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sineala · 3 years

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Tony Stark and Arthuriana

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

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

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

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

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

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

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

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

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Tony gets it.

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

So that's a thing that happens.

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

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

Whew.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#posts i actually wrote

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onewomancitadel · 3 years

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iressent submitted:

This is just really a response to the worries of Knightfall.

Cinder has always been a controversial topic amongst the FNDM, more so than most things since she’s a main character. However, someone will always have some problem with the show, no matter what. Whatever ships happen, events, etc. In the end, it’s CRWBY’s story and what they want to do with it. Especially since Cinder killed Pyrrha, people are going to harbor some hatred towards her but what really matters is how the characters feel about it, or at least how CRWBY thinks the characters should feel about it.

My problem with White/knight is how it affects the story and characters really and why Knightfall seems better story-wise. With Whiteknight, while Weiss and Jaune may make a cute couple, their families (The Arcs and the Schnees) just don’t make a good and compelling story. Plus, they both have family names to live up to in a sense, which sort of conflict with each other. They seem a lot more platonic, if anything. There’s a lot more potential and development for Knightfall, as well as the parallels/allusions with Cinder and Jaune.

As for Cinder killing Pyrrha, if Jaune forgave her or even just helped her, moving on and forward is a big theme of that show. He could move forward with Cinder in a sense. All in all, it’ll take time whether Knightfall becomes canon or not. Hell, even though I’m pretty sure Cinder’s going to get redeemed, it’s going to be a while until it’s completely certain to the whole FNDM. Plus, with Jaune having to kill Penny to stop Cinder, it might force him to reevaluate Cinder again and push him forward again to know why she’s doing all this. Though I do expect some scenes with Weiss having to comfort Jaune in Volume 9, since she was there when he killed Penny. If White/knight will happen, I have a feeling CRWBY will confirm or deny it there. In other news, how are the prompts and everything else going?

__________________________________________________

My response below (under the cut).

Wow, yeah, you make really great points and I basically agree with everything you said. Particularly on the note of White/knight (sorry I made only one edit to your post and that was just to make sure it filters out of the tag), it’s admittedly my NOTP. I really don’t like two scions of major families being in a romance but I guess that could also be the Two Houses type of element going on, prince and princess type of deal. I do prefer the nobody with the somebody (Rey Nobody 4lyfe).

I know Jaune’s crush on Weiss was put in as a joke early on in the show, but it makes a stupid amount of boring sense that we would get the ‘oh they’ve both grown, Weiss has opened her heart and Jaune is soft and compassionate and undemanding now’ type of progression.

So my scepticism will always be there, I expect V9 will probably be laying the foundation for that if it’s going to happen, especially after his Semblance unlocked with her. Also, you’ve probably seen hamliet’s blog, and she’s gone into detail that they’ve had two chemical marriages by this point, and that’s a big deal in alchemy storytelling. That basically means in my eyes it’s probably going to be canon.

My worries err on the side of Knightfall not happening because of that. I also don’t want to be the shipper who ignores what canon is actually saying, goodness knows FNDM has struggled with understanding the core of RWBY’s story. It seems kind of too obvious on paper for me - the main cast paired up neatly, Cinder experiencing death-by-redemption - these are all well-trodden narrative paths, and living past redemption is rare enough in fiction. I do think RWBY is a show committed to its own story - irrespective of FNDM and irrespective of other stories (or, well, in response to them as well) - but like, I mean, I’ve read too much meta about Cinder definitely dying by sacrifice for me not to be extremely wary. I just don’t want to be hurt again. I know I’m pathetic for being obsessed with a villain, Ben already died in SW when we all thought he was going to live happily ever after, I’m not going to be caught out like that again.

That being said I’m also in a horrific mood today and I think that’s colouring this post lol.

So anyway, I think The Indecisive King type of patterning and Jaune being involved in Cinder’s turncoat will probably hold true, but to what degree I can’t say. I remain pessimistic and it’s probably better to (for me personally), I don’t want to become presumptuous or also be caught out by the narrative doing exactly what I knew it was fucking going to do lol.

Oh well *shrugs* I appreciate your response here, you make many good points, particularly the line of thought regarding Penny.

I do think Knightfall, again, makes an inordinate amount of sense with the shows themes and parallels, and I really struggle with White/knight because that pairing basically breaks the whole Salem/Ozma patterning of the ships (Weiss is Oz-coded, so is Jaune) and that really bugs me. Basically, if White/knight is canon, Reverse Salem/Ozma goes completely out the window, lol. That bugs me. Then I really, really got it wrong, and I’ll feel embarrassed and probably do something like delete my blog. Sigh.

I’ll try to avoid it, anyway.

So yeah

Hopes: canon Knightfall, living Cinder redemption, happily ever after

expectation: canon White/knight, death by redemption with Cinder (redemption is almost certain for the Fall Maiden at this stage, but it’ll probably be the really annoying kind I hate more than them staying evil, especially when they’re young characters and it’s not parental sacrifice).

I’m going to go have a cry in the corner and then go back to writing my fic where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts lol.

Prompts are going okay, I’m working on Chapter 6 of Skimming Eye but I still haven’t finished yours, I was stumped on it because a way I thought of filling it fits into my next longfic. At this stage though if I finish Skimming Eye around when V9 airs, and V9, well, does all of the White/knight business, who nose if I’ll actually post that other fic. I’m debating starting it sooner.

sorry big sad the past couple of weeks. Anyway, I’ll try to get the prompts finished soon.

Thanks again for your message, I really appreciate your enthusiasm and I love seeing you in my notifs.

#knightfall #submission by iressent #stirring the pot

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momo-de-avis · 5 years

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tell me more about millais and the whole "steal ur wife and have a happy marriage with her lmaoo" and the whole pedo thing??? im intrigued

At the top of my head and very quickly without bothering myself with checking things online cause I’m a bit lazy sorry (though I’ve been over this story for quite a while, I trust my instinct)

When the Pre-Raphaelites appeared, they were the bad boys of London. Reasons:

1) Fucked around, mostly Rossetti

2) Broke academic rules by painting in excruciating and vivid details that weren’t possible with the naked eye (like Holman Hunt painted every single blade of the grass—your eye can’t see it unless you stare closely at it, so academically, that was ugly)

3) Used redheaded women as models. Now, Victorians were absolute fucking lunatics, but the ideal beauty to them was some corpse-looking Morticia Adams. Black hair and pale skin, was top notch. Blonde, blue-eyed beauty came second, probably. What mattered was the pale skin. It was a trend among Victorian women to paint purple and blue veins to look as dead as possible because the frailty of women in a society that told they literally were good for nothing except breeding was the Latest Trend. Redheads, however, were considered cursed. Case in point: the greatest pre-raphaelite muse, Lizzie Siddal: she was not only a red-head, but her skin was also darker than most prefered. Not that she was anything but a white woman, just not white enough to look like you were already flirting with tuberculosis and ready to die fashionably at 40 (though Lizzie was famous for being constantly sick and bedridden. And addicted to Laudanum, like a good Victorian).

4) Basically what gave them the name: PRE-raphaelite. To explain quickly: academic painting privileged the art that resembled Raphael's paintings: harmonious, made of volumes through precise shadowing, mannerist in its style. Line and drawing prevailed above colour. This is linked to formalism so I’m just gonna wrap it up quickly: drawing was considered the intellectual form of art (because in the 16th century people were like ‘oh, astronomy is a science!’ and 'oh, mathematics is a science!’ and people were like, 'well shit, we gotta find a reason to call arts a science too’ and the Renaissance worked that out by explaining that drawing was basically a form of science. Take Da Vinci). The Pre-raphaelites said: fuck that noise, and privileged colour. They used techniques to brighten their paintings (like a layer of white paint applied to the canvas before they applied the preliminary drawing, which made the colours stand out, and then finished it off with wax varnish, which makes it glow. If you ever see a PR painting live, note just how vivid it is. It looks like it’s never gonna wear off, it’s incredible). So with this, they basically said the Royal Academy was a bunch of piss babies who knew jack shit about painting (the accusation of being dumbasses included).

5) …but to be that guy, you had to LIVE the life. So, if you privilege medieval thinking, lifestyle and theology, what you gotta do? BE that medieval knight Victorians thought were oh so Chivalric. Again, famously, Lizzie Siddal is known to be the bad girl of this revival: she refused to wear crinoline and whatever shit the Victorian ladies wore. She wore loose dresses, no corsets and overall dressed like the engravings on Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. She was actually lauded for her commitment like, even Ruskin at one point saw Rossetti as a piss baby rock star wannabe who never finished his shit, but this girl? She committed.

So you see, when these guys popped up, Victorians scowled. BADLY.

But they knew that, to conquer the hearts of promiscuous dandies and hypocritical high-society, laudanum-ridden, arsenic-eating uptight douches and douchesses, they had to get to the loins of one man: most important art critic of his time, single-handedly responsible for elevating William Turner to the True Genius of English Painting: John Ruskin.

Now, just WHO was John Ruskin?

First of all, this little shit was overtly religious. Protestant kind, so you know what you’re in for. This guy studied Turner back and forth, knew everything about him, wrote extensively of his genius and was responsible, as I said, to consecrate him to the memory of British sea painting. Except he purposefully left a bit out, one particular episode of Turner’s life that, to Ruskin’s mind, would ruin his reputation.

Turner was a freak. My man has ENDLESS erotic drawings that go from curious artist look into the Vagina from full-blown pre-victorian porn. And Ruskin kept it all locked away inside his drawer.

The thing was, Ruskin was brought up surrounded by art. This guy looked at Roman statues of women, with their perfectly waxed peepees and toned arms supporting perky breasts and DEAD ASS though this was what women looked like.

So he married Effie Gray, a woman in everything respectable, a prosperous marriage for the good ol’ Victorian lady and dude.

And for the next five years of their marriage proceeded to REFUSE to even touch her.

When the pre-raphaelites pop up, Ruskin attends their very first exhibition and writes them a glowing review. Immediately they go from nut-heads to pop stars. But among them all, it was clear that it was John Everett Millais who was the most talented. So Ruskin took him under his wing.

His first assignment was: paint my portrait. But the pre-raphaelites did something the British academics didn’t: to paint nature, they went outside and painting the motif by looking directly at it. And Ruskin, who praised this mode of making art, had in mind the precise spot he wanted to be painted on: a waterfal or some shit in Scotland, where he owned a cottage.

This cottage was not big. It was actually rather small—you know, in pretending-to-be-a-peasant-is-so-much-fun! victorian fashion. And what does this absolute buffoon does? He invites Millais and his wife Effie in to paint his portrait.

Now I want you to imagine this woman, who has been pushing down 5 years of Horny, putting up with this dude’s shit, enclosed in a tight space with this man—who was older than herself—and incidentally, a handsome looking young fella who paints nicely.

I insist on this thing that Ruskin didn’t touch his wife because he thought women looked like statues because he actually told her. He told her he found her repulsive because—what do you know!!! The peepee’s got some pubic hair! And women menstruate! And like, we’re real fucking things, not Pygmalion's wet dream forged over and over again! She actually wrote a letter to her father detailing this (if you watch the show Desperate Romantics, the scene were Effie confesses this to Millais, the actress is actually reciting this letter word for word).

So when they return to London after the painting is done, they just… Fall in love. I mean, shit, what was she supposed to do?

The face of a man who doesn’t know he’s about to be shit-whipped by his pupil, painted by none other than his protegée, this same pupil.

But remember: no matter what Victorian fangirls say, and whatever that Victorian TV show tries to show you, this society was absolute utter shit for women. Effie Grey presented an annulment proposal to her marriage, and society collapsed on her. She was actually blamed for the fact that Ruskin wouldn’t consummate the marriage. And because she had grown quite close to Millais, she had to prove before the entirety of Victorian society that she was a virgin. Oh, yes. It’s what you’re thinking.

Those open-your-legs-wide-and-let-me-insert-this-not-at-all-friendly-looking-metal-utensil-up--your-private-canal-to-prove-you-are-a-virgin. This, mind you, was back then as utterly humiliating as it sounds now, and to make matters worse, Mr. I-only-fuck-clean-shaven-pussy claimed she was mentally unstable.

Either way: annulment conceded, and she married John Everett Millais. The two went on to a lifelong of fucking and 8 children. Check Millais’ painting Peace Concluded and tell me those two idiots did not die happy together.

I kid you not: until Millais’ death, Effie was socially ostracized. She was even barred from being present in social events where Queen Victoria was, proclaimed by the Queen herself (because remember kids! Victorian society absolutely sucked because it was none other than our favourite imperialist who made it so!) even after she ordered Millais the first Laureate painter. It was only when Millais was dying that in his death bed he BEGGED to lift that stupid shit and she conceded. I just honestly believe Effie didn’t give a shit at this point, because my girl was happy.

So, you ask, what happened to Ruskin?

Don’t think he got off easy lmao. He had his own demise. He wasn’t seen with good eyes after the whole annulment debacle. But of course, being the pissy adult he was, he had to make things worse.

Enter Rose de La Touche.

You see, Rose de la Touche was Ruskin’s pupil. She is, as far as we can tell from his writings, the only woman he ever called attractive and revealed to be attracted to her. When, you ask?

When she was fucking 9 years old, the first time he met her.

He became tutoring her when she was 14. At this point, this ugly ass vulture was way past his 40s. Rose’s parents actually made it worse if my mind doesn’t fail me, but I’m not certain so I won’t address them. Either way, he pretty much groomed her and she grew infatuated with him. He actually made plans to marry her once she turned like, 18 or something, like a good pedo.

The only reason Rose didn’t marry Ruskin? Effie Gray stepped in. Not that she was that interested in what was to happen. The thing was, the reason for the annulment was that Ruskin was impotent, and if he fucked a healthy girl and she got pregnant, she’d be in the shits. But either way, I think it was easy given that he was like 40 years older or some shit. Rose actually declined to marry because she wanted the marriage to be unconsummated, but this time around, ya big Pedo declined! I wonder why was it so easy the first time, and so hard now that he found himself a neat little child to corrupt, right?

At some point, even fucking Rossetti intervened. Now, Rossetti was the rock star of his time: he fucked everything that moved, he got into affairs with the wives of his pupils while Lizzie lingered between life and death at his home, and it took him some 9 years to finally keep his promise to Lizzie and marry her ass. He was the last person you’d expect to say a thing. But you know you’ve fucked up and that you’re a perverted piece of shit when THIS IS THE GUY who steps in to say 'hey, Ruskin, big fan, but you really gotta tone it down cause even I’m not a pedo, pal’.

Now listen: yeah, there’s a lot of speculation about Ruskin’s 'love affair’ with Rose de La Touche. Did he really fall in love with her when she was 9? We don’t know. We don’t care either, because it doesn’t make him any less a fucking pedo. Like, yeah, good art critic, nice theory on the whole Modern Painting book, but this dude had some serious issues.

And there you go

#breakerofvows

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housewifeandaho-blog · 5 years

Text

My Birth Story

Let me start by telling you the story of something that happened recently.

So background info/ me in a nutshell since you've had no time to see my story arc and character development of where I started and how far I’ve come

I’m white, hubby is black. We aren't officially married but I feel that you can be married to someone in spirit rather than in paper.

I never thought of my family as being prejudiced or anything but as it turns out they definitely are.

Its sad because his family is so accepting of me I’m part of the pack no questions no tension just all love.

Maybe it would be different if he was more of your watered down grin you win kind of black guy but he’s not he’s definitely raw uncut uncensored gangsta gansta for life.

What I mean by that is something where if you know you know. It’s not that he is a literal gangster.

He doesn't sell drugs or anything like that. Its just this aura where you know he's the type where if you push he will push back.

He won’t bow down, he’ll never break, he’s unbending. He came from the hood, and he’s spent time in jail. he has sold drugs and held guns and those experiences become ingrained in a person and you can definitely sense that from a person.

You can tell when meeting a person if they are a worker bee or a warrior and he’s definitely the latter of the two.

A warrior can work as hard as anyone else. A warrior can be a great father, a great role model, a poet or in other words still be a beautiful person with a rich soul but it rarely works in reverse, a worker bee can rarely handle war and poverty and struggle.

He in a moments notice will always be able to tap into that part of him. a part that not every person has. I’ve joked with him that when I walk on road with him I feel like I’m walking with a Knight like I feel safe and protected. I needed that feeling when we used to live in a bad area, walking alone was intimidating but walking with him felt safe. I’m definitely overdramatizing it too. It’s not quite as intense as I make it out to be but I’m trying to let you know the situation. I think he was slightly offended when I said this to him but he’s not your bring home to momma type.

What I meant by that is that he is completely and utterly incapable of being fake. He wears what he’s comfortable wearing he won't dress just to impress he likes durags Jordans and baggy shit.

My family, especially my extended family is not used to that. They are used to people who put up a facade, you’re supposed to act like a pretend version of you that likes what everyone else likes and feels how they are. I’m not like that either which makes me a black sheep. I call it like I see it and I feel how I feel and say what's real. I didn't choose hubby to impress them, I chose him because he impresses me. If he says he likes something I KNOW its something amazing. If he says I look good I KNOW he means it, If he says he likes a friend of mine he’s telling the truth, he ALWAYS tells the truth. I like that kind of transparency I find it trustworthy.

he is the person that makes ME happy. He’s the person that gets me. He’s the person who grew me into a woman because my parents sure didn't.

The reason I’m telling you this is because even though I told him for years “Don’t worry my family isn't like that” “they don't have a hateful bone in their body” deep down I think a part of me always knew. They may not be real racists but they are however prejudiced.

It doesn't even matter though. I’ve already made my decision. Even though I sometimes feel like I’m living a split life, he is my number one. If they made me choose between them or him its him all the way.

So as I said before they are fake. It was my mother and stepdad who got to know him the most, and ruined it for the rest.

They told me “we really like him, honey” “he’s a great guy!” But for some reason, after I got pregnant everything changed.

Now we get into the meat of the story I want to tell you. My birth story.

We moved from London, ON to Toronto. We decided to stay with his grandmother for a SHORT time but it ended up being for the duration of my pregnancy it was THAT hard to find our own place to live.

Everywhere wanted “AAA Credit nonsmokers, no pets!”

We both had shit credit.

Everywhere seemed over our budget and most places had hydro or all utilities at an additional cost.

I remember calling my Mom up and saying “Mom, what do I do? There’s a place nearby but it’s $1800 plus hydro and plus $100 for parking, its not even in a good area and it has no amenities to even justify that price”

She assured me that I could have the baby there for a month or two until we can find our own place. The plan was for me to stay there with the baby and he would visit on weekends. (It was too far for him to commute to work to stay there all the time)

Flash forward its halloween. I took the train to my moms and they picked me up at this station. Hubby did NOT think it was ok for me to be taking trains and buses so far along. “I don’t get it this is your MOM. You are a girl you’re pregnant, she has a car. You're supposed to get treated like a princess right now. never mind the traffic she should be picking you up.

I Definitely got his point but try explaining that to my mom who hates even short distance driving.

Maybe doing all that walking with luggage was the cause because I woke up at 2 am Nov 1st because my water broke. I remember it feeling warm and oddly nice. I sort of sat there in the bed while leaking just mentally preparing myself.

I told myself things like “this is it its happening. you're in for it now but you can do this, you're so strong”

(side note, if you can help it, don’t let your inner voice be your worst enemy let it be your best friend sometimes I hear hubby voice, not mine)

I called him and said

“Yo, my water just broke.”

“are you sure you didn't just piss yourself?”

I laughed.

“Im sure��

I told him to get some more sleep but keep the phone nearby charge with the volume high.

I went out to the living room to my mom who passed out on the couch. I told her

“mom, remember how my due date is in 10 days? Well my water just broke.”

She seemed like she was trying to look like she had it together but she wasn't doing a great job. She was panicking. I was basically try to calm HER down. I’m mellow like that. I asked her if she wanted anything to eat and if she thinks I should eat or if I should wait.

I went into the spare room and started talking to my belly. “I’m ready let’s do this little guy”

We got to the hospital they checked all my vitals and starting monitoring the babies heart rate. We knew it would be a while so I sent my mom home. I called hubby up around 7 and told him I needed him. He was on his way and it was around this time that the doctor came to see me and discussed inducing me. Basically I could have laboured at home for a while because I still wasn't having any contractions, but because my water had broke they couldn't send me home.

I decided that it sounded alright, a friend of mine who had been pregnant around the same time as me had been induced and so the idea was familiar.

At 9 am hubby arrived shortly after they started the oxytocin drip. he brought me a tea and a croissant and looked nervous as balls.

I had a wonderful nurse who I credit as the one who delivered the baby more than the actual doctor on call. She monitored my heart rate and instructed me on proper breathing.

By around noon I was finding the contractions pretty painful and opted for an epidural. I had a weird experience where the lady who was performing the epidural LEFT without administering the medicine through the IV. After about ten minutes I was like “Is she coming back because I’m still in a lot of pain”

When you’re in labour for the first time the epidural is this precious lifeline. I didn't want to ask for it too soon, partially because I didn't want to sound like a baby. I still felt a little like I had given in too early because the nurse let me know that I was still at 2 cm which is nothing.

Btw I always thought them checking how dilated I am would be a completely painless process but no! It feels like they shove their entire arm up you and it really hurts. I was checked 3 times before I had the epidural and to me it hurt more than the damn contractions! I’m curious to know if other women feel the same way or if I have some kind of uniquely narrow shape that doesn't appreciate them fingering around in there to feel how dilated I am.

They finally gave me the longed for medicine and I found that it brought the pain to a comfortable level. the contractions went from unbearable to just uncomfortable which was fine. They give you about half up front and the let you push a button as needed to slowly administer the rest.

She put this sort of wedge thing between my legs and I went from nothing happening to 4 cm very quickly.

Everyones different but my experience was that once I could cope with the pain a relaxed enough to go into what they call active labour. The fear with taking the epidural too soon is that it can delay labour and therefore expire by the time the real pain starts. Luckily for me, this was not the case.

We suggested hubby get something to eat at around 3 pm, thinking I would be in active labour sometime that night.

The nurse put this sort of wedge thing between my legs too “help with opening up my cervix” . Just when I started pushing that button when I found the pain to be getting intense she checked me again. the first thing I noticed was that it was painless, thank you epidural, and then she told me, call whoever you need to call because if they don't get here now they could miss it.

I called hubby and told him come right now. I called my mom too, which I now regret. Hubby was the only support I needed in that room.

Hubby worried that he smelled like weed and onions and was so self conscious. I didn't notice anything so hopefully no-one else did. He wished we never forced him to eat and regretted getting high but hey, we all thought I still had a long way to go.

My mom showed up shortly after I started pushing. Hubby had his forehead pressed against mine and had a hand supporting my thigh and I felt safe comfortable and happy. I actually was smiling between pushes. I had completely by accident timed it so that the medicine was working its best when I most needed it, I couldn't feel a thing.

In a few more pushes I looked down and saw fro the first time the most gorgeous baby boy. My first thoughts were just in awe of how beautiful he looked even while wailing and how he’d come out so clean. they placed him on my bare chest and I whispered to him “You're alright, don't cry you're alright and kissed the top of his head.

My mom losing her facade blurted out “You guys need to find your own place” and shortly after left home. I absorbed that moment but sort of stored it for later. It didn't matter. All that mattered was hubby, baby, and me. That's it.

It was a time of bliss.

The nurse took the most beautiful photos of our us as a brand new family.

This was the best day of my life.

The next day however was a bit different. I knew we would get kicked out soon. Hubby and I talked it over and decided he should take off the first two weeks so we could enjoy every moment together. I dreaded the idea of not seeing him during the weekdays. And so we cherished this feeling.

Hubby left to get us some food and coffee and my mom showed up while he was gone.

She asked

“so what's his plan, is he taking the train home? “

“No were planning for him to come for-”

“No not happening he can't come to our place”

Boom. My world shattered.

The fakeness was over. No more “We love him” no more “don't worry”

The floor beneath me dropped off and I didn't know where I was falling but I just was.

I went from having a plan and just genuinely being so happy to bursting into tears and feeling clueless and helpless. I stood my ground and said

“Then Im not coming.”

I guess she didn't expect that because she was like

“Of course you are, you have too.”

I said something like

“I don't care if we stay in a motel dammit, He will spend the first few nights with his son. If he's not welcome that means I'm not either.”

She started back-pedalling and said he can stay for 2 nights but he's out Sunday.

I knew he would be back any second so I tried to hold it down for a bit.

He knew right away something was up he handed my mom a coffee and handed me mine.

After she left again I told him the situation.

He obviously refused to go there, feeling insulted and disrespected. And he didn't want his son to be around people who hated him, the father.

Do you blame him?

I said baby, whatever you want to do from this point im following you but seriously what the fuck do we do? I kept getting angry at what she had just done and kept bursting into tears.

The best plan we had was to go back to his nana and sleep on a mattress on the floor with our newborn. it wasn't ideal but we all belonged together and it would be ok.

My mom regretted what she had done and was devastated that she now wouldn't have her little baby grandson in the house but the damage was done. Hubby no longer fucks with her.

How can he after what she put us through? We had to get my brother to drop off all the baby stuff to the hospital and take a taxi to Toronto. it was insane.

When we arrived at his nana’s his family was there to greet us with all love.

It took a few months to find our own place but we are now in a lovely condo and doing pretty good. continue later

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tampon-on-the-sidewalk · 7 years

Text

New York Recap

I am really sick so this’ll be short sweet and simple(enough) very long and under a cut

My travel anxiety SUCKED on my way to New York and I got there 20 minutes late but all it took was one hug from my boyfriend to make it all better(I have not seen him in 9 months)

That night we went to the Japan Society art exhibit which was really really neat and about gender(though a few of the paintings were explicit). They had a little café/bar setup with a live band playing and it was just really really neat. Also, if I am remembering the painting description correctly, Geisha were originally all men

I think we ate at Applebees that night.

The following day we visited my old haunts- Nintendo Store(where he found a Legend of Zelda sheetmusic book and a Venusaur, and we looked at their collection of old consoles and watched a couple people try out the new games), Sunrise Mart(Four words- Chocolate Chip Melon Pan), Bookoff(Where I found all seven volumes of the anime Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok and all were under 7 bucks except for one that was like 8, naturally I bought all seven and now have a show to binge.Also found some Morning Musume concert discs/Single Vs but couldn’t remember what I already had so I let them be. Talked myself out of buying a Tsunku album.), and Kinokuniya(Café Zaiya’s sakura mousse was absolutely fantastic and I FOUND BOTH MOMOCHI AND KARIN’S PHOTOBOOKS AND A C-UTE ONE TOO but they were like 40 bucks a pop and he had to do everything in his power to stop me from buying them though honestly I should’ve bought C-ute’s). We ate at the hotel restaurant I think, it was okay but I started getting a sore throat.

That same night, we ended up going to the Ripley’s Museum(whish was really fricken neat, I’ve been to the one in Atlantic City before but this one was quite different).

The next day and easily the best day of the trip we went to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater NJ for the first time since 2011ish. Started with the market itself and bough over 50 bucks of snacks and curry roux, then went to the café for some curry and a Strawberry Crepe(is was so fricken good omg). We then moseyed on over to their Kinokuniya, got some chuckles at manga covers, read some Japanese childrens’ books, found a book about Maru.. And then went to eat again =w= I got a Ten-don zaru soba combo and he just nibbled on some pocky. After sitting for a while longer we checked out Little Japan USA(Used to be Mars toystore/traditional good store but they combined them) and my heart told me that in the one of three remaining Shippuden mystery boxes(which were like 15 bucks a pop) was the figurine I wanted so I chanced it and IT FUCKING WAS.

After that we walked a ways to check out a shopping plaza/the supermarket chain my love works for, took a stroll by the Hudson river, and then went back to Mitsuwa for one last quick snack of Taiyaki. At the bus stop we saw two people who also came from Mitsuwa and they were talking about Kpop so I was keeping to myself but then somehow we started talking and I said I was more into J-idols and it turned out one was a fan for like 10+ years now and actually went on a 30day concert streak just to see H!P concerts and they’re like a legend in my eyes now and we talked for the entire ride back to Port Authority and it was so cool. We walked back to the hotel fully content. We found a ramen chain close to the hotel that we were familiar with from our Philly trips and it was really really good, plus they were playing oldies music and SHARAMQ’S SINGLE BED CAME ON AND I GOT SO GIDDY I DROPPED MY PHONE

And then the day of the concert.

My cold started hitting hard so we went back to Sunrise mart, mainly for lunch/Choco chip melon pan but also so I could grab some facemasks. We walked Central park for a couple hours and rode the carousel and had a grand old time while I got the worst looks from white people for wearing a mask. Then we went to the Turnstyle underground market just to look, went into Lush so I could show him all the neat things, asked about the different flavoured toothy tabs and she was like ‘I can give you a couple of this one to try back home’ and I was like ok cool AND SHE GAVE ME LIKE 20

Then we get to the venue and after a long while in line and our bladders almost exploding we get in and get like the best possible view of the stage(it was standing room and as y’all might know I am one tiny guy) and the first band was really great, Gothic Knights, they were NY based and one of few lesser-known openers that were really really good and the singer was goddamn gorgeous

Then Hammerfall came out. They were great. The mosh pit behind us? Not so much. We had to move because my boyfriend kept getting bumped into and I was pissed because he was getting annoyed so the only place we could really go was behind a support beam which was conveniently also right under an air vent. By this point I’m starting to cough super duper hard and was so close to just saying ‘lets go back to the hotel’ But no. I traveled 9 hours from Florida to NY just to see these guys. We hit up Gothic Knights’ merch booth(The lead singer was right next to me and a. he couldn’t see me smile bc facemask so he just saw my sick-and-dead eyes and b. by the time I realized he was there it was too late to tell him how amazing he was), got a T-shirt and an album and I think my sweetheart helped me pay for it

By the time Delain got on stage I was like 100%done so we sat on the stairs until the staff yelled at us and then we stood on the stairs. I could barely hear, charlotte was off her game, and it was just such a disappointment. But I am pretty sure that Merel looked right at me and smiled which made my night

Hit up the main merch booth and spent far too much- Signed Hammerfall CD, Delain Moonbathers T-shirt, and a button set. We grabbed a quick snack for my boyfriend on the way back to the hotel but I was just far too sick. Think I fell asleep as soon as we got back.

He left the following afternoon and then I went to karaoke despite being very sick and entirely croaky. You should’ve heard me try to hit the notes in Shall we Love. Got to sing with one of my close friends for 2 hours and catch up briefly before I walked back towards the hotel. It was downpouring and I still didn’t eat that day so I went back to Terakawa for some ramen and heard even more oldies jams(Diamonds by PrincessPrincess, a Finger Five song, and hilariously enough the folk song Kasa Ga Nai aka Without an Umbrella). Took a nice bath and got ready for the next day’s departure.

It started out okay honestly. Watched some TV, mailed myself my snacks, ate a great breakfast at the Cosmic Diner(the food got to me within like 2 minutes of ordering) and then left an hour early for the Subway. Glad I did too, because if I took the 1230 and had all the delays that happened on the 1130, I would’ve missed my flight. The subway took like 40 minutes longer than it should have. But anyway, get on the flight, smooth sailing so to speak, but due to overhead compartments being full before I had gotten on I needed to check my carry-on.

So I’m waiting at baggage claim. The conveyor belt gets stuck. We get stuck there for like 30 minutes while they try to fix the jam. in that time I get a call saying my 8pm shuttle(which I got so I could have time to eat beforehand, my flight landed at 540) was cancelled. Started sobbing uncontrollably and my immune system failed yet again so I was feeling even sicker because of it, and still haven’t gotten my bag yet so I was scared I’d miss this shuttle bus too and be stranded. Then another person from the company calls and informs me that no, the 8pm was NOT cancelled and I can still take it. By this time it’s almost 7p and I’m sobbing to them on the phone and I go to get something to eat but I’ve lost my appetite and am feeling far too ill. I grab something small from a restaurant, head over to the lush in the airport and buy myself 2 bathbombs, a bubble bar and toothy tabs, and go to wait for my shuttle. It shows up about ten minutes early and everything goes smoothly. I ended up calling out of work for today because as the ride progressed I was getting progressively worse.

Got home, got bombarded by my cat who was extremely upset with me, took a nice bath and went straight to sleep.

Now after spending over an hour to type this up I’m going the fuck back to bed. Goodnight everyone and thank you for reading.

#trip log #I can't even smell the menthol in my Vics tissues I'm so stuffed up #There's no way I would have been able to work today #But I did still have an amazing time and I miss the city #Honestly everything's better than Florida

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