after Foofur.

So yeah, genocidal Nazi bee man=monster.

28. Manphibian

In the '70s, Marvel had great success with its Universal Monsters parallels. Dracula was one of its top sellers and gained a large cult following, while Frankenstein’s Monster and Werewolf by Night each gained a level of success. Marvel had a Living Mummy so why not a Creature From the Black Lagoon knockoff?

Enter the Manphibian. Gosh, is that fun to say. Manphibian, Manphibian, Manphibian!

Anyway, old Gill Face here was kind of a tragic character. In his one and only Bronze Age tale, it was revealed that Manphibian was an alien creature that pursued a member of its own race across the galaxy after the rival creature murdered the Manphibian’s mate. The murderous swamp beast goes on a rampage until the heroic Manphibian stops it, but of course, the rest of the world now views the Manphibian as a soggy threat. Thus Manphibian was set up as Marvel’s leading Creature knockoff but it was not to be as Manny never popped up again.

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Until recently that is, because modern day Marvel creators know that it is beyond awesome that something called a Manphibian shares the same world as Spider-Man and Wolverine. Manphibian has popped up recently in the pages of Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Daredevil and even played a major role in Marvel's recent Howling Commandos title thus proving that you just can’t keep a good alien version of a Creature From the Black Lagoon rip off down. MANPHIBIAN!

27. It, the Living Colossus

Marvel has a character named Colossus, Stephen King created a character named It, put them together and you get a child eating Russian clown with steel hard skin! Sadly, that’s not the It, the Living Colossus we are talking about although this It is still kind of cool.

It, the Living Colossus was created by Jack Kirby right before the dawning of the heroic Marvel age in pages of Tales of Suspense and was revived by Tony Isabella and artist Dick Ayers in the pages of Astonishing Tales #21 (1973).

In the Kirby tales, It was one of those rare Kirby Kreatures that appeared twice in the pre-Marvel Age monster mags. This It was a 100 foot tale Golem like stature crafted as part of an anti-Communist protest. As these things go, the stature was animated by an alien intelligence and trashed Moscow.

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Later, somehow, the statue found itself in the U.S. and once again was possessed and went on a rampage until a Hollywood effects genius named Bob O'Bryan. O’Bryan was the protagonist of the Isabella/Ayers Bronze Age tales. This time, it was revealed O’Bryan lost the use of is legs but was able to animate the lumbering piece of anti-socialist propaganda. By the way, the original It stories were inked by Ayers who got to revisit his co-creation over a decade later, how cool is that?

It has made recent appearances in the pages of Deadpool Team-Up and remains one of the most famed pronouns in Marvel monster lore.

26. Golem

While we’re on the subject of giant, lumbering stone colossuses, colossi? colossusseses? We have Marvel’s very own Golem.

There have actually been a number of Golems in the Marvel Universe but our stone monstrosity in question first appeared in Strange Tales and was created by two absolute legends, Len Wein and John Buscema. So this Golem of ours may not have had a huge historical impact on the MU but it was created by the same bard that created Wolverine, so it has that going for it. Actually, this Golem was infused with compelling Jewish lore and really captured the ancient feel of the Hebrew legend.

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The Golem is pretty much the exact character you expect it to be with killer Buscema artwork. It didn’t have many appearances but the Golem did pop up in Marvel Two in One because if a Bronze Age monster was worth anything, it probably showed up in Marvel Two in One at some point.

25. Hannibal King

Long before Angel opened his detective agency in the Whedonverse, Hannibal King was on the case. Hannibal King was a supporting character in Marvel's immortal Tomb of Dracula series. He was a skilled private detective and also happened to be cursed with vampirism. It can be argued that King was Marvel's first vampire hero and used his undead gifts in an attempt to take down Dracula himself.

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Later, when Doctor Strange rid the world of vampirism by destroying all bloodsuckers (they got better), Hannibal King was spared. Even later, the dark curse returned and King joined the Nightstalkers, a team of monster hunters that also included Blade. Film wise, Hannibal King is notable for being played by Ryan Reynolds, before he found his one true calling as Wade Wilson in Deadpool.

24. Lilith, Dracula’s Daughter

Universal introduced the concept of a female scion of Dracula with the wonderfully atmospheric and surprisingly LGBT friendly 1936 monsterfest Dracula’s Daughter. Never one to let a monstrously good idea pass it by, Marvel introduced its own version of Drac’s little girl in the pages of the ponderously named Giant-Size Chillers #1.

Lilith was Dracula’s first child, the product of an arranged marriage between Dracula and his first wife Zofia. After the death of Dracula’s father, the future Lord of the Undead cast his infant daughter and Zofia from their homeland. Zofia was raised by gypsies because of course she was.

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One night, Dracula, now undead and thirsty, attacked the gypsies, murdering Zofia’s son. Swearing revenge, Zofia transformed Lilith into a very different kind of vampire, one not weakened by holy symbols. Marvel even tried to put a modern day twist by having the spirit of Lilith possess a woman in the contemporary age, but sadly, Lilith never quite caught on in a solo feature. Lilith still makes scantily clad appearances at times in the modern Marvel Universe and if Marvel ever decides to put a horror anthology series on TV, here’s your Elvira-like host. A fan can dream, no?

23. Godzilla, King of Monsters

Yeah, it does too count! I’ll slap you.

Godzilla was once a legit part of the Marvel Universe. Godzilla starred in his own comic for about two years. During the run of the title, written by the all-star team of Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe, the King of the Monsters met and fought SHIELD, the Avengers, the Champions, Fantastic Four, and even fought Devil Dinosaur. It was as awesome as it sounds.

On any other monster list, Godzilla would be towards the top, but at Marvel, Godzilla only sparked very briefly. But listen, there was an arc where Godzilla was shrunken down by Pym Particles and fought a sewer rat. So there.

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Actually, some characters introduced in the pages of Godzilla went on to become (not big at all) parts of the Marvel Universe. Such as the only remembered by Roy Thomas Doctor Demonicus. Anyway, Godzilla stomped around the Marvel Universe for a few years and it was awesome.

22. Frankencastle

Remember that time the Punisher died and was resurrected as the Mary Shelley inspired Frankencastle? Yeah, that was a thing and it was written by Rick Remender and it was way cooler than it had any right to be. It was hard hittin’, blood lettin’, limb flyin’, ass-kickin’ monster fun and if you don’t take it too seriously, it was one of the most daringly different Marvel stories ever.

It also pissed off hardcore Punisher fans which is probably not the best group to anger.

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The Frankencastle arc also featured just about every great Marvel monster on this list, so if these buggers are giving you a hankerin’ for some true monster madness, give Frankencastle a whirl. I was hoping that it would start a whole plethora of Punisher/monster amalgamations. DracuCastle, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Pun, the Punisher from the Black Lagoon…

21. Man-Wolf

Any fictional universe that has not one, but two great werewolves is okay in our book. Man-Wolf was once John Jameson, son of J. Jonah Jameson, cranky publisher extraordinaire.

John Jameson isn’t just your everyday werewolf, he’s a cosmic werewolf! Marvel actually pulled off some batshit insane sci-fi adventures with Man-Wolf in the pages of Creatures on the Loose. In addition, Man-Wolf was also right at home in straight up superhero tales as he took on Spider-Man and or in gothic driven Bronze Age awesomeness in the pages of one of the million Marvel creature features.

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As one does, Jameson was turned into Man-Wolf after he got a lunar gem lodged into his throat. He still pops up every now and then because space werewolves are never not cool.

20. Satana

The devil's daughter herself, Satana, burst open the Marvel black and white scene in the early seventies and was a nice tribute to cleavage laden, Technicolor Hammer Horror of the era. Satana is a succubus who seduced sinners and reduced their souls into butterflies, which she then kept in a little box and at times devours.

Some of the finest artists of the Bronze Age worked on Satana's early adventures starting with Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr. and moving on to Chris Claremont and Estaban Moroto. Her adventures were clearly cut for the same cloth as the Vampirella/Harris Comics stable of fright characters but they were also adult oriented, sexy, and atmospheric.

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Recently, Satana played a role as a member of the Thunderbolts in one of the coolest runs of that always underrated Marvel book. So here's to Satana, the daughter of Satan, one of Marvel's most underused and frightful bad girls and possibly the most unlikely character that Disney ever owned.

19. Simon Garth, The Zombie

The first Marvel Zombie, Simon Garth, proved his immortality by surviving the pre-Marvel Age. Garth first appeared in the horror title Menace in 1953 but was shunted into the Marvel Universe proper with Tales of the Zombie #1 in 1973 (an awesome black and white mag that I have a complete collection of. Ladies, the line forms to the right).

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Garth isn't your typical zombie. He retains a vestige of intelligence and morality which is somehow intensely disturbing. Imagine, rotting from within, but being completely aware of your desiccated state. Garth is one of those old school voodoo zombies and usually tried to do the right thing despite the thing that he is a walking maggot farm spit up from the pits of Hell.

18. The Living Mummy

As we said, Marvel had great success riffing on the classic Universal Monsters pantheon, so of course the House of Ideas had its own mummy! Marvel went a little left of center with its Mummy as it didn’t look to ancient Egypt for its shambling mound of bandages, it looked to ancient Africa and introduced N’Kantu, chief of the Northern African tribe the Swarili.

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Through the Living Mummy, some great creators like the late Steve Gerber were able to explore some Ancient African mythology and add some much needed diversity to the world of monster comics. The Living Mummy might not have lasted long as a feature, but N’Kantu starred in some truly great atmospheric comics in the pages of Supernatural Thrillers.

17. Sauron

Now, get a load of this prehistoric man terror. Sauron is not only a speaking, bipedal, pterodactyl, he also has the ability to drain the life energy from his victim. So essentially, he is a weredinosaur vampire and you bet your Creature From the Black Lagoon pajamas a weredinosaur vampire is going to make this list. Sauron makes his base of operations in the Savage Land and has gone head to beak with the X-Men many times. But for real, HEY DISNEY, YOU HAVE THE RIGHTS TO A WEREDACTYL, WHY AREN’T YOU USING THEM?

16. Groot

Groot was once an almost forgotten Kirby Kreature of the pre-Marvel Age until fans became hooked on a feeling and fell in love with this space Ent in Guardians of the Galaxy. Groot makes our list because in his first appearance, Groot was one evil, monstrous tree. He stomped around, tried to conquer Earth and did all the things a good evil monster should. Groot's monstrous roots (HA!) make him worthy of this list and the fact that he transcended complete monster obscurity and became one of Marvel's most popular characters makes this beastly tree one unlikely monster hero.

15. Mr. Hyde

Sometimes portrayed as a terrifying brutish monster and sometimes portrayed as a run of the mill super villain, Mr. Hyde is one of the oldest threats in the Marvel Universe. Named after the classic creature feature, the literary Mr. Hyde, Zabo created a formula that gifts him with tremendous strength and savagery. Hyde originally teamed with Cobra to make life difficult for Thor and Daredevil, but soon, the duo broke up and Hyde’s savagery really came out. In the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #231-232, Hyde sought revenge on the Cobra and his true brutality and deviousness was revealed.

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Since then, Hyde has been portrayed as a monstrous force worthy of his classic monster namesake. Of course, in recent years, a more watered down version of Mr. Hyde played a prominent role on TV’s Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD as the father of Daisy Johnson aka Skye. TV’s Mr. Hyde was tragic and nuanced but the comic book Mr. Hyde remains a monstrous threat that has created many horrors for most of Marvel’s mainstays.

14. The Morlocks

The Morlocks might seem like just another faction of mutants, but in the X-verse, homo superior just doesn’t come more Halloweeny than this crew of sewer dwelling monstrosities. The Morlocks long represented the more horrific side of the X-verse and there is just something about a group of outcast mutants living in the muck under our feet that makes these squad of ghoulishly creepy mutants worthy of our list.

13. Mephisto

You can’t very well have a list of the most nefarious Marvel monsters without listing the devil, hisownself. Not really the Biblical devil, Mephisto is a netherworldly tempter, a soul broker, and a liar who pretty much serves the same exact purpose as the Devil but he won’t get Marvel in trouble with Christian conservatives. Mephisto first battled the Silver Surfer in the Silver Age (HEY!) and has bedeviled (hiYO) just about every Marvel hero.

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He recently pissed off fandom by cutting a Faustian deal with Peter Parker and erasing Spidey’s marriage. Mephisto was a key figure in The Infinity Gauntlet, constantly whispering Iago like in Thanos’ ear and is the very symbol of corruption in the Marvel Universe.

Plus, he is a devil in a cape and that is always awesome.

12. Helstrom, Son of Satan

Son of Satan is a Marvel character who may not appear to be a monster (other than the big, honking Satan pentagram branded on his chest), but Damon Hellstrom here is the son of the Devil, and if that ain’t monstrous we don’t know what is.

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Son of Satan appeared in the pages of Marvel Spotlight before being spun into his own magazine. After the comic that had the balls to call itself Son of Satan in the mid-70s was unsurprisingly cancelled, Hellstrom became a member of the Defenders where he had his greatest success as a character. He's even getting his own TV series on Hulu soon enough.

11. Marvel Zombies

It's the entire Marvel pantheon of characters- as flesh eating zombies! When Mark Millar and Greg Land first introduced the Marvel Zombies in the pages of the Ultimate Fantastic Four, no one could imagine the splash these shambling, costumed creatures would make.

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In a bit of pure marketing genius, Marvel spun the Zombies into their own book. All of a sudden, you had zombie version of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Captain America, and the rest written by Robert Kirkman. Yeah, that Robert Kirkman, the very same bearded dude that created a little thing called The Walking Dead. Marvel Zombies had more mayhem per panel than most mainstream comics do in an entire year's run. So if you ever wanted to experience the horror of a zombie Peter Parker eating Aunt May, this is your jam.

10. Morbius, the Living Vampire

In the last days of the Silver Age, the Comic Code was still in full effect. You see, the Code strictly forbade the use of undead characters in comic book stories so Marvel (or any company) couldn’t use vampires. But how about a Living Vampire?

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Dr. Michael Morbius became a human loophole when he used bat blood to try and cure himself of a deadly blood disease. Morbius was transformed by this forbidden science into a living vampire and became a longtime ally and foe of Spider-Man. Morbius may have started out as a way Marvel could scratch its monstrous itch but the not so good doctor became the first true horror character of the Marvel Age and remains a Marvel staple.

He'll be played by Jared Leto in an upcoming Morbius movie, too.

9. The Lizard

Other than that gamma fueled green engine of destruction that we will get to ina bit, The Lizard is Marvel’s greatest Jekyll and Hyde like creations. Originally scientist and family man Curt Connors, the Lizard tried to help humanity by finding a way to regenerate lost limbs. Connors himself was an amputee and he really, really just wanted to help people. That’s when things went very wrong as Connors’ formula transformed him into a bipedal, sentient lizard Hitler.

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Now, Connors was not only feral and cunning, he could control any cold blooded creature and swore to dedicate himself to destroying all mammals. Lizard has long been Spidey’s most savage foe and would have been right at home in any Saturday matinee Creature Feature.

8. Frankenstein’s Monster

Something about the fact that a Boris Karloff looking, lumbering amalgamation of corpses is shambling around the MU fills me with comfort. The Marvel version of Frankenstein is pretty much a mashup up of Mary Shelley’s literary monster and the Universal classic creature feature. Frankenstein’s book ran for just a few years but the Mike Ploog artwork in the first bunch of issues is a sight to behold, and the manner in which the Bronze Age creators stuffed Frankie into the Marvel Universe proper was truly artful schlock.

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Over the years, ol' zipper neck here met the X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and many more Marvel mainstays and is still out there somewhere cursing the name of his creator. It’s alive, indeed.

7. Man-Thing

Most of Marvel's greatest creatures of the Bronze Age were derivative of the Universal Monster cycle of horror, but not Man-Thing. No, this classic Swamp Creature came from the strange tradition of comic book swamp beasts, the same tradition that spawned DC' Swamp Thing.

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After the brilliant scientist Ted Sallis was murdered and bathed in mystic swamp water and enhanced chemicals, he was transformed into the Man-Thing, a mindless yet empathetic beast who is drawn to intense emotion. Man-Thing was always a story engine more than a fully realized character as he would plod the swamps mindlessly drawn to the anger and terror of any human that dared to visit the Florida Everglades.

Man-Thing has a truly a horrific power as whatever knows fear, burns at the Man-Thing's touch. And what wouldn't know fear when gazing upon the misshapen form of 'ol creamed spinach face here. Marvel mainstays like Howard the Duck were introduced in the pages of Man-Thing's feature, and if you call yourself a comic book horror fan and you haven't read writer Steve Gerber's immortal run on the character, then you, my friend, are just going through the motions.

6. Werewolf by Night

Who ever thought a werewolf named Jack Russell could be so awesome? Werewolf by Night was part of the Marvel monster surge of the early '70s and remains one of Marvel’s most heroic classic monsters.

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In fact, none other than one of Marvel greatest monster hunters Moon Knight first appeared in the pages of Werewolf by Night as Russell’s title was once an essential part of the MU. At times, Russell is cut from the classic Lon Chaney mode of lycanthrope but at others, the kind and moral Russell is fully in control of his inner beast and operates as a classic super hero (albeit a hairy one). One can usually find issues of Werewolf by Night in dollar bins and that is one hell of a bargain because Werewolf by Night was one of the strangest, most surreal titles of the '70s.

Awooohhhh!!!!

5. Ghost Rider

What more can be said about Johnny Blaze or any of the other demonic bikers who have called themselves Ghost Riders?

The legacy of the Ghost Rider began in the pre-Marvel Age with a ghostly Western character who haunted the prairie of the American frontier. In the modern era, stunt biker Johnny Blaze was possessed by the demon Zarathos and became the flame headed spirit of vengeance of legend.

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At times, Ghost Rider has been a threat to the Marvel Universe and at others, he has been a stalwart hero, but the fact that Blaze has the power to burn the souls of evildoers makes him a featured part of this Halloween list. Arguably Mike Ploog’s greatest character design, Ghost Rider has gone through many incarnations over the years but somehow, the curse always comes back to Blaze, a man who treated with the devil and no rides the highway to Hell as the legendary Ghost Rider.

4. Blade

By all appearances, Blade isn't really a monster. In fact, he might be the greatest monster hunter in comics (sorry Buffy). But consider the fact that Blade is part vampire, and you have a heroic bloodsucker worthy of making our top 5.

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Blade's mother was turned into a vampire as she was giving birth to the future vampire hunter, making Blade a Daywalker, a man who is half mortal, half monster. Blade not only starred in many Bronze Age adventures in the pages of Marvel's black and white mags of the '70s, he was also a major player in Marvel's classic Tomb of Dracula, a part of the '90s Midnight Sons line of books, but he is also the reason we are living in the Golden Age of super hero cinema. Without Blade's cinematic success, a relatively obscure Marvel character before the films despite his monster hunting awesomeness, there would be no Hugh Jackman and the X-Men or Marvel Studios Avengers movies.

Speaking of which, Blade will finally join the MCU as played by Mahershala Ali.

3. Dracula

The granddaddy of them all, Dracula, is not only a cinema legend, he is not only a legend of literature and television, he is a comic book legend as well thanks to the premiere scare comic of the '70s, Tomb of Dracula. After writer Gerry Conway kicked off the title in grand fashion, the immortal creative team of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan crafted arguably the greatest monster comic of all time.

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Somehow, Marvel made Dracula into a classic anti-hero that captured the atmosphere and pathos of Bram Stokers’ novel and the Universal Horror classic. Somehow, Marvel also managed to weave in some super hero craziness as well with Dracula serving as the sometime hero in a book that featured one of the richest supporting casts of any comic of the 1970s. So many characters on our list, Lilith, Blade, and Hannibal King to name but a few, got their starts in Tomb of Dracula. But it was Vlad the Impaler himself that outshined them all with his evil brand of nobility. Dracula went on to star in major arcs in books like the X-Men, Thor, Doctor Strange, and even Howard the Duck. 

Dracula, in his modern incarnation, still stalks the Marvel Universe and remains Marvel's greatest classic monster.

. 2. The Thing

I almost feel bad calling Ben Grimm a monster; after all, he has saved the world with his pals the Fantastic Four countless times, but those early issues of Fantastic Four were filled with classic horror nods especially when it came to the Thing. Remember when Jack Kirby would draw Grimm in an oversized coat, with a classic fedora pulled down over his eyes? More often than not, Ben would go on angry rampages, lashing out at the world after his transformation into a hideous rock beast.

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The early days of the Thing and the Fantastic Four borrow as much from the Phantom of Opera and the classic Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde as it did from Superman. So Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew makes our list. The horror tropes surrounding the Thing really didn't last too long, but seriously, read those early FFs, you can almost hear the classic eerie organ music when Ben steps onto the page - classic horror goodness.   

1. Hulk

Like the Thing, the Hulk is way more superhero than horror icon, but in the character's year history, there were plenty of times that this titanic creature was cast in the role of classic monster. Again, particularly during the early days of the character, the Hulk had much in common with the classic monsters of old. The Hulk had an obvious connection to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in fact, Bruce Banner has been called the Atomic Age Dr. Jekyll many times. The Jade Giant had a great deal in common with Frankenstein's monster and even had some parallels to the classic Wolf Man.

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If you'll remember, in the original Hulk series, when the Hulk was still a malevolently intelligent grey brute, the Hulk did not transform when he got angry, instead it was at nightfall, and if that ain't classic monster goodness we don't know what is. So even though Hulk has thrown down with some of Marvel's greatest heroes and villains, underneath the skin of this Avenger beats the heart of a classic lonely and misunderstood monster that would have been right at home in a Universal classic.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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The Lists Marc Buxton

Oct 25, 2019

Marvel

Dracula

Hulk

Frankenstein

Ghost Rider

31 Days of Horror

from Books https://ift.tt/2JoI9Aj