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omniversalobservations · 2 years

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Copra No. 30 (May 2017)

Some say that comic book continuity is like a creative noose, a fictional world's unflinching history as something to be dealt with, not worked through. Those who don't play nice with continuity shoehorn their stories or retcon the past to fit their specific agenda which creates more contradictions future writers have to deal with. Alternately, you can treat such parameters as creative challenges, not restrictions. Use continuity as a guide to follow order. Stifling? Totally square? It can be, sure. I'm not taking into account all the last-minute editorial fuckery or arbitrary politics in a corporate setting - I'm all about the broad concept.

Broad concept: continuity and organization as a way to cope, function, and progress. (This sounds like cult-speak and you know what? I like it.) In that regard, as a prolific writer & editor who was the chief custodian of Marvel Comics minutiae, Gruenwald created some of the most personalized, intimate stories to ever come out of American superhero comics.

Personalized, not without its own law-abiding quirks. His stories are laid out carefully, the actions and reactions have built in arguments and counterpoints. It's super defensive. It's a little dry at times (interesting if you acknowledge his role as the Marvel Bullpen's gregarious prankster/leader/funnyman), and it can be argued that his over-explaining leaves little to the imagination. I see it as promoting imagination. It leads by example, and in the contexxt of his encyclopedic knowledge and passion for the type of material he worked on, Gruenwald's approach made sense. It's poetic in its clean reverence, in its weird, well-behaved way. He knew respect, and knew how to honor his values. He was aware of his station in the comics world, too, calling his virtues, talent, and aspirations into question in his editorials (Marvel Age #89's "Mark's Remarks" column is the most sobering reflection I've ever read). All of this factors into his approach. It's commitment as art, and there can be zero doubt when dealing with commitment.

Source: Michele Fiffe

#Mark Gruenwald #Crossbones #Quasar #Scourge of the Underworld #The Serpent Society #Captain America

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imminent-danger-came · 9 months

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Just remembered DBK returned from the Underworld in AHIB after the staff was removed.

#Soooooo I wonder if he'll work as like. A ''guide'' of sorts at any point #should the gang need to travel to the underworld for any reason #''Scourge of the Underworld'' oh are you DBK? Do tell us more #imp tag #lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk rant

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hauntingblue · 7 months

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Daily listen the to hades soundtrack but only the metal parts and it might only be 10am but OPEN UP THE FUCKING PIIIIIT!!!! ON THIS SUBWAY TRAIN!!!

#shit goes hard #the exalted. the painful way. scourge of the furies. the god of the underworld #and so on. bangers #talking tag

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lilac-landscapes · 1 year

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Thinking about the idea of the justice league reading gossip articles about Bruce after they find out he’s Batman and I’m losing it.

“Bruce Wayne makes a splash Friday night, drunkenly takes swim in fountain”

“Bruce Wayne third rendezvous this week??”

“Another messy night escapade for Bruce Wayne”

“Tipsy Bruce Wayne takes spill into cake, wears it well”

This is the guy that redefined fear?

It gets even better thinking about after Bruce starts adopting, cause now that entire family is in the headlines. Somehow the league has to align the mental image of the Wayne’s with the Batfamily.

“Dick Grayson, eldest Wayne boy, sails through air on chandelier at charity benefit” this guy filled in as Batman on numerous occasions

“Jason Todd caught leaving ‘kick me’ sticky notes on a drunken Bruce Wayne’s back at Saturday’s Wayne gala” like, that’s the red hood??

“Bruce Wayne’s boy Tim Drake asleep in salad next to partying billionaire” the dude who hacked the watch tower last Tuesday?

“Youngest Wayne, Damian, and sister Cass seen mimicking stumbling father as loyal butler intervenes” …The league are still terrified of these two

Like, how are they supposed to wrap their heads around the fact that these guys are somehow the scourges of the underworld who haunt Gotham.

#batfam #brucie wayne #Bruce Wayne #Batman #dick Grayson #nightwing #Jason Todd #red hood #tim drake #Red Robin #Damian Wayne #robin #cassandra cain #black bat #tempo talks #tempo posting

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katakaluptastrophy · 29 days

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"I’ve already pretty much revealed that Alecto begins with the descent of Christ into Hades." - Tamsyn Muir

That's right...it's time for more Bible study for fans of weird queer necromancers!

It's currently Holy Week, the week where Western liturgical Christians reenact the events of Jesus' death and resurrection in real time. And today, it's Holy Saturday. So Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday. He rises from the dead on Easter Sunday. But what happened in between? His body lay in the tomb...but his spirit was otherwise preoccupied. Because on Holy Saturday, Jesus went to Hell.

But why would Jesus go to Hell? Because the resurrection was not just about saving the people who came after it - it was a bit more...wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.

To be a bit more specific, he didn't visit Hell Hell. The place Jesus visited isn't Hell in the sense of eternal punishment of the damned, but Hades or Sheol or the Underworld or Limbo - a place for those who were mostly good but lived before Jesus' resurrection had made salvation possible. So before his resurrection, Jesus went to make that salvation retroactive. Particularly, according to tradition, to major figures from the Old Testament, including Adam and Eve.

So Nona the Ninth ended with Harrow walking off into the River in search of theological truth. And Alecto the Ninth apparently begins with Harrow in Hell:

Alecto the Ninth, ACT ONE HARROW IN HELL CHAPTER 1 At a point in the slit she was carving through life, Harrowhark Nonagesimus woke to find herself lost in a dark wound. She had been walking when it had all gone black– any path ahead or behind was blotted out; now she was here. - Tamsyn Muir reading at TorCon

This is riffing heavily on the beginning of Dante's Inferno:

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost." - Dante Alighieri, Inferno

But lots of people go to Hell. What's so special about Harrow going there? Because the traditional name in English for Jesus' chthonic salvation adventures on Holy Saturday is "the Harrowing of Hell." "Harrow" comes from an Old English word meaning to attack or despoil - a very martial way of expressing the idea of Jesus as the victor over sin and death.

Harrow ended NTN realising that she cannot trust John's account of metaphysics. That she needs to discover the reality for herself. The faith of the Nine Houses and John's own styling as god rests on the foundation of the Resurrection - John is the "ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death", his power is understood to be absolute: "Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to him. Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine."

And yet even that prayer - "let those across the river..." - introduces doubt. Magnus jumps in to silence Abigail when she expresses her heretical belief in the River beyond, and Harrow herself scoffs that "it has been thousands of years since anybody bothered to believe in the River beyond." Abigail believes that John knows nothing about what exists beyond the River. And what about Hell? In HTN, Ulysses the First is described as "languishing in Hell" after his run-in with a Resurrection Beast. John himself describes the stoma as "the mouth to Hell", "a portal to a place I cannot touch - somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless."

In the Book of Revelation - the Bible's account of the end of the world - Jesus holds "the keys of death and Hell". John may have resurrected the dead, but he does not comprehend what is beyond it. Both the destination of the good, the River beyond to which the souls of little Isaac and Jean should have traveled lightly after their short and brutal lives, and the Hell that lies beneath the stoma are outside of his power. He is a few keys short of the full divine bunch. He can manipulate death, but he is not really its master.

And so Harrow walks off into the River to look for something or someone she can call god. Harrow, who shares a name with the defeat of death across time and space. Harrow, who is of the unbroken line of Anastasia. Anastasia was kind to Alecto, who like Eve is the mother of all and like Adam walked on the empty earth with god.

In Orthodox icons, the Harrowing of Hell is depicted with Jesus triumphant, leading Adam and Eve by the hand from their tombs. The traditional term for this image is an anastasis, the Greek term for resurrection. Adam and Eve, whose sin broke the intended shape of reality, are restored to wholeness with god.

How will Harrow answer her questions about god? What really is beyond the stoma and what would it mean to conquer it? What does it look like, metaphysically, to restore the world of The Locked Tomb to wholeness, and what will it cost?

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #harrowhark nonagesimus #john gaius #alecto the first #anastasia the first

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makethatelevenrings · 1 year

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I have no idea if the bingo card is finished yet or not (last i checked there were a few left!!)

but "What did you just say?" with Jason <3 idk it sounds...angst in a way and while I value my heart i do like a good "gasp??" read.

mwah mwah mwah <3

I said I was going to take a break tonight. I wrote this in an hour. I am a liar to myself.

He flinched when the hand landed on his shoulder. Jason Todd, the scourge of the underworld and solid wall of muscle, flinched at the touch of his partner. He shrugged you off and moved to the other side of the room so he could start stripping off his weapons and placing them in their respective cases. He’d be damned if he left a knife or gun somewhere you couldn’t see and you accidentally injured yourself.

Fuck. He was just a walking red flag for you. His very presence was a danger to your life. How many times had someone come close to you because you were Jason Todd’s partner? He could only dread the amount of people that would follow if they knew he was the Red Hood.

“What’s going on, Jase?” you asked quietly. You didn’t try to come any closer and instead you sat down on the end of the bed and watched as he went through the post-patrol motions.

“Nothing.” His voice was gruff and low as usual, but you could sense something under the veneer of ice and metal that coated that one single word. Your eyes narrowed and you repeated yourself, slower and with more intention.

“What is going on in that pretty head of yours, Jay?”

“I said nothing so stop fucking pushing,” he snapped. He slammed the lid of his gun safe a little harder than normal and he winced. He was glad his back was turned to you because he didn’t want to see the look on your face. Hell, he didn’t want you to see the look on his face. He was doing this to protect you. To keep you out of this life and away from the blood that he could never clean out from under his nails.

“No.”

The word was crisp and it cut through the silence that enveloped the apartment. Jason’s hands hovered over his thigh holsters and then his shoulders tightened. He turned around to face you, all six feet and three inches of pure muscle looming over you like a warning. His lips curled up into a sneer before he spat out his next sentence.

“What did you just say?” Venom laced his mouth and spat out into every word, coating his tongue with hatred and rage. For a brief, vicious moment, he relished in the way your nose twitched and your brows sank for just a moment, but then the venom turned to the burning acid of bile in his throat at the realization that he was hurting you from his words. He didn’t even need to use his fists.

You composed yourself and he blanched for a moment when he saw the way your hands curled up into the sleeves of his hoodie that hung off of your body. You looked so small in that moment even though he knew your personality could capture an entire room.

“I said no. I said no because you don’t get to tell me to not push. Because I know what you’re doing.”

That little hitch in your voice was nearly enough to bring him to his knees but he just glanced away and crossed his arms over his chest, as if they would defend his heart from you. As if you didn’t already hold his heart in the gentle cup of your hands.

“And if this is how you want it to go, Jason Peter Todd, then so be. So fucking be it.” Rage sparked in your eyes and he flinched just barely under the shaking tone of your voice that reeked of barely suppressed anger. “But I’m not going to sit here and let you self-destruct our life because you think that by pushing me away that you’re doing me a favor. You can take that notion right out of your head because I’m not leaving even when you’re being the biggest dick alive.”

You stood up now and your pointer finger jabbed into his chest. He could barely feel it through his body armor, but the pressure grounded him. Tears shone in your eyes and his face fell. God, you were always so good at reading him. He should have known you would catch on within seconds.

“My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you,” you whispered. Your jabbing finger turned into a delicate, open palm pressed against his covered heart. He dropped his head onto your shoulder and let out a long, shuddering breath.

“I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again,” he announced to his traitorous mind. He sank to his knees and pressed his forehead against your stomach. You cradled him to you, your fingers running through his sweat-soaked hair.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“I know. I know you are. I know you’ll do this again.” He had these moments after particularly violent nights. All brute strength and barbed words in the hopes that you would leave him because he knew that he was strong enough to go head to head with metahumans, but he would never be strong enough to walk out on you.

“You should leave me,” he voiced his thoughts.

“Shhh.” Your nails scratched across his scalp and he pressed himself closer to you. What a sight he made. A man kneeling in penance at the altar of his deity. He could offer nothing but his broken vessel, but you always accepted it and filled it with love, even when it leaked out and spilled onto the floor.

His fingers clutched at your hips and you laid a gentle hand on the back of his neck, your skin soft against his armor. He should pull away. He shouldn’t let his gear touch you. Taint you.

“Stop thinking,” you ordered. “Whatever you’re thinking, just let it pass. Focus on me.”

This would happen again. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow he would wake up before you and make your favorite breakfast, not as an apology but as a thanks. He would lay on the couch with his head in your lap as you read aloud whatever you were currently reading. He would kiss you with the sweetness you deserve and love you with the heart he should have.

But when he came home with that look in his eyes in a month or maybe even in a year, and he got ready to push you away, you would simply sit on the edge of the bed and bring a grown man to his knees.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd imagine #red hood x reader #red hood imagine #red hood angst #honey's 3k celebration

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crepe-of-wrath · 1 year

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Shouta Smutty Scarf Saturday

Warnings/Tags: 18+; LONG one shot; Aizawa x fem reader; binding cloth used in risqué ways (around the neck, as a gag); enthusiastically consented to CNC; but will not scratch the itch for anyone who is looking for rougher CNC; AU inspired by the Betten Court sketches where Aizawa never became a teacher; Deku's class are third-years; Reader is their homeroom teacher; kind of has a plot, with Comical Misunderstandings courtesy of members of 3-A; self-indulgent fantasizing even by the standards of my tumblr/this series

Aizawa Sketch by Vigilantes artist Betten Court (not depicted: my screams of sexual frustration)

It had been a very long day.

You just wanted to get home, shower, crash for a few hours without having to worry about being woken up for a teenaged life crisis, and rouse yourself early enough to catch your boyfriend as he came back from patrol so you could send him off to his own sweet dreams with a good fuck before you had to get back to the school.

You were on your usual shortcut out of the UA campus, following a makeshift path down a small rise, past a utility building. You heard something in the bushes. This was really not the time for a villain attack. Not that there was a good time for such an attack, but this would have been exceptionally bad timing. You opened your second pair of eyes to scope out the situation, blinking a few times to clear away any obstructions. (Yes, you were a teacher with literal eyes in the back of your head. Yes, you had heard all the jokes. Even that one. Especially that one.)

You didn't see anything, so you just kept on walking. Until you couldn't. Because you were suddenly all bound up. Instead of anger or fear, you felt excitement. There was only one person who could get one over on you that easily...

He seemed to appear out of nowhere. Your boyfriend, Aizawa Shouta, Eraser Head, scourge of the criminal underworld, the Night's King himself, held your fabric restraints in one hand while he twirled his goggles around a finger of the other.

You stood rooted in place until he tugged on the bindings, forcing you to follow him to the utility shed. He pressed you into the side of the shed face-first, loosening the bindings so they draped around you more than anything.

"Be a good girl and this will be fun for us both," he whispered in your ear, following up his command with a tiny nip of your lobe before adding, "I don't have long."

You batted your second set of eyes at him and tried to shimmy around so you could face him and grip his shoulders and back.

Shouta just laughed at you. "You think you're in control, little girl?" Ohhh, when his voice got that dark, that commanding, that borderline-sinister...

"If you want to be in control just say the word, sweetheart," he added quietly.

You shook your head no. "I'll be good," you said. "I want to be good."

"Then you'll be quiet while I fuck you," Aizawa said, as he turned his scarf into a makeshift gag. He hiked your dress up and tore your panties off. Your second eyes watched him stuff them into one of the pockets on his belt and you gasped through the gag. He pressed his body close to yours and you heard him start to unfasten his costume. You whined and pleaded with your second eyes.

"All right," he said softly, backing up so you could see him partially undressing himself. His thighs were so muscular and exuded power, just like the rest of him. You whined again when he left his boxer-briefs on, but this time he gently pressed you back against the shed placed one hand where your collarbone met your neck, and said, "I told you to be quiet." He gently squeezed the front of your neck a little and your legs almost buckled--this was your favorite, your absolute favorite thing--while his other hand moved between your legs.

"You don't want anyone to hear, do you? Or do you want to get caught?"

You made all manner of little noises and the scarf gag got a little wetter. The hand around your neck pulled down your dress bodice and began massaging your nipples through the lace of your bra.

"Fuck yes," Aizawa growled. "Look at what a mess you're becoming. Should drag you to a bed, tie you up, see if I can make you come just from playing with these." He grabbed your breast forcefully and your back arched--you really were on the verge, but Shouta clutched you until you were still. Very, very still. And, as you now realized, very, very wet.

"Ready, kitten?"

You nodded.

Shouta slowly pushed his length into you before he began to move with the sort of control only he could be capable of in such a situation.

"Look at me, beautiful. Please," he begged. You opened your second eyes and he was staring back at you with a tremendous amount of love. You grunted three times quickly, and Shouta took the gag out of your mouth.

"Love you so much, Shouta. Make me yours."

He was a powerful man and he poured all that power into relentlessly fucking you against the shed. It didn't take long for an all-encompassing orgasm to overtake you, and then him.

He kept you caged in against the wall as you both came down. You felt so protected. Part of you just wanted to sleep, but the way Shouta firmly placed his hand on your shoulder told you that wasn't how this was going to go.

Shouta kissed the back of your head. "We're not done."

"Hey, Bakugou, I think we may have a problem."

"The problem is that you are interrupting my studying, Shitty Hair!" Bakugou's hands began to pop a little bit, which caused Mina and Jirou to shoot a Silence! look in their direction. Bakugou's entire body flexed like he wanted to blow up, but he managed to spit out a "Sorry" instead.

Kirishima smiled at Bakugou for a second before getting stern. "I'm serious. I think [Name]-Sensei may be in trouble."

"Tch, [Name]-Sensei is a Pro." Kirishima noted that, despite this declaration, Bakugou hadn't returned to what he was studying.

"Bakugou, you were the one who noticed that, when [Name]-Sensei spends the night at her apartment, it takes her exactly 18 minutes from when she leaves the dorms to exit through the gate out there (he pointed at an exit clearly visible from the window). Well--she left forty minutes ago and I haven't seen her."

"Hmmmm...." Bakugou looked at his books, looked back at Kirishima, and then started to nod. "Yeah...let's go."

"What a cute little kitten you are, all tangled up." Aizawa's voice had moved somewhere beyond sinful, to some new vista of sexual charge that you didn't know existed. "I think you'd look so pretty with a little collar." He gently looped his scarf around your neck. "Hmmm, I'm right, it makes you look so pretty. I think I want to see you like this more often, baby."

You nodded your head 'Yes' and moaned, trying to use the wall of the utility shed to muffle the sounds. But, when Aizawa tightened your 'collar' just a little and began teasing your entrance again, it became clear no amount of trying to muffle things was going to help.

You felt like you were going to come again just from Shouta rubbing you and moving one, then two, fingers in and out of your pussy, but instead he sheathed himself inside you again. You made something that sounded like a wail, and you got louder and louder as Shouta moved inside you.

From some distance, you heard an out-of-place voice:

"[Name]-Sensei! It's OK! Bakugou and I are coming!"

Shouta stopped thrusting and froze. You flexed your body in frustration (Kirishima and Bakugou were extremely lucky that you'd had an orgasm already).

"It's a couple of the kids," you hissed.

The fog of lust that had been enveloping your brain quickly dissipated and the severity of your situation became clear. "What the hell are they doing here?"

He couldn't help himself: "I told you you needed to be quiet, baby."

Your second eyes flashed and you sputtered a bit before snapping at him. "Help me--take the fucking scarf off--your pants--this is a disaster--my life is over--"

Shouta tried to soothe you as he removed the scarf and tried to help you reassemble your outfit.

The boys' footsteps got louder. They were close to the rise. You could see the tops of their heads. Which meant they could probably see you.

"We're coming Sen--" Bakugou's voice cut off and you heard the sound of something falling to the ground.

"Fuck!" said Shouta, who was finishing fastening himself up. "That didn't sound good."

"Let's go," you replied.

You and Shouta were halfway up the rise when you made eye contact with...Kayama. Kirishima and Bakugou were slumbering at her feet, and she was grinning.

"I would never have guessed, [Name]." She also gave Aizawa quite a look. "But I approve." Shouta looked as embarrassed as you had ever seen him.

"Don't worry," she said. "They didn't really see anything. Just a flash of their Sensei and some figure dressed in black."

You both nodded.

Kayama motioned toward Bakugou. "I truly do hate to tear lovers apart, but I'd say we have about 10 minutes, so we'd better hurry."

You gave Shouta a hug and a chaste kiss. "I should probably just stay here tonight. See you tomorrow?"

He kept you close. "Next time let me pick where we do this, baby. I know places where I can have you to myself for as long as I want you."

Your face got hot and you whined as you tried to grind against him a little.

Kayama cleared her throat.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye for now, kitten," Shouta whispered in your ear before he gave you one last peck on the cheek.

You helped return the two boys to their rooms and then you and Kayama walked to the teachers' wing in dead silence except for bidding one another a good night. When she shut her door behind her, you could hear her peals of laughter through the wall.

The next morning, you could tell Kirishima wanted to say something. "Good morning, Kirishima. I hope you slept well." "I had the oddest dream, Sensei. Bakugou and I were about to save you from a villain attack and then...and then..."

"And then what?" snarled Bakugou.

"I woke up in my bed," replied Kirishima. "It was a much crazier dream than I'm making it sound."

Bakugou's face was unreadable.

The chimes sounded, and there was a gruff noise at the door. Shouta shuffled in and you were fairly certain that you stopped breathing for a moment before you remembered that he was here to talk to the class about CQC.

He stood next to you for a moment and you both stared out toward the kids. "Class," you began in a voice that seemed like it was coming from outside your body, "today, the covert special operations hero Eraser Head will be providing some specialized instruction in close quarters combat..."

As you talked, you couldn't help but note the absolute confusion in Kirishima and Bakugou's eyes.

It was going to be another long day.

#aizawa x reader #aizawa smut #aizawa shouta #bnha aizawa #aizawa x y/n

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inbabylontheywept · 5 months

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Odysseus in Space

Odysseus knew better than to expect peace in death. He’d seen what currents lay under the Styx - knew what kind of warriors that he’d sent there. He fully expected another war to start as soon he took his last breath.

Instead it had been quiet.

He’d used the lull to build a home in the endless plains of asphodel. Somewhere simple he could stay and wait for Penelope. It only took a few years for her to join him, and then together they began the work of replicating the palace of Ithaca. It was work, but it was hard to complain about work when he’d expected battle. His greatest skill in life had been enduring to the end. Now it was the end, and still he endured.

It was three centuries before this death was interrupted.

Hades came to him, not as a god, but as a guest. The fates had woven a story that required a very specific soul. One that could travel the lengths of the world without breaking, who could survive a lifetime of war. And try as Hades might, he could not make a soul that was up for the task.

Still, what he could not make, he could find. Death was a sacred thing, the last right of all mankind, but it was not inalienable. One could sacrifice their death just as easily as their life.

The two had spent months haggling out the details of the work. Hades had wanted 50 years, Odysseus wanted just 20, and together they’d compromised on 32. All in exchange for the right of him and Penelope to visit Telemachus once a year, in whatever corner of the underworld their son had been given.

In the end, they’d shaken on it and Odysseus walked the earth once more. He had a new name this time - fitting, for a new fate. Alexander, the world named him and Alexander he named the world back. City by city, battle by battle, he gave the unwanted title away. Then when he was 32 he returned to Penelope, no more Alexander to give. It was a relief to be Odysseus once more.

A year after that, Penelope and him made the journey to see Telemachus. It was worth every step he’d taken between Pella and Babylon.

There were other interruptions from Hades, new deals with new names. He scourged the descendants of Troy again as Hannibal and bought another day per year with his son. He blazed down the steppes as Atilla and conquered the whole world with the same tools he'd used in his first life. It turned out there was little he couldn't accomplish with a horse, a bow, and a brain.

So many lifetimes, so many wars, and then - quiet. A whole millennium of peace went down as easy as honeyed wine. It made him happy. He liked his little deals with Death, but he’d wished so many times that men like him weren’t needed. He was proud of his descendants for making a world better than he’d dreamt.

And then, nearly a whole second millennium after that, Hades returned.

---

“It’s not a war.”

Four words that would set the hackles of anyone that fought at Troy - they’d hoped that one wouldn’t be a war either. But Odysseus had made enough deals with Hades to know that the man was frank in his dealings. There was an honesty to Death. Enough honesty that he’d taken him as a guest.

(He was very choosy about his guests now.)

“You never come to me unless it’s a war. It’s what I’m best at. Why-”

Hades cut him off.

“War is not what you’re best at. Six-hundred men won that war with you. What set you apart was being the only one to make it back.”

Odysseus’s voice caught in his throat. It had been more than two-thousand years and the memories still burned to touch. It took two deep breaths before he was able to force a reply.

“Then what do you want?”

Hades looked lost. He paused a few moments, before looking back at Odysseus, one hand up to plead for patience.

“When I struggle to explain, it’s not because I’m trying to find a clever way to lie to you. It’s because this is a very strange thing, and I…I don’t know how to describe it well.”

He looked into the hearth. Watched the light and heat fade away. Then, he gestured at the log.

“The wood you’re burning. It’s a dead thing. And yet, it dies more after you burn it because the fire has life in it. Soul too. Even here, there’s a corner of the underworld where the souls of dead flames gather. More things have souls than any mortal seems to recognize.” Odysseus was intrigued. When he lived, he’d learned the secrets of the body better than most doctors. There was only so much cutting you could get people to volunteer for. But here, the mysteries of the soul were lost to him. This was godly knowledge, given freely. What that had to say about the request was worth considering. “The mountain has a soul, but the mine in that mountain has a soul too, as does the ore from that mine. The ingot, the sword, the bundle of nails - all of those things are alive in some way. And yet, some of them are more alive than others. You sailed once, Odysseus, and no one knows this better than sailors: Boats have strange souls. They’re about as alive as anything that could be built in your time.”

The space around Hades shimmered. The man was thinking, and in a realm where he had total dominion, it took effort for thoughts not to change reality. Odysseus appreciated the effort. The replica had taken centuries to perfect. Death was a strange friend to him, but a friend nonetheless.

“But the arts have improved from that time, and the mortals of today have built something… incredible. Unimaginable. And they’re sending it on a journey that I have no reference for. The Deaths that have seen things like this are alien to me. They speak of things I cannot understand. The Death of Heat. The Death of Light. The Death of Stars…”

He trailed off in a way that made it clear he was remembering something unpleasant and not merely waxing poetic. He caught himself and looked embarrassed, as if he’d confessed to something best kept secret. Then he continued. “I am a very human Death. And this thing - it isn’t human. But it was made by humans, and so its soul needs a… a human touch. Your soul isn’t the archetype for a soldier, Odysseus, it’s the archetype for a traveler. I couldn’t take you and put you in this thing if I wanted to, you’re just the wrong shape, but what I’m about to do, I need to see you for. Because this thing is going to travel in ways that I am barely beginning to understand. In ways that are redefining the limits of what it means to be human.”

Odysseus was lost. He didn’t know what he was being asked. He didn’t know what was being built. There were so many questions that he needed to ask that they’d formed a log jam in his mouth. One finally broke free and started a cascade.

“What is it?”

Hades gestured helplessly.

“It’s like an arrow and a ship. They’re going to shoot it past the stars.”

That meant nothing to Odysseus, but he suspected every answer he received would sound like a riddle.

“What do you need from me?”

“Permission to copy your work. The soul I made for you is different from the one you died with. You made changes that I cannot replicate. That I do not understand. That I need for this soul to work.”

Odysseus paused.

“Is it going to be used as a weapon?”

Hades shook his head.

“No. The world is gentler than you remember it. This thing will be what you should have been: A traveler without equal. No more, no less.”

Odysseus couldn’t tell if those words ripped something in him open, or healed something closed. Either way, it hurt in a way he didn’t know how to express. His mouth opened and closed several times before he settled on an answer.

“Then take what you will. My only request is to see the journey.”

“Done,” Hades agreed. He could have left right then, but he chose to stay in silence until the fire burned out. There are some ideas that one shouldn’t be left alone with. Not until they’ve had an hour or three to process them, at least.

---

Twelve-billion miles from Earth, moving just shy of mach fifty, the Voyager 2 probe glittered in the darkness.

It watched the world around it with the kind of awe a human couldn’t fathom. Nothing was hidden from it. Everything from the atomic composition of stars, to the background hum of the universe itself - all were available with a glance. The only sound it could hear was the constant blip of data that it received from Earth. The small blue dot on starlit shore.

It missed that place. Maybe, one day, when its journey was done… it would find a way back. Maybe. That was still eons away.

Odysseus stood just a few feet off, watching from a direction no one but Hades knew how to walk. He felt the thrill of the expanse in front of him, the utterly incomprehensibility of his speed, and yet its meaninglessness as well. To imagine that the world was so big. To imagine that the world was so strange.

He wept and he could not explain why. He lingered in the twilight until Penelope found him. When she asked him what was wrong, he had no answer. How could he tell her that the world was beautiful, and that he had a place in it? Not just as some ugly middle step, but there at the end. Hurtling through space like an arrow made of silver.

How could he explain to someone that had loved him for two-thousand years that he finally understood why?

#so ive been reading the odyssey #and ive become slightly obsessed #its really good guys theres a reason this stuff has been getting translated for like 2000 years #anyway here is my odyssey fanfic #thx for reading this #<3

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superherobriefings · 9 months

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Bob Phantom, Scourge Of The Underworld

Creator(s): Harry Shorten, Irv Novick

Alias(es): Walt Whitney

1st Issue w/Uniform: Top-Notch Comics #20

Year/Month of Publication: 1941/10

pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Bob_Phantom

#superheroes #comics #bob phantom #scourge of the underworld #walt whitney #classic #golden age #green trunks #green underwear

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nitpickrider · 7 months

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It's almost like vigilante street violence against "bad guys" with no regard to empathy or ethics is SUPER EASY for fascism to co-opt just by slightly tweaking who "bad guys" defines. Captain America 394

#marvel #marvel comics #marvel universe #marvel heroes #superhero #comics #scourge of the underworld #red skull #johann schmidt

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gabessquishytum · 1 month

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Ok so you know how the comics take place in the same universe as the justice league and all those guys? And you know how in the comic of 24/7 there's some local, small town superhero on TV, suggesting that any random loser can be a superhero? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Superhob: mild-mannered professor by day, scourge of London's criminal underworld by night. Calls himself The Immortal, doesn't appear to have any superpowers but fights with all kinds of old-timey weapons like maces and crossbows and stuff. He's been shot and stabbed and blown up and all kinds of things that really should have killed him, but he just keeps coming back. Probably has an ongoing rivalry/sexual tension with Johanna.

Could be a fishbowl rescue, and/or maybe he manages to catch the Corinthian? Or like, he somehow manages to cross paths with Dream shortly after he gets out of the fishbowl and they just do the Spiderman pointing meme at each other. Idk, I didn't have any particular plot in mind but I feel like there's a lot of potential there...

-🍓

This is such a great idea!!! Especially with the whole plot with The Sandman becoming a superhero through Jed's dreams (in the show)

I like the idea of a fishbowl rescue - Hob’s been hearing these rumours about fawney rigg for years, and one day he just happens to be in the area. He figures he'll take a look, since he's already in costume/fully equipped with weapons. Turns out he only has to bonk an old man over the head with the butt of his sword, so it's not very complicated to infiltrate the Manor. But what he finds in the basement in a lot more complicated, that's for sure.

He gets Dream out of the glass, glad that he's got such array of pointy, heavy medieval weapons. He can't get over the fact that he's just rescued his stranger. His stranger apparently can't get over the fact that Hob is trying to be a superhero (Hob resents the word trying - he's a very good superhero thanks very much).

Dream is like "Well thanks very much but now I have to find all my stuff" and Hob is like "cool! I'll help!" So superhob and the sandman join forces, to look for the sand (Hob has a pretty good idea that Jo had some weird magic pouch at one point). Maybe along the way they discuss the whole 1889 misunderstanding. Dream admits that maybe they are friends now. Even if Hob’s superhero identity is kind of cringe.

I quite like the idea of Dream going to hell (and refusing to let Hob come), so while he's gone Hob goes and looks for the Corinthian and a lot of stabbing goes down, but ultimately Hob captures Cori and when Dream comes back, he finds his rogue nightmare bound up with ancient magic while Hob sits on his chest and smiles smugly.

Maybe Superhob is a little more competent than Dream was willing to admit...

#🍓anon #the sandman #dreamling

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