Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12 – “Inheritance”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Girl in the World storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12 – “Inheritance”! In the previous installment, Kara goes out on a date with Irish Tom that lasts exactly four minutes before she gets accosted and assaulted by the dude who was wearing the shapeshifting suit in Issue #10. As you can imagine, this is over before it starts.

The lesson here is that Supergirl can’t make any friends because she’s a danger to those around her. She leaves Siobhan and Tom in the dust and goes off to figure everything out alone. So we’re sort of back to square one again, resulting in a very lackluster and cliffhanger-free storyline! Gotta love it!

Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12 [October, 2012]
Written by: Michael Green & Mike Johnson
“Inheritance”

Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12

Cover: “A mystery awaits at the bottom of the sea… but so does DEATH!” Looks like I’m in for another stupid fuckass suspense story that the New 52 is so good at giving me. Why is Supergirl hanging out in the ocean all of a sudden? I’m not impressed! Can’t she just eat these weird toothy eels? Sushi is underrated in the DC universe.

Where was I? Oh yes, so Kara reminisces about her father taking her to see the city Kandor when she was but a tiny little whelp of a girl. Now she sees it again under a glass dome in Superman’s hidey-hole.

“What about the people trapped inside the city?” Kara asks.

“They are still alive, but in stasis,” Superman responds. “I’m trying to find a way to free them.” OK, how about this, sir: break the fucking glass. Here, I have a hammer right here. Just do it, fucker.

No? Fine. Superman is surprised to see Kara her since Supergirl pretty much kicked his ass that one time. She believes now, probably, maybe, sure why not, that Superman is indeed her baby cousin. You know, because of time warps and exploding planets and other things I don’t remember very well anymore. Kara’s just confused, and she still doesn’t trust Superman, and woe is me and whatnot.

“They’re all pieces of the puzzle I’m still trying to solve,” Kara says sadly. “And you’re another piece of it.”

Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12

Yes, that’s very helpful. Thank you, Cillian Murphy.

Superman assures the lass that she doesn’t have to go through any of this alone. Really, honest to God, and for serious. “You can stay here in my arctic fortress,” he says as if that were at all enticing. “You’ll be safe. It’s the closest thing to a piece of Krypton that’s left now.”

Kara looks huffy. This isn’t a piece of Krypton. It’s a piece of shit. “It’s more like… a museum. A faint echo.”

Anyway, enough bellyachin’. Superman said he’d help her, so make with the helping! Superman goes to his magic hologram crystal ball and starts blah-blah-blahing about Kara travelling in a pod in statis and orbitting the yellow sun for about five years, so she got a dose of the sweet, sweet sun equal to how much Superman has been getting filtered through the atmosphere since he was a wee lad. He looks jealous since Kara got to get strong with no effort. Superman had to lift weights.

Kara surmises that someone did this on purpose. Someone wanted her to be strong when she woke up from stasis, but there’s no way to know that for sure. Oh well! Time for bed!

*intermission*

Superman did discover that, although Kara’s pod broke apart upon arrival to Earth, there is a huge chunk that has gone missing. It’s somewhere on the bottom of the ocean next to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. It might be nothing but pod garbage, OR it might possibly have a wealth of information that answers every single question that you might have! Grab your scuba gear, sister!

Superman wants to help, but Kara is so fucking stubborn about this “doing it alone” business that she tells him to shove off. “Maybe we are family, but I don’t know that for sure, and until I do, I’ll go it alone.” After Superman tells her it’s not safe to go alone, Kara freaks the fuck out at him.

Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12

Listen, we could argue who is trying to keep who under control until the cows come home. Now listen to me and do everything I say.

Superman argues that he’s been living here for decades and knows his way around the bottom of the ocean a little bit better than she does! Kara’s ready to fight him again if he doesn’t back off, though. “Just say the word and I’ll show you,” she says placidly.

…

Superman is like “fine, whatever” and goes back to his Hamburger Helper dinner. Soon enough, Supergirl skids across the ocean wondering if she made a big mistake not getting Superman’s help. “What if he’s right? What if I just cause more destruction?” she asks herself. “So what should I do? Stay locked away in his creepy museum?”

She hovers over a spot in the ocean that has a weird, mechanical voice calling her name. Perfect! Time to hold your breath and dive down to fight the Giant Mechanical Squid of Death and Destruction or whatever awaits! Or maybe it’s coming from the chunk of space pod that’s left down there. Or maybe someone dropped a walkie-talkie back in the 1950s.

She dives to the bottom of the ocean and enters an underwater canyon. Soon enough, the weird eel things from the cover art start wrapping themselves around her, snapping and hissing and biting and lookin’ for a fracas. Supergirl stays calm, but this is bullshit so she won’t be able to stay calm forever. “It’s like every lifeform on this planet just wants to attack,” she frowns while one of the eels snaps at her cheek. They start attempting to pull her down, down down, deeper in the water until she goes “fuck this” and tears them up with eyeball fire.

She’s beginning to run out breath when another eel wraps around her neck. This is it, mama! This is the end! GULP! BLUB!

…

And then it isn’t. She wakes up on the floor of the ocean, not needing to breathe, eels all gone. Convenient! She follows the continuing sounds of the mechanical voice…

Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12

“SUPERGIRL… COME CLOSER… WE HAVE… SKEE-BALL…”

Around the bend she finds a giant underwater crystal cathedral that certainly doesn’t look a piece of pod debris. Kryptonian phrases keep echoing out of its brilliantly incandescent doorway. All like “COME ON IN! I MADE COOKIES!”

Supergirl recognizes the Kryptonian design, but decides that it’s definitely not from her pod. She ascends the crystal steps that lead to the doorway and sticks her hand through the opaque barrier. Then she walks through it. “Incredible! I could feel it passing through me! Not like a physical sensation… more like… an emotion… a memory… reassuring me… welcoming me home!”

That’s called an orgasm, dear, and you ain’t never had one of those so don’t even try and fake it.

As she maneuvers through the weird crystal structure, she hears the voice now from above. “HALA VAL KARA” and “VA EL-KRYPTON”. Then it starts actually saying things like “Oh good, you’re here! How do you like the place? Isn’t it great? There’s a pool table in the basement!”

Supergirl finds the haunting disembodied voice strikingly familiar. Definitely someone Kryptonian, though. Is Rodney Dangerfield Kryptonian? He had a distinctive voice!

She keeps moving through the halls, following the voice, wondering where she is or what is going on or when the comic book is going to be over.

“Welcome to the heart of the operation, as it were,” says the voice. Supergirl enters the room that looks like one of those cathedrals in Hell. Like, all red with vaguely Satanic imagery and a strange shadowy man standing before her. “Before the punching starts, please hear me out,” the figure says. That’s promising.

“I’ve never wanted to hurt you. I’ve only ever wanted to understand you. Who you are, where you came from, what you can teach us. Thanks to this… incredible place, I’m finally making progress.”

Supergirl (Vol. 6), Issue #12

Cosmo Kramer?!

It’s Simon Tycho. He was a baddie in the first story. He stole a drop of her blood and ran a ton of experiments!

This whole storyline should’ve been about him. But it wasn’t. It was about some useless Irish family instead. How’s that for hating your audience?

Final Thoughts

It’s going to be a while until I hit the next Supergirl storyline since it’s tied into the New 52 He’l on Earth event with both New 52 Superman and New 52 Superboy, both of which I hear are terrible! I may never get to it even if I live to 100! And I’ll probably die of stress-induced infarctions at 41, so don’t hold your breath about that anyway.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Normal People – Not Very Normal People

Through the Idiot Glass Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this show and you haven’t yet seen it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned.
Discussion Subject: Normal People, Miniseries (2020) (Hulu, BBC Three)

Normal People

The Premise

Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal) and Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones) start off the series as high school seniors. Connell is smart, athletic, and has many friends and a loving mother. Marianne is smart, heavily ostracized, and comes from an abusive, but well off, household. What starts off as a secret romance becomes an extremely complex on-again, off-again relationship that we follow over the course of about four years. Connell and Marianne are both, in some ways, damaged and broken, dealing heavily with their own demons as they try to navigate through life with each other, navigate through life without each other, grow together, grow apart, and understand themselves.

There’s also a lot of full frontal nudity from both parties. Yeah baby.

Normal People

Not naked yet, but rest assured that they will be soon enough!

My Half-Baked Thoughts

This show is absolutely devastating and it ruined my life for a few days.

I read the book first and found it very enjoyable, but it didn’t break me like the show did. Not even close. I think Normal People was brilliantly cast, brilliantly acted, brilliantly directed, and brilliantly scored. I’m trying to imagine this show with any subpar elements and it wouldn’t have been pulled off in quite the same way. I doubt I’d even be writing about it right now. But here I am!

I think it’s impossible to talk about my experience with Normal People without going into a lot of personal details about my life. I had a strong, visceral reaction to the show, unlike anything I’ve felt before from any sort of media that I can remember (other than maybe Severance for a very, very different reason altogether). Whatever was going on the book came across much better in the show. I saw a lot of myself in both Connell and Marianne, even as they grew throughout the show. Connell with his inability to express himself, his inability to even know what he wants or how he feels in the moment, his feeling of alienation, his anxiety, his depression. Marianne with her introversion, her warped sense of self-worth, her belief that something might be “wrong” with her, that nothing she can do herself will help her situation. I’ve felt all this at some point or another, and I know I’m not alone in that. Connell and Marianne’s ups and downs throughout twelve episodes were both beautiful and heart-wrenching. Needless to say, I binged the show in about three days. I was a wreck, and even a few days later it’s hard to remember that these are just fictional people created for entertainment. They both seemed so real to me. It’s astounding.

Normal People

Deep down, we’re just a couple of normal people, y’know?

I’m not really equipped to psychoanalyze these two fully, because that would require a doctorate in psychology and I’m not going to get one of those *checks watch* for at least three weeks. I can’t really tell if they were consistent in their behaviors and their emotions based on their nature and their nurture. Some of it I don’t understand completely, like Marianne’s desire to be hurt during sex or Connell’s complete incapability to ask to stay at Marianne’s flat/house for the summer. Some of it I understand all too well, like Marianne’s incessant school bullying or Connell’s struggles with fitting in in a new environment. I think this is where “normal people” comes into play. To an extent, they are everyone. We all have our problems, our vulnerabilities, our insecurities. Seeing it portrayed on screen so vividly and brilliantly, as if it were my own reflection in a mirror, really hurts.

SO LET’S TALK ABOUT THE ENDING! God damn, that ending. I knew it was coming, of course, but it makes me wish I hadn’t read the book first because the show scene was so much more powerful. Christmastime, Marianne is home with Connell for the holidays, Connell and Marianne discuss Connell’s acceptance into a New York Master’s program and she wills him to go even though they both want him to stay. He decides to go. Even writing about it right now is ruining me. How mature did this relationship become that they simultaneously profess their love for one another (again) while understanding what’s best for the other? And that they know something like this won’t ruin the true friendship they have, even if life takes them along different paths and different romantic relationships? And with the very real possibility that Connell may love New York and decide to stay, separating themselves by an ocean indefinitely?

Normal People

That’s ok, go to New York. I’ve been thinking about becoming a fisher off the coasts of East Indonesia anyway.

It’s too fucking much, dude. I can’t handle this right now. I’ll let you, the reader, fill in the wide gaps of what all this might mean to me. Use your wild imagination. It’s none of your business anyway, fucker.

Worth the Watch?

I don’t think this show is for everyone, but I urge anyone who picked up the book — whether they loved it or hated it — to give it a try. I think the show did a much better job of painting Connell and Marianne as sympathetic characters, that we got to see their conversations, their facial expressions, their reactions, their behaviors, and their voices. The book required you to fill in a lot of the blanks, but the show fleshes them out a little bit more fully. And if you want a romantic coming-of-age story that doesn’t feel fake or Hollywood, this is the best I’ve ever seen. Just be prepared to be messed up for a few days after finishing it if you’re sensitive to this kind of stuff.

And if you’re not into any of that at all, maybe you can appreciate the plethora of scenes of extremely-attractive-yet-attainable naked people fucking! Positively pornographic at times. Real erotic stuff. You’ll love it.

Normal People

Let’s get it on like Donkey Kong, my love.


Click here to ridicule this post!

The Dragon Reborn (Book 3) – Chapter 16: “Hunters Three”

The Wheel of Time - Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn

The first thing Egwene notices about Nynaeve’s quarters is that she gets a room that’s about 400 times nicer than a Novice room. If Nynaeve is staying at a Residence Inn, then Egwene is staying at a Motel 6.

The second thing Egwene notices is that Elayne is in Nynaeve’s room with Gawyn (terrible name) and Galad. Egwene gets her lady parts in a moist twist over Galad’s presence. Gawyn smoothly tries to get information out of Egwene since Elayne is keeping tight-lipped on their whereabouts over the last few months. Queen Morgase has been on a fucking rampage, basically tearing down the Tower with her bare hands. Gawyn and Galad are to take Elayne out of the White Tower and escort her back to Caemlyn. Elayne is like “no way Jose” and Nynaeve is like “no way Jose times two”. Now leave before she reports the two of them to Aes Sedai Head Honcho for entering an Accepted’s quarter without Permission One. They leave begrudgingly.

Now that they’re alone, Elayne chides Egwene for glazing over in Galad’s presence and says that it’s Gawyn that has the hots for her. Become Green Ajah, Egwene, then you can marry him and have a million babies and also be Elayne’s sister, which would be pretty rad don’t you think?

LET’S GET DOWN TO BRASS TACKS. Nynaeve, much to Egwene’s mollified surprise, starts speaking to Elayne about the Black Ajah and Soulless situation even though Sheriam specifically told them to keep it between her and Egwene. Elayne is like “EEK!”, but Nynaeve needs her to be part of the team. They’re not even sure if they can trust Siuan anymore, so keep your cool, bro.

Then there’s the Mat situation. The three decide to try to pool their powers together and see if they can Heal Mat themselves, but then the door bursts open and an unnamed Aes Sedai enters the room.

SUSPENSE! Is Taylor Swift an Aes Sedai? That bitch boss.


Click here to ridicule this post!

She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4 – “The Zealous Advocate”

* Part 4 of 6 of the Law and Disorder storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4 – “The Zealous Advocate”! In the previous installment, Jennifer Walters takes Kristoff Vernard’s case to be granted political asylum from Latveria and his oppressive ruler father Victor Von Doom. All sorts of robots are sent from Doom to keep Vernard from going to the courthouse, but justice prevails! The judge grants Vernard asylum roughly 56 microseconds before Victor Von Doom crashes through the fucking roof of the courtroom to whisk his son away back to Latveria.

Jennifer Walker vows to get him back, but I think that’s a horrible waste of time. Move on. Find some heroin addict on the street who wants to sue his landlord for throwing away his one pair of pants or something.

She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4 [July, 2014]
Written by: Charles Soule
“The Zealous Advocate”

She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4

Walters, preoccupied, taps aggressively on the Vernard file with her pen. Angie Huang offers to file it away considering, you know, the case is over? Vernard is gone? Kaputt? Back to Latveria to rule on the Doom Throne. By the way, Huang tried to cash in that bag of Latveria Francs that Vernard used to pay for Walters’ time, but the bank was like THIS MONEY AIN’T REAL and threw it all in the garbage.

Huang mentions the irony. She technically won the case. She was able to grant Vernard asylum, and he doesn’t have it. Pity.

Walters punches the pen right through the file – and the table. “I’m going out of town for a couple days, Angie. Even attorneys need legal advice occasionally, you know – see things from a new perspective.”

Well, I’ll tell you who won’t be SEEING things from a new perspective! Fucking Matt Murdock, Attorney at Law. Daredevil by night. Blind as a brain-damaged bat. In San Francisco, of all places. Not sure why he’s not in Hell’s Kitchen where he belongs, but the two of them are hanging out on top of a tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Walters admires the view! Murdock admires the endless blackness.

Murdock spends a couple panels discussing his ability to “see” differently than other people, which I’ve already read about a couple of times, so screw it for now.

Murdock doesn’t miss New York, so something happened to move him to sunny San Francisco and it must have been the clams from Fisherman’s Wharf. Oh yeah, it was getting disbarred. lol

She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4

But how about I just accidentally commit suicide on the most famous suicide spot in the country instead?

“My client was Kristoff Vernard. You know, Doom’s son?”

Murdock does a flip onto a suspension cable. “Sure. What did he need?”

“Asylum. He was trying to defect from Latveria.”

“Oof. Tricky.”

“Yup. But I won.”

“Wow. Good work.”

A thrilling conversation to say the least. Once Walters tells him that Doom stole his son from the courtroom, Murdock asks her if she’s thinking about going after him. “…maaaaaybe?” she replies.

This is a sticky situation. As lawyers, they need to be zealous advocates. They need to go to any lengths to represent their clients’ interests. But, as superheroes, “any lengths” means a lot more than what would come from Joe Schmoe Trailer Park Face from Knob Lick, Kentucky. “Let me tell you a story,” Murdock begins boringly.

“A little while back I was representing Felicia Hardy in a murder trial…” The District Attorney wanted a life sentence, but Murdock thought, as Hardy’s representative, that he would rather not have his client face a life sentence, please. Murdock spoke to Spider-Man, who was investigating the case on his own, and came to find out that Hardy was actually innocent! So they fucking busted her out of the joint illegally! The moral of the story is: do whatever.

“But just because we can do those things, doesn’t mean we always should,” Murdock says, like he’s one to be all righteous. Fuck him.

Anyway, if Walters wants to chase Vernard down, Murdock knows a fake passport guy! More crimes from the crime-stopping guy. Very nice.

They spend the evening partying, and Walters leaves the next morning to Latveria where she is no longer green and already has the fake passport, somehow. She hops around the country and ends up at Doomstadt, the country’s capital. A castle looms on a hill, the residence of Doom Von Kubenhausen himself! Mr. Schnitzel!

She busts into the place…

She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4

Watch it, there’s glass everywhere! Our durable metal exteriors might get compromised!

Long story short, She-Hulk neutralizes the guards and commandeers something that looks like a giant goddamned death ray to shoot down flying robots as if she were playing Galaga. She’s having a whale of a time until an enormous metal fist grabs her puny body. “ACK!” she yells like Cathy.

“TINY GREEN WOMAN, YOU HAVE BEGUN TO IRRITATE DOOM,” the enormous robot – as tall as the castle – says. “WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE, SMALL WOMAN? DO YOU CARE FOR MY SON SO MUCH? DO YOU LOVE HIM?”

“Do you?” she asks back.

“YOU DARE?”

“Sure do.”

Walters does the Hulk-Out thing and busts up the giant robot hand into a pile of scrap metal and loose wires. She tells Doom, of whom this giant robot is merely an avatar, that she came to talk to him, not to rescue Vernard. “I don’t really think he wants to leave Latveria. He just wants a chance to be his own person. But you’ve got him beaten down, so controlled, that he doesn’t know who that is. And you aren’t turning him into a ruler, Doom. You’re raising someone who only knows how to bow.”

VERY INTERESTING ANALYSIS, LADY. Doom will be sure to go home and really mull that shit over for a while over a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Vernard rides up on some sort of hovering Space Motorcycle. Doom demands that he speaks up about this. “YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPT TO DEFECT WAS NOT SIMPLY ANOTHER PLEA FOR ATTENTION?” Doom asks all-capsly. “YOU WOULD RATHER GIVE UP THE THRONE THAN RULE AS I INSTRUCT?”

Vernard is like “yeah.”

Doom is like “ok.”

She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4

Let’s all suck each other off to celebrate. Me first.

Walters jumps into Vernard’s sidecar and they drive off into the sunset. Walters asks if she can be paid in something other than Latverian Francs. Vernard says no! And we all laugh.

Back in Walters’ law office, Patsy Walker wants to talk about getting paid for her services, which amount to a) not really coming in to work all that often, and b) reading Archie comics in the breakroom when she SHOULD be working. Unfortunately, Angie Huang almost went to prison for trafficking in illegal money, so things have been a little rocky with money and stuff lately.

Walters tells Walker to cork it and sit down for a meeting. Walters shows Walker and Huang a “blue file”. The one active case they currently have. Walters has been avoiding it, but now’s not the time for more avoidance. Now’s the time for action! Unfortunately, the blue file doesn’t make a lick of sense. It names Jennifer Walters as the defendant, as well as a slew of other known superheroes (but none that I know – Wyatt Wingfoot, Greer Grant Nelson, Herman Schultz… you know, serial killer names). Why would a man named George Saywitz want to sue this lot? Walters doesn’t remember, and she doesn’t know what any of this is about.

There was a file to approve change of venue to North Dakota for the trial, which means Walters must have been served. But she doesn’t remember shit. And nothing comes up in North Dakota’s records, besides. Very interesting! (not really)

She calls upon her staff to do a little digging into this. You know, so she doesn’t have to! Maybe it’s a filing error. Maybe it’s not!

And we’ll see next time. I guess.

Final Thoughts

“Oh shit, we wrapped up the Kristoff Vernard storyline too early so we have to shoehorn something else in here for the last two issues.” – Charles Soule

I’m going to do a Google Image Search of Charles Soule.

…

lol


Click here to ridicule this post!

The Death Knight’s Squire, Chapter 3 – Off to the Weathercote Wood

Dungeons & Dragons is the world’s most famous tabletop role-playing game. There are elves and dice and dungeon masters who wear capes. I’m embarrassed for even playing this.

Disclaimer: I’m learning as I go. There is a 100% chance that I’ll fuck up, not take something seriously enough, and piss you off to no end. Get over it.

A quick Google image search for “Death Knight” yields this. If only the real Death Knight were this animatedly sexy!

Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons – The Death Knight’s Squire! Last time our hero, Milhouse the Scholar, learned that a couple of nobility had their grandson ripped from their hands by a jerk knight with the intention of making him his squire. So that’s where the title of the adventure comes from! Game over. Go home.

I think today I will finally fumble through some actual gameplay. Keep in mind: I have no idea what I’m doing! I’m playing as a wizard, and wizards come with extremely complicated rules regarding their magic that I neither understand nor condone learning about. It’s hard enough getting that shit to work in Baldur’s Gate! So let’s see how this all shakes out.

I am presented with a blurb on how my adventure begins: It’s dawn the next day. Milhouse obviously didn’t lose sleep over this mission while Lord and Lady Brewmont chewed off their fingernails in anxiety. He saddles his horse and rides to the outskirts of the town of Orlbar to the foresty forest of Weathercote Wood. It’s a short ride; he could’ve walked his fat ass but deigned not to! The Captain of the Guard tells him the the Death Knight hangs out on the west side of Weathercote Wood because, I don’t know, it’s shadier.

Milhouse comes across a sign that tells him that Weathercote Wood is 15 miles away, so it’s not a short ride! That’s a long ride! Horses can only go, what, 1.5 miles per hour? Do I have that right? Anyway, shortly after seeing the sign Milhouse comes across a small inn and tavern in the middle of nowhere. He spots an old man rocking in a chair with a tankard of ale, getting drunk in the middle of the day as one does in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. The old man offers Milhouse to sit and enjoy some ale with him. I’m prompted with my first choice:

-Do you accept the old man’s invitation?
-Are you mindful of the time and choose to ride on?

Why not?! Milhouse will enjoy some watered-down ale with the crazy old man! I tie up my horse by its neck to a telephone pole of sorts and sit down next to the grizzled old geezer with the six teeth in his head. There is also some delicious stew, the kind that would make even Carl Weathers jealous. “What brings you this way?” the old man asks.

-Do you tell him of your quest?
-Do you simply replenish yourself and be on your way?

WANNA SHARE A PINT, YOU YOUNG WHIPPER SNAPPER YOU??

This old man seems friendly and unassuming enough. Milhouse starts telling him about his quest. He literally spills the beans about everything: Lord and Lady Brewmont, the missing grandson Darek, his lavish collection of colorful dildoes. Everything. The old man takes it all in with rapt attention. “The Death Knight,” he says quietly. “Local legend, they say, but ah…” he trails off. Intrigued, Milhouse asks for the goods. Here’s what the old man tells him: The Death Knight ain’t no legend! He was a young boy when they hanged him in Weathercote Wood. The Death Knight was a good man once, honest. No foolin’. His wife died of the pox (small- or chicken-, it’s unclear), he took in his son as his squire. But then a band of brigands attacked, shot the knight with a poison dart, and kidnapped his wretched son. When he woke up, he found a note that demanded the knight to rob the treasury in Orlbar and deliver the gold to the brigands. He acquiesced, but the town guard pursued him (yeah right, cops in real life don’t do shit). When the brigands caught wind of the fuzz hot on the knight’s tail, they killed his son by throwing him in a self-driving car and running him off a cliff. When the knight found his son’s body, he vowed vengeance. After killing any guard who chased after him, the knight followed the brigands into the Weathercote Wood and lost their trail. Livid! Mad with bloodlust! Arrrrgghhh! Justice will be served and no one will stand in the knight’s way lest they want to be poked full of holes by his sharp, scary sword!

Then he was caught and was hanged right there on the Red Tree in the wood. Whoopsy-daisy! But guess what, this is the twist that no one saw: the Death Knight haunts Weathercote Wood to this day. And, every few years, he kidnaps a boy to make him his squire. He needs help with his quest for vengeance, you see, and nothing like a frail, little hapless boy to aid someone with such a quest for vengeance I always say!

Milhouse kisses the old man goodbye and is on his way. 55 miles later, he reaches Weathercote Wood. It’s thick with trees and shit, as most woods are. Somewhere in here is Darek Brewmont, and Milhouse will be fucked if he doesn’t find him before his throat is slit from ear to ear. He decides to set up camp for the night on the edge of the wood and soon falls into a deep, cozy sleep. He wakes just before dawn, fully rested and not at all killed by bears. But a noise instantly puts him on his guard! A wet, slavering sound! He picks up his nerdy quarterstaff and treads lightly. Something hears Milhouse approach and starts running away.

What Milhouse finds ain’t pretty. His horse has been attacked and mortally wounded, which sucks because now he’s 55 miles from civilization and these woods are creepy and scary. Milhouse does the humane thing and smacks the horse around with his quarterstaff until it dies. No one will be feasting on horse meat today, sadly.

Heh heh heh. Just like The Godfather.

He enters deeper into the wood to the cheerful sound of chirping birds. Welcome to Weathercote Wood, Milhouse the Scholar! What will you be doing next?

-Move with stealth. Make a stealth check (DC12). Rolled 15 (+3) = 18. Hell yeah! I can add 10 points to and d100 rolls on Tilepage 1! Ha ha! What?

Would Milhouse check for traps? He’s a very careful little scamp, always thoughtful and cautious. How about yes?

-Check for traps. Make a perception check (DC12). Rolled 17 (+0) = 17. That was easy.

Milhouse checks thoroughly for traps, including bear traps, tripwires, holes with leaves covering them, and large cages ready to fall from trees. Nothing is found, so a false sense of security has been firmly fixed in his mind. He presses forward into the wood ever so slowly. The following is the map I’m going off of, I’m currently in Tilepage 1 and approaching the green dot at the intersection.

Click for Larger

The green dot is an encounter! Oh boy! What have I bumped into? A wraith? A gnoll? Uh… a gelatinous cube? Let’s find out!

Milhouse thinks he heard something rustling in the ol’ woods, but it was just some dumbshit bird. That was underwhelming. Bolstering himself, puffing out his chest, he takes a right turn and does a little skip.

That’s it for now! Milhouse hasn’t had to kick any ass yet, but I have a funny feeling that he’s going to eat his butt on a silver plate pretty soon. Until next time, dorks.


Click here to ridicule this post!