Darkhold: Black Bolt #1, written by Mark Russell, penciled by YOURS TRULY with links by @robbypoggi and colors by Matt Milla is in stores Wednesday, December 1st!
I know #Inhumans fans have been starved for content lately, so I tried to make this a love letter to both they and Jack Kirby. The eagle-eyed uber nerds will be able to spot quite a few Inhuman faces not seen in some time!
summary : you use the darkhold to be with stephen and get a little taste of heaven.
A/N : a little warning: i kinda channelled my anger into this. im sorry, if it’s too much. also, ignore my bad writing and english, it is not my first language.
First time writing for Sinister Strange, I have some other ones for him in progress as well so will probably be more :) Heard the song “Writing’s On The Wall,” by Sam Smith and it immediately made me think of Sinister’s descent into who he becomes, seriously recommend listening to it!
Paring: Sinister!Strange x F!Reader
Word Count:1,148
Description: Stephen uses dreamwalking to dull the ache of the loss of his Y/N, but the moments after always threaten to tear him apart.
“How do I live? How do I breathe? When you’re not here I’m suffocating. I want to feel love, run through my blood. Tell me is this where I give it all up? For you I have to risk it all.” - Writing’s On The Wall by Sam Smith.
Other Things: It’s fluffy at the beginning, but gets pretty angsty. Dreamwalking.
Warnings: Angst. Blood. Glass. Sinister is crazy, but not hurting anyone but himself here. Self-inflicted wounds sort of. Some swearing. Some MoM spoilers, though it takes place prior to his part in the movie, what he’s doing may be spoiler-y if you haven’t seen it yet.
We have to talk about Wanda in Doctror Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I feel like people don’t understand how much Wanda’s behavior was influenced by the Darkhold. I see people saying that Wanda’s behavior in MoM was a big jump from what she did at the end of WandaVision and that she wouldn’t have been trying to kill America or her own alternate self just to get to her kids after she’s known the kind of pain that losing your family causes you. I feel like this is an oversight on Marvel’s part because the Darkhold hasn’t appeared in the movies before so people have no idea what it does and I don’t think the movie explains it sufficiently. Especially since Agatha had it in WandaVision and she looked fine, which just… doesn’t make sense.
The Darkhold appears in season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and is the thing that causes all the problems in the season. It was later taken to another dimension by the Ghost Rider so I have no idea how Agatha got her hands on it. Though, I have to say the cover looks a little different from how it looked on AoS. Maybe it’s from an alternate universe (though, that seems unlikely) or Agatha simply copied the contents from the mountain lair and created a new Darkhold. Or she stole it from someone who created the new Darkhold. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The point is that the Darkhold corrupts everyone who reads it. It literally corrupted an android on AoS. And the way it does that is by taking what you want most and using it to warp you and your perception so subtly but fully that you turn into the villain and you don’t even realize it. You still think that you’re justified because you can think of nothing but your own desire. It is the only thing in the world that makes sense and anyone else who doesn’t understand that is wrong. It’s not you that’s the problem. It’s them.
So no, it wasn’t weird that Wanda was acting the way she was. To her the only thing that mattered was getting her kids back. And in the last scene of WandaVision we see that she’s hearing her children’s screams for help while she’s reading the Darkhold. Wanda doesn’t just want to get her kids back at every cost. She needs to get them back because the Darkhold has made her believe that she is the only person in the entire multiverse that can protect them. This version of Wanda. Not even any of her alternate selves. That’s why she didn’t care what happens to the other Wanda whose kids she was going to take. Not to mention that Wanda here is the Scarlet Witch - something that only happened in WandaVision and right before she got the Darkhold. That’s a terrible combination and perhaps the Scarlet Witch inside her also considers all other versions of Wanda inferior because they are not the Scarlet Witch. So it makes perfect sense that Wanda doesn’t care about anyone else but her kids, including herself in alternate universes.
She only came around once she saw her kids were scared of her because her love of them is so pure that even the Darkhold or the Scarlet Witch can’t warp that. Her kids are the ones who can break through the mentality that anyone who doesn’t agree with her is wrong and an enemy. And Wanda was the one who saved herself. Not only did her love for her kids snap her out of the dark influences she was under, but it was also the one thing that earned her the compassion of her alternate self. Wanda from the other universe could instantly see how much 616!Wanda loves the kids and she could finally give her what Wanda was looking for - the feeling that someone understands what she’s going through and isn’t afraid to share her emotions just because of the pain she’s feeling. She finally got the feeling of connection she was looking for and it saved her. All through the love for her children.
Speaking of which, Stephen deserves to be kicked into eternity for telling her that her kids aren’t real. That simply doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they truly existed or if they were only an expression of Wanda’s imagination - that is a form of existence as well - because her love for them exists. It’s real and Stephen telling her that her kids aren’t was about the worst thing that he could have told her. Wanda only wants for someone to acknowledge her emotions and hearing that the thing that is creating all of her emotions right now isn’t real tells her that those emotions aren’t respected. Basically what he told her was that no one cares about how she feels. And that to a woman who only wants to feel understood and to feel connected to the world again after she lost her world. Perhaps that’s why America managed to facilitate Wanda’s defeat. Because she understands Wanda’s need for connection. After all, America’s powers only started working once someone else believed in her and helped her believe in herself. It feels exactly like she was punishing herself for opening the portal that took her mothers away by taking away her ability to control her own powers. And once someone else showed her enough care to figure all of that out, she was able to get over it. Exactly what Wanda was looking for - someone to help her through her own pain. And I am really mad at Stephen for what he said but I am also glad that the one person who could help Wanda was Wanda. She did save herself despite the enormity of her grief and the influences of the Darkhold and the Scarlet Witch.
Also, a big fuck you to Marvel for saying that Wanda has her kids in every other universe but this one. I do wonder if the Darkhold wasn’t messing with her dreams to make her believe that and feed her pain, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened. Which is why I was trying so hard not to scream at the screen when Stephen decided to use the Darkhold even after he saw what it did to Wanda and to himself. Yes, without using it he wouldn’t have been able to save America and pretty much everyone else but that’s exactly how the whole mess started in AoS as well. The Darkhold helped save the day and then made it hell on Earth for everyone.
By the way what about Vision in the alternate universes? He wasn’t in the one Wanda invaded but that just makes it weird. I know Wanda was obsessed with the kids but she was just as obsessed with Vision in WandaVision. Perhaps it’s possible that she wasn’t looking for him because at the end of WandaVision he gave her hope that they will see each other again some day. So her having that prevented the Darkhold from warping Wanda’s feelings about Vision as well. But maybe Wanda feels like she needs to get the kids as soon as possible so that she’ll have them when she and Vision meet again and they can be a full family.
