#i pitched this idea to that-spider-fan long ago

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond!: The Game!

Hey, all! As part of an effort to further potential with my Tumblr project, I have a huge announcement to make for you all. Introducing...

An official game adaptation of Sonic: Into, Across and Beyond!, and boy, will it be a treat to behold, huh?

The game has started development today, and you'll be able to look forward to:

Each of the stories in gameplay form

Over 20 playable characters

Plenty of cutscenes to enjoy

Interactive environments to explore

Epic boss encounters with many rogues from the Sonic multiverse

And so much more!

I really hope you're all looking forward to-!

OMT!Tails: Woah woah woah! Hang on a moment.

Huh?

OMT!Tails walks into frame.

OMT!Tails: The story's barely 6 months old yet, and you're seriously pitching a game for it?

Ah, right. I forgot.

CR!Sonic and CR!Sally show up.

CR!Sonic: You okay, Tails?

OMT!Tails: You guys might want to look at this.

CR!Sally: A video game of all our endeavours? Seriously?

CR!Sonic: Looks like it. How would it even work out, though?

OMT!Tails: I doubt it'd ever see completion, though. I mean, over 6 quests to fill out into gameplay form? That'd take AGES, and it's likely going to risk cancellation partway through the process.

CR!Sonic: Yeah, you got a good point there, kid. I mean, can't people just enjoy the stories as they are? They're not meant to be "played".

OMT!Tails: Yeah, exactly. Especially after what I've been through...

CR!Sally: I get you, Tails...

CR!Sonic: Into, Across and Beyond! is meant to be a story project for free and for fun! Pico doesn't have the time or energy to dedicate part of his life to making a game. I bet those children and hate band-wagoners on Twitter would just jump at any opportunity to hate on it for petty reasons. And that's why they have so much-!

D-Sides Mighty enters.

D-Sides Mighty: What's going on here?

OMT!Tails: Oh! Hey, Mighty.

D-Sides Mighty: A game, huh? Don't people have enough Sonic fan-games to play?

CR!Sonic: That's what I've been trying to get at, bud. I mean, the story here on Tumblr's satisfactory enough.

OMT!Tails: Wait, "Tumblr"?

CR!Sonic: Hmm?

OMT!Tails: I thought it was called "Tumblelogs".

CR!Sonic: It was! Well, used to, anyway. I'm guessing it's still called that in your dimension?

OMT!Tails: Mhm.

D-Sides Mighty: Yeah, we don't need to go for a game of this, considering the Spider-Verse IP is copyrighted.

OMT!Tails: Hmm... Give me just a moment!

OMT!Tails spins around the lower text, tweaking it a bit.

OMT!Tails: There! Better?

CR!Sally: Much better! Well done, Tails!

D-Sides Mighty: Well, that's one situation we can finally close the book on, wouldn't you say?

CR!Sonic: Yep. Come on, Sal. Let's head back now.

CR!Sally: Good idea, Sonic.

The couple headed off.

D-Sides Mighty: Wanna go grab a bite at Burger Monarchy, Tails?

OMT!Tails: Sure thing!

They left too.

Well, that's that, then. You're NOT getting that game. In the end, it was a cleverly-veiled April Fools' gag!

Happy April Fools' Day, folks! You've got all there is so far of the story to enjoy here from the comfort of Tumblr. Plus, I've been generous enough with each post to compile links to every post for this project on a Master Post that you're more than welcome to view on my profile. Well, see you around in the next post!

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???: It's all the same for your heroic delusions. That is, until you finally meet ME. I already won because I was two steps ahead and found a way to tap into what I desire most. You think a hero of Mobius, let alone a type of Sonic, always has a chance against Dr. Eggman? HA! Don't make me laugh. I ripped that hope to pieces for my Sonic long ago. And soon, with the power of MY Chaos Emeralds, all other universes will follow... Now, you'll all see how big a man I can be. It's time to say goodbye to humanity, heroes...

???: And hello... to the NEW NORM! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The reveal of the final main antagonist... coming soon.

[hollowsart]

Welp, I've been here long enough and now i have to say it.

I have never seen any movie with Doc Ock. I only know the memes. I do not know the actor, or his canon full name. I have no idea what this man is like nor if he's a good character.

But goshdarnit I have been swayed by Hollow osmosis and I like him. I love this man. I must see more of this man.

I hope you're happy with yourself /lh

Oh, as horrible and campy of a movie as it is, Spiderman 2 is hilariously bad, def recommend watching it just once. If you would rather have a crash course version of it that is just as funny there's this [Screen Rant Pitch] video a friend sent me that honestly made my re-watch of the movie all the better. (minus the 2 consecutive scenes of actual horror violence, but that's just me being a baby lol)

Like, it is SO BAD but it DOES introduce the actor as the character and shows a unique take on the character as a whole compared to other iterations. (plus, I cannot tell you how many people were/are so thirsty for his doc ock LOL). His Doc Ock also comes back in Spiderman: No Way Home which is definitely one of my favorite movies, it's so funny and SO GOOD. not too many Doc Ock moments, but what moments there are of him are so good and fun <3 (I HIGHLY rec it)

The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon (which you can find in various places online to watch) is also a GREAT cartoon that showcases Doc Ock a fair amount among many other characters. Doc Ock in TSSM is definitely one of the handful of fan favorites among the Doc Ock fans, and I can absolutely see why, cuz I really love TSSM Otto a lot, too. He was just a precious little marshmallow man who should have quit his job years ago. 😔

It depends on the media as well as the story as to whether or not he is a heartless villain who more than happily chose his life of crime, or the life of a villain was thrust upon him unwillingly and he had to accept his fate as such. Or, in the case of Olivia Octavius from the Spiderverse movie (highly recommend), she has just always kinda been like that, crazy science lady with nothing to lose.

Also I am very happy to spread the octo-appreciation :)

You are very welcome <3

[cblgblog]

So my issues with Irondad are well documented at this point, starting from their very first scenes. Specifically the utter tone deafness of Peter’s recruitment, by both Tony and the writers. Tony starts the movie being blamed for the death of a 20-year-old kid who was in the wrong place, wrong time in Sokovia. That accidental death that can be put down to negligence on his part, is pivotal to what happens next. So pivotal he uses it in his pitch for why the other Avengers need to sign the Accords.

Tony, midway through the movie, deliberately brings a 15-year-old child into this conflict. A child he blackmails into going with him, because if you don’t, I will tell your aunt.

Charles Spencer was an innocent civilian, wrong place, wrong time in Sokovia. He died. That tears Tony up, as it rightfully should. And yet, in the midst of his crusade about following laws and accountability, he lies to May Parker about taking her 15-year-old nephew out of the country and into a warzone. Ignoring some well-established laws about child soldiers.

Tony blackmailing a child who’s had his powers for 6 months into participating in this conflict makes no sense. Ever. It especially makes no sense in the context of Charles Spencer and his mother. Yet neither Tony nor the writers seem to comprehend this. Which is why Irondad has been bullshit from the start. Blackmail and kidnapping are not sweet, father-son moments, even if you ignore the fact, as the MCU wants to, that Peter had a father already, in Ben Parker. He has a loving adult parental figure in May Parker. Both of whom cared about him before he had spider powers that might be helpful to them.

All of this, I’ve said before, so have others. And then I realized that I actually hate Irondad more than I thought. That Feige and co. mishandled it even more than I thought, and why? Because of this.

We know the story. Peter was, supposedly, this kid Tony saved at the Stark Expo in Iron Man 2. Started out as a fan theory, and then was confirmed that yes, this is true, this is exactly what we intended.

Now, we know Civil War had different writers/directors than Homecoming or FFH did. We also know that, for all the lip service of, ‘It’s all connected,’ we know that the creatives in these different franchises do not always talk to each other, and that they often blatantly contradict each other.

Taking all that into account, acknowledging that…the dumbasses at Marvel did not think up the idea of Peter being the Iron Man 2 kid. They heard the theory, thought it was cool, then took credit for having meant that the entire time, yes, that was totally us.

We know this because it is never mentioned in canon. All those Tony and Peter interactions, all those times of yes, Mr. Stark, I just want to be like you, Mr. Stark, and Peter never mentions that? When Tony takes he suit from him in Homecoming and Peter says that he just wants another chance, wants to be like Tony, would he not mention that hey, you saved my life, Mr. Stark. You saved my life and I just wanted to be like you, and now I can be, now I can save lives like you, just please give me another chance.

If the Iron Man 2 theory were true, would he not say that? In FFH, when he’s all guilt-ridden, I didn’t save him, would he not mention that hey, he saved my life before I was Spider-man, before I was special, before I was anyone?

Now I know what you’re thinking. The Iron Man 2 thing isn’t that big a deal. It’s not a crucial thing. And you know what, you’re right. It isn’t, it’s just always annoyed me, in an eyeroll way, that the same people who couldn’t count properly between 2012 and 2017 (8 years later flashing in giant letters across our screens means that Homecoming was meant to take place in 2020), that these same people who let something so blatantly timeline breaking get through then took credit for a kind of cool, kind of clever fan theory. It’s annoying.

I’ve now realized, however, that it is far more than annoying to me. Because TPTB at Marvel did not think of that idea for themselves, but if they had, and if they’d run with that idea? If they had, it would’ve made Peter’s recruitment in Civil War so much more fucked up than it already is, but so much more interesting. So, so, so much more interesting.

I’ve talked about why Spidey’s own movies (as much as you can call them that given the level of Tony infiltration) prove that the theory isn’t true. Now let’s go to Civil War. Different writers, yes, but let’s talk anyway about why we can tell from CW that Peter was not that kid.

He gets home. May is like, look who it is, Tony Stark. Not, look who it is, the hero who literally saved your life. When Tony locks himself in Peter’s room with him (still fucking gross, Jesus Christ), Peter is just, nope, I got no idea what you’re talking about. That’s—no, I’m not a superhero, no. He’s defensive. He’s apprehensive. He’s trying to figure out what fresh hell this is. He’s trying to hide stuff from Tony. If this is the guy who saved him at the Stark Expo, why this reaction? Why not, oh my god, you saved my life, I thought I’d never see you again, not, not up close I mean. When Tony asks him to do a thing, why is it not, well yeah, duh , you saved my life, where do we start? Or even, okay, I don’t really wanna do this, but, you saved my life, I owe you?

So, nobody wrote a fucking word of any of Peter and Tony’s interactions under the theory that he was the Stark Expo kid.

But what if they had?

Tony shows up at May’s place. He does not know who Peter is, in relation to their “meeting” before. He’s expecting to have to do some level of smooth talk to get in here but, nope. May’s just, oh my god, you saved my boy’s life, come in, come in!

We don’t know for sure that Peter was orphaned by the time of the Expo, but if we base it on comics and prior films, he likely was. Most versions seem to have him fall under Ben and May’s care between 2 and 6.  O1’ birthday means he would’ve been around 9 at the Expo. So, more than likely, Ben or May or both were the ones there with him. They may credit Tony with saving their lives as well.

So, Tony starts the movie being called out by a grieving mother. Going down this route, we’re at the midpoint…and here’s a different mother telling him how great he is. How he saved the most important thing in her life. How if Ben were here (May’s wearing her wedding ring around her neck btw, you can see it in the scene), Ben would say the same thing. Shake his hand. Hug him.

Now, Tony’s got a sharp ass mind, when it’s not clouded with booze or drugs or the like. Since he wasn’t wasted at the Expo, there’s a good chance that, given some details, he remembers saving this kid. He remembers how small this little boy actually was. He remembers how light this kid was when he grabbed him. It was a few seconds in a long ass night, that he hasn’t thought about in years, but to May Parker, it’s everything.

So maybe at this point Tony’s rethinking this. He’s remembering that little boy, realizing how young he still is. He pulled that boy from danger. And now here’s this woman who invited him into her house, told him how her husband just passed recently, things have been hard, especially for Peter but God, he’ll love to see you. Maybe Tony’s rethinking this, coming up with a way out, when Peter shows up. And then, aw hell. The kid’s just a mess of excitement and shock, possibly tears…okay now it’s just gotten harder to make an exit.

Let’s pause here to say that May Parker is not fucking dumb (“Cut the bullshit. I know you left detention. I know you left the hotel room in Washington. I know you sneak out of this house every night.”).

May is not dumb. Letting the 50-year-old dude go into her nephew’s room with him, alone? Arguably dumb, even if it is Iron Man. Letting him grab the kid for some Stark…thing, and take him wherever Tony said he was taking him on 12 seconds notice? Even more arguably dumb.  CW as it’s written dumbs down May’s character for the sake of an already questionable plot point. Especially since she literally says she’s not a fan of Tony in Homecoming. Yes, her comment there comes after the “internship,” her noting Peter’s distraction and stress because of it. But still, it’s fucking weird that she’d let this man take her kid out of the country, alone, in CW. It makes her dumb for the sake of plot.

But if Stark saved Peter’s life not so long ago? It at least makes a bit more sense. He’s a hero. Peter literally wouldn’t be here without him. Why would Tony hurt him now?

So, back to the scene. Peter’s probably less paranoid about showing his stuff to Tony. Probably not spilling everything himself, but when Tony notices things, Peter’s probably less panicked over it, more willing to confirm. Yes, he’s got these powers, okay? And he hasn’t had them for long, but he’s trying to do good, like Tony. He’s trying to do the right thing, like Tony.

Now, this kid has such literal hero worship going, and he’s so damn inexperienced, he admits that. And Tony’s still got Charles Spencer’s mom in his head. He’s dead, Stark. And I blame you.

Can Tony really take this kid—actual minor kid younger than Charles was—take him and put him on the field against the goddamn Avengers? That woman out there with the dead husband and the ring around her neck, what’s he going to say if Peter gets hurt, or worse? Sure the kid obviously has skills but, can he risk another grieving mom?

So, maybe Tony’s rethinking this. Maybe he can still get out of this, improvise a Plan B. But then there’s a text from Nat or Ross. Where are you? We’ve only got a few hours, what’s the play?

Special circumstances, nobody in that group is really gonna fight to kill…it’s special circumstances, and he can keep the kid mostly sidelined.

This time, he doesn’t have to blackmail Peter. He doesn’t have to threaten to expose his secret. Peter’s willing, either because he genuinely wants to, or he feels he owes Tony a debt. So there goes the dick factor of Tony literally blackmailing a child. And the lack of questions Peter seems to ask about what he’s fighting for, the acceptance of vague answers, that’d also make more sense in this context.

In this version, Tony is both more and less of a dick. He’s doing less active threatening and manipulation…but he’s also being doubly manipulative. His genuinely good deed gives him an easy in with the Parkers. He’s playing on the credibility of an earlier, at least somewhat better version of himself. One who saved Peter Parker and hadn’t yet ended Charles Spencer.

Look, I won’t lie, I legit don’t know what I’m saying anymore, except that Marvel sucks for taking credit for a thing that they definitely do not have credit for. Which isn’t particularly new for them, and wouldn’t particularly matter if the thing they took credit for (and didn’t do anything with) could’ve offered some interesting story possibilities.

[banigarubug]

Roommates (PLATONIC Corpse x GN!Reader)

this is longer than i expect and may not have at all addressed the prompt, but i had fun with it! xoxo

-

Could you do something with being roommates with corpse and he’s just a bit of a himbo?

Y/N is your name

corpse is scared of spiders, and you’re both insomniacs. platonic but could be read as pre slash. author is an arachnophobe so the description of the spider is VERY brief

warnings: swearing and spiders

-

It’s actually not at all surprising to hear Corpse milling around his room around midnight. He’s a night owl, and so are you, but you usually retreat to your respective habitats around 10 or 11. He finished his stream not too long ago, so you were binge-watching the best worst Adam DeVine movies without headphones on when the quiet, unassuming noises from Corpse’s room suddenly became high pitched screaming.

You jumped, standing up and staring at your closed bedroom door. You have two options here: lock it, and leave Corpse to fend for himself, or go out there and save him. On one hand, sacrificing Corpse to whatever he’s screaming about doesn’t actually sound like such a bad idea… but you would kind of miss him. And he changes all the lightbulbs in the apartment. But he’s usually the one who breaks them in the first place, your brain supplies.

You shake your head. No, Y/N, you scold yourself. He’s your friend. Even if he’s clumsy and kind of stupid and breaks all your lightbulbs and always leave the cupboards open. He’s your friend, and you have to save him.

You square your shoulders, brace for impact, and open your door, only to be met with Corpse’s face, white as a sheet. “What happened?” you ask, and he pushes into your room.

“Um-” his voice is pitched way higher than normal, so he clears his throat and deliberately lowers it. “Um, there’s a - there’s a spider in my room. A big one.”

You stare at him before breaking out into laughter. “Are you fucking kidding me?” you ask gleefully. “You woke up the whole floor because of a spider?”

“It’s really big!” he insists. “I just - please kill it for me.”

You brush past him, still laughing. “Yeah, alright,” you agree. You’re not a huge fan of spiders either, but it’s probably a daddy-long-legs - AKA, totally harmless. You arm yourself with a plastic cup from the kitchen and a sheet of paper so you can take it outside, and head off for Corpse’s room.

When you open the door, there it is, next to Corpse’s window. It’s big. Bigger than you hoped. Bigger than you want it to be.

But you’re brave, so you quickly unlatch the window and usher it outside. It’s fine. If Corpse asks, you murdered it in cold blood.

“It’s gone,” you announce as you return to your room. He’s sitting nervously on the edge of your bed, fumbling with the rings on his fingers. “Your room is monster free.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles, but doesn’t move. You crawl back onto your spot against the headboard, pulling your laptop onto your legs and raising an eyebrow. “Um,” he hesitates, turning to look at you. “I can’t sleep in there,” he admits. “All I’m gonna do is think about the spider laying eggs in my room and I’ll freak out again.”

You laugh and pat the spot next to you. “It’s cool. We can pull an all-nighter, if you want? I’m working through Adam DeVine’s entire filmography and I was about to start Pitch Perfect.”

“Why would you watch any Adam DeVine movie?” Corpse asks, but settles in next to you awkwardly.

“Sometimes, I do things even I don’t understand.”

-

The last thing you remember is cheering when Benji kisses Emily in Pitch Perfect 2, and then suddenly you’re pulled awake by the sound of your phone beeping. Corpse, still mostly asleep, smacks your arm. “Turn it off,” he insists blearily, and you’re so tempted to laugh at his morning voice.

You do turn it off, though, because it’s pissing you off too, and you check the time. It’s noon.

“Go back to sleep,” Corpse orders you, turning over on his side to face away from you. “Or I will kill you. Seriously.”

You laugh and curl back up under the blankets. “I’m asleep, Corpse, now shut up.”

-

This is the first of a collection of nights that you and Corpse spend together, watching movies and hanging out instead of sleeping. Maybe Corpse was too anxious to sleep, maybe you were too, but either way, it was fun to actually hang out with Corpse. Sometimes, it felt like ever since you moved in together, you stopped being best friends and started being roommates. But not so much lately.

It’s another night where Corpse has made his way into your room, but of you unable to sleep for whatever reason. You have work in the morning, but you’re still watching dumb movies, the white light of your laptop illuminating your dark room, and Corpse creeps up to the bed to join you.

“Hey,” he says, and you smile at him in lieu of a greeting. “What are we watching?”

“I’m craving Christmas movies,” you admit.

He grins. “Cool.”

Two movies in, a tired energy has started to fill the room. Corpse is yawning periodically and you keep forcing your eyes open, rubbing the sleep out of them as much as you can. As soon as the credits start rolling, Corpse reaches over and shuts your laptop. Wordlessly, you both lay down side by side and stare up at the ceiling.

“Did you know all odd numbers have the letter e in them?”

You freeze, eyes still trained on the spot right next to your fan directly above your head that curves in like a little dent. Then, you turn your head to look at Corpse incredulously, and begin laughing at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s true!” he defends, laughing along with you. “One, three-”

“It’s almost five in the morning, please go to sleep.”

“Five has an e too,” he mumbles, and you reach out to smack his side, stifling your laughter while Corpse lets it take over his whole body. After a second, he says to you, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night, Corpse.” You turn over on your side, falling asleep with a smile on your face.

[popculturebuffet]

The Legend of the Three Caballeros: Dope-A-Cabana Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Salduos Amigos! Since i’m covering a full series, i’d like to welcome any newcomers to the first part of the epic final stretch of THE RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS! For those of you just joining us, a few months back WeirdKev27, easily my biggest supporter as the only one who comissions any reviews from me, asked if I could do a big project for him: a comission of EVERY major american apperance of those three happy chappies in matching serapes. Give i’ve ALWAYS loved the boys ever since house of mouse and had been sitting on Legend of the Three Cablleros for far too long, more on that in a minute obviously, I happily agreed. Plus the rather nice influx of cash from the comissions was very welcome. If your intrested in comissioning your own, hit me up via my direct messages. It’s 5 dolalrs an episode, though I do do discounts on orders of 3 or more, and 10 for a movie, with again discounts for orders of more than one. And yes that plug was very shamless, but again I have no other job than this.  Back to the point these reviews have taken me on a wonderful journey: I got to rewatch the movie and revel in the fun songs, acid trips and super horny Donald Duck, got to both revisit one of Don Rosa’s best story and read another all time classic from the man I hadn’t before, took a trip back to the house of mouse to hear some great songs and see some great cartoons.. and some not so great ones, took a small detour to Mickey and The Roadster Racers to be baffled and annoyed though I am proud to say it was my first review back after I came down with Cornovirus and lost a week of work time. And finally I covered the town where everyone was nice, and got to see the boys have a joyous reunion with Donald and be lushly animated while.. Dewey jackassed around in a B-Plot and Webby resisted the urge to throat chop him. It’s been a long ride and you can find all of it is so far RIGHT HERE IN THIS CONVIENT LINK ! CLICK IT NOW IF YOUR CURIOUS. Point is while this was well paid for.. it’s easily one of the projects i’ve been most proud of and while i’m sad to see it winding down, i’m proud of what i’ve done so far, and I just wanted to heartily thank Kevin for the ride and for being so generious as to fund the whole damn thing. Your a good dude man. 

Which brings us here, to the grand finale. The Legend of the Three Caballeros! As the boys first starring roll as a group since the movie, there was really no other way this retrospective could end, and since I have a terrible problem with procastination and really hated this series version of daisy I just kept pushing back watching the series until now. I’m not proud of it but I am happy to correct it and hope you’ll all come along with me.  Before we get started I could not find much background on the show. It was directred by Matt Danner who was the character designer for the utter classic Xiaoilin Showdown and currently works on the Muppet Babies reboot, so i’m happy he’s still getting work. Otherwise I couldn’t find much. The most I could was on tv tropes, claming the series was orignally meant for Netflix.. and while I have no proof and this could easily be conjecture.. i’m inclined to belivie it. The series was apparently done long before the Ducktales reboot, to the point Frank Angrones was only vaguely aware of it and it didn’t even remotely impact the series, with Panchito and Jose only debuting in Season 2 because the original idea for bringing them in was scrapped. So while I don’t have proof.. I’m inclined to belivie it since it makes sense: Disney DID have a healthy relationship with Netflix once, setting up the MCU shows and likely being happy there.. but eventually they wanted their own corner of the sky, and likely didn’t want one of their shows bolted to the network like all their marvel shows were.  The problem this created though is Disney was CLEARLY left with a show they no longer had a place for. But even with that the show was still done, they COULD have put it on the Disney Now app or just aired it on the Disney Channel. See if there was any fan intrest in season 2 or throw one into production to at least beef up the episode count. I mean the Cabs have a built in fanbase, kids would likely love it... it’s the logical choice. But this is Disney. They’ve had to be drug kicking and screaming into representation, to the point they had to be fought for the gay romance subplot in owl house to happen, try to hide that the Sparkshort “Out” is about a gay man struggling with coming out despite having you know reams of content on the service with either gay subtext or out and out gay characters, and their attempts at doing representatoin to score points in other little ways.. have been pathetic, easily missable bits in movies that could , and have been, edited out in more homophobic countries. My point is yeah i’m still sore about how they and a LOT of the animation industry have to be dragged into doing the right thing over profit, and they often make very stupid decisions for seemingly no reason. They are a good company a good chunk of the time.. but Disney has done fucked up quite a bit. This is one of those times.  Instead they dumped the show on the Disney Life app in the phillipines and slowly some other countries, basically the Disney Now equilvent over there, and then just sort of forgot about it until Disney Plus launched. And given how many shows they HAVEN’T put on the streamer for again, seemingly no reason, it is a nice suprise the show finally got a release on there in the US. But before that, and proving what a massive mistake just abandoing the show was, the show did gather a massive fanbase via people uploading the episodes online. So yeah the show was treated REALLY shittily for stupid reasons, but thankfully it still has a fanbase to this day and said shabby treatment, as it always does, just encouraged fans to support it harder. So naturally i’m more than happy to give the series some spotlight as fanbase or no, it badly needs it and Disney sure as hell dosen’t want to do it. So if somebody’s gotta do it, might as well be me. This is the Legend of the Three Cablleros.  We open on some narration from Xandra, Goddess of Adventure. Granted she hasn’t been identified yet, and won’t be till next episode.. buuuut it’s easier on me to not have to dance around her name so your learning it now. But Xandra narrates that long ago there were epic battles against the good and the evil and all that by epic heroes, and it’s all cumilated in the Legend of the Three Cablleros. Post title drop we’re treated to the boys, in cool looking armor and with neat weapons, fighting a purple monster man as you do in an really beautiful and epic sequence As this scene illustrates the animation for this show is GORGEOUS, a lavish update of the standard disney style with nice use of shadows. It feels almost film quality in it’s work, and it’s an utter treat to watch and opening at the end was a good call: it both ratchets up excitement and allows the first ep to have some action since this one, as part of a two part premiere, is mostly setup. It’s eyecatching, exciting and makes you want to know what the hell is going on. And since Xandra realizes MAYBE starting the story at the climax was a bad idea, she takes us back a bit.

Okay maybe not that far. No we open properly at Donald’s house, where it’s his birthday! And like the movie, it’s Friday the 13th, an excellent call back. Donald’s making his breakfast, boliling some tea and.. talking with the weird foced warped refelection in the kettle who can apparently only say “right back at you handsome, wink”. Seriously I have so many questoins and all of them are about what this guy is, why is Donald so calm about all of this, and is he still alive after Donald destroys his tea kettle later.  Donaldo gets a call from Daisy, whose visting to spend the day with him and is waiting patiently int he bad part of town. I didn’t know Duckburg had a bad part of town but given Glomgold has to get his sharks and bombs somewhere, i’m not surprised. Unless he special orders them, but even then what if he needs a shark or a bomb in a hurry? He’s gotta get them somewhere and now we know where. So there’s that. So all’s going well until Donald’s asshole boss calls and forces him to come in despite Donald having the fucking day off and it presumably being on the schedule. So Donald rushes to work, and we do get some great gags but as you’d expect for Donald it goes poorly and he botches a kid’s haircut despite the mother being very rude.. and also a female version of pete. LIke.. did he remarry after the divorce from peg or is that his sister? Does that mean PJ and PIstol have a cousin I never knew about? I want answers dammit.. and picutures of spider-man. Not for any slander job I just really like spider-man. 

Eh it’ll do.As i’m doing a full series this time i’m stopping to talk about the main cast as we go soooo.... Tony Anselmo is naturally Donald, even pitching in to consult the crew on Donald’s characterization here, as really what better expert is there? He’s voiced Donald since the original Ducktales and has stuck with the roll since, only taking a break for Mickey and the Roadster racers and that’s likely because between finishing up this series and the Mickey Mouse shorts, and moving on to Ducktales 2017, he likely simply didn’t have the time for it. Granted given how little he was used in the first season of the show, he probably still could’ve done it but regardless, he’s a legend.  Daisy is voiced by Tress Macneile, who not only has voiced the character since House of Mouse and is easily the best voice for her, but is also one of the most storied and legendary va’s in the buisness, having been at this since the 80′s with zero signs of stopping. Just to name a few of her more notable roles, in chronological order; Gadget Hackenwrench, Babs Bunny, Agnes Skinner, Charlotte Pickles, Dot Warner (Which as of last year she’s picked up again and will do the same for Babs, just in case you thought i was exagerating on the “zero signs of stopping” thing), Pookie from Hey Arnold, Mom, Hoodsey Bishop, and Queen Oona among MANY, MANY smaller rolls. I didn’t even realize Charlotte or Hodsey were here, she’s that talented and deserves all the praise.. and way better rolls as Daisy than this one but we’ll both get to that and thankfully much like with Tony, the reboot’s giving her character some depth to work with so she gets to reallys tretch her chops. The woman turns 70 here, will likely keep going until she dies, and is wonderful and deserves more respect. 

 So because this is Donald, life wont’ stop punching him in the face and it turns out his house burned down, the fire people are destroying everything because their assholes, seriously they destroy both a family heirloom and a picture of his parents despite not being on fire. I’d be genuinely suprised if their general strategy wasn’t scremaing “fire, fire fire” and then going “rock rock rock” while they throw rocks on it. Super brucey bonus prize for the first person who gets that refrence and comments on it. I’ll get back to this in a second but SOMEHOW, beisdes loosing his home, all his possesions and his job... it gets even WORSE and Daisy calls, refuses to listen to him despite him having VERY valid excuses and breaks up with him. Oh and then the fire fighters gladly talk about going home to their in tact houses  and partners. 

So yeah let’s talk about this. This first 6 or 7 minutes.. is why I didn’t return to the show for a while. My brain has a bad habit of glomming onto certain parts of things, so it remembered the rough to sit through and not very funny first act.. and not the rest of the episode which is very good and likely more indiciative about how good the series is. Thankfully it does get better but this first act .. frames things like it’s DONALD’S fault somehow. I mean yes he did burn his house down.. but even that really isn’t his fault. He was called away suddenly, wasn’t thinking and made a mistake. Hell he proabably woudl’ve had more left if the fire department hadn’t gone crazy with the axes. His being called into work? He took the day off, and his boss was just a dick. His screwing up at the job? he was genuinely trying his best and doing his best and the client was just wholly unresonable. Donald did nothing wrong but the episode WANTS to frame him like some sort of screwup.. which he is, it’s Donald.. but not in this case. It was just a string of uncomfortable to watch bad luck that cumilates in him having nothing left. It’s not funny, it’s jsust really sad and it’s REALLY hard to tell the tone their going for as they seem to awkwardly bounce from jokes to Donald being utterly devistated and alone. 

And the worst of this.. is Daisy. Daisy is EASILY the most infamous part of the show, as their portryal.. is pretty bad and apparently gets worse. We’ll see as we go but yeah.. her screaming at and breaking up with her boyfriend without listneing to his side and giving the claim we only have HER word on that he’s always screwing up, ON HIS BIRTHDAY no less, when he’s done nothing wrong, does not make a good first impression nor the fact the show seems to AGREE WITH HER. And look Donald is a trainwreck, this is true.. but the show dosen’t remotely portray him as one until AFTER this scene. As I said nothing that happened was his fault. Donald isn’t irresponsible or a screwup or dating a high schooler or anything. He isn’t Scott Pilgrim. He just has really bad luck. Again, we do see some foibles in the scenes to come.. but we don’t see any that would justify her claims, especially since she seemed perfectly happy earlier with him. Now if she’d say brought up some screwups in the first scene, and gently at that, then this would’ve worked.. but as it stands she just comes off as MASSIVELY unsymapthetic.. especially since Donald later calls her nieces over for help, which is objectively weird not gonna lie.. so she now KNOWS he had to move to a new house and his likely burned down.. yet still apparently has nothing good to say about him. 

It didn’t help this rubbed me the wrong way in a very special way. As i’ve made plain before I don’t like THIS version of Daisy, the nagging, selfish, vindictive asshole who will gladly try and cheat on donald, dump him at a moments notice and you know PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE. Which just in case you think i’m exagerating...

She fucking upercutted him..and like here for something that isn’t his fault. I mean this Daisy isn’t physically beating Donald.. but that’s a VERY low bar to clear. And emotional abuse is just as bad, so there. My point is too often in the comics when written poorly, Daisy is a pretty terrible person and I REALLY didn’t want a screen adaptation of this form of Daisy. It took a WHILE to recover from not liking daisy over this version, with help from remembering house of mouse, some good barks story with her and the AMAZING Ducktales version and the suprisingly good Quack Pack version.. I did. But yeah.. this is not a good sign of things to come for the character in this show. 

So yeah Donald’s heart is in the basement and his week is at an all time low when a post man shows up and gives him a letter.. well puts it in the box for a good gag but semantics. But the letter turns around as his ancestor Clinton Coot left him an inhertance for his 3Xth birthday: a house of some kind in the swanky neighboring town of New Quackmore. And i’ll also say.. it’s REALLY nice that for once, we focus on the Duck side of Donald’s legacy, or rather the coot but semantics, instead of the McDuck part. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love the clanmcduck, always will and I love Ducktales exploration of it.. but it’s still nice to acknowledge Donald comes from two sides and while one of those may be humble farmers, they still accomplished a lot, including founding Duckburg in most continuities including presumably this one. It’s also a good way to seperate thigns from other properties including the reboot: focusing on a part of Donald’s lineage that isn’t usually touched on and making THEM just as badass as the other side. 

So we get a quick montage as Donald takes a cab there and takes in the rich and fancy sights. It’s also a brilliant way to set up New Quackmore and it’s attached instutite as a fancy, upperclass place.. and thus perfectly clash it with Donald. Donald ends up getting dropped off at a big mansion.. which is not his , but belongs to the insittutes head, Baron Von Sheldgoose, played by WAYNE KNIGHT. 

Hell. Yes. I freaking love Wayne Knight. In case you don’t know who the man above is, or at least don’t recognize his face, Wayne Knight is a very funny and talented actor and voice actor with a lengthy career primarily in side rolls, with the rolls that he broke out with being loveable asshole and Jerry’s enternal nemisis Newman on Seinfeld and Dennis Nedry, aka “that guy who got sprayed acid in his face by those horrifying frilled dinosaurs that will never not haunt my nightmares”. Seriously that scene fucked me up as a kid and I could not watch that part of the movie. For the most part he’s been a side character man but he has done a LOT of voice work, most notable Zurg in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Dojo for the aformentioned and excellent Xiaolin Showdown, and Mr. Blik for Catscratch and I wish he’d do more. He also recently voiced the penguin in Harley Quin so when I get to that you better belivie i’m looking forward to it. Point is while he may not always get the glory, and had to settle for starring in a mediocre tv land sitcom to get a steady paycheck once, the man is VERY talented, very funny and perfectly cast here. 

So Donald makes himself home, finds out it’s not HIS home and gets thrown out by the snooty rich asshole’s bodyguards. As you’d expect. Donald does find HIS home, a run down cabana next door to the mansion with caution tape all over. Still Donald takes it best he can as it’s better than no home at all> What he doesn’t take well is finding out from the executor of the will that he’s not the only one inheriting the house... which is  absolutley fair. The guy just had the worst day of his life, and this lady didn’t bother to put in the letter to any of them that they were sharing the house. The Sheldgoose thing was just an average Donald screw up. This is just this lady going...

But yes we meet our boys.. and the introductions are naturally given this series is about them the best we’ve gotten so far: Jose is thrown off a bus, having ran out of fair, and having wooed all the ladies on board, and quickly charms the executor and is perfectly cordial to Donald, while Panchito parachutes out of a plane and marvels at how he went from nothing to having two new best friends, a run down shack and a sleezy lawyer! In short the two make a great first impression, helped by wonderful casting.  Jose is voiced by Eric Bauza, a talented voice actor whose had WAY too many roles to list here, but two of the most notable are being the current voice of Bugs and Daffy, and his most notable role outside that recently has been playing Splinter in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But the guy is endlessly talented, seems really nice, and is easily one of my faviorite Jose’s so far after just one episode. He just.. gets the character perfectly and is thankfully NOT another white guy stepping into the role, so that’s nice. He easily oozes the charm and layabout nature Jose and was a natural in the role and i hope he gets to take it up again at some point.  Speaking of naturals we have Jamie Camil as Panchito, who easily steps into the guys boundless energy and the sterotpical bits are swapped out for making him a cloud cuckoolander instead, which I genuinely love and fits the character perfectly. He’s best known for CW Soap Jane the Virgin, where his charcter Rodrigo just sounds like a delight, but has recently picked up a pretty good voice acting career, vocing Don Karnage in the Ducktales reboot, Globgor in Star vs the Forces of Evil and Todd’s Stepdad George in Bojack Horseman. I only hope he gets more voice work as he’s really damn great at it and it’s wonderful to get to see him in a role that’s not limited to a few episodes at best for a change. 

So Donald’s less than happy about this, again it’s hard to really be that mad at him when he’s had a really, REALLY bad day and wasn’t told about this, but it’s kept to just the light level of grumpy as to not make him unlikeable. Granted after that intro it’d take a LOT to make him unsympathetic, but after their version of Daisy I really dont’ want to test this series.  Our boys also find out they have a groundskeeper, ari, aka THE ARCUAN BIRD! He’s just a delight any time he pops up, doing his usual “ya ta ta ta” bit, and being adorable and hilarioius as always.. and also hilariously failing to fix the boys door. So Donald ends up just accepting he has roomates now, nothing he can do, and the three explore the house finding all sorts of cool old artifacts, feeling they’ve stumbled onto something specail. And you know what that means: YARD SALE! Seriously it feels like a bit out of Wet Hot American Summer or Stella, a  series from the same creators you really should check out and that is high praise, trust me. 

I wish this series was streaming somewhere.. I mean we finally got Clone HIgh streaming Viacom, get on that. Anyways, it’s just.. fucking hilarious, and a LOT of this episode is once we walk back from the writers kicking donald in the junk and acting like it was his fault. Once Donald gets his inhertiance, the episode picks up immensley and we see the shows real charm and hilarirty fly, with jokes coming at a rapid and wonderful pace. The show really did impress me with the second half and made me utterly excited for tommrow.. or I guess today’s, look at the follow up.  But we’re still in this episode and being a rich asshole, Sheldgoose isn’t happy about a yard sale, though given this series standards, we not only get some great deliveres from Knight of an outraged “A YARD SALE?!”... but a wonderful gag where Sheldgoose out to white guy it up and yell at them over this..accidently takes a wrong turn in his massive house, and turns around, not loosing how upset he is once.  Meanwhile, we meet.. April, May and June. Yeah apparnetly Della isn’t dead or lost in this continuity, so the boys are MIA, and are instead replaced by Daisy’s Nieces, who I hope show up in the reboot before it ends. Especially since the show makes them WAY more tolerable than classic huey dewey and louie and instead enjoyable like Ducktales HDL. While not as indvidual as those three, the three are still idendtical outside of outfits, their voice actress Jessica DiCicco uses her consderiable talents and experince to give each one a unique voice, so while they all share a voice actress, none of them sound alike. And to round out our main cast for now, as our last members will be joining us fully next time, let’s talke about Jessica DiCicco. Jessica is a very talented and increasingly prolific voice actor and if you haven’t heard of her, and you probably have, you’ve defintely heard her voice. Starting out with Disney, hence why the probably called on her for this, she did the voices of Maggie for the Buzz on Maggie and Melina for Emperor’s New School before breaking out as Flame Princess on Adventure Time, whose both one of my faviorite characters from the show and one we’ll be digging into starting next month. And not one to rest easily she picked up a second set of iconic rolls vocing Lynn and Lucy Loud on The Loud HOuse, and funnily enough using those voices for two of the girls here. And along with Loud House she’s also currently starring in it’s Pony and is int he main cast of Close Enough as Candace. My point is she’s exceedingly talented.. as is this whole cast, as it’s a DAMN excellent cast and just further sells that this series deserves better.  We’ll get into the girls more next time as they don’t do much here other than get called in by Donald for help, with what I saw of episode 2 fleshing them out more. Point is Sheldgoose offers a million dollars for the cabana and all it’s stuff and the boys are glad to sell.. they just have to find something Sheldgoose desperately wants, a mysterious golden atlas encrusted with Jewels.  Our heroes head in to find it with Panchito finding it, and being very specific about it. We also get a nice call back to Ari destroying the door as Jose cleverly calls on him to destroy the lock. So our heroes open the book... and a goddess pops out and threatens to kill them all. 

Final Thoughts: Dope-A-Cabana is a decent intro the series, but as i’ve said it’s heavily hampered by a weak and mean spirited first act. But once it gets going it REALLY gets going and as part 1 one of a two part pilot, it does it’s job well once it does get going: introducing our three boys and one of our antagonists well and setting up the side cast and preparing for our last to major additions Next Time: The Boys go on their first adventure, Sheldgoose finds a boss and the girls find their voice. Thanks for Reading, Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye. 

[aion-rsa]

How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Marvel’s Thor, the first theatrical live-action film to feature the comic book giant’s version of the Norse God of Thunder, opened in theaters a decade ago, on May 6, 2011.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring a then little-known Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Thor was the fourth film in the still-nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was also — as we look back at it now — a pivotal one in the development of the MCU.

“I’m very proud of my part of it,” Branagh told us a couple of years ago about his handling of Thor. “Which was providing a sort of backbone that they could comically riff off, but at least it originally contained some of the high stakes Nine Realms import that that larger mythology has to have as well.”

Thor took the franchise off the Earth for the first time and into the cosmic side of the Marvel mythology, introducing audiences to the Nine Realms, the kingdom of Asgard and other mind-bending concepts that comic fans had adored for years but which were a major risk to put in front of mainstream moviegoers.

Even the character of Thor — with his helmet and his hammer and his arch way of speaking — often seemed to skate perilously close to laughable in the pages of the comics themselves. But he was also a mainstay of the Marvel line and a charter member of the Avengers, the superhero team that Marvel based its entire initial run of films upon.

Marvel

Thor didn’t take the Rainbow Bridge to the screen

A Thor movie based on the Marvel Comics version of the character had, surprisingly, been bandied around for years even before there was a Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The God of Thunder debuted on the page in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962), created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby. A founding member of the Avengers, he joined Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp in the pages of The Avengers #1 (September 1963). In the ensuing decades, he has starred in multiple iterations of the Avengers comics, plus many ongoing and limited series of his own.

An animated version of the character debuted in 1966’s Marvel Super-Friends show, while the first live-action incarnation of Thor (played by Eric Kramer) showed up in the 1988 TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns, a follow-up to the late 1970s series The Incredible Hulk.

While Thor continued to turn up in various animated Marvel properties, it was in 1991 that the first full-length, live-action Thor movie was proposed — by no less than Sam Raimi.

The director, who later went on to make the first three Spider-Man movies and who is now working in the MCU on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, revealed to the The Hollywood Reporter in the wake of Stan Lee’s passing that he pitched a Thor movie to the Marvel Universe co-creator over lunch.

“We worked together writing treatments and took it to Fox and pitched it,” Raimi recalled. “And they said, ‘Absolutely no. Comic books don’t make good movies.’ This was in 1991.”

The rights to Thor bounced around Hollywood for a few more years (at one point it was set up at Sony with David S. Goyer writing and possibly directing) until landing back at Marvel Studios, which had reinvented itself as an independently financed production company in 2005 with distribution through Paramount Pictures. The studio, run at the time by David Maisel with Kevin Feige as president of production, hired Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend and the unfilmed Batman Unchained) to write a script for Thor, with Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) coming aboard to direct in August 2007.

Marvel

Enter Tom Hiddleston as Loki…

No sooner did Matthew Vaughn sign up to direct Thor than he seemingly left just as quickly, although it was officially announced in May 2008 that he was departing. Creative and budget issues seemed to have sealed his exit. “Marvel loves the script,” he wrote in The Guardian in late 2007. “The only problem is that it has been costed at $300m and they ask how I am going to reduce it by $150m.”

Even though Thor had already been scheduled for a June 4, 2010 release date, Marvel still had to find a director. Talks were held with Guillermo del Toro, but he decided to direct The Hobbit instead (which he ended up leaving as well). At the end of its search, Marvel finally chose Kenneth Branagh, the Irish actor and director best known for his epic adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Henry V — which kind of provided an idea of the tone Marvel was looking for.

Branagh was finally signed in December 2008, telling MTV News, “It’s a chance to tell a big story on a big scale…It’s a human story right in the center of a big epic scenario.”

Once Branagh was signed, the movie’s release date was pushed back from June/July 2010 to May 6, 2011, providing plenty of time for the film’s extensive visual effects to be designed and created and for Branagh to find his cast — starting with the God of Thunder himself.

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The first person allegedly approached was Daniel Craig, who had just starred in his second James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. It was because of his commitments to the already massive 007 franchise that Craig turned down the hammer-wielding Asgardian, although it’s somehow hard to imagine the tough-as-nails Craig as the egotistical (at least at first), young Odinson.

A long list of young, relatively unknown actors tested for the part, including Chris Hemsworth (who was just making his brief but scene-stealing appearance as James Kirk’s father in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek), his brother Liam, the equally obscure Tom Hiddleston, Kevin McKidd from Grey’s Anatomy, Alexander Skarsgard (Godzilla vs. Kong), Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Joel Kinnaman (The Suicide Squad), and others. But Chris Hemsworth ultimately won the day, with Hiddleston landing the consolation gift that would keep on giving, the role of Thor’s villainous adopted brother Loki.

“That was my starting point, was that you have a character with a predisposition toward mischief,” Hiddleston said about playing the trickster god, during a 2010 set visit attended by this reporter in Manhattan Beach, California. “An inclination toward chaos and a delight in imbalance, and you couple that with the fierce intelligence that he has, and a chess master’s ability to manipulate events three or four steps ahead of the game.”

Adding even more gravitas to the production was the signing of the legendary Anthony Hopkins to play Thor’s father, Odin, along with Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Rene Russo as Thor’s mom Frigga, Colm Feore as Laufey, the king of the Frost Giants, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and others. Also signed: Samuel L. Jackson for his third appearance as Nick Fury (in an end credits bonus scene) and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, marking the live-action debut of the bow-and-arrow-wielding Avenger.

Filming on Thor began in mid-January 2010 and wound down in early May, with shooting taking place at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach, California (Marvel’s studio home in the MCU’s early years), Santa Fe, and other parts of New Mexico, and locations in northern California.

Colm Feore told The Deadbolt that the Shakespearean training which he, Branagh, and Hopkins all shared enabled them to quickly communicate with each other while shaping the characters and finding the right tone: “One of the things that was enormously helpful on Thor was that during the breaks, Tony, myself, and Ken would be talking in Shakespearean shorthand about what the characters were doing, what we thought they may be like, and how we could focus our attention more intelligently.”

During that same set visit to the Manhattan Beach set of Thor, Marvel president of production Kevin Feige told this reporter and others that the movie was going to feature more extensive post-production work than other Marvel films. “When you walk around Captain America or Iron Man, you can get it,” he explained. “With Thor, what you’re seeing is only 30% of what the movie will be. This is the big question mark and to me that makes it the most exciting. I like it when people don’t exactly know what we’re going to do.”

Reshoots were completed in late 2010, while The Avengers director Joss Whedon shot the end credits scene in which Nick Fury reveals the Infinity Stone known as the Tesseract to Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard).

Marvel

Marvel takes a big swing with Thor’s hammer

Introducing Thor and the Asgardians — who were essentially aliens, with technology so far ahead of our own that they seemed like gods to the ancient, more primitive people of Norway more than a millennium ago — was a major gamble for the MCU and its then-president of production (and now Chief Creative Officer) Kevin Feige.

Out of Marvel’s first three films, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were massive, out-of-the-box hits, while The Incredible Hulk was a middling success at best. Yet all three films were Earthbound and dealt with plausible (as far as it went) science and technology. The science of Thor was — to borrow a phrase from the late science fiction titan Arthur C. Clarke — indistinguishable from magic.

“Asgardians are kind of ‘been there, done that’ when it comes to that kind of stuff,” said co-producer Craig Kyle to this reporter and others on the set visit. “For them to send you across the universe, it’s as easy as turning a key … Their technology is only as sophisticated as it needs to be to do extraordinary things.”

Making Thor, Odin and the other inhabitants of Asgard, Jotunheim and the rest of the Nine Realms into extra-terrestrial beings mistaken for gods by ancient humans took Thor away from sword-and-sorcery and fantasy and more overtly into the science fiction genre. But it also provided the film with a back story and mythology that was perhaps easier for modern movie fans to swallow — more Star Wars than the Völuspá.

“We just kept trying to humanize it all, and keep it very real,” Chris Hemsworth told Superhero Hype at the time about his approach to the title character. “Look into all the research about the comic books that we could, but also bring it back to ‘Who is this guy as a person, and what’s his relationship with people in the individual scenes?’ And working with someone like Kenneth Branagh, who has all those bases covered and has so many ideas, it was a hell of a time!”

In addition to taking the big creative risk of bringing Asgard and Thor to the screen, the movie took several other chances as well. Starting a tradition that Marvel would return to with films like Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor did not function as a traditional origin story. We meet Thor, Loki, Odin, and enter Asgard with only a brief introduction detailing the history of ill will and war between the Asgardians and the Frost Giants.

Thor’s journey in the film is not that of an ordinary character being bestowed with great powers and learning how to use them, the typical arc of a superhero film. He is fully formed here, if flawed, and as the film progresses he learns to be a better version of the immensely powerful being that he already is — with the help of the human beings that he meets during his fall to Earth.

When Thor — the likely successor to his father’s throne — reignites hostilities with the Frost Giants partially due to his own immaturity, Odin decrees him unworthy of wielding Mjolnir and banishes him, powerless, to Earth. That leaves the door open for the crafty Loki — who has discovered that he is not Asgardian after all, but the child of Frost Giants — to manipulate and scheme his way into power himself.

Marvel’s other big gamble was making Loki a much more fully developed antagonist than had been previously seen in many comic book movies. Skillfully portrayed by Hiddleston in a performance that made him an instant star, Loki is an empathetic, nuanced character whose longing for the love and attention of his adopted father — who lavishes more of both on Thor — leads him down a dark path and into a character arc that would take several years and movies to play out.

“I think Loki intuitively feels that he doesn’t belong there, he doesn’t belong with the family in Asgard and doesn’t belong in the pantheon of gods,” said Hiddleston at the time. “He’s confused about his place in the universe … We all reach a point in our lives where we think, ‘What the hell are we supposed to do with our life?’ Thor reaches that point in this film and Loki does as well, so yes, maybe if Odin had made him feel valued and respected and essential to Asgard, then it would have been okay.”

Marvel

Thor smashes all preconceptions

Thor had its world premiere in Sydney, Australia on April 17, 2011 and opened in that country — Hemsworth’s native land — four days later. It premiered in 56 more markets before finally opening in North America on May 6, 2011.

The film earned a 77% fresh rating and mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the performances by Hemsworth and Hiddleston, as well as the grandiose family drama on Asgard, but less impressed by Thor’s journey to Earth and the climactic battle there against the massive golem-like Destroyer sent by Loki to kill Thor.

More importantly for Marvel, the film connected with audiences despite the perception that Thor was largely unfamiliar or dated. Thor earned $181 million at the North American box office and a further $268 million abroad for a worldwide total of $449 million.

While that ranks it near the bottom of the 23 MCU movies released to date (along with Ant-Man and Captain America: The First Avenger), it was a far from shabby showing for the early MCU and proved Marvel’s calculation that it could expand Marvel’s footprint on film beyond already established characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Hulk.

“I liked it when people said, ‘Iron Man’s the B-Team. You’re calling out the B-Team!’ We knew it wasn’t,” said Feige on set about using what were perceived as lower-tier Marvel heroes. “We knew it was going to be great. And that holds true for Thor … here’s another one that will redefine us and at least raise the bar of what a comic book movie is, for both people who’ve read comics and those who haven’t.”

Thor expanded the boundaries of the MCU into the realms of space, alternate dimensions and cosmic conflicts, while putting another key part in place for the impending arrival of the Avengers. And while 2013’s follow-up, Thor: The Dark World, was a misstep and considered one of Marvel’s few outright failures, the studio brilliantly reinvented the character in 2017 with Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, moving him away from the initial Shakespearean grandiosity and into a more humorous space.

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That in turn allowed Thor and Hemsworth to have one of the most profound character arcs across the entire span of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. His story in those films, the box office clout of Ragnarok, and Hemsworth’s enthusiasm for the role led Marvel to commission 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder — marking the first time an MCU hero is venturing into a fourth solo movie.

Ten years later, while not a perfect film by any means, Thor is still an enjoyable, consciously weird Marvel epic that proved the God of Thunder could bring the lightning even to modern audiences. And while Thor has seemingly abandoned the throne of Asgard for now, his first film’s place in the MCU pantheon is secure.

The post How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2RWjeeA

[marvelous-writer]

One Fall Weekend

Summary: A field trip to the mountains goes horribly wrong, forcing Peter and Brad to put their differences aside in order to survive.

Whumptober Day Six: Lost

@whumptober2019

Link to read on Ao3:

Mr. Dell somehow managed to convince Midtown Tech to green light his outdoor nature hike idea. It probably took a lot of convincing on his part, as well as Mr. Harrington’s, who was also co-leading this field trip, saying that it would be good for everyone to get outdoors in nature and learn the history of America’s land.

When Peter came home from school with the permission slip for the trip, May was quick to call Tony and discuss it with him. And before he knew it, the slip was signed and there were a few large packages from Sierra Trading Post and L.L. Bean waiting outside of their apartment door the next day when Peter got home from school. He didn’t even need to check the shipping label to know who they were from.

If you ask him, May and Tony were being a little too enthusiastic about him going on this trip. It’s probably because they’ve been getting on him lately with taking it easy from patrolling and focus on being a teenager and spending some time with his friends.

Peter honestly didn’t want to go on this trip, not just because of the fact that whenever he went on a school trip always seems to involve him endangering everyone’s lives when a psycho villain shows up. But May and Tony were pretty adamant on him going, so he didn’t have a choice.

The two of them sure were one heck of a force to be reckoned with.

That’s how Peter finds himself in the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate, New York, one and a half weeks later on a Thursday night at the campsite where they would all be staying for the next three and a half days.

“Okay, everyone listen up!” Mr. Dell calls. “Once your tents are all set up, we’re leaving for a scavenger hunt! Make sure you have your backpacks, flashlights and the maps I handed out!”

Peter turns back to the black and green tent that they’ve just finished setting up, smiling proudly at his and Ned’s handiwork that took them under twenty minutes. Tony had invited Peter up to the lake house last weekend and taught him how to set up a tent, start a fire without matches, as well as a few other outdoor survival skills, with Morgan’s help, of course.

It was clear that Tony was worried and stressing a bit over the trip, and Peter understood why the man was going all out with buying him all of this camping gear and making sure that Peter knew what to in an emergency. It was all a little excessive, but Peter appreciated it nonetheless.

It was just a camping trip up north, not even a couple hundred miles from the Compound and the Stark’s lake house. It’s not like they were going half-way across the world again. This time, there weren’t going to be any bad guys to fight. The scariest thing they’re going to be facing is Flash without wi-fi.

“Wow,” Michelle’s voice comes from behind them. “I actually can’t believe the two of you managed to put this thing together. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks.” Ned smiles, decked out in his camping gear, wearing a navy green hat with tiny marshmallows dangling from the rim, swishing in the air as he turns around.

“And you ever doubted us?” Peter asks with a smile.

“Well, yeah. Sort of.” She shrugs, stepping closer to him.

Peter fake gasps and presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Michelle Jones, I’ll have you know that we are both men or many talents.”

“Yeah!” Ned adds.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that.” She knowingly smirks at Peter, their eyes locking as she stands in front of him, only mere inches from his face.

Peter feels his heart start to race when they both start to lean in closer to each other.

Ned makes a disgusted sound, ruining the moment. “Now you two had to make it weird.”

Michelle rolls her eyes with a smirk and starts to pull away from Peter, but he snakes an arm around her waist, keeping her close to his side. She lets out a small laugh and leans against him.

Ned ducks into the tent, leaving them alone for the moment. Peter takes his opportunity and plants a light kiss to Michelle’s cheek, who breathes out a small laugh. Much to his surprise, she faces him and wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him.

Peter’s eyes close, and all of a sudden the world blurs as a warm ness spreads through his chest, feeling lighter than air. Michelle pulls away after a moment, grinning.

“W-What happened to being discreet?” Peter breaths out, eyes fluttering open.

“Couldn’t help myself.” Michelle grins at him, starting to pull away. “I have to go back and help Betty. Stay out of trouble, Mountain Man.” She tells him, already starting to walk off in the direction of her’s and Betty’s tent.

Peter watches her go with what’s probably a dumb, lovestruck look on his face. He can’t help it though. Whenever they’re together, Peter feels so happy and complete.

And for the moment, he’s able to forget about how he never wanted to come on this trip in the first place.

…….

Once the tents are all up, everyone grabs their things when Mr. Dell calls them over so they could get assigned to their partners for the scavenger hunt.

“...Ned with Abraham, Darcy, Samantha and Emily, Josh with Flash, Michelle with Betty, and last but not least, Peter with Brad.” Mr. Harrington reads off from the clipboard in his hands.

Peter’s stomach drops. It wasn’t already bad enough they were being forced out here, in the middle of nowhere to do this scavenger hunt, but to be partnered up with Brad, of all people? He didn’t know what was worse.

Peter turns his head, eyes searching the group of his classmates, until his eyes land on Brad, who looks just as thrilled as Peter probably does.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that the two of them weren’t fans of each other. Brad clearly wasn’t over everything that happened during their trip to Europe in the beginning of the summer, and their little fight over which one of them would win MJ over.

But now that Peter was dating Michelle, he thought for sure that the guy would let it go, but it’s only gotten worse. Brad still tries with MJ, trying to get her to like him, whether it be with telling stupid jokes and stories, trying to impress her, and a whole bunch more of annoying things that Peter absolutely despises.

And now the two of them had to traipse around through the woods, partnered up together.

The good ol’ Parker Luck strikes again.

The group starts to disperse into their groups, leaving the two of them awkwardly standing there.

Peter sucks in a deep, grounding breath before he walks over to Brad, trying not to let the disappointment show on his face. He was going to be cordial and work with him, not rude or anything. Ben and May raised him better than that.

Peter awkwardly clears his throat as he comes to stand beside the other boy. “Uh, so… which way did you want to go?”

Brad pulls his map out from his sweatshirt pocket and unfolds it. His brows pull together in concentration as he studies it, tracing a finger over a path. “We’ll go south.” He decides as he folds the map back up, maybe a little too roughly.

“Sounds good.” Peter agrees lightly. “Do you think we should-” He starts to say, but Brad starts to walk away from him.

Peter breathes out a sigh. “Yeah… okay.” He mumbles to himself as he follows behind him.

This was going to be a long hour.

…….

Thirty minutes later, they’ve completed half of the scavenger hunt, finding four oak leaves, five acorns, three pine cones, a piece of pine bark, and various other things off the list. They only have five more to go, but the only problem is that it’s getting dark, so much to the point that they had to take their flashlights out a while ago.

Brad stops again for the third time in the past two minutes to look at the map. Peter stands at his side, shining the flashlight on to it so they can see it.

“I don’t get it…” Brad says with a frown. “The path should be right here.” He taps his thumb on an area on the paper.

Peter’s brows pull together, looking away and shines his flashlight around them, squinting in the darkness to see if anything looked familiar.

Nothing does.

They were lost.

The real ness of their situation hits Peter like a ton of bricks, a sinking feeling forming in his stomach. They were lost in the middle of nowhere with no food or water, no tent, no blankets, only the clothes on their backs and each other.

“We’re lost… aren’t we?” Peter tentatively asks.

He expects Brad to scoff at him and deny it, but the frightened look on his face says it all.

Brad swallows hard, brows pulling together. “Yeah… I think we are.”

Peter breathes out shakily and runs a hand through his curls, trying to come up with some kind of plan. He’s Spider-Man for goodness sake! This shouldn’t be so scary to him with everything he deals with out on the streets everyday, but it does.

A sudden cold wind wishes past them, crinkling the fallen leaves on the ground around them. A shiver races through Peter and he sees Brad pull his sweatshirt closer to himself in his peripheral.

“Come on. It’s getting cold and we can’t stand around. Let’s go this way… they have to be looking for us by now.” Peter says, pointing his flashlight a few feet to the left from where they’re standing.

“Right.” Brad nods, folding up the now useless map, storing it away in his hoodie pocket once again. “Let’s go.”

…….

Another thirty minutes pass by and now, it’s pitch black out.

“Can anyone hear us?” Brad yells, his voice echoing off into the distance.

They’ve had no other choice than to resort to yelling for help, hoping that someone would hear them. But so far… no one has.

Peter walks along next to Brad, hood up, with an arm wrapped around himself, the other holding onto the flashlight with a shaking hand. He’s been shivering for some time now, teeth chattering, and it was only getting worse.

“Do y-you think we s-should s-stop and t-try to s-start a f-fire?” Peter suggests.

“We need to keep moving.” Brad argues.

“Y-Yeah, but i-it’s getting colder. S-Someone might s-see the flames.” Peter shoots back, growing frustrated.

Brad breathes out a sigh, a puff of white smoke escaping into the air, barely visible with the flashlights. He rounds on Peter, face tense. “We can’t just start a fire anywhere. There are too many trees around us.” He angrily says. “I’ve gone camping with my folks since I was six. You’re just a city boy, so I’d expect that coming from you.”

“And y-yet h-here we are lost, in t-the middle of nowhere!” Peter shouts back, throwing his arms out.

Brad’s mouth opens and closes a few times, his face contorted in anger, but nothing comes out. He turns his head away and lets out a frustrated sigh. They’re both silent for a few long moments, the only sources of sound being the trees blowing in the wind around them. The silence is unsettling out here, compared to the hustle and bustle of the city they’re both used to back at home.

Peter closes his eyes and reaches a shaky hand up, pinching the bridge of his nose. Now wasn’t the time to lose his temper.

“I’m sorry.” Peter apologizes, letting out a sigh. “This isn’t your fault, Brad but fighting is-isn’t going to h-help us.”

Brad looks back at him, their eyes meeting, before his shoulder’s slump. “You’re right.” He agrees.

Peter’s slightly surprised to hear him say that. He never would’ve imagined that Brad Davis, would openly admit that Peter was right about something.

“What do you think we should do?” Brad asks, folding his arms over his chest, looking miserably cold.

In the time they’ve been out here doing this stupid scavenger hunt, Brad had automatically taken the lead, casting Peter aside, and Peter had let him, not wanting to make any waves with him. Now, however, it seems like Brad was willing to work with him.

Circumstances set aside, it was a turn in the right direction.

Peter’s eyes searched the black darkness surrounding them, fear and dread creeping it’s way into him. “Well… let’s t-try to find somewhere to b-build a fire, get warm, and h-hopefully someone will f-find us. I think I have something that’ll help start it.”

“Okay.” Brad says. “We just need to find a clearing and some loose branches and twigs.”

“Right.” Peter nods. “Come on.”

They both continue on their way, leaves crunching underneath their shoes as they walk through the woods.

…….

Peter doesn’t know what’s worse, the relenting cold that has him violently shivering now, or the knowing hunger growing in his stomach. He can’t even remember the last time he ate.

“I’m seriously c-considering ripping off some bark and eating it right now.” Brad groans at his side.

“Sorry, the granola bars I brought are in my other bag back at camp.” Peter says, shooting him a sympathetic look, even though he could barely see it with the dim yellow lighting of their flashlights.

“Yeah, same.” Brad says. “I mean, we could always ear bugs, right? Roast them when we build a fire?” He grins, trying to lighten the mood.

Peter gives a short laugh. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Brad breathes out a laugh. “I know and then we’d have to-”

His voice cuts out when Peter’s spider-sense practically screams at him, feeling his whole body tense up. He doesn’t know why it’s going off but on instinct, Peter shoots a hand out and shoves Brad backwards, hearing a loud ‘oopf.’ Peter doesn’t even realize his next step is met by air, before he feels himself falling forward.

In a matter of seconds, he feels himself hit the ground on his knees, only for his body to be propelled forward by gravity, continuing to roll downwards. Branches snap, leaves and plants being crushed underneath him as he continues to tumble, panicked mind racing, throwing his hands out in hopes to grab onto something to catch himself. But he’s moving too fast.

Peter can’t even tell which way was up or down.

Something suddenly snaps in his arm when he manages to grab ahold of a small tree, failing to stop his descent. There’s no air left in his lungs for him to be able to scream out from all of the pain.

The last thing Peter’s aware of is slamming head first into something incredibly hard, before he knows no more.

…….

Excruciating pain is the first thing he’s able to register, as well as how freezing he is. Peter can’t pinpoint exactly where it’s coming from with how badly he’s shivering.

Sounds slowly return next, a faint ringing in his ears.

“-eter! -eter!” Someone’s muffled voice screams from somewhere in the distance.

Peter manages to slowly peel open his heavy eyes, meeting darkness. He can hear branches snapping nearby, before there’s suddenly a golden light shining down on him.

“Shit, Peter!”

There’s someone kneeling down next to him, a blurry face above his. Peter slowly blinks a few times until he’s able to recognize that it’s Brad kneeling above him.

“Peter can you hear me?” Brad pants, eyes wide and panicked.

A wave of pain washes over Peter before he can answer, a groan escaping at the back of his throat as he tightly closes his eyes.

“Uh-shit. Okay. Shit this is bad.” Brad mutters, followed by the sound of a zipper and things moving around, possibly in a backpack. “Shit. No cell reception.”

Through Peter’s pained and woozy mind, he distantly remembers sitting with Tony in the living room at the lake house, and the new StarkPhone Tony gave him.

“M-My… bag…” Peter forces out through chattering teeth.

“What?” Brad shakily asks.

“M-My b-bag… p-phone’s…”

“There’s no reception out here for miles-”

“G-Get it… p-please.” Peter weakly cuts him off, a weak cough escaping through his lips.

He can swear that he feels something wet come up, that hopefully wasn’t blood.

Brad frowns, aiming the flashlight around them. Peter’s backpack had somehow slipped off him during his fall.

“Got it!” Brad announces, jumping to his feet.

Leaves crunch under his shoes as he retrieves it, bringing it back over and kneeling at Peter’s side again.

“I-Inside l-left po-pocket.” Peter tells him, hearing the bag being zipped open.

“Found it… but we still don’t have any reception out here.”

“I-It’s made s-so it’ll w-work out o-of range.” Peter stutters out, a violent chill racing through him.

Peter had just been so upset about the whole trip and this week has been crazy, so he forgot all about the phone. He hasn’t even used it since Tony gave it to him, finding that the man had already put his number in the device.

How could Peter be so stupid to forget about it? They could have called for help hours ago.

“It’s locked.” Brad’s voice takes him out of his self-blaming thoughts.

“1962.” Peter grits out, wincing as his shoulder gives off a particularly painful throb.

He looks up at the other boy, as he types in the passcode, allowing Peter to see his wide, fearful eyes, as well as his rosy nose and cheeks from the biting cold.

“T-There’s only one number on here?” Brad says, almost questioningly. “A… Tony?”

“C-Call hi-him.” Peter struggles to say through chattering teeth.

Brad’s brows pull together as he looks down at him. “Tony? As in…”

Peter closes his eyes, breathing out shakily as another round of chills race through him, feeling something warm slide down his cheeks. “B-Brad, p-please… c-call h-him.”

“Okay, okay.” Brad says, tapping on the device a few times before Peter can faintly hear the dial tone in the background.

They wait there for several moments, hope filling through Peter, praying for Tony to answer.

“Oh my God, yes!” Brad’s yell causes him to flinch from the suddenness of it and Peter lets out a low groan when it jostles whatever injuries he has. “My name is Brad, I’m in Peter’s-yes-no, but we were on a scavenger hunt and we got lost-” Brad quickly speaks, but his voice starts to fade in and out of Peter’s ears, replaced by a staticky noise.

Peter’s eyes are growing heavy again, his head pounding away, as he shivers on the cold, hard ground.

“-eter? Hey, you have to-awake! -eter!” He can hear Brad’s frantic voice, but it sounds so far away.

Peter’s eyes slip shut, and then he knows no more.

…….

Voices fade in and out of his ears and he feels multiple hands on him.

“-shock-hypothermia-” Someone’s saying but the words don’t register with his jumbled, pained brain.

Peter somehow manages to open his eyes into slits, and there’s a bright white light surrounding him with the silhouettes of faceless figures above him.

A violent shiver wracks through him and he squeezes his eyes shut, feeling something soft and warm being pulled up to his chin.

“Hold on, honey… just hold on.” A soft voice tells him, and it almost reminds him of May, but it just doesn’t sound like her.

Everything fades to black.

…….

Peter wakes to the sound of someone crying, before pain erupts throughout his body. The crying only gets louder when his throat strangely starts to ache, only for him to discover that he’s the one who’s crying. He can feel the tears sliding down his cheeks and rolling down into his hair.

It hurts.

Everything hurts.

Make it stop!

Make it stop!

There’s suddenly a warm, calloused hand on his forehead.

“I’ve got you, Pete… I’m right here… I’ve got you.” A familiar voice says from somewhere around him.

Tony.

Peter wants to open his eyes and see Tony’s face, but everything hurts too much. It’s all too much.

He’s barely aware of the pinch of a needle in his arm, before the darkness consumes him once more.

…….

Consciousness slowly creeps up on him before his hearing comes next. There’s a soft, rhythmic beeping at Peter’s side. Everything feels weird and fuzzy, not allowing him to think clearly.

Peter manages to slowly open his heavy eyes, sluggishly blinking, only to discover that he was in a clean, white room, lying in bed. His brows pull together in confusion, as he rolls his head to the side, eyes landing on a person sitting in a chair at his bedside. He’d recognize that face anywhere.

“T’ny…” Peter hoarsely mumbles, throat horribly dry.

Tony’s head shoots up from his tablet and their eyes lock, relief washing over the man’s face.

“Well look who’s awake.” Tony smiles as he puts his tablet down on the nightstand beside the bed, and reaches a hand out, resting it on the side of Peter’s head.

“Where r’ we?” Peter hoarsely asks.

Tony’s thumb rubs small, soothing circles on his forehead. “You’re at the Compound in the medbay… you were hurt pretty bad, bud.” He softly says, brows pulling together. “Do you remember what happened?”

Peter can remember bits and pieces of going on the camping trip, partnering up with Brad for the scavenger hunt, getting lost… but it’s all fuzzy after that.

“You took a nasty fall down a steep hillside.” Tony tells him. “Your friend, Brad called me on your phone and we came looking for the two of you.”

Peter frowns, not recalling any of that.

“It’s okay if you can’t remember. You have a concussion but you’re going to be all healed up in no time.” Tony says with a small smile.

Come to find out, Peter had quite a severe concussion, as well as a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm, broken wrist, two cracked ribs and a badly sprained ankle, not to mention he came in with a severe case of hypothermia.

It takes about a day or so until Peter’s foggy brain clears up a bit and he’s able to remember what happened in the mountains. He remembers Brad coming to his rescue, climbing down that hillside after him and calling for help, not leaving Peter’s side.

…….

A sudden knock on the glass wall has Peter looking over at the doorway, seeing Tony standing there.

“Hey, kiddo. You feeling up for some visitors?” Tony asks with a smile.

Peter nods with a smile, sitting up a little bit more against the stack of pillows behind him. “Sure.”

Tony ducks out of the room and a few minutes later, Michelle, Ned and, to Peter’s surprise, Brad file in through the door. Peter’s smiles widens when Ned rushes over to him first.

“Oh my God, Peter! I’m so glad you’re okay!” His friend breathes out, clearly relieved as he carefully hugs him.

Ned steps aside after a few moments, allowing MJ to come over. She’s looking at the machines Peter’s hooked up to with teary, worried eyes, as well as the bright blue cast wrapped around his left arm. Before Peter can say anything, she leans over and presses a soft peck to his lips.

She pulls back, resting her forehead against his. “I thought that-when I saw you… I thought you were dead.” Michelle tearfully whispers.

“I’m so sorry, MJ… you shouldn’t have had to see that.” Peter tells her, reaching his good hand up to cup the side of her face. “But I promise you, I’m okay.”

They stay like that for a few more long seconds, before she pulls back, wiping at her eyes as she stands at Ned’s side. Peter’s eyes slide away from her and over to Brad, who was awkwardly standing over by the door. Peter’s eyes slide back to MJ and their eyes meet, the two of them sharing a knowing look.

She nods in understanding. “We’ll give you two a minute.” Michelle says before she grabs Ned’s arm and pulls him out of the room.

The room is silent for a moment before Peter’s eyes fall on Brad. “Hey.”

“Hey.” The other boy repeats, a little awkwardly as he walks over to the bed. “So… how’re you feeling?”

“Better.”

“That’s good.” Brad says. “You had us pretty worried there, with everything that happened. That was pretty scary with you… you know. I… I thought you were dead, when I found you at the bottom of that hill. You weren’t moving and you were all bloody… I-I didn’t know what to do.” He admits.

Peter’s eyes fall to the bed as his brows pull together, silent for a few seconds. He couldn’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for Brad to experience, on top of them being lost.

“I would be if it wasn’t for you.” Peter slowly says, looking back up at him. “I never got to thank you.”

Brad just shrugs, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “No problem.”

A silence forms between the two of them for a few moments.

“Uh… so… I guess you weren’t kidding when you said you knew Tony Stark.” Brad says, gesturing a hand around the room, smiling. “This place is awesome.”

“Yeah, I know.” Peter smiles.

After their little heart-to-heart, MJ and Ned walk back in, carrying a few bottled drinks and snacks from the vending machine down the hall. MJ carefully sits at his right side and snuggles against him, mindful of his injuries, while Ned sits at the end of the bed, with Brad taking the unoccupied chair beside the bed on Peter’s right.

It’s almost as if a weight has been lifted off of Peter’s chest after talking with Brad, and with everything that’s happened… they’re grown a little bit closer with each other. No longer nemeses, but friends.

It’s true what they say, tragedy does bring people closer together.

[buzzdixonwriter]

A Long But Not Pointless Ramble In Which We Discuss Sci-Fi Flicks

We’re gonna ramble around a bunch of connected topics, so pour yourself a cuppa and enjoy the ride.

. . .

I’m a big fan of 1950s sci-fi B-movies.

Years ago, when I was chatting with the late film historian Bill Warren on this, he made a pertinent observation:  1950s sci-fi B-movies tend to be more fondly remembered than most better mounted and more professionally executed sci-fi films that came afterwards.

There’s a couple of three reasons for this:

The shock of the new -- most of those films pioneered a brand new genre and style, looking far different from previous genre offerings such as Flash Gordon or Things To Come.  As such, they score branding points by being first, even if later examples are better made.

They possess a certain naïve charm -- by and large they’re not sophisticated nor exceptionally well thought out (though when they do demonstrate flashes of intellect, it’s always a delight).  One feels these films are being made up on the fly (and in a certain sense, they were; see (1) above) and in an odd manner they prove more innocent and thus more fun than those that came later.

Most of them were cheap -- this combines with points (1) & (2) to force most 1950s sci-fi B-movies to focus tightly on one idea / one image to sell the film.  As a result there’s a startling clarity of vision in even the most flimsy of productions that’s lacking in later, more elaborate movies.  The weaker examples of this genre are those films trying to cover more ground than their cheaper cousins.

. . .

Two cases in point:  Jack Arnold’s Tarantula for Universal is a technically better made movie than Bert I. Gordon’s The Spider for AIP, but Tarantula loses focus, dawdling about on character development and sub-plots instead of concentrating on the big ass spider.

The Spider is far weaker in the script / performances / production value departments, but who gives a %#@& ? -- it’s got a big ass spider tearing up the countryside for most of the picture.

Not to put down Arnold and his effects crew’s efforts; they ingeniously figured out a way to not only get their tarantula to realistically crawl over uneven landscapes but actually cast a shadow as it did so, heightening the realism.

Gordon, conversely, simple shot his spider in front of still photos; the shots look as crude as they sound.

But The Spider delivers what Tarantula only teases:  An attack by said big ass spider on a population center.  Tarantula famously ends with an uncredited Clint Eastwood napalming the monster in the desert on the outskirts of town; The Spider actually goes rampaging through its town, and features one of the most iconic shots of any sci-fi movie:  As the big ass spider bears down on her, a terrified woman slams her car door shut on her skirt and in her panic tries to tug it loose instead of simply opening the door again.

George Lucas crowds the screen with thousands of furiously dogfighting CGI starships and that lacks the gut punching impact of that one simple terrifying shot. 

. . .

An even more pertinent example can be found in the oeuvre of Irving Block and Jack Rabin (I know, you’re going “Who?”  Patience, young jedi; all will be explained below).

Block and Rabin (along with Louis DeWitt, their silent 3rd partner) ran a small special effects house in Hollywood in the late 1940s-50s with an interesting strategy for drumming up business.

They’d devise an interesting yet inexpensive (i.e., clever but cheap) special effects technique, build a story around it, then pitch that story to low budget movie producers with the proviso their firm would be hired to do the special effects for the final film.

This resulted in a number of low budget sci-fi films built around the kernel of an interesting visual, and while they night not have been great examples of the cinematic art, hey certainly created a number of memorable scenes and images from little more than scotch tape and rubber bands.

Unknown World was their take on Jules Verne’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth (no dinosaurs but then again, no Pat Boone, so they came out ahead on that one); Atomic Submarine pitted the US Navy against a UFO; Kronos featured a wholly unique alien invader; and War Of The Satellites staged an epic space opera on a bargain basement budget.

All noteworthy 1950s sci-fi B-movies, but ironically it was the film where their strategy failed -- or rather, only proved 50% successful -- that stands out.

Figuring out how to make footprints appear as if by magic, Block and Rabin devised a story about a spaceship landing on a planet of invisible monsters (as they pointed out, the great thing about invisible monsters is that even the cheapest production can afford millions of ‘em).

Their agent sent the pitch around to all the usual suspects at that time in the low budget indie film universe but, learning another studio not know for low budget sci-fi wanted to hop on the band wagon, sent it there as well.

That studio bought the idea, thanked Block and Rabin for their input, but said they’d let their own B-movie unit team handle the special effects,

And that’s how MGM made Forbidden Planet.

. . .

Today Forbidden Planet is a much beloved classic of the genre, but when released it proved a bit of a disappointment.

Oh, it made money (then and now, studios refuse to fund a production unless they already know in advance they will recoup their expenses and make a profit in advance of actual production) but it didn’t do anywhere near the business they hoped.

Part of this was timing -- it came out after dozens of lesser / cheaper films crowded the market -- but part of it is paradox:  It’s just too damn good.

No bones about it, Forbidden Planet was a B-movie for MGM.

In terms of overall quality, however, any MGM B-movie is bound to look like an A-picture from any other studio, and that’s exactly what happened here:  A literate, dynamite script; solid performances; top notch production values; bursting at the seams with ideas and incidents and details.

Sci-fi fans loved it, mainstream audiences not so much.

What sci-fi fans perceived as a groundbreaking classic, mainstream audiences viewed as:  Flying saucer something something something robot blah blah blah invisible monster.

What audiences today remember when they think of Forbidden Planet is the single most iconic element of the film.

Robby the robot.

He’s what sticks.  Robby made a big enough impression to star in his own follow up feature a few years later (The Invisible Boy) as well as guest star appearances on The Twilight Zone, Lost In Space, Columbo, and scores of other movies / TV shows / personal appearances.

Pick an iconic element. Stick with it.

. . .

The trick to doing memorable sci-fi movies is keeping the key visual elements down to as few sharply defined items as possible.

Star Wars (i.e., the unnumbered original release) is even more crowded in detail than Forbidden Planet but it holds its iconic visual elements down to a crucial handful:  Masked villain in black.  Laurel & Hardy robots.  Friendly yeti.  Glow swords.  Big bad artificial planet.

Every other visual element serves those, and while they provide detail and texture, they aren’t distractions.

Seriously, jettison the plot of the original Star Wars and reconfigure it from the ground up with those elements and it still winds up pretty much the same film, just set on different worlds.

This is why later films in the series, despite bigger and bigger revenues, lack the memorable freshness and emotional clarity of the original (getting cluttered up with superfluous characters and vehicles inserted just to sell toys doesn’t help, and I post this as one of the original writers for the G.I. Joe and Transformers series).

To reiterate: If you want to make an impression, less is more.

. . .

We’re going to amble on over to a parallel path and talk about ultra-low budget / no budget / homemade / hand-crafted / DIY film making, particularly in the sci-fi arena.

I watch a fair amount of lo-to-no budget sci-fi on Amazon Prime and YouTube.  Many of these are done for pure love of the genre and the film making process, and from that POV of producers and participants just wanting to have fun, they’re modestly enjoyable.

From the POV of actual good film making and sci-fi…not so much.  (There are exceptions and we’ll get to one of those; patience, young jedi…)

The overwhelming bulk of these films -- features and shorts -- are pretty derivative.

I don’t mean “unoriginal” the way 80-90% of professionally produced media is unoriginal, I mean “derivative” as in trying specifically to re-create something someone else did first…

...and better.

And this is in addition to the plethora of Star Trek / Star Wars / Dr. Who / superhero fan films out there; those are a separate though related phenomenon.

Rather, it’s the unmpeenth Alien ripoff / the 400th E.T. variant / the latest Mad Max clone / the most current example of last decade’s biggest hits.

They’re generally not that good taken on their own, no matter how much fun the makers are having.

For me the nadir of such films are those done by film makers imitating bad movies by deliberately making a bad movie.

Don’t do that, folks. 

Please. 

Don’t squander time and talent doing substandard work.

I’m not saying don’t make the kind of film (or draw the kind of art, or write the kind of story) you want to make; I’m just saying don’t deliberately make a piss-poor job of it.

Block and Rabin may never have made a truly good movie but not because they weren’t trying!

Cheap films?  Yes. Exploitable films?  Yes.

But films meant to be as good as they could make them.

There’s an MST3K notorious bad 1950s sci-fi movie called Teenagers From Outer Space.  Tom Graef, its writer / producer / director / editor / co-star was a former film student wanting to break into the big time so he made this cheesy movie to the utmost of his ability.

And lordie, it ain’t good…

…but by gawd, he was trying.

The folks who make deliberately bad pastiches of substandard B-movies were always a sore point for Bill Warren.

“The original film makers weren’t trying to make a bad movie!” he’d rave.

So please, don’t do deliberately shoddy work and try to explain it away by calling it a “parody”.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a parody, and everybody in it is aiming for the centerfield fence, turning in A-level performances.

I know it’s fun making models and cobbling together costumes and props and sets from junk, and recruiting friends and family to have fun making a movie, and if your audience is just going to be those friends and family, fine.

But if you want to be seen and appreciated by a wider audience, have some respect for them…and your own abilities as a film maker.

. . .

All of which brings us in a roundabout fashion to The Vast Of Night, a recent ultra-low budget sci-fi film that asks the non-musical question “What would a Twilight Zone mash-up of X-Files and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind look like?”

“Pretty impressive,” is the answer.

Let’s start with the Achilles’ heel of most lo-to-no budget DIY productions:  The cast.

The Vast Of Night enjoys impeccable casting, a;; the way down to the most minor roles.

I can’t stress enough how important this is for small productions.

Actors give you more bounce for your buck than anything else on your budget.  Good actors can make mediocre material bearable, they can bring good material to full blown life.

In The Vast Of Night’s case, the two leads -- Jake Horowitz as Everett, an all night DJ in a tiny late 1950s New Mexico town, and Sierra McCormick as Fay Crocker, the local substitute late night phone operator -- play off each other with delightful on screen chemistry.

No kidding, I’d watch these two characters go grocery shopping for an hour and a half, that’s how well Horowitz and McCormick play off each other.

Next, the story.  Obviously story and screenplay come before casting, but in the final analysis an okay story is far better served by a good cast than a good story by an okay cast.

Screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger do a good job with their script for The Vast Of Night.  As noted, it’s far from original but is fleshed out with enough distinctive elements to let the cast find plenty to work with.

For aspiring film makers, the script is typically the least expensive part of the process, and if you don’t like your draft you can always chuck it out and start afresh,

Finally, it’s okay to look inexpensive but don’t look cheap.

You can get away with a stark cinema verité style if that’s what the material calls for but you need to keep a consistent style and tone throughout.

A lot of DIY films do themselves a grave disservice by spending a lot of time / energy / money on a prop / costume / special effect that calls undo attention to itself by being so much better than everything surrounding it.

Director Andrew Patterson keeps things stylish while clamping a lid on its budget; this good pre-production planning pays off with a consistency of style and tone that helps keep the audience engaged, their disbelief suspended.

The Vast Of Night is what I refer to as a “minimum basic movie” i.e., the lowest bar you should shoot for with your own film making.

It’s far from a deathless classic, but it’s a fun ride.

And speaking of fun rides…this ramble is o-v-e-r.

  © Buzz Dixon

[theonyxpath]

Titanomachy art by Michel Giorgi

The Kickstarter for They Came From Beyond the Grave! finished up last week with a massive surge of pledges in the last three days. This enabled us to achieve several more Stretch Goals than we expected, which is definitely the best way to end up with a Kickstarter!

Thanks to everyone who backed and spread the word about the project!

Looking at the number of backers, in addition to the pledge amount, we are absolutely thrilled to see that this second game in the series surpassed our first game, They Came From Beneath the Sea!. We kind of thought going in that the subject matter might line up with the interests of large portions of our community, so if that’s why TCFBtG! did so well, that works for us!

It certainly looks like a third game in the series might come moseying down the trail…

But before we get to that new game, whatever it is, and its inevitable Kickstarter, here’s a reminder that next week on Thursday the 3rd we are starting the Kickstarter for Scion: Demigod! More on that next week as I give you the rundown on this latest core book for Scion and how its Kickstarter is going to be verrrry different than the KS for Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero!

Be there. Aloha! (As Steve McGarrett used to say in the 70s).

Titanomachy art by Felipe Gaona

I’m really thrilled to be able to reveal today that on Wednesday, in addition to our releases for sale, our Scarred Lands adventure The Gauntlet of Spiragos will go live as an offering on the Astral TableTop virtual tabletop venue!

This is thrilling for me for a couple of reasons.

First, as long-time MMN Blog readers know, I’ve been beating the drum for us to make more of our worlds available on the various VTT venues that folks use to play online with their friends for years.

Now that the idea of playing TTRPGs online has really caught on, and the tools to do so are getting better and better every day, it’s satisfying to see that my impulse to push in that direction is more and more considered a viable direction for us to put effort towards.

(There’s more info on Astral TableTop below in the Blurbs!).

It’s also thrilling for me because Gauntlet of Spiragos is an adventure I wrote because I had to do something creative in the TTRPG space while I was working on the late, lamented, WoD MMO.

Many a weekend I spent crouched over my laptop wresting with the writing and bouncing ideas off my housemates and my good buddy Aaron Voss. In fact, it was started during the onset of 4th Edition D&D, and edited into 5th Edition thanks to the keen eye and gaming knowledge of editor Scott Holden.

This was before Stewart Wieck and I bought the Scarred Lands IP from White Wolf, even. I just needed to create something that I could pull together without endless meetings and huge teams and giant budgets like the WoDMMO.

To see it now being reconfigured to work not as a book but as a VTT adventure is just amazing and I’m hoping that folks enjoy playing through it!

Terra Firma art by Shen Fei

Speaking of creating games, last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast featured Dixie, Eddy, and Matthew spinning the “wheel of game concepts” and creating game pitches on the fly. The birth of new game ideas, with the three of them rocking the cradle. I think they managed to pull together nine of them, and honestly, each one could make for a viable game – and some are real gems!

I think they’d love to hear which ones sound the best from folks listening, so please do check out last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast and drop them a comment as to which games you personally would be interested in playing.

Who knows, maybe they’ll convince me to green-light it!

Not so much a green light, but more in the lines of a blue light special, here’s just a reminder that the sale over at IPR on our 20th Anniversary Deluxe Editions and accessories is in its last week, and we are still participating in DTRPG‘s Cthulhoid sale for PDFs. Plus, I hear that we’ll be offering some sales on selected Scarred Lands PDFs over at DTRPG soon, as well.

I know sometimes it seems like I’m always pushing you to sales in this space, yet I do feel obligated since we actually do talk about business stuff in our Monday Meeting from which I derive these notes.

We do have fun and talk about the creative aspects of what we do AND necessarily we talk about schedules and sales and productivity and marketing and everything that goes on behind the scenes to make our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

Coming next week, September 3rd at 2pm EDT: Scion Demigod Second Edition!

Onyx Path Media!

This week: playing off of Eddy’s extremely helpful productivity sessions with developers and writers, the Trio will be talking about the ever-gushing tide of workflow on all of our many amazing projects!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

For anyone new to our media section, you can find us running and playing games over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath pretty much every day of the week! Plus, if you’d like your games hosted there, just get in touch with Matthew Dawkins using the contact link on matthewdawkins.com.

Please give our Twitch channel a follow, as you can find a huge number of videos of all kinds of games being run!

This week on Twitch, expect to see these games and streams running:

Scarred Lands – A Family Affair

Technocracy Reloaded – Vorpal Tales

Danielle’s RPG Development Workshop

Hunter: The Vigil – Cold Cases Forsaken Spaces

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Vampire: The Masquerade – Boston by Night

Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth and Claw

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games and subscribe to us on Twitch, over at twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Hunter: The Vigil – Hometown Heroes Episode 3 – https://youtu.be/R8FxrD_Pul4

Legendlore Actual Play w/Steffie de Vaan – https://youtu.be/6mBiaNcgaG8

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds S1E12 – https://youtu.be/F-ib8M5_ZvI

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale Episode 4 – https://youtu.be/5mThqtWBCQg

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – They Came from Devil’s Reef 1/2 – https://youtu.be/TV0hJ75qOy0

Hunter: The Vigil – Uptown Shadows Episode 2 – https://youtu.be/WJUgs2qp1g8

Realms of Pugmire – Paws and Claws S2E12 – https://youtu.be/d5KQ-jmQxZE

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Tom Murr starts up a They Came from Beneath the Sea! audio drama over on his YouTube channel as of today! Radio ReScience Episode 1: A New Beginning, can be found right here: https://youtu.be/AT2DqzlBMLM

Systematic Understanding of Everything is a new Exalted Explainer Podcast by Exalted Dev Monica Speca and Exalted Writer Chazz Kellner that is breaking down Creation in 45 minute chunks in preparation for Exalted Essence.

Their most recent episodes are available over on https://www.exaltcast.com/, with their newest covering the stunning Sidereals!

The Story Told Podcast continue their new chapter in the Fall of Jiara Exalted chronicle, and you can find a series of interludes focusing on their characters right here: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/fall-of-jiara-24-between-rebellion-and-courtship

Chris Allen continues his excellent chronicle of Werewolf: The Forsaken over on Paleo Gaming’s Twitch channel. Do check out Very Angry Dogs! https://www.twitch.tv/paleo_gaming

Two new Occultists Anonymous episodes for you fans of Mage: The Awakening! Find them right here:

Episode 122: Power Issues  The cabal begin their plans for striking out at Seattle with investigations and some political maneuvering. Of course, they need to leave something for the newbies to work on too…+ https://youtu.be/nHKSoj8t_8U

Episode 123: It Was Only a Kiss Atratus reaches out to a known associate of Mr. Graves and the cabal join together to investigate the dream that Atratus had just a night before. https://youtu.be/fjDtAWkv3jU

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

We’re told that the App Dev is currently creating an updated version for the latest devices, so keep an eye open for those!

Virtual TableTop!

Introducing a Virtual Tabletop adventure: the Gauntlet of Spiragos for Scarred Lands on Astral TableTop!

Scars of the Divine War, which ended less than 200 years ago, have still not healed. One such scar is the Chasm of Flies, a rent in the earth created when the titan Spiragos the Ambusher was smote down by one of the young gods, Vangal the Ravager. Now, the Chasm is inhabited by spider-eye goblins and their spider allies, but it is also thought to be the resting place of powerful artifacts from that elder age.

Gauntlet of Spiragos is a Scarred Lands adventure designed for 1st level characters, although it can be easily modified for characters of up to 5th level.

Astral TableTop is the easiest way to play any tabletop RPG online, free. Astral already supports popular systems like D&D and Pathfinder, and Astral can support virtually any tabletop roleplaying game. Get started quickly with built-in support for most popular game systems. Whether you’re brand new to TTRPGs or a veteran tabletop gamer, Astral‘s ease-of-use and built in automation is designed to streamline gameplay.

Astral is browser-based and uses the latest technology to streamline your storytelling experience. Connect with your party online and run your campaigns however you like. Astral offers tools optimized for phone, tablet, and desktop devices, no installation required.

Build epic battlemaps using Astral‘s enormous collection of scenery, props, and tokens or upload your own. Pro users gain access to over 12,000+ assets and fresh new packs every month. Add weather, visual effects, triggers, and so much more with easy-to-use tools

Build your own adventure, or choose from pre-generated game kits like Gauntlet of Spiragos. Create character sheets, craft maps, or just jump right in to connect with your friends and start your adventures!

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to provide our traditionally printed books out into your local game stores. Game stores can order via their usual distributors, and can also contact Studio2 directly. And individuals can check out our projects via the links below!

You can pick up the traditionally printed Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau main books, screens, and the official dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

Now, we’ve added Chronicles of Darkness books such as Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Our Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition books are also available from Studio2 in the US: https://studio2publishing.com/products/vampire-the-masquerade-chicago-by-night-sourcebook

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order

It’s the final week of the DOG DAYS OF SUMMER SALE!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

The Cthulhu Mythos sale at DriveThruRPG continues this week, and we’ll have some God-Machine PDFs included in the sale!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, the Scarred Lands PDF series of Vigil Watch continues with Part 4 – The Iron Court detailing the roving city of the Iron Court, home to the Ironbred, and provides the first deep dive into Ironbred culture in the Scarred Lands! Only on sale on DTRPG!

Over at our RedBubble store, we are now offering safety masks emblazoned with the Trinity Continuum: Aeon order symbols!

And as noted above, on Wednesday the Scarred Lands adventure The Gauntlet of Spiragos will be offered on the Astral TableTop virtual tabletop venue – the adventure plus maps plus tokens all within the easy to use Astral TableTop interface. You can access the adventure and pretty much start playing!

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Prometheus Unbound (was Psi Orders) (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

No Gods, No Masters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Fiction Anthology (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aeon Novella: Dawn (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

TC: Aeon Novella: Meridian (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Legacies of Earth (Legendlore)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution Fiction Anthology (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Post-Approval Development

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror – LeBlanc art in and getting fulls.

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – KS page to Paradox for approval.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – Sending out art notes and finding new artists, too.

Legendlore

Technocracy Reloaded

Cults of the Blood God

Scion: Dragon (KS)

Masks of the Mythos (KS)

Scion: Demigod (KS) – Graphics are done and I think the page is pretty much ready.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS)

TC: Adventure! (KS)

Geist: One Foot In the Grave

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

Trinity Core Jumpstart

Aberrant

Proofing

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

TC Aeon Terra Firma – Sent back to Josh, looking good.

Scion Titanomachy

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – Inputting corrections.

Pugmire Adventure – Need map finished.

At Press

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 – Files printing.

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet – Files at press.

Contagion Chronicle – Press prep.

Contagion Chronicle Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars Wall Scroll Map – Shipping to KS fulfiller from printer.

Lunars Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Prepping files for PoD and press.

Scarred Lands Creature Collection – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

From the sublime to the ridiculous: today is the birthday of Stephen Fry, English actor, journalist, producer, and screenwriter in 1957, and one year later in 1958 is born Steve Guttenberg, American actor and producer.

[fanficsaremylifeline]

Go and make Aunt Peggy proud

On AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21344731

*****

Men and their toys. Peggy could only shake her head, as she walked in on Howard in his lab, hanging upside down in some sort of machinery.

“Maria, is that you?”, came the muffled cry from the inside of that monstrosity.

“It’s Peggy.”

“Thank the heavens, Peggy, you have to help me.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed”, she grinned, as she walked over. “I may be strong, but I can’t pull you out by myself.”

“That’s not what I need, I need the pliers over there.” He waved with his feet, pointing them towards a table to his side. “And that torch, too.”

“As long as you know what you're doing...”

“You know me, Peg.”

“That's exactly why I'm worried.”, she scoffed, but from experience, Peggy was aware that Howard wouldn't drop it any ways. And with a torch, he might at least see how he was about to kill himself...  “Fine.” Carefully, she dropped the tools down the opening.

“Thanks!”, he called, and she immediately could hear him getting back to work.

Well, Peggy knew him well enough to know that unless Howard actually climbed out there and was at least 50 yards away from whatever he was working on at the moment, she wouldn’t get anything out of him. So, she had to try again later and was just about to turn around, when some weird noises came from the machine, and Howard started to swear. That couldn’t be good.

“Howard? I think you should get out of there.”

“No kidding!”, he screamed, his legs flailing in fear, “I’m stuck!”

“Damnit.” Peggy ran over and grabbed his legs, trying to pull him out.

“GET OUT OF HERE!”

But it was too late. Before she knew what had happened, they were engulfed in blinding light and a loud bang echoed through the lab, leaving her ears ringing.

All of a sudden, everything was quiet again. After the first shock had passed, Peggy dared to glint through an half-open eye. She still held on to Howard’s leg, but he was no longer stuck inside his machine. Instead, they were lying on a concrete floor under a cloudy sky.

“Howard? Are you alright?”, she carefully asked.

“I think so…” He sat up and looked around.

“What just happened?”

“I have no idea…”

As quickly as her wobbly legs let her, Peggy scrambled to her feet, looking around where they had landed. “Uhm, you might want to take a look at that…” Now she could see that they were on what had to be a roof, looking over New York, or at least a place that was similar to New York. It had the landmarks she knew, she could see the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and all that, but it was different: so many cars, weirdly advanced cars; so many modern sky scrapers she had never seen before; bright signs illuminating the narrow streets.

“What in the…” Howard stood next to her, his mouth gaping open, just as hers was. “Are we dead?”

“I don’t think so…” But Peggy was not so sure about that. “What kind of machine were you working on?”

“Some theory of Pym’s, quantum mechanics… But I have no idea what I did…”

Somehow, they managed to find a door, follow a mostly empty staircase down, until they stood out on the street. New York was as busy as ever, people were pushing past them, wearing some interesting clothes, most of them talking to apparently nobody. It took Peggy almost crashing into a few people until she noticed they were wearing earpieces.

“Peggy.” Howard held a newspaper in front of her face. “Check the date.”

“The date, but… what?” No, no, that just couldn’t be. 2019? “Howard, is this what I think it is?”

“I think we travelled to the future.”

“Oh.” She really didn’t know what else to say. “What do we do now? I mean, how do we get back?”

“I don’t know. Peggy, I… We need to get back! There’s SHIELD, there’s SI and we have little kids sitting at home!”

“Not that little, I think...” Flipping the newspaper over she saw a weirdly familiar face.

‘Tony Stark to speak at the MIT Graduation Celebrations’

“Oh, wow, looks like your boy got into MIT at 15!” She turned to Howard. “I’m sure, he can help us.”

“Let’s hope so. Uhm, excuse me, young man?” Howard stopped a boy walking past them.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“Yes, please, do you know Stark Industries, or even where to find Anthony Stark?”

“You new in town?” The youth had his eyebrows raised.

“You could say that”, Peggy threw in, smiling as politely as she could.

“Wait, I feel like I know you. Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so”, she answered.

“Hmmm…” He stared at her a moment longer, before he turned back to Howard. “If you want to find Ironman, you wanna head upstate. The Avengers moved there two years ago.��, he shrugged. “Not sure you’ll get in though, security is mad tight.”

“Uh, ok, thank you.”

Howard and Peggy exchanged a quick glance. “Ok, I didn’t understand a word of what that boy said. What is an Ironman and what are the Avengers?”

“I don’t know”, Peggy shrugged. “Maybe there is some information point around here?”

They were lucky, a bodega two streets over could provide them with some help.

“If you can wait for another few minutes, I can introduce you to a guy that can help you out.”

“Really?” That sounded promising…

“Yeah”, the man nodded, chewing his gum loudly, “you’re lucky, Spider-Man’s a regular here.”

“Spider-Man?”

“You’re not from here, are you?”, he asked, eyeing them curiously.

“No, we’re not. Travelled some distance.”

“Mhm. Yeah, thought so. Every self-respecting New Yorker knows Spidey”, he scoffed.

“Aw, thanks, Diego!”

Peggy turned around as she heard the voice and couldn’t believe her eyes. In front of her stood a young man, probably in his late teens, early twenties, judging from his voice, in a skin-tight, bright red suit, with a giant spider up front.

“Hi, can I help you?” He eyed her curiously, and suddenly he clapped his hands in front of his face. “Oh my god. Are… are you Peggy Carter?”

To an outsider, the scene must have looked almost comical, both of them staring at each other with wide eyes.

“I am. How do you know who I am?”

“You’re all over my history books, in the museums. Oh my god, how are you here? This is so freaking incredible, you’re absolutely amazing, you’re so freaking badass…” His voice pitched higher, as he went to shake her hand. “I am Spider-Man, it is an absolute honour to meet you, ma’am!”

“Wow. Thank you.” She was in history books? Damn. That really did wonders for one’s self-esteem.

“What, I mean… Did you time-travel or what happened?”

“I fear we might have. By accident.”

“Oh wow. That is so freaking cool! Does that mean you’re stuck here? Aw man, that sucks, but it is so incredible to meet you!”

“Yes, we are stuck”, Howard threw in, as Spider-Man finally stopped for a breath of air. “Which is why we need to find Anthony Stark, to help us get back and Diego here told us that you could help with that.”

“You’re Mr. Stark’s father, aren’t you?” Spider-Man looked Howard up and down.

“I’m Howard, yes.”

“Hm.” Nothing. No excited rambling, no ‘I’m such a big fan’. “Alright then, let me make a call. KAREN, call Happy.”

“Who’s Karen?”, she asked, ignoring and playing over the offended face Howard made for not being fanned over.

But the boy had turned around, currently talking to thin air. “Happy? Hey, can you pick me up? Yeah, I know, but it’s an emergency. No, I’m not hurt. It… It’s a little hard to explain why and what happened, but you need to come right now. No, don’t tell him. Listen, Happy”, he hissed, his tone getting more and more urgent, “I have no idea what’s going on right now, but I need you to pick me up, right freaking now! And make sure that Pepper’s home. And maybe Mr Rhodey, too. I don’t know. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so just come and see for yourself please. Thanks, I owe you one. See you in a few!”

“Alright, transport is on its way.” He turned back around. “Happy will pick us up shortly and take us to Mr. Stark.”

“Thank you, Spider-Man, we really appreciate it!”

As they waited, Spider-Man's excitement did not die down, as he animatedly chatted with Peggy, about her accomplishments and asked one question after the other, not really giving her much of a chance to answer them though. Peggy didn't miss, how the – as she had found out by now – vigilante ignored Howard, who was less than impressed to say the least. But at least he stayed polite enough to let Spider-Man be.

“Spider-Man?” A man in a suit walked into the bodega, calling out for the kid about half an hour after he had made the call.

“Happy, thank you for coming.” The boy walked over, Peggy and Howard followed suit.

“Ok, so what is so weird that you couldn’t tell me over the… Oh.” As soon as he saw the pair, his chin dropped, and with big eyes he looked from Peter to Peggy to Howard and then back to Peter. “Calling me was a good idea.”

“Yeah… We need to get them to Mr. Stark.”

“Agreed. Ma’am, Sir, I am Happy Hogan, head of transportation and security for Tony Stark and if you’d like to follow me, I’ll take you to him. Kid, you coming, too?”

“As if I’d miss this!”, he nodded and followed the man outside to the very fancy looking car; the boy holding the door open for her.

“Thank you, how very gentlemanlike of you.”

“Thanks”, he answered, with what was presumably a grin, it was hard to tell with the mask. But a few moments later, as they sat in the car and drove off, he pulled it off his face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t properly introduce myself, but with civilians around… My name is Peter, Peter Parker.”

“It is nice to meet you, Peter”, she smiled and took his features in. He was a pretty kid, and from their earlier conversation she gathered that he was quite intelligent too, bordering on genius. All in all, he reminded her a little bit of Tony, at least that’s what she imagined her Tony to be like when he was a teenager.

With a smile, the boy turned back to the front. He was sitting next to Happy, softly whispering. Which was understandable, their arrival was sure to cause a lot of drama. The little she could make out though, didn’t make a lot of sense.

“Did you tell her?”, Happy hissed.

“No, how could I?”

Oh, something at the compound was going to shock her just as much as their arrival would Tony. She tried to ignore the hushed conversation and instead took the car in. The seats were comfortable leather, and everything seemed to work automatically. There was music playing on the radio and, to put it mildly, it shocked her a little bit. She could see that Howard did not like it at all, but it had something, Peggy could get used to it.

“We’re almost there.” After a while, the kid turned around again and pointed towards a giant areal of buildings coming into view, a giant lit up ‘Avengers’ sign on top.

“Wow”, Howard whistled appreciative, “my kid’s got good taste.”

“Well, how would you like to play this?”, Happy asked.

“You know him better, the current him, at least. What you deem best should work.”

He glanced over at Peter. “He was already suspicious when I left head over heels after your call. He knows something’s up.”

“Is Pepper here?”

“Yes. How about meeting in the common room?”

“Yeah. Good idea. The other one as well?”

“Which other one?”, Howard asked from the back seat. “Please don’t tell me either of us is still alive!”, he laughed. “Oh, can you imagine, this year’d be my 100th!”

Peter just exchanged a worried glance with Happy, before they both swallowed. That was not a good sign. “No, neither of you is still kicking”, the teen blurted out. “Sorry, that was a little blunt.”

“It’s alright”, she chuckled, “I don't think I want to live to that age in any case.”

Peter turned back to Happy, as he spoke again. “Maybe start with Tony, that’ll be enough drama as it is.”

“Yeah, good idea. KAREN, can you tell FRI to tell Mr. Stark and Pepper to wait for us in the common room?”

“Message delivered”, a woman’s voice answered. Peggy looked around, but couldn’t see anyone, not even speakers. This modern technology was starting to freak her out…

“Welcome to the Avenger’s.” Happy stopped in front of the impressive building’s doors and Peter quickly jumped out to open Peggy’s door for her.

“Thank you for all your help”, she smiled. His ears got all red as he smiled back and headed for the building.

“Please follow me.”

He was quick on his feet, looking around, as if somebody could be watching. Maybe it was ‘that other one’ they had been speaking about…

And before they knew it, Peter quickly slipped into a room, whispering a quiet, “Please don’t freak out” and opened the door for her and Howard.

And there he was, her Tony. A beard, first grey hair, but unmistakably her little boy. As soon as they walked into the room, his face dropped. The blonde woman next to him was almost as shocked, grabbed his arm, and with wide eyes, they both stared at them.

“Hey Tony, honey, it’s been a while.”

A deep breath later, Tony got up and walked up to Peggy, looking her up and down, before going in for a hug. “Hi Aunt Peg”, he managed to whisper eventually, “I missed you!”

“I missed you too, darling!” She pulled in tight. And, even though it wasn’t the little rascal wrapping himself around her, she would have recognized that smell, that smiling face out of a million others.

After a while, he took a step back and smiled down on her, even a tear or two glinting in his eyes. He took a deep breath, before he turned to his father. “Howard.” He held his hand out, and almost hesitantly shook it.

“This is Pepper Potts.” He waved at the blonde woman, who now walked over and shook their hands. “She is the CEO of SI.”

“It’s not you?”, Howard asked.

“Nope.”

He barely acknowledged Howard, instead he looked at Peter. “And you found them wandering around the streets of New York?”

“Pretty much”, he nodded.

“What did you tell them?” He looked inquisitive, and Peter seemed to get exactly what he was hinting at.

“I haven’t crossed that timeline yet”, he just answered.

“Uh huh… Go fetch him.” Tony decided.

“Uhm, both?”

Tony hesitated a moment before he shrugged: “why not.”

“Alright.” The boy turned around and quickly walked out the door.

“Who are they? Peter and Happy already hinted at someone else wanting to see us, but wouldn’t tell us who.”

“You’ll see in a moment.” Tony took two steps back and leaned against a table. “I really have no idea what to say.” Shaking his head, he looked between Peggy and his father. “When are you from?”

“’75. We actually just celebrated your fifth birthday”, Peggy smiled.

“Wow.”

“Aw, five-year-old Tony. How adorable!”, Pepper grinned at him, “I would really like to meet that little snot-nose.”

“I think you already do, in a way at least”, Peggy smiled at her, “when I think about teenage Tony, I see someone like that Peter-kid.”

“Really?” Pepper’s eyes went wide.

“I should have been so lucky”, Tony grumbled, “I’ll never be as good as that boy.”

Howard was completely silent. He seemed to have felt the distance Tony had put between them, too. Something must have happened between them, well, will happen between them. Peggy had her suspicions, he put his company and SHIELD before anything. It went that far that Tony had called Jarvis ‘dad’ until he was almost four years old. Peggy wasn’t a betting woman, but that seemed like the likely reason for the distance.

Behind them she heard steps getting closer.

“Oh, this should be good”, Tony commented.

“Peter, slow down, what’s going on?” Just like she’d recognize her little Tony, Peggy’d recognize that voice anywhere…

“Oh my…”, she gasped, and Tony softly nodded.

“What’s going on in here?” The door opened and she turned around, turned to the man she once loved, who died so many years ago. “Steve?”

“Peggy?”

“I thought you were dead!” She walked up to him, touching his arm, making sure that he’s real, and not just a figment of her imagination. “Did we die after all?”

She looked up at the blue eyes, that were filling with tears, and before she knew it, she was in his arms.

“I missed you so much!”, Steve whispered.

“I missed you, too”, she stammered, “But what… I mean… How…?”

She leaned out of the embrace and looked up at him.

“I could ask you the same thing”, he laughed, wiping a tear from his face.

“That brings our WW2 vets count to 4.”

“Who’s the fourth one?”

“That’d be me.” She turned to the door, where Bucky was leaning against the frame.

“James Buchanan Barnes. You fell off a train!” Oh wow, this just got wilder and wilder.

“Miss Carter!” He smiled and did a curtsy. “Sorry, by now it should be Mrs, right?”, he grinned.

“How do you… Right, the history books…”

“And the Captain America exhibition!”, Peter threw in.

“You got your own exhibition?”

“Yeah, well, we’re all in that. He is”, he nodded at Bucky, “you are”, he squeezed her shoulder, “and you are, too.” He walked over to Howard and shook his hand. “Long time.”

“That it was…” Howard was still in shock and looked him up and down. “You don’t look a day older than in ’45.”

“Not bad for 101, don’t you think?”

“I look even better, and I’m already 102”, Bucky laughed.

“Debatable”, Steve grumbled and boxed his arm.

After the initial surprises and shock had died down, the topic shifted to the issue at hand: how to get Howard and Peggy back?

“Do you have to get back?”, Steve quietly whispered with a smirk.

“I’m married with kids, remember?”, she grinned back.

“And you are taken!”, Bucky hissed over with played outrage.

“You are?” Peggy looked between Steve and James. “Oh, you are!” She couldn’t help the grin that spread on her face. “I should have guessed it… How did it happen?”

“I have to thank it to you”, James smiled.

“Me? Really?”

“Well…”, Steve blushed a little. “I don’t know if I can tell you that without messing up the timeline?”

“So, we met again?”, Peggy guessed.

“You’re still alive, when I get out of the ice. You basically told me to move on, start fresh. And I did”, he smiled as he grabbed James’ hand.

“I’m happy it worked out for you then.”

“Oh my god, it’s really true.”

The door flew wide open, and a bunch of people stood in the doorway, their chins on the ground.

“Gossip spreads fast in here”, Tony remarked drily. “Come in, get your inner fanboys, -girls and geeks out before you implode.”

“Hi, hi, Agent Carter, I am so incredibly happy to meet you! I’m Clint Barton, I work for SHIELD, well, I worked for SHIELD until…”

“Clint, we gotta keep the timeline intact…”, Tony remembered him.

“Right”, he nodded, “sorry, spoilers”, he chuckled awkwardly. “Anyways, it’s a real honour to meet you.”

“Thank you, Clint.” She shook his hand and tried hard not to grin as he squealed.

“Chill, man. Hi, I’m Natasha.“ A redheaded woman pushed past the man. “You’re like my idol, scratch that, my absolute hero, it’s such an honour!”

“Thank you.” Wow. Peggy was only slightly overwhelmed, as a Dr Bruce Banner introduced himself and shook her hand, followed by Tony’s college roommate and the most magnificent man Peggy had ever seen; all of whom didn’t really give Howard all that much attention.

“Wow, our little Tony grows up to work with the Norse god of thunder, super soldiers and who knows what else…” Peggy chuckled. “I’m so proud of you, boy.”

“Thanks, Aunt Peg.” Tony’s ears got all red, and he looked down, trying to hide his flushed face, a gesture she knew all too well… Some things don’t change, not even in around forty years.

Pepper smiled over at him, and it looked like she put her hand in his. She was definitely not just his CEO. And judging by that engagement ring on her finger, her little Tony was really all grown up.

“So, about that getting back home thing… Are we going to miss the wedding?”, she smiled, locking eyes with Tony.

“What wedding?” Howard looked around everybody that had assembled, looking for the couple.

“We don’t have a date yet.” Tony ignored his father and smiled back, a little sheepishly.

“You’re engaged?” Howard’s eyes went wide. “When? How? With whom?”

Tony stayed quiet and Pepper waved her hand, the ring glinting in the light.

“Oh wow. That’s a beautiful ring. Good taste, son.”

“Yeah, he has”, Pepper grinned, clearly not talking about the ring.

“Your taste isn’t that bad either”, he grinned back.

“Really? At first, I actually thought it was pity…”, Rhodey snickered.

“You’re just jealous”, Tony shot back, “that I managed to land the one woman that’s as hot as my god mother…”

“Anthony, that is just wrong on some many levels. Flattering, yes, but you know how far flattery goes with me.”

“I know, it only works on Jarvis”, he answered, his head hung low.

.

“Boss, I have a message from May Parker, asking when Peter is coming home tonight.”

“Oh shit, is it that late already?”

“It’s not that late”, Peter shrugged.

“Kid, you have school tomorrow. No, no, no, don’t give me the puppy eyes. You have a bedtime for a reason, young man.” Tony sounded resolute, stern even. Very fatherly, actually.

“Ugh, fine.”

“Happy is out, so I’ll drive you.”

“I can swing, it’s alright.”

“Nuh-uh. It’s already dark out, you’re not swinging by yourself through town. I’m driving you. Period. FRIDAY, let May know that we’re on our way.”

“Message is delivered.”

“Thanks, FRI!”

Wow, the way the boy talked to the invisible voice, was very bizarre. Peggy was not sure, where the voice came from or what exactly it was or how it worked, but it seemed very helpful.

What really caught her interest, was how Tony acted with the teen though. She would have to have a conversation with him about the child, what their relationship was and how it ended up being such a wonderfully fatherly thing.

“Steve, Barnes, you’re in charge of all this.” Tony gestured vaguely around the room. “Get the guest rooms ready; I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Peggy would have joined them, but Tony clearly needed to get out of here, away from all the drama, let it sink in.

“Thanks, honey”, she smiled over.

“I’ll see you two in the morning”, he smiled, before he and Peter left the room.

“Alright then, Howard, Peggy, come with us and we’ll get you settled.”

“Thanks, Steve. I think we can really do with a good night’s sleep…”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“Are you alright?” Peter’s concerned stare seemed to drill itself into what was probably Tony's soul.

“What do you think?”, he answered, a bit rougher than he intended.

Peter turned back, stared out the window. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Unless you did something, you need to confess to me…” He glanced over at Peter who shook his head.

“Nope. I’ve been good. Santa would be proud”, he grinned.

“Alright. Stay on his good-kids-list.”

“I have been for 17 years!”

“I am so proud of you”, Tony chuckled. Man, leave it to the kid to always make him laugh.

“Ok, so I know it’s weird, but if you want to talk… I have a lot of daddy-issues-experience.”

“Alright.” Tony snorted a laugh. “Sorry, it’s not something I should laugh about.” He tried to look contrite, but it probably came off as a weird grimace.

“Don’t worry about it”, he chuckled.

They rode on in silence. Tony wanted to break it, but all questions about school, decathlon or lego sets seemed wrong right now.

“I’m sorry”, he apologized eventually.

“Why?”, Peter asked, “if I have nothing to apologize for, neither do you.”

“I know. Still… Howard is just… It just drudges up so many old feelings, memories.”

“Happy’s not really out, is he?”

“Nope. Had to get out of there. But don’t think you’re just my excuse, ok? Because you’re not, you’re really not. I’m happy to do this and be here for you.”

“It’s alright, Mr. Stark, I know what you mean”, he smiled over. “And don’t worry. You’re not like him. And I can say that with absolute certainty, since I am the one who had a few dads and lost pretty much all of them, too.”

“I know you’re trying to be all encouraging and shit, but it sounds actually super sad…”

“Yeah… What I’m trying to say is that you’re really good at the job. Not that you’re my dad, but I mean, you know? You’re not like Howard.”

“And you can be certain about that based on what?” Tony knew, he sounded bitter, but he couldn’t help it. How could he not be bitter about that? With a father like Howard, how could Tony ever turn out any better at the job? Sure, he saw himself as a sort of father figure for Peter, but only sort of. The kid still called him Mr. Stark, didn’t sound all that fatherly, now, did it?

“I don’t really remember my dad, so my experience is based on Uncle Ben, who helped me with my homework, took care of me when I was sick, was always ready to listen to my issues, who plain and simple was there, when I needed him. You’ve done all these things for me; you do all this for me.”

Oh fuck. Tony tried to fight the tears filling his eyes.

“I don’t want to force myself on you or anything, I just want you to know that whatever doubts or worries Howard brings out in you, well, they’re wrong.”

“Alright Pete, you gotta stop now or I’m gonna start crying.”

“Sorry”, he mumbled, his face getting red, “I didn’t want to make this worse.”

“You didn’t. Believe me, you didn’t. I wish I knew what to say right now, but I don’t really handle emotions all that well…”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“Damnit, Peter, how can a twelve-year-old deal so much better with that stuff than me?”, Tony groaned.

“First of all, I’m seventeen. And I may have practised that speech for a while, waiting for the right time to say this”, he admitted meekly.

“Oh.” So, Peter really meant it! It wasn’t just some ‘spur-of-the-moment’ thing.

“I’d like to come the next few days over to the compound, if that’s cool. I’d really love to get to know Mrs. Peggy! She is so awesome and badass, and I really like to talk more to her.”

“Sure thing, I can tell Happy to pick you up after school.” Tony appreciated the change of topic and was happy to talk about one of his favourite people.

“Cool.” Even in the dark car, Tony could see the boy beaming with excitement. “And she is your godmother?”

“That she is”, Tony nodded.

“That is so crazy amazing!”

“You know you’re an Avenger, right? Pretty nice, too.”

“Yeah, but she’s Peggy Carter, founder of SHIELD, fought in WW2 and is like the most badass woman!”

“I can’t argue that. You know, she bought me the material for Dum-E.”

“Awesome!”

“I would introduce them, but from her perspective, I haven’t gotten it yet.”

“That’s so confusing…”

“Tell me about it!”, Tony laughed, “in her eyes, I just turned 5!”

“And all of a sudden, you’re 50.”

“49.”

“Of course.” Peter tried to look earnest, but that cheeky grin shone right through.

Tony shot the kid an angered glare, but broke out in a grin as well.

“Alright, we’re here, get out before I get back at you for that one.”

“Please, you love me way too much for that”, the boy shot back, before he wrapped himself around Tony. “You know, I love you just as much.” And with that, he jumped out the car and disappeared in their apartment building.

And Tony sat in his car, absolutely flabbergasted, dumbstruck and emotional.

Oh wow. Oh WOW! He had no idea, what to do, think or feel. For as long as he could remember, Tony thought he’d just fail at being a dad, at caring for someone. That’s what he expected, being met with defiance, disinterest… Sure, he tried his best to break the cycle of shame, but never thought, he’d actually succeed!

“Boss, I have Pepper on the line. She asked me to call as soon as you dropped off Peter.”

“Uhm, yeah, alright.”

“Tony, hey, got Peter home?”

“He said he loves me”, Tony sighed as a wide grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

He heard his fiancée chuckle. “Of course, he does.”

“What? No, Pepper, seriously, Peter said I’m a great dad and that he loves me!” He didn’t understand what was so funny about that.

“I’ve been trying to tell you that for a while, but it’s great that it finally clicked.”

“Huh.”

“You on your way back?”

“Just pulling out the parking space.”

“Good. I might have a tub of ice cream, I just opened, and you know my restraint, when it comes to ‘Hunk-A-Hulk-A-Burning-Fudge’.”

“As long as this lack of restraint doesn’t also extend to Bruce, I’m alright with that.”

“Damnit, you found me out”, she snickered.

“Wow, just wow”, Tony deadpanned. “Breaking up Pepperony and the Sciencebros in one swift motion, respect Ms. Potts.”

He could basically see her shaking her head. “You really got into the shipnames and fanfics, huh?”

“What can I say, my pseudo-son is a child of the internet. I really don’t want to know about memes and stuff like that, but that just rubs off, when you’re around Peter.”

“That’s alright.” She was silent for a moment, before she continued. “It’s really great, to meet the woman that raised you.”

“Getting a glimpse of my past should explain a lot about me.”

“Oh, it definitely does. But you know that I don’t care about your past. I love you, who you became, who you are. Because that’s a damn good person. And sure, Peggy Carter had her hand in that, but it’s all your work; you worked on becoming the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist I can’t wait to marry.”

“Why is everybody so damn emotional and lovey-dovey today? Pep, you know I love you more than life itself, but I have no idea what to say to that.” And, for the umpteenth time today, he was close to tears again.

“You don’t have to say anything. Now hurry up, or I’ll eat all the ice cream by myself.”

“That is a damn good motivator”, Tony chuckled.

“I know. That’s why I’m saying it. See you in a few?”

“Definitely.”

“Good. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“So, you’ve been back for eight years already?”

“Yeah”, Steve nodded. “Time really flies…”

“Tell me about it, yesterday was still 1975…”, Peggy laughed.

She and Steve sat side by side, each a coffee in hand, just catching up. Like you did, as two hundred-year-olds. Well, technically, she would be 98, but still. It felt like a very bizarre dream, and she had to pinch herself a couple of times this morning to make sure, she didn’t dream all of this up.

“I would really like to ask you what’s going to happen in the next few years, well, my next few years.”

“I was under the ice, remember? I didn’t live through it.”

“So, you didn’t catch up? Captain America, not knowing what happened to his country for the last forty years? How very patriotic.” Peggy shot him a challenging glare, and Steve just cracked up.

“I’m sorry, Peg, but scolding me for not being patriotic really doesn’t work any more. I may have committed a teensy bit of treason, technically I might even be a war criminal…”

“Excuse me?” Peggy felt her chin hitting the floor. Her Steve, a war criminal? Treasonous? “Steven Grant Rogers, you have to be kidding me.”

“And it’s not the worst part”, he admitted contrite, his face deep red and completely avoiding her gaze.

“What did you do?”

“I totally screwed over Tony.”

No. Not her little boy! “You did WHAT?” She boxed his shoulder, hard. And, even though he was a super soldier, it looked like it hurt. Good. “I can’t believe you. You… you…” Peggy was speechless.

“I’m so sorry. It was a really stupid and messy situation and I didn’t handle it very well. But it’s all sorted now!”, he was quick to add, as he finally looked at her, seeing the very pissed off expression she tried to convey.

“You screwed over my little boy? I can’t believe you.”

“Well, I mean, your little boy isn’t an innocent five-year-old anymore…”

“You know, forget what I said. I really don’t want to know what happened, or what will happen.” She shook her head.

“Uhm, Stevie?” James put his head through the door. “I don’t want to disturb you two, but I really can’t be alone with Howard. You know, because of… reasons…” His face was deep-red, and Steve quickly got up.

“Shit, yeah, sorry, I completely blacked that out.”

Peggy was curious, as to what had happened between James and Howard, that had him so… apologetic. She would probably have to wait a few years to find out, though.

“Is Tony not up yet?” She hadn’t seen him, since he left to take Peter home yesterday.

“He probably is, but I think he wants to be alone with Howard about as much as I do”, Buck shrugged.

“What happened between all of you?” She couldn’t keep all the curiosity in anymore.

“Uhm… Spoilers?”

“Yeah, I figured. Alright, Steve, you keep Howard company, Bucky, show me where to find my boy.”

“Yes ma’am!” He led her to an elevator. “FRIDAY, bring Peggy to the penthouse, please.”

“Of course.” Was that voice everywhere?

“Thanks, James.”

“Anytime.” Just as the elevator doors closed, he winked at her, and suddenly, she moved upwards.

“Uhm, FRIDAY?”, she tried.

“How can I help you?”

“What is your task domain?”

“I am an artificial intelligence, created by Tony Stark. It is my area of responsibility to coordinate all communication within this building and the Avengers.”

“Alright, that’s impressive.”

“Thank you, Agent Carter.”

With a ‘ping’, the doors opened, and Peggy walked out into a giant living room, with the most beautiful view.

“Hello Peggy.” Pepper walked over, smiling widely. “Had a good night?”

“Yes”, she smiled back, “thanks for asking. I’m sorry, I’m just barging in here like that…”

“It’s alright”, the woman laughed as she put her hair in a ponytail. “I assume you’re looking for Tony.”

“Both of you”, she answered, “I have a feeling, he can’t really face me and his father without his rock.”

Pepper stayed silent, but the smile spreading over her face radiated gratefulness and sorrow at the same time. “I’m sorry”, she eventually answered, “he’s taking this harder than you deserve.”

“I’m guessing, things between him and his father deteriorated even more? I mean, Howard is an extreme workaholic, Maria is basically a single mother at this point”, Peggy recounted her experiences.

“Unfortunately, yes”, Pepper nodded, speaking softly. “As I take it, Jarvis was his go-to father figure.”

“Yeah, only about a year ago, from my perspective, Tony stopped calling Jarvis ‘dad’.”

“Oh damn.”

The two women were silent. Peggy used the moment to take all about Pepper in that she could. She was beautiful, yes, but Peggy could see how she exuded confidence, intelligence and so much love for her boy. The worry about him was clear in her eyes, but it quickly dropped, when they heard steps getting closer.

“Morning, Aunt Peg.”

“Good Morning, Tony.” She smiled over at him, at the man, who was no longer five years old.

“I was thinking, maybe Howard could explain what kind of machine he was building, and I’ll see what I have in my labs.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Great. Let’s get to it, then.”

He linked his arm with Peggy’s and together they headed back to the elevator.

Peggy knew, that the desire to get them back to their own time didn’t stem from malice. Tony was overwhelmed and, contrary to his five-year-old self, emotionally stunted, which was no surprise, given what Pepper told her. And, as much as Peggy would like to talk him through everything, she knew him well enough to know that he’d be stonewalling her, unless he was ready to talk.

“I should warn you”, Tony suddenly broke the silence, “Peter will come by again this afternoon, he is so excited to talk to you, get to know you. Just so you know, he probably won’t leave your side.”

“That’s alright”, she laughed, “reminds me of someone else I know…” Gently, she poked Tony’s side.

“Yes, you said that before, but trust me, as someone who has actually seen me as a teenager, he is nothing like me, and that is a damn good thing.”

“Listen, honey, I don’t know what happened in the last years, what you went through, what you did. Even if there may have been a few bad decisions involved…”

“A few?”, he snorted. “Yeah, well, trust me, a handful of years ago, you would not have been that proud of me.” Tony stared straight ahead, not daring to look over at her. His face was stone cold, an expression she knew from Howard, shutting every emotion down, trying not to show his true feelings.

“I know, I can’t make you believe me. All I can say is that these bad decisions, whatever they were, how many of them were there, they don’t make a character. They don’t make your character. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s why you pulled it around, got yourself a fantastic fiancée, leading a team of superheroes, and doing wonders with that boy Peter. If that’s not a good person… Well, then I don’t want to be one.”

She gently nudged his shoulder, before turning ahead again.

“Thank you.” It was a quiet mumble, barely audible, but it was all she needed.

“Let us build a time machine, then!”

.-.-.-.

What the absolute fuck was going on? Tony was about to build a time machine with his dead father. This shit could not be real, it just couldn’t. He and Rhodey sat together with Howard, who described what he worked on, some quantum mechanics theory of Hank Pym’s.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m late, my FBI-Guy didn’t believe that the genius Ironman needed my help.” Scott barged into the room, his usual blabbering self. And even though Tony was not in the mood for his gibberish, he worked with Pym and was a pretty smart engineer and so the best shot they had of getting Howard and Peggy back to their own time.

“Hey Scott, you’re just in time.”

Scott barely waved at the Avengers; he directed all his attention to Howard. “You’re actually Howard Stark. Holy shit.”

“Hello, Mr Lang I presume?”

“Please, call me Scott.” He held his hand out and vigorously shook Howard’s hand. “Wow, Hank told me quite a bit about you.”

“I hope, not all bad.”

“He definitely praised your intelligence.” That was a very polite answer; Tony was very aware that Pym didn't have too much love left for Howard.

“And my son tells me that you’re the expert on quantum mechanics?”

“Yup”, he nodded proudly, “spend some time in the quantum realm, so yeah, I know a thing or two.”

“You’ve been to the quantum realm? How are you still alive?”

And that was the point, Tony shut down. Howard was more excited about Scott’s accomplishments than he was about Tony being engaged. What did he expect? Nothing, that was just it… He expected nothing, and still was disappointed.

Howard didn’t even seem to notice, when Tony got up and walked out, he was so focused on Scott.

Oh, was he fucking jealous of Antman? No, no, no, this just got worse and worse.

“Hey, Tones, you alright?”

Tony was so caught in his thoughts; he didn’t even see Rhodey following him.

“Fuck”, he sighed, “I’m… I’m fucking done.”

“I can’t blame you. Come on, let’s get you a cup of tea or something.”

“Cup of tea?” He shot his friend a quizzical stare.

“Well, I’m not giving you coffee, you’re already way to on edge…”

“Alright, can’t do any harm I guess…”

.

“Honey, I thought you and Howard were building our way home?”

“Well, Scott’s there now, doubt he’ll miss me.” Tony couldn’t help but sound bitter. “So, we thought, we’d grab a cup of tea.”

“Tea?” Pepper looked incredulous.

“Rhodey’s idea”, Tony shrugged, before he sat next to his fiancée, who leaned against him.

“Who is Scott?”, Peggy asked.

“He works with Hank Pym, dates his daughter. He’s an expert on quantum mechanics”, Rhodey explained.

“And Capsicle’s biggest fan”, Tony added.

“Capsicle, really?” Peggy raised her eyebrows. “You’re better than that, Tony.”

“I like it”, Bucky grinned.

“I swear to whoever’ll listen”, Tony groaned, “if you make some sort of inappropriate comparison about eating popsicles, I’ll tell Howard what you did.”

“Oh my god!” Steve got beet-red, and Bucky stared back at him with wide eyes. “As if I’d make comments like that in front of his ex-girlfriend.”

“Don’t worry, James, you might remember I’m not that delicate”, Peggy chuckled, “and I assume that what Tony might tell Howard has to do with the reason you didn’t want to be alone with him this morning?”

“Oh god.” Tony dropped his head on the table. “This is a fucking nightmare.”

As he looked back up, he saw Peggy shaking her head. “What happened, that Steve commits treason and my sweet, little boy uses language like that?”

A chuckle went through the kitchen at the ‘sweet, little boy’ notion, but Tony decided to ignore it. “It all started, when Obe…” He looked up at Pepper. “That’s spoilers, right?” As she nodded, he just shrugged. “Long story short, Rogers left me for Barnes.”

“Huh. I wish I could say that this clears everything up, but I’m about as lost as yesterday, when I landed on that rooftop.”

“Sorry, Aunt Peg, I don’t think we can tell you, without majorly fucking up the timeline.”

“That’s alright, honey, I guess I’ll just have to find out, the long way ‘round.”

Silence fell over the room. Suddenly, Steve’s laughter broke through it, though.

“What is it?”

“I just had the weirdest thought.”

“How much weirder than reality can it be?”

“It’s just… You know, if I never went in the ice, well, chances are you’d call me Uncle Steve and I’d be your godfather.”

“Oh. My. God.” Tony’s face fell, and his mind went completely blank for a moment. Eventually, he had to chuckle too and looked over at Steve. “Rogers, that might be the scariest thing you ever said to me.”

“Tony, show your godfather some respect!” With a scolding look, Rhodey put a cup of tea in front of him.

“Well then, Uncle Steve…”

“Oh, that sounds so wrong!”, Steve shuddered.

“Yeah, I mean I’m really sorry about your heartbreaks, but I think it’s not that bad that he died…”

“Aw, thank you, how kind”, Steve scoffed.

“But that’s the trippy thing”, Rhodey threw in, “you wouldn’t know it any differently. They’d just be Aunt Peggy and Uncle Steve.”

Tony stared at Steve a little more, trying to picture a life where he'd be his Uncle Steve. “No, I’m sorry, but I just can’t picture you in a sort of father-figure-position.”

“I don’t blame you”, Steve shrugged, “me neither…”

“But that’s alright, Stevie”, Bucky consoled, “at least we manage to keep Clint’s dog alive, when we watch him…”

“Exactly”, Steve laughed, “and so far we haven’t killed any plants!”

“Wow, I really lost the jackpot when I lost you”, Peggy remarked drily.

“Uff, that’s harsh!”

“It’s alright, things worked out ok for us, I think. No matter what happened in ’45 or ’75, we’re in a really good place, all of us”, he added reassuringly.

Tony looked around the room and had to agree. Pepper in his arm, Rhodey beside him, Peter on his way over and Steve and Bucky were happy, too.

“Not gonna lie, it was a tough road getting here”, Steve continued, “and in parts pretty ugly”, he admitted meekly. “But I think, things had to happen the way they did to get us here, so I would not change a thing.”

“Wow, he’s still really good at motivational speeches”, Peggy chuckled, after Steve’s monologue sunk in.

“Well, I just got it”, he grinned.

.

“Tony, honey, I get it’s tough down there, but I think you need to get back to the lab, tell Howard what you need him to know and show him that you’re just as swoon-worthy as Scott.”

Aunt Peg could just read him like an open book, it was incredible.

“Why bother, though?”, he shot back, “it’s not gonna change anything.”

“You can’t keep avoiding him either.”

“And what am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Howard, just so you know, you were a horrible dad, fucked me up wonderfully and I needed to reach my late forties to free myself from that, from you. But great, just when I thought I managed to do that, you show up on my doorstep and mess everything up again.’”

“Come here, honey.” Peggy put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close. Only now Tony realized, that his eyes were wet, filling with tears. They sat in silence, Peggy gently rubbed his back and Tony felt like he was a kid again, coming to Aunt Peggy for consolation, for emotional support.

“I’m alright”, he mumbled after a while, and let go of her. “Thanks.”

She pressed a kiss against his forehead, and Tony had to chuckle. “I can’t tell you the last time I got a foreheadkiss.”

“In that case…” She kissed the same spot once again and smiled widely. “For good luck.”

“Thank you. Now nothing can go wrong anymore.”

.

“Son, there you are, perfect timing. Scott has just updated me on Pym’s research, and with your help, Peggy and I can go home.”

“But we really need your help to get it right.”

“Yes”, Howard continued, “since you’re twice as smart as the two of us combined, we can’t do it without you.”

“Uhm, sure.” Was that just a compliment? A real compliment? From his father? Huh, maybe Aunt Peggy’s kisses were lucky after all…

“Great! So, we’ll rebuild my machine, including Pym’s updates and then we should try and figure out how to time our travels instead of just flying around, aimlessly.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“Thank you, Peggy.”

“For what?” She looked up at Pepper, not quite able to follow what she was hinting at.

“For talking some sense into Tony.”

“Oh, but that’s kinda my job, isn’t it?”, she smiled.

“I guess”, Pepper chuckled. “But still.”

“It’s alright. I think I have to thank you, instead. For taking care of my boy.”

“Well, our arrangement is a little different from yours. I need him just as much as he needs me”, she shrugged, a soft smile on her lips.

“Then I am so happy that you two found each other. Have we ever met?”

“Once”, Pepper nodded, “I don’t think, I should tell you about this though.”

“No, it’s alright, I understand”, she nodded, “but that means I’ll die knowing my boy has a good life, which is a wonderful prospect for my future.”

Pepper stayed silent, but gratefully squeezed Peggy’s hand.

“How does Peter fit into your little family?” Peggy had to know, and Pepper would be able to give her an explanation, not clouded by stunted emotions.

“Tony recruited him, when the kid got superpowers. It started out as a mentorship. And somewhere along the way, the line between mentor and father started to blur and…”

“And now we’re family.” They turned to the door, where Peter stood, a little awkwardly, but smiling nonetheless.

“Hey Pete. You’re here early…”, Pepper grinned.

“I might have played a little sick…”, he admitted, staring at his toes.

“Oh Peter!”

“Please don’t tell Aunt May!”, he pleaded. “And maybe don’t tell Mr … Tony.”

“Mr Tony?”

“After yesterday, when we… you know…”

“I know”, Pepper nodded, “he told me.”

“Ok, well, I thought he would believe me, if I stopped calling him Mr Stark”, he explained.

“Peter, I would love to tell you that you’re an absolutely wonderful boy, if you hadn’t just skipped school”, Pepper scolded, albeit with a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“But that’s for a good reason! I mean, how many more chances will I have to talk to The Agent Carter!” With an excited grin, he turned to Peggy. “None! So, what’s a few hours of Literature, compared to the chance of a lifetime!”

He looked between the two women, with the biggest puppy eyes. “Please don’t tell on me.”

“Peter, what did we say about the puppy eyes?”

“They only work on Tony…” He dropped his head again and Peggy had to bite down a chuckle.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I regularly have the same discussion with Tony, about the puppy eyes. You really remind me of the kid…”

“Oh.” His ears got red, and he scrunched his nose together and looked back on the floor, clearly unsure what to do with that.

“What do you say, should we check on him? He told me, you’re pretty smart, too, I’m sure he’ll appreciate all the help he can get. And so do I, I miss my little rascals.”

“You have kids too, right?”

“Yeah, two of them. Three, if you count Tony.”

“I think you should count him”, Peter decided, “from what I hear you deserve the parental title more than his dad.”

“Mhm, you heard all about that?”

“I heard enough.”

She exchanged a quick glance with Pepper, who seemed to think the same thing Peggy did: It might have started as a mentorship, but the relationship between Tony and Peter was definitely build on a lot of mutual worry, care and love.

“Shall we head to the lab then?”

.

“Hi Tony!” They were barely in the lab, when the kid called out for him.

“Hey Pete. You’re a lot earlier than I expected.” He raised his eyebrows and shot him a scolding look, he definitely learned from Jarvis.

“Well, we’re working on time travel right now, so I can always make up for it”, he grinned back. “Hey Scott! Mr. Stark.” He nodded at the other two men and Peggy could see the momentary confusion on Tony’s face, not being addressed with Mr. Stark.

“Spidey, hey, good you’re here, we can do with your help! And you… ohmyfreakinggodyou’rePeggyfreakingCarter!” The other man, presumably that was Scott, dropped the hammer he was holding and all but stumbled towards her.

“Scott Lang, I take it?”, she smiled, holding out her hand.

“Yes”, he gulped, “Scott, yeah, that’s me, I’m Scott.”

“You’re Hank’s son-in-law?”

“Well”, he chuckled nervously, “I mean, maybe one day, I would like to maybe, but Hope and I we’re just dating. It’s going well, really well, she is so amazing and I really love her, but…”

“Scott, breathe”, Tony called over.

“Yeah, right, sorry.”

“Wow, you’re freaking more than when you met Cap.”

“Without Peggy Carter there would be no Captain America, everybody knows that”, he stated matter-of-factly.

“I like you, Scott”, she smiled, before she sat down on a chair. “I don’t want to disturb you guys, but I’d really like to see my little boy in action.” She could barely finish the sentence, when all off a sudden, everything around her started to beep and a bunch of robots headed her way.

“Guys, GUYS!”, Tony yelled, “take it easy, there’s enough Aunt Peggy for everybody.”

The robots stopped, even moved a little bit back, but still stayed close to her, beeping almost excitedly, if you could say that about machinery.

“Tony, what is this?”

“Aunt Peggy, meet my robots. They already know and love you, and apparently missed you as much as I did. Meet Dum-E, Butterfingers and that’s U.”

“Hi. I’m sorry, I haven’t met you yet, but I am really looking forward!”

“They are absolute sweethearts”, Peter giggled, as he walked over and patted each of them; they all reacted with what almost sounded like a purr, leaning in to the boy’s touch.

“They have their moments”, Tony grumbled, albeit with all the love in his eyes.

“And they love their dad”, Peter added.

“Doesn’t mean they listen to me… Guys, are you gonna geek out over Aunt Peggy, or are you helping us over here?”

Their movement was hesitantly, but after carefully booping against her knee, all three wheeled over to Tony.

“You can cuddle with her later, alright? For now, we should get some shit done.”

It was adorable; Tony talked to the robots like they were children, and they acted like his kids as well! Leave it to Tony, to give a bunch of metal feelings.

And the way he worked with Peter… Helping, instructing, showing him how to work the tools, with which the boy was pretty good already. They probably worked together a lot, judging from the way Peter seemed to sense what Tony wanted him to do, knew where Tony needed him. If she didn’t know better, she would definitely see a father and son work together. But then again, that’s what they were. Blood doesn’t make you family, Tony learned that the hard way.

She watched Howard observing the duo. He looked disconnected, estranged from his son. From what Pepper told her, that was exactly, what they were. Maybe being here, Howard could learn a thing or two about being a father. It was sad though, that the person teaching him this, would be his own son.

“Put down the fire-extinguisher!” Tony’s yelling brought her back into the real world. “Dum-E, you know that after last time, you’re no longer on fire extinguisher duty. No, don’t give me that look, you know what you did.”

Peggy could hear two quiet beeps, before she watched Dum-E putting the extinguisher down.

“Alright, that’s more like it.”

“I’m scared to ask, but what did he do?”, she inquired.

“He doused his brother. U almost lost a few cogs, because the foam got in the wrong places. He’s alright now, Peter helped me fix him.” To proof that he was well again, U beeped a few times. “Dum-E has since apologized, but he is no longer allowed near the fire-extinguisher.”

“You grounded a robot?”, Howard asked astonished.

“Yes. How will he learn otherwise?”, Tony shrugged and went back to the circuitry he was working on.

Howard looked over at Peggy, who was just as astonished but a lot more amused by this situation.

Even though she came downstairs to watch her Tony work, Peggy couldn’t help but watch the robots, whirring around, fetching tools, following every order they got from Tony or Peter, and, every now and then, when they didn’t have anything to do, they wheeled over to her, gently nudging her leg, enjoying her petting them. This couldn’t get any more bizarre.

“Peter, your aunt has repeatedly tried calling you.” Of course, all that was missing was the ceiling voice. “I would suggest you call her back.”

“Sure thing, FRI. Uhm, can you call her, I’ve got pretty oily fingers…”

“Calling May Parker.”

It seems, his aunt found out, he ditched class. Peter seemed to know, too, he anxiously fidgeted with his fingers.

“Peter?”

“Heeeey, Aunt May, how are you?”

“That doesn’t matter, how are you?” She sounded more concerned than angry.

“I’m ok.”

“Are you sure? Your school just called to inform me you went home with a migraine.”

“Oh, yeah, about that…”

“Peter Benjamin Parker. I thought I was clear on ditching school for Spider-Man…” There was the anger.

“I’m not Spidermanning! Technically, I’m taking history and engineering classes…”

“Spending time with Tony and Steve does not count and you know that as well as I do.”

“Hello May, I fully agree with you on that”, Tony threw in, “in Peter’s defence, things are a bit more complicated than that though.”

“Tony, this better be a damn good reason, or Peter is grounded from the Avengers indefinitely.”

“I’m not sure, you want to know… It’s time travel...”

“I swear to everything that’s good in this world, if you’re ditching to get Doctor Strange to zap you around, you are extra grounded.”

“STEPHEN!” Tony and Peter’s faces dropped as they stared at each other, mouths gaping open.

“What? What is going on?”

“We are such idiots! We’re here building a time machine, and we got the freaking keeper of the time stone on speed dial!”

“You’re building a time machine?”

“Uhm, Aunt May, I'll explain later what’s going on. We need to go right now.”

“No, don’t you dare hang up on me!”

“It’s simple: Tony’s dad and Peggy Carter accidentally time travelled and landed in New York yesterday. Now we’re trying to find a way to get them back, and with Dr. Strange you might have given us just the solution”, Peter recapped.

“What is wrong with our lives that I don’t even question fucking time travel anymore? Peter, we’re gonna have a long talk about skipping school. All of us.”

“I know”, he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too, May”, Tony apologized.

“You two better be. I’ll come to the compound after work and you can explain the whole situation. I’ll see you then.”

“Bye!”

“Call ended.”

“Ugh.” Peter dropped on the ground. “I’m sorry, I skipped school. And I’m sorry, I got May mad at you.”

“If I’m lucky, I’ll live to see my wedding day”, Tony mumbled, pulling the kid back to his feet. “For now, FRI, send a message to Strange, ask him to come here, please.”

“Message is delivered.”

“Thanks.”

“Who is Dr. Strange?”, Howard asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Tony, I’m sitting in the 21st century, watching my grown son build a time machine. What is weirder than that?”

“Alright”, he shrugged. “Dr. Stephen Strange is a wizard.”

“Sorry, I asked.”

It took all Peggy had to keep her mouth from gaping open. Now there were wizards? Any minute now she should wake up. This just couldn’t be real anymore.

Before she could voice her astonishment, orange flames lit up in the workshop, and suddenly a man stood next to Tony, in a long, red cape.

“Hey, what’s so urgent?”

“WHAT?” Howard cried out. Peggy would have screamed, too, if she had any sound left.

“Excuse me, where are my manners? I am Doctor Stephen Strange. And you… look very familiar…”

“Dr. Strange, may I introduce Howard Stark and Peggy Carter.”

“How did this happen?” He spoke with Tony, but the doctor eyed both time travellers curiously.

“Lab accident.”

“Huh, that’ll do it. And now you want me to turn back time?”

“Can you? I mean, get them back to their own time?”

“Probably…” He was quiet, pensive for a moment. “I should get to the sanctum, do my research, consult Wong. I’ll get back to you later, alright?”

“Thanks, Stephen. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” He nodded at everyone, and before Peggy could say anything, he disappeared in orange lightning.

“Great, Stephen’ll know what to do”, Tony nodded, but the smile on his face dropped fast, as he saw Peggy and Howard’s faces. “You guys alright?”

“I… I…” She tried to shake off the first shock. “I think I need a drink.”

.

Fifteen minutes and two shots of whiskey later, Peggy felt better. Still utterly confused, but better.

“You have a wizard. You have a freaking wizard!” Howard took a little longer.

“I think, they prefer ‘Mystique Arts’”, Peter threw in.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s helping, kiddo.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be, it’s alright”, Peggy assured him, “I appreciate you trying to help us.”

“Of course”, the kid nodded, “I get how weird this must be… I mean, one morning I woke up and could suddenly stick to walls. That stuff is freaky.”

“You can stick to walls?”, Howard cried out.

Peggy felt her eyes going bigger, too.

Instead of explaining himself, Peter jumped up and walked around on the ceiling. “I didn’t call myself Spider-Man because I like the animal.”

Peggy’s chin was on the floor and she couldn’t help but stare at the boy.

“What’s going on?”, she breathed, looking over at Tony.

“Don’t look at me”, he defended himself, “that ain’t my doing.”

“Oscorp”, Peter explained, as he jumped back down with a backflip. “It’s a long story, I was bitten by a radioactive spider and now I got spider DNA.”

“Good thing I dug you up before Osborn the Goblin did”, Tony scoffed, “I still can’t believe you went out with his son…”

“First of all it were only like four dates and can we please not talk about my exboyfriend-turned-super-villain?”, he moaned.

“Sorry, kid”, Tony apologized and patted his shoulder.

It sounded like an incredible story, but Peggy wasn’t sure whether she could take any more of that stuff and instead poured herself another whiskey.

.

“Peter Benjamin Parker.” A woman stood in the door, her arms crossed and a very stern look on her face. This was probably his aunt.

“Hey Aunt May.” As soon as she had stepped through the door, Peter dove behind Tony, who tried hiding behind Pepper. Now, an angry aunt, Peggy could handle.

“You must be May Parker, it is nice to meet you.” She walked up to the woman, holding her hand out. “I am terribly sorry your nephew skipped school because of me.”

“It’s really true”, May goggled, “you’re really Peggy Carter.”

“Guilty as charged”, she smiled.

“Wow. It’s an absolute honour, ma’am.” May shook Peggy’s outstretched hand. “I… I am so sorry, I have no idea what to say.”

“Trust me, neither do I. I mean, the day before yesterday, this guy was still five years old, now he’s the leader of a group of superheroes, with a bunch of awesome spider- and robot children.”

“That’s gotta be trippy”, May chuckled. “And I assume you are Mr. Stark?”, she turned to Howard.

“Please, call me Howard”, he smiled and shook her hand. “I have to say, your nephew is very smart. I was very impressed earlier.”

Peter’s ears turned bright red and he scrunched his nose up. He might not be Howard’s biggest fan, but appreciated the compliment.

“Yeah, I’m amazed about that kid, too”, she answered before turning to Peter, staring at him silently. The kid peeked up from behind Tony’s shoulder, both of them having flushed faces and the exact same deer-in-headlights-look.

“I have to admit, I get it”, May shrugged eventually. “Doesn’t mean I’m not mad at you for skipping, especially for ditching without telling me.”

“I’m really sorry, Aunt May.”

“I know you are.”

“I’m sorry, too”, Tony apologized.

“Yeah… Well, I guess these are very special circumstances, so I might just let it slide. If”, she added emphatically, “you never keep your skipping school from me ever again.”

“I promise”, he nodded meekly, got up from his hiding spot behind Tony’s back and went in for a hug.

“Good. Same goes for you”, she pointed at Tony, “I demand to be kept in the loop.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry, I didn’t call you when he showed up.”

“I imagine his ‘please, don’t tell May’ was accompanied by a lot of puppy eyes.”

“I might be a little susceptible to that”, he admitted contrite.

“Ben was, too. He got over it by realizing that I’m a lot more dangerous than a disappointed Peter”, she shot back with a challenging grin.

“I am very aware of that.”

“Good. Now, spill. What happened here?”

.

“Oh damn.” As they had finished their story, May’s chin was on the ground. “How do our lives get even weirder? I thought it reached its limits with Peter’s powers and Alien invasions!”

“Alien Invasions?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll find out in time”, Tony shrugged.

“Not so sure I want to.”

“Hey, boss.” Calling out, Happy walked into the room. “do you still need me to go and… May, hi! I… I didn’t know you were coming by today.” As soon as he saw her, his voice, his expression, even his posture changed.

“Hello Happy”, she smiled back, looking just as awkwardly smitten as he seemed to be with her. “I wasn’t planning on it, but you know how it is.”

“I am glad your plans changed”, he grinned, his cheeks flushing ever so slightly.

“Yeah, me too.”

It was adorable, everybody in the room seemed to think so. Well, almost everyone. Peter just turned around and if he were less polite, he would have definitely voiced his annoyance and embarrassment.

“It looks like this relationship is a little weird for Peter”, Peggy whispered over to Pepper.

“He’s coping”, she quietly giggled back. “To Peter, they are like you and Jarvis were to Tony, so you can imagine…”

Peggy had to chuckle at the notion of her and Jarvis, but got how it must make Peter feel.

“Mrs Agent Peggy Carter ma’am, would you like to get a bowl of the best ice cream in NYC?”, Peter suddenly blurted out, clearly needing to get out of this situation as soon as he could.

“Well, back in my day… Oh, I sound so old!”, she laughed. “Anyways, we did always go to that little place, Caramba’s.”

“Oh, I remember!”, Tony smiled, “but they closed years ago.”

“What a shame! But yes, Peter, I am always up for ice cream.”

“Awesome!”, he beamed. “Let’s get going, then!” He held her arm out to her, and Peggy had to laugh as she linked her arm with his.

“You really are a gentleman, Peter.”

“Do you guys need a driver?”, Tony asked, but Peter was quick to answer.

“We do not! Leave Happy here and let him get all… sappy on my aunt or whatever…”

“Do you want FRIDAY to keep an eye on us?”, May asked with a shake of her head.

“Yes!”, Peter called back, Peggy wasn’t sure whether he meant it or not. “And the door stays open!”

“Is this revenge for me not letting MJ stay overnight?”

“No… Maybe… Doesn’t matter though, I want you home by ten and Happy, just remember, I do have superpowers and am stronger than half the guys in this building.” With an exaggerated wide smile, that definitely looked threatening, Peter led Peggy out of the room.

“Wow, Peter, you are really protective of your aunt.”

“Yeah, well, Spider-Man already got my uncle killed, don’t exactly want her any more involved in the superhero-world than necessary.”

What? But before Peggy could follow up, Tony walked up behind them.

“So, Happy’s quaking in his pants”, he chuckled. “And when I asked if you guys need a driver, I meant myself. If that’s ok with you.”

With the widest smile on his face, Peter just held out his other arm. Tony linked their arms and snorted a laugh. “You are ridiculous, you know that?”

“I think that’s why you like me so much.” He quietly giggled to himself, before he abruptly stopped. “You know, maybe we shouldn’t go to Fredo’s”, Peter grinned.

“Peter, don’t start the guessing game and get to the point.”

“Ben’n’Jerry’s.”

“Oh.” Tony’s face lit up as he smiled at the boy. “You little show-off.”

“Look who’s talking”, he shot back.

“The genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist”, Tony smirked.

“Boys, you’re both pretty”, Peggy stated, trying to be diplomatic. “Ice cream, remember?”

“Do you still have some?”

“Freezer’s full.”

“Alright”, Peter beamed, “Roof or garden?”

“Let’s leave that decision to the lady. What do you say, Aunt Peg?”

“I’m not quite following, but I like a nice view, so I’m gonna say roof.”

“Great! You go ahead, I’ll meet you there with the ice cream.” With that, Tony walked off in one direction, while Peter led her towards the elevator.

“FRI, to the roof please!” They immediately started moving.

“Pray tell, what exactly is the plan?”

“We’ll have ice cream, just not in the city but up here.”

“And what’s so special about that?”

“You’ll see”, the boy grinned. “It’s a surprise!”

“I do like surprises”, she answered, smiling along. Somehow around Peter it was impossible to remain stoic. Some people just had that quality, ingraining themselves in everybody’s heart. No wonder, Peter was so important to Tony.

The view from the roof was quite nice. Being upstate there wasn't the New York skyline to feast their eyes on, but plenty of greenery.

“I don't want to darken the mood, but I am sorry about your uncle.” For Peter it might have only been a passing thought, but his earlier statement stuck with Peggy.

“Thanks...” He didn't look up at her and judging from his reaction it could not have been that long ago.

“What was his name?”

“Ben”, the boy answered. “I'm sort of named after him, my middle name is Benjamin.”

“That's lovely! It's always be nice to be named after special and wonderful people.”

“Are you named after anybody?”

“Not as far as I'm aware”, she shrugged. “I mean, there are a few Margarets in my family tree, but as far as I know, none of them were instrumental in my parent's choice for my name.”

“I don't know of any Peter's that might have inspired my parents as well.”

“Here we go!”, Tony walked out of the door, interrupting their little family heart-to-heart, a wide smile on his face. “What do you feel like, Aunt Peg, Strawberry or Hazelnut?”

He held both containers out to her and she almost fell off the bench in surprise. There was 'Stark Raving Hazelnut' adorned with her little boy's face; 'Strawberry Slinging Spider-Man' had a comic-style drawing on it of the suit she had first met Peter in. “You got your own ice cream named after you?”, she cried out, “oh, this is fantastic!” She looked from Peter to Tony with a wide smile. “Now, I’ll definitely have to try both of them!”

.

“Mrs Agent Peggy Carter ma’am, can I ask you a favour?”

“Only if you call me by my name, and only that”, she answered. “Aunt Peggy is fine, too”, she added with a smile.

“Really?” His eyes went big and a giant grin spread over his face.

“I mean, technically, in this family tree, I’d be your grand-aunt, but I think we can leave that ‘grand’ out.”

“Ok”, the boy agreed. “So, Aunt Peggy”, he squealed a little with her name. On the other side of him, she saw Tony biting down his grin. “I wanted to ask if it’s ok, I mean, you’re welcome to say no, that’s totally fine and I definitely get it, if you don’t want to…”

“Get to the point, buddy”, Tony urged him.

“Alright, sorry.” A little shyly, Peter looked over at Peggy. “Would it be ok if I’d invite my girlfriend MJ and my best friend Ned here, to meet you?”

“Sure”, she nodded, “I would like that.”

“Yes? Omigod they’ll be so happy! I haven’t told them what exactly happened, I just said there’s some stuff at the compound, but if I tell them that it’s you? That’d be so cool!”

“How about you ask them to come tomorrow”, Tony suggested.

“Would that be ok for you?”, Peter asked Peggy.

“You know, the last appointment I had was about 45 years ago, so I’m free tomorrow”, she nodded with a grin.

“AWESOME!” He got his phone out and immediately started tapping on that screen. No buttons, nothing, just the screen, reacting to his touch. Freaky.

“I’ll send them a picture, so they’ll believe me.” He held his phone out in front of them. “Ok, now smile! Perfect!” Nothing happened, no flash, not even the sound of a shutter, but somehow the kid got what he wanted. Well, good for him…

A few minutes later, he read the answers out to them.

“So, this is from Ned, he’s like my best friend ever: Is that who I think it is? Omgomgomgomg! That stands for Oh, my god!”, he explained. “I want to meet her, yes, definitely! Asdfghjkl! Uhm, that’s a keysmash. It’s for when you’re so excited you just smash on the keyboard.”

“Alright.” That modern slang was quite something…

“This is from MJ, Michelle, she’s my girlfriend and she’s so smart and awesome and badass”, Peter cooed, his eyes gleaming with adoration and excitement. “Anyways, she writes: This better be real, seriously, you better not be playing or I’ll dump your ass right in front of Flash. Uff, that’s harsh…”

“To be honest, you would deserve it”, Tony chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess… But it sounds like they’re both in! Thank you so much, it means so much to me!”

“Of course, Peter, you are my grand-god-son, after all!”

.

They were in the middle of dinner, a fantastic pasta dish, when that weird orange light flamed up again, and the wizard from this morning stood in front of them.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb your dinner”, he apologized.

“Don’t worry, Stephen. You hungry?”, Tony offered.

“No, thank you. I can come back later, though.”

“Nonsense, sit. So, any news yet?”

“Indeed”, the wizard nodded, “it seems that with the help of Wong I can get you two back to your time.”

“Wow, that’s fantastic!”, Peggy beamed.

“Thank you”, Howard smiled, “I can’t even begin to describe how glad I am.”

“Of course”, Dr Strange nodded. “I do need some preparation time, so I won't be able to help out until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Today is Friday, right?”, Peggy asked, and got a nodded answer. “Well, I already have plans with Peter tomorrow, and I would like the proper time to end this… vacation, so how about we stay the weekend?”

“Of course”, Stephen nodded, “I’ll prepare myself for Sunday afternoon if that’s alright?”

“Perfect”, Howard nodded.

“Then let me let you get back to your dinner. Have a lovely evening.” And as quickly as he appeared, he was gone again.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

MJ had been standing in front of her house about 15 minutes before Happy said that he’d be there. But she was just so excited! Ever since Peter had invited her and Ned over to the compound to meet The Agent Carter TM, she’d been a mess; a completely nervous wreck just bursting with anticipation. Even though she knew that Peter wouldn’t lie to her, especially about something like that, MJ felt like she was being punk'd. Sure, her boyfriend had part spider DNA, could stick to walls and was strong like nobody’s business, but time travel?

Finally, Happy pulled up in front of her and she climbed inside to a very giddy Ned.

“Hey MJ”, the guys greeted her.

“Hi. So, Happy is this for real? I mean…”

“Yes”, he interrupted her, “it’s real. I’ve been with them for two days and I still can’t believe it.”

“Damn.”

The drive to the compound felt like an eternity. This was even more nerve-wrecking than the first time she came here and the time she came over for an official meet-the-family with Mr Stark and Pepper, when she and Peter started dating.

“Hey FRI, tell Peter we’re here”, Happy called out as the building came into view.

“He’ll greet you by the door”, the AI answered.

And yes, as Happy stopped in front of the building’s doors, Peter already stood there with a wide beaming grin. And maybe, just maybe, MJ’s heart skipped a beat when she saw his smile. Though that could also be due to the fact that Mrs Peggy freaking Carter was somewhere inside this building.

“Hey guys”, Peter greeted them and gave MJ a soft kiss. “You’re already awaited.”

Ok, here it goes. Hand in hand they walked to the common room; MJ held onto Peter’s hand for dear life and he encouragingly squeezed it, before he opened the door. And holy freaking cow, it was really her. Sandwiched between Mr Stark and Mr Rogers sat the woman, MJ had done her AP history assignment about.

“Aunt Peggy, this is Ned and MJ”, Peter introduced them. MJ was way to overwhelmed at the sight of one of her personal heroes to really give Peter calling her ‘Aunt Peggy’ any thought.

“Well, hello!” With a wide smile Agent Peggy Carter walked up to them. “It’s so nice to meet you, I already heard so much about you two.”

As aware as MJ was of her mouth gaping wide open, she couldn’t do anything about it; she was completely mesmerized.

“Peter has barely shut up about you all morning. I'm Howard. It’s a pleasure to meet you”, the man introduced himself, holding out his hand.

“Hi”, Ned eventually managed to get out.

“How about we all take a seat?”, Agent Peggy Carter suggested, breaking the stunned silence and Peter pulled his two dumbfounded friends behind him, pushing them right on either side of him on a couch.

Since nobody really seemed to know what to say, Peter took over. “So, Thursday. I was out on patrol after school and I told you that I was about to get to Diego’s, get a bite to eat”, he remarked to MJ, “and all of a sudden I stand in front of them!”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

As Peter recapped what had happened the last few days, Tony leaned back and was content just watching the teens reacting to Aunt Peggy and his dad and them reacting to the teens. He was a little surprised by their stunned silence, Tony had expected a reaction more like Peter’s or Scott’s, just fangirling over Aunt Peg; at least that’s what he had expected Ned reaction to be. MJ was more like Pepper, more restrained, asking fewer questions but each of them meaningful and intelligent, but she was remarkably quiet as well; holding onto Peter’s hand as if it were her lifeline. And it was only a small movement, but Peter gently brushed his fingers over her hand, it probably felt as calming and soothing as it looked.

Pete in his first real relationship… It was adorable to watch. What made it even better was that Peter actually came to Tony for advice every now and then! Not that Tony was that good at serious, committed relationships; just because he was engaged to Pepper it didn’t mean he knew how he did it. Thinking back, all his romantic gestures blew up in the most spectacular way, sometimes literally. Even though it backfired, Tony still stood by the giant plush bunny. Put a bit of dying in the mix, set her on fire and bam! Here comes love.

Since according to Peggy Peter was similar to Tony, it made sense that the kid would fall for someone who, just like Pepper, was a strong, independent woman.

And, while he wasn’t sure how someone as fantastically brilliant as Ms Potts would agree to spend the rest of her life with a mess like Tony, he could see why Michelle would fall for someone as sweet, kind and brilliant as Peter.

And it made Tony really proud. Not that he had actually raised the kid, but still. There was a lot about Peter to be proud of.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“We actually started building a time machine, like a real proper time machine! We should probably have used a DeLorean”, Peter snickered before finishing the story. “But then Aunt May gave us the idea to call Dr Strange and he found a way to get them back to the seventies.”

Peggy wasn't 100% sure yet what to make of the two kids sitting opposite her, holding onto Peter for dear life. From Peter's earlier descriptions and stories, she imagined them to be a lot bubblier and definitely more talkative.

“Uhm guys”, Peter hissed over, “you can talk to them.”

“But isn't this like... I don't know, some Back to the Future stuff?”, Ned shot back, “Like, step on a butterfly and we're never born?”

“I'm sorry”, Peggy threw in, “I don't quite follow.”

Thankfully, Ned took the bait. “I mean, you being here, doesn't that totally screw with the timeline? Should we even know that you're here, let alone talk to you?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw the other grown-ups grinning at Peggy tricking Ned into opening up and talking. “I don't think you need to worry too much about that. As long as we don't learn about all the big things coming our way, all of us will be alright.”

“Oh, that's good”, Ned sighed, visibly relieved.

“Yeah, so don't be afraid to talk and ask away.”

“Ok, so first of all I need to say that you're super awesome and one of my absolute heroes”, MJ blurted out and if Peggy read the reaction of Tony and the others correctly, her burst of emotion was something rather unusual.

“Thank you, darling”, Peggy smiled back at the girl.

“Of course, it's an honour!”

“It totally is”, Ned nodded in agreement, beaming just like Michelle did.

Peggy was in all honesty floored. Yes, of course she had tried to imagine how impactful her role as a woman in a man's world was or will be for girls like MJ. But actually seeing all that, living through it?

“You alright?” Tony nudged her side.

“Yes”, Peggy cleared her throat and smiled over at her little boy. “I'm fine. Slightly overwhelmed but over the moon to see what humanities future will look like.” She turned back to the teens. “The Spider-Three, a superhero-squad per excellence, en route to change the world.”

“I mean, technically he's the superhero”, Ned giggled nervously. “I'm just the Guy In A Chair.”

“If that were true, then MJ would be just Peter's love interest and damsel in distress”, Peggy commented. “Does that seem right to you?”

“I'd be scared to even consider that thought”, Ned made clear and MJ looked more than pleased at Peggy's assessment of her.

“You don't need powers to be a hero”, Peggy continued “I like to say that once you know your value, anybody else's opinion doesn't matter any more. From what Peter told me you are both so intelligent, loyal and genuinely fierce... Don't resign yourselves to the background. Cut the word 'just' out of your vocabulary. You're not just Spider-Man's assistant or girlfriend.” She locked eyes with Michelle. “You're the leader of the Academic Decathlon team, a strong and independent woman! And you”, she looked over at Ned, “you're an amazingly smart engineer and a damn good programmer. Those are the kinds of people we need to change the world. And yes, having superhuman powers or being the heir to one of the wealthiest and most well-known companies makes getting your voice heard so much easier. Trust me, I know”, she rolled her eyes. “I might not have had to deal with Spider-Man and Ironman but with Captain America and Howard.”

She looked over at the others, where Tony, Steve and Howard flushed in all the shades of pink and red. “Seriously, you should have heard the Captain America stories they broadcasted after the war ended.” Peggy could only shake her head thinking back on the horrible radio programme. “It was a never-ending tirade of poor helpless Peggy, being saved by her hero in the last second, so she could swoon in his strong arms.”

While everybody else stared at her with big eyes, Steve turned even redder. “Peggy, I'm so sorry about that”, he apologized, “I had no idea! The thought of you needing to be rescued... It's ridiculous!”

“Besides”, James laughed, “if anyone here would swoon, it'd be Steve.”

“All that sexism and misogyny”, MJ interrupted the laughter, “how did you get through that?”

“It isn't a walk in the park, I tell you that. There will be a lot of people, especially men, trying to sell you on all their stories and ideals, and you will have to compromise where you can, but only where your conscience lets you. Where you can't, don't. Even if everybody tries to convince you that their truths are the only acceptable truth; when the whole world tells you to move it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say: 'No, you move'.”

It was silent for a moment, before Peggy continued. “You know, it is such a privilege for me to see the future and to know that there are these fantastically strong women saving our present”, she smiled at Pepper, “and our future.” With that she looked back at Michelle.

“I feel really compelled to give you a hug right now”, Michelle got out after a few pensive moments of silence.

“Of course.” With a smile Peggy got up and held her arms out. “I will always accept a hug,”

Her movement was hesitant, but MJ got up and into Peggy's arms. “Thank you” she mumbled quietly and hugged the woman back.

“Any time, darling.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The day went by like the blink of an eye. After their initial weariness, Ned and MJ warmed up and it didn't take long for the conversation to turn to more amusing pages.

And Peter was so overwhelmed, with all sorts of positive emotions that it was almost heartbreaking when Happy reminded everybody of the time and that he had to take Peter's friends back home.

“Why can't they stay over?”, he moped, trying to shoot Tony his best puppy eyes.

“Because I'm not letting you have a sleep-over with your girlfriend”, he made clear.

“Omigod”, he groaned and turned two or three shades redder. “It'd be all three of us anyways, and we could stay here in the common room where FRI'll keep an eye on us.”

“Nuh-uh.” Vehemently, Tony shook his head. “My roof, my rules young man.”

“It's alright.” MJ grabbed Peter's hand and grinned over. “It was already the best damn day. You can tell us more on Monday during Homeroom.”

“Excuse me?” Tony had his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

“She means during break after homeroom”, Peter quickly corrected, “once we've done all our work perfectly and diligently, like the good-working students we are.”

“I should hope so”, he grumbled.

“Ignore him”, Peggy smiled and pulled Ned into a hug. “It was wonderful to meet you and I wish you all the best for your biology exam next week.”

“Thanks”, he smiled as they broke away, “it was really fantastic to meet you, too.”

“It totally was”, MJ agreed, as Peggy hugged her, too.

“Agreed. Now, you two, don't forget to change the world, alright?”

“Never”, they promised.

Peter grabbed MJ's hand and together they followed Happy out to the car. “You're sure it's ok if I stay?”

“My Dad won't let you sleep over either”, MJ just shrugged. “So, spend as much time with your Aunt Peggy as you can. Why do you call her that?”

Peter's ears got a little red, as he thought of the talk they had the other day. “Well, she said that in this weird family tree, I'm kind of like her grand-nephew”, he explained with the proudest smile.

“That is pretty damn cool.” Proudly, Ned grinned over at him.

“You guys ready to head home?” Happy was already leaning against the hood of the car as the three teens made their way out of the building.

“As ready as I'll ever be...” Ned turned to Peter and one super-awesome-best-friends-handshake later, he climbed in the car.

“Feel free to message me later”, Peter smiled, before leaning in for a good-night kiss.

“Won't you be too busy with Aunt Peg?”, she deadpanned, but the grin shone right through in her beautiful eyes.

“You know you're the only girl I love.”

“What?”

The pair froze for a moment, as time seemed to stand still. Neither of them had ever even hinted towards the l-word and until now Peter hadn't given it too much thought. Their relationship just worked, it was wonderful and he trusted her, cared so much about her and MJ's pure existence left him at a loss for words. All that was probably what love was; Peter had never felt like this about anyone ever before and didn't want to  feel like this about anybody that wasn't MJ. She was such a strong, genuine person, endlessly smart and creative and oh so beautiful...

“Uh, yeah.” Peter tried to clear his thoughts again. “Ok, this was super not romantic, for which I am really sorry. But yeah.”

“Peter, thanks to you I just got to spend the day with the woman I look up to, my absolute hero. I don't think it gets any more romantic than that”, she smiled, cupped his face and pulled Peter in for the softest and gentlest kiss. “I love you, too.”

“You do?” Peter couldn't believe his luck. This fantastic, intelligent and plain perfect girl loved him!

“Yes. You nerd.” She let go of him and turned towards the car, not without a last quick peck, though. “See you”, MJ smiled and disappeared in the car, which drove off only moments later.

Peter waved after the car until it was out of view, before he got back into the building, skipping up to the common room with the widest, most love-struck grin on his face.

He loved MJ who loved him back! Upstairs, everybody was deep in conversation, about what, Peter did not know. And didn't care. Like it did in the cartoons, the picture of MJ's face whirled around his head, surrounded by a probably unhealthy amount of hearts.

“Hey, Romeo.” He only realized Tony as he sat next to Peter and poked his arm.

“Huh?”

“Wow, you really are in love, hey?”, Tony grinned and Peter felt himself blushing. “I guess that's a yes.”

“We kinda just now said it to each other for the first time”, he beamed at his mentor.

“Oh wow. That's a big step.” Tony put his arm around Peter's shoulder and gently squeezed it. “I'm proud of you, kiddo.”

“You are? For what?”

“Not quite sure”, the man chuckled. “I guess, I just am. How you're finding your way, navigating yourself through a relationship, especially your first one... Seventeen year old Tony could have learned a thing or two about that from you...”

By now Peter flushed at about the intensity of his spider suit. “But if seventeen year old Tony was any different than he was, maybe fifty-year-old Tony wouldn't be engaged to Pepper”, he shrugged.

“You little shit.” Tony glared down at Peter with his finger pointed directly at his face. “You know damn well that I'm 49.”

Peter just grinned back up. “Same difference, right?”

“Do you want to be kicked out right now?”, Tony asked, his eyebrows raised higher than Peter had ever seen it. “Because that's how you get kicked out of the house and the Avengers.”

“You are aware that I'm stronger than you, right?” Oh, Peter loved it when he managed to render Tony speechless.

“What did I do to deserve an ungrateful Spiderchild like you?”, Tony groaned, before he smiled back down and gave Peter's shoulder another squeeze. “Must've been a damn saint in a previous life.”

.

Oh, this was all so very wrong. Howard should be able to sit with his son, chat about his life, and have a nice and proper talk; instead he got to watch Tony being like a father to Spider-Man all the while he barely spoke three sentences with Howard.

He probably deserved it; if there was one thing he had learned about his kid these last few days, it was his big heart and fierce protectiveness of all he held dear. Howard must have done horrible things that not even his Tony could forgive him for that.

“You two need to talk.” Peggy sounded resolute, stern even, as she sat down next to him and looked over at where Tony had his arm around Peter.

“Right. Stark men and talk. We have obviously never met”, he scoffed at her idea.

“Howard, you listen to me. That boy was broken into a million little pieces and pulled himself together, worked harder than either of us to make himself whole again. He deserves to talk, to be listened to. He deserves closure. So to make one thing very clear: we are not leaving this time until that happened.”

“Yes ma'am.” Damnit, as scary as Peggy was, she was just as right.

It would probably be easier if Howard knew what exactly he was apologizing for, his Tony was only five after all; there wasn't too much he could have screwed up already. But Peggy was right. Howard had to address this with Tony's point of view in mind.

And as much as Howard hated to talk feelings, he just wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible. He did have to wait until late morning of the following day, mere hours before they were supposed to travel back to their time.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“It seems like Peggy and I will be back on our own time soon. Thank you, son, for everything.”

“Sure thing”, Tony shrugged. Man, he could barely make eye contact with his own father. There was so much he wanted to say to him, that he needed to get off his chest. They were sitting by themselves at the moment, probably thanks to the combined efforts of Pepper and Peggy, so Tony and Howard could talk.

“But more than to thank you, I need to apologize”, Howard continued. “I really am a lousy father, have been or will be one.”

Damn. Tony never expected his dad to say that. “I’m not gonna lie”, he stated after a deep breath, “so yeah. You were.”

“I can’t even begin to express how sorry I am.”

Tony felt Howard’s gaze on him and met it head on. Sure, he looked apologetic and like he regretted everything, but…

“And I can’t even describe how proud I am that you did not turn out like me. You have SI, the Avengers and still manage to be so good with that boy, Peter… Even though I don't know what it is I did, or will do, it hurts to see that I am the reason you never got to feel like he does.” After a deep breath, Howard continued. “I would love to promise you that I’ll be better, that I’ll do right by you.”

“Yeah, right”, Tony couldn’t help but scoff. “Howard, don’t insult either of our intelligence by promising something we both know you won’t keep. Do you know that this, right now, is the first time I ever heard you tell me that you’re proud of me?”

“Really?” Howard's face fell and basically oozed dread.

“Really. And I know that all of that hasn't happened yet to you, though let's be honest, even as a kid it was Jarvis who treated me like a father should. I mean, the happiest day in you life was the day you could send me off to boarding school and be rid of me. I had to compete my whole life for your attention with a dead guy. I hated Cap over there with a passion since no matter what I did, I would never be able to compare to him; not in your eyes at least. Once I got to know him, I forbade myself from liking him, out of fear I'd end up like you. I had to reach my late forties to break out from all the fucked up shit that was bottled up inside and you don't want to know what I had to go through, what I put Pepper, Rhodey, all the people that really love me through. Do you have any idea how fucked up it is to only learn the meaning of the word unconditional love when you're forty?” Tony felt himself getting more and more worked up, his voice got louder and pitched higher, but he had to get it all out now; it was his last chance and if he never got on good terms with Howard, well, Tony had resigned himself to that a long time ago. But he had a chance for closure and that he'd take. “You were cold, calculating; your first thought went always to the profitability of the thing, company or person in front of you. But hey.” He shot his father a sarcastic and pained smile. “All in the past, right?”

“Tony, I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am.” Howard looked very emotional, a look Tony did not remember ever seeing on his dad's face. “I can tell you though, that that little five year old boy sitting at home right now? I love him so much. And I love the man he will become, or became. And I am so much prouder of either than I could ever be of Captain America or anything else.”

As sincere as he sounded, Tony didn't buy it, couldn't believe it. It sounded too perfect to be true.

His father probably read his mind, after a deep breath he continued talking: “I know you don't believe me, I don't deserve you believing me. And I don't deserve forgiveness. But you deserve closure. And that I'd like to accomplish.”

“You know, I just dropped it all a long time ago. A lot has happened, a whole bunch of stuff I probably shouldn't tell you about, so I'll leave it at that. There was no forgiveness, but with all the love and stuff like that that came into my life, there was no more room for bitterness and hatred. And up until you showed up in my house the other day, all that anger lay dormant. I thought it was gone, apparently not.” Shit, Tony was talking in circles, just missing the point he was trying to make. What was that point, though? This was always so much easier with Pepper or Rhodey by his side, telling him what he was thinking and trying to say.

“Point is, I don't know how we're gonna part ways”, Tony eventually stated. “I don't know if I got it in me to forgive and forget just yet. I also don't think that this will change all that much in my or our timeline, and I don't expect it to, made my peace with that a long time ago. I'm glad that I could tell you all this, get it off my chest. And you can contendly go back to your time, knowing that I have a pretty damn fantastic life, even if it is in the awareness that all that only started as soon as you were gone.”

“Right.”

The two men sat in silence, neither daring to look at the other. On the one hand, Tony would have wished for his dad to fight a bit more for their relationship, as non-existent as it was, but on the other hand he was glad that Howard didn't. If he was being honest, neither of them knew the man sitting opposite them. All Howard knew was a little five-year-old snot nose; all Tony knew was the disgruntled and sarcastic father of a troubled teenager. There was nothing either of them could say to properly end this chapter and Howard seemed to get that, too.

“I'm really happy that you do have such a fantastic life”, he eventually smiled at Tony. “Pepper, Peter, all the Avengers, they deserve you so much more than I ever did and I am glad that they not only see you for your worth or profitability, but the fantastic human being that you turned out to be. You know”, he added, “you might have my brain, but other than that, you're the perfect hybrid of Peggy and Jarvis.”

“Wow”, Tony smiled, “that is one of the most amazing compliments I have ever gotten.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“So, while Tony and Howard get the chance to get all the closure time and circumstances denied them, I think I deserve that, too”, Steve decided and Peggy wasn't sure what to make of his grin.

“And what pray tell are you referring to?”

“FRIDAY, hit it.” And, Peggy had no idea where from music started playing. “I believe we owe each other a dance...” He held his hand out and with a smile, Peggy took it. “I know I'm late for our date by about 75 years and I'm terribly sorry for that.”

“You better be sorry”, she shot back with a grin, as Steve twirled her. “I said eight pm on the dot!”

“I know... If it makes you feel better, you still are the first girl to dance with me.”

“That is a rather sad statement for someone who's 101”, Peggy laughed. “At least it would be, if I didn't know your partner.”

“Buck isn't the biggest on dancing... And definitely not as good a dancer as you are.”

“That is incredibly sweet. I supposed you expect an answer along the same line, but unfortunately my darling husband is better on his feet than you are...”

“I think I'll be able to live with that”, Steve grinned.

For a while they just swayed silently from one foot to the other, only the music playing. Even though Peggy didn't know the song, it sounded like it was from their time; probably early forties, all in all it felt like a memory that never was.

“I don't want you to leave.” Steve broke the silence and looked down on her. “I mean, not in a romantic way”, he quickly added.

“What way then?”

“I'm not sure”, he quietly admitted. “I just know I need you and I've been living way to long in a world without you; which is coincidentally the world in which I have messed up big times.”

“Yes, you've mentioned how you are sort of a war criminal...”, Peggy nodded and couldn't keep her eyes from rolling.

“I'm so sorry to have disappointed you.”

“What? Who says I'm disappointed?”

“Why wouldn't you be?”, he shrugged and flushed quite a bit. “I not only acted unlawfully, but screwed over Tony and broke up the Avengers. I'm disappointed in myself”, he added after a moment or two.

“Well, given that neither you nor Tony want to tell me what actually happened, I don't know how I feel about the situation. From what I hear I can definitely say that both of you are goddamn and giant idiots and I would have most probably  kicked your lovely behinds from here to Belgium.”

“Yeah, I definitely would have deserved it...”

“Figured. But what happened after that; reconciliation, rebuilding all that had been destroyed, in whatever way that might have been... You didn't need me for that, did you?”

“It would have been easier with my best girl around...”

“Well, your best girl was and still is needed in the past. You on the other hand got the future ahead of you. Stop idealizing the past or some fantasies about a life in the 20th century; if you hold onto all that, you'll never be able to properly move forward. Especially, since your boyfriend is also a relic of the second world war, it's easy to lose yourself in nostalgia. Don't do that.”

“Yeah”, he sighed, “it's so much easier said than done, though.”

“Please, Steve, whoever said life was easy?”

“Definitely not the guy who had every illness imaginable in his youth, died in World War II, just to come back in the 21st century”, he chuckled.

“You have a good life here”, Peggy smiled. “And I have a good life back home. What-ifs only suck the joy out of living.”

“I know you're right”, Steve nodded. “As always”, he added with a grin.

“Of course I am. And I am happy. I have a good life back home and so do you. Right?”

“Yeah”, he smiled, with the biggest heart-eyes. “I really do. And I'm so happy that you're happy!” He was silent, pensive a moment, before the smile grew even wider.

“I'm grateful, too.” She got on her tiptoes to reach high enough to put a soft kiss on Steve's cheek. “As turbulent and short as our time together was, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world and am so happy that I got to be a chapter in the work that is Captain America.”

“Darling, you helped write that story. And for that I'll always be grateful.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

It was time. Dr Strange appeared in the middle of the common room, as everybody sat together, trying to be cheery, when the weird goodbyes dampened everybody's spirits.

“Are you ready to leave this time behind?”

“Yes”, Peggy smiled, thinking of her family and how much she missed all of them so much. Besides, Tony didn't need her anymore; he'd be just fine and so'd be Steve.

“Come here”, she grinned at Peter and the teen went in for a hug. “Take good care of yourself and those wonderful friends of yours. You can be proud, and I just know that this world can't wait for Peter Parker changing it.”

“Thanks Aunt Peggy. Take care of you, too.”

“I will.” They broke away and Peter had the widest beaming smile on his face.

“Pepper”, she smiled and hugged the woman next. “All the best to you, my dear. I hope you have a fantastic wedding and a great life.”

“Thank you”, Pepper answered. “And when you get back to your time, tell that little kid there that I can't wait to fall in love with him.”

“Oh believe me, I will”, she chuckled as she leaned back. “Definitely. And you.” She held her hand out to Barnes. “Take care of my boy, will ya?”

“Yes ma'am”, James smiled and saluted before shaking her hand.

“Good.” Now came the heartbreaking part. She turned to Tony, who clearly fought hard against his tears. “Darling, I love you.”

“I love you, too”, he mumbled and pressed himself against her, burying his face in her shoulder. “Thanks for everything.”

“You got this, honey. You're fantastic, smart and have such a big heart... I'm not gonna have to worry one bit about you, don't I?”

“I wouldn't go that far”, he chuckled. “But I'll do my best.”

“And that's enough to change the world, my dear”, she smiled and put a soft kiss against his forehead. “Remember, I love you, and I'm so proud of my little boy, I can't even put it in words.” And cue her eyes getting wet.

Tony stayed silent, but the face he pulled was one Peggy knew all to well; he was about to bawl his eyes out, but fought with nail and tooth and everything he had not to break down in front of this audience. She cupped his cheek and shot him a warm and teary-eyed smile, before she turned to Steve, who had the tears just rolling down his cheek.

“I'm gonna miss you, Steve.”

“And I'll miss you.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in tight. “At least this time I get to properly say goodbye to you.”

“And you're not dying”, she laughed. “That's nice as well.”

“I definitely don't plan on doing that all that soon again.” Steve joined in the laughter and leaned back to look her in the eyes. “I promise, I'll be careful.”

“Steven Grant Rogers, you don't believe that yourself, do you?” Peggy tried to sound scolding, but with the tears in her eyes and the chuckle bubbling up, it was downright impossible.

“Touchée”, he snickered. “Then I'll promise to do my best, alright?”

“Good enough for me. Is it good enough for him?” She nodded at James in the background.

“Definitely not... But he knew what he signed up for, so there's no need to feel too sorry about that.”

“I don't, I'm very happy for him. He's got himself quite the guy.” She looked over at Barnes without leaving Steve's embrace though. “I wish you two the very best life. You deserve it”, she added with a smile as she looked back up at Steve.

“Thanks. So do you.” He leaned down and softly kissed her cheek. “I'll still miss you.”

“I'll miss you, too. But hey, at least I know that I'll see you again; even if it's gonna take me another forty years.”

“Lucky you”, Steve laughed.

“I am... Alright.” She broke away from his touch and turned to the wizard. “Dr Strange, I think we need to leave now or things will get unbearably emotional.”

“Of course, Agent Carter.” The wizard smiled at the time-travellers and he started mumbling some unintelligible spells as the pendant around his neck started to glow. Peggy didn't really care about the procedure, though. With the warmest smile she could muster up she looked around the group of people, waving at her and Howard, as the green light engulfed them and, after a bright blinding flash of light, everything went dark.

.

“Aunt Peggy?” Someone patting her shoulder brought Peggy back into consciousness. “Hello! Aunt Peggy?”

“Tony?” The face towering above hers slowly came into focus.

“Yeah, is me Aunt Peg”, the boy grinned. Next to him knelt Hank Pym, offering her a hand and helped her to sit up. “Hey, take it easy, you hit your head pretty badly.”

“What the hell happened?” She looked around; they were in Howard's lab, which looked like a bomb had gone off in.

“I screwed around with something I maybe shouldn't have”, Howard admitted contritely, who she now saw sitting beside her, being coddled by Jarvis.

“And it blew up rather spectacularly, ruining a lot of my research”, Hank continued, sounding just slightly pissed off.

“Everything I do is spectacular”, Howard shot back and rubbed his head, where he had quite the bruise.

“Is it very ouchy?”, Tony asked as he climbed into Peggy's lap, looking very worried as he inspected her face.

“It'll be alright”, she forced herself to smile. “Different note, what are you doing here in the lab, young man?”

“He ran off and snuck in”, Jarvis explained as Tony flushed a few shades redder. “Even though he knows he's not allowed.”

“I've told you a million times to stay away from my work”, Howard groaned and turned to the little boy. “You've got no place in a lab like this!”

Oh Howard... If she wasn't so dizzy right now, Peggy would definitely cuss Howard out for his tone. “It's alright, kid”, she said instead, cupping the boy's face. “You just can't run off without Jarvis. You see how quickly things can go wrong in here and none of us wants to see you get hurt.”

“Ok... I'm sorry”, Tony mumbled.

“I know you are”, Peggy smiled and immediately, the boy's face lit up again, even if it was only a bit.

“We're taking you two to the infirmary now, you've been out for almost half an hour.”

“Really?” To Peggy it felt more like four days... And damn, did she have a weird dream... Being properly checked up on was probably the best call.

“Yeah. So come on.” Hank shooed the kid off her lap and held his arm out to Peggy and helped her to her feet and with him supporting her side, she didn't even feel too unsteady. Tony grabbed her free hand and grinned up at her; that gap where his front tooth had fallen out was just about the most adorable thing and Peggy couldn't help but smile along. How could she not; there was just something about her little boy that felt like everything was going to be alright.

.-.-.-.-.-.

From one moment to the next they were gone again. Pepper held onto Tony's arm, squeezing it softly as the green light flickered and flashed brightly, before the space in front of them was empty. But before any of them could really react though, Strange appeared again.

“They are safe and sound back in their time, just where they left.”

“Thank you, Stephen.” Tony let go of Pepper unto whom, as he now realized, he held on tightly, and walked up to the wizard. He lowered his voice just enough that only Strange would be able to hear him to voice the thought that was gnawing at the back of his head. “They don't remember us, do they?”

“I'm sorry”, he apologized. “they can't remember a time that hasn't happened yet.”

“I figured”, Tony nodded, but still, it felt like someone had twisted a knife stuck in his chest.

“If it gives you any solace, Peggy was greeted by her favourite godson, when she came to.” Stephen offered Tony a warm smile and the thought of his five-year-old self having Peggy by his side already lit up his mood again.

“It does”, he smiled back and held his hand out. “Thanks.”

“Anytime”, Stephen shook his hand and nodded at the rest of the assembled people, before disappearing in a yellowish-golden portal.

“What a weekend.”

Tony turned around and looked at Bucky. “Seriously? That's the only thing you have to say?”

“Sorry.” He half-heartedly raised his hands. “I'm not quite sure how to best summarize spending the weekend with my boyfriend's dead ex-girlfriend and the guy I killed.”

“Right, that's enough”, Steve cleared his throat and grabbed Buck by the arm. Good. There were a lot of feelings Tony didn't quite know how to best deal with and punching Barnes definitely seemed like a viable option to release some of his emotions.

“Anybody up for ice cream?”, Peter blurted out, breaking the tense silence and Tony couldn't help but snort a laugh. That kid was something else.

“Yeah”, Tony agreed, “ice cream sounds good.” He put his arm around Peter's shoulders and together they headed to the kitchen.

“I'm sorry”, Peter eventually got out, as they were in the privacy of the kitchen.

“What for?”

“That they don't remember anything...”

“You overheard me and Stephen.” Tony wasn't sure whether he meant it as a statement or a question.

“Can't turn of the spider-hearing”, Peter shrugged apologetically and grabbed a spoon for each of them, as Tony got the ice cream out the freezer.

“Yeah, I keep on forgetting that... You very disappointed?”

“I got to spend the weekend with one of the most amazing people of the last century! I don't mind that she won't remember it, because it was awesome! But it's not like they're my Aunt or Dad...” He looked up with those big soul-searching puppy eyes and Tony could only smile.

“I'll be alright. I got Pep, Rhodey, Happy and you, that's all I need.”

“Aw, Mr Staaaark!”, Peter cooed with a wide beaming grin.

“Nevermind, I'll take it back”, Tony deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at the kid.

“Too late”, Peter grinned right back. “FRI, you got that all on camera, right?”

“I do, Peter. Would you like me to send you a copy?”

“Oh, for fuck's sake! FRIDAY, you're MY AI, not Peter's.”

“But she likes me more than you”, Peter grinned back, and that cheeky smile just was infuriatingly adorable.

“As artificial intelligence I do not have the capacity for preferences”, she answered. “If I did, I would prefer Agent Carter or Ms Potts.”

“Ouch!”, Peter snorted out, “but I get it, I totally get it.”

“I guess, I did create you in my image”, Tony chuckled, “even more than I previously realized.”

.

“Do you need me to drive you home?”

“Thanks for the offer”, Peter smiled as he tightened the suit to match his body. “But it's not that late and since Spider-Man has been on leave-of-absence for the last few days, I might just do a bit of patrolling. Besides, I promised to call MJ as soon as I got the chance and I doubt you or Happy want to listen in on me and my girlfriend who I love and who loves me back.” If such a thing were possible, Peter's entire face turned into one giant heart eye at the mention of Michelle's name, before he pulled the mask over his head, thusly denying Tony the chance to tousle his hair.

“Good point”, he agreed, “that is definitely not something I need to be a part of. And yeah, I'm pretty sure New York misses Spidey.” He patted the kid's shoulder. “Call me if you need a hand and feel free to send me an update when you swing home.”

“Sure thing.” The boy wrapped himself around Tony in a tight hug. “Love you”, he whispered.

“Love you too, kiddo”, Tony smiled as Peter broke away and made for the window. “You do know we have doors, right?”

“Where's the fun in that?”, he shot back and out the window he climbed.

“Can't argue with that”, Tony chuckled. “Well then, Spider-Man go, save the world and make Aunt Peggy proud!”

[elizadoolittlethings]

MG - The Man Behind The Genius

(via Get Ready to Love Mark Gatiss)

“Can we just sit here and watch this Spider-Man cartoon?” Mark Gatiss smiles slyly but it’s not clear if he’s completely kidding. We’re sitting on a couch in The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York where a small retro-TV is playing an appropriately retro episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. “I love cartoons,” Gatiss tells me. “Did you ever see the old Star Trek cartoon? It’s brilliant. It’s basically like season four.”

The guy sitting next to me might look like Mycroft Holmes, but he barely sounds like him at all. This guy is softer, more childlike, more down to talk about whatever, so long as those things are James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, superheroes, Star Trek… In short, if you meet Mark Gatiss, you want to be best friends with him instantly.

For the uninitiated: Mark Gatiss is the co-creator (with Steven Moffat) of Sherlock. He’s also an actor IN Sherlock as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s  snippy, brilliant older brother. He’s written for Doctor Who numerous times, including last season’s “Robots of Sherwood,” as well as the classic Dickens 2005 episode “The Unquiet Dead.” He’s got a recurring role on Game of Thrones as Tycho Nestoris of the Iron Bank, but has roots in the famous British comedy The League of Gentlemen. In short: he’s done some things that are beyond impressive.

Our chat is talking place two hours ahead of The Museum of the Moving Image’s special screening of the Doctor Who episode “Sleep No More,” which is the one Mark wrote for this season. And yes, I can call him Mark, because he told me to. Glancing over at my open-notebook, full of my chicken-scratch  questions, he spies the word “Gatiss,” at the top of the page complete with a frantic double underline. “Don’t say ‘Moffat’ or ‘Gatiss,’” he coos. “Say ‘Mark.’”

To say Mark Gatiss is disarming would be an understatement similar to saying Sherlock Holmes is smart. It’s not that Mark is disarming, it’s like you and he have been exchanging dog-eared paperbacks for years and this conversation about the animated Star Trek from the 70s is old hat. After we talk about how great the writing is on that cartoon Trek, I ask him if he’d ever want to write for Star Trek.

“The new series?!!“I love Star Trek, so yeah, I wouldn’t say no. Simon Pegg’s writing the new one [Star Trek Beyond]. So yeah. You never know!”

Is there anything else—any other established universe—Mark Gatiss would like to write for other than Star Trek?

“Nooo…No. I want to do something new. But it’s so hard to get it off the ground. I’ve said this many times, and it’s absolutely true. That there is a reason why people revisit brands that are so familiar; it’s because they’re so familiar! And it’s getting harder and harder to try and convince people to take a punt at something new. So, that is absolutely vital. Otherwise, there’s no blood in it—and I say this knowing that I’m associated with two of the biggest reboots in history—and people will always revisit Sherlock Holmes. And I think that now that Doctor Who has really returned after its absence, Doctor Who is imperishable. It will probably stop again one day and then come back again, because that’s what it does. Like anything. But, I would love to do something that people look back on fondly, because it was a brand new thing. But it’s terribly difficult—A. to think of it! B. To get it off the ground. What is the new thing! Sherlock Holmes himself said there is nothing new under the sun!”

What if Steven Moffat left Doctor Who? Would Mark still write for Doctor Who?

“Of course I’d still write for Doctor Who! If they’d have me! It’s a continuing honor and thrill! I would say that unlike Russell [Davies] saying ‘that’s me, done,’ I think that if Steven were to leave, he’d still come back after a few years and do another one. Because he loves it. I mean, Russell loves it too! But, I think Russell saw it as his take on it and that was it. Which is a very grown-up way of moving on. But I can’t resist the urge.”

When you’re hanging with Mark Gatiss, who wants to be a grown up anyway?

Would Mark want to be the showrunner of Doctor Who if Steven Moffat left?

“The truth is I know how incredibly demanding it is. And one of things that makes it very difficult to see is the sort of casual attacks Steven has had to put up with over the past few years. It’s incredibly hard work and they care so much. It’s a 24 hour job. And when people say ‘why can’t you make more episodes!?’ I mean, the episode we’re watching tonight: I was sent the final effect shot the day before I left for New York. That episode is just complete and it’s on this Saturday. There are so many things to consider. But to answer your question, I know how hugely demanding [showrunning] is, but also how hugely rewarding it would be. It’s a huge, life-changing decision. I’m an actor and a writer. I couldn’t act if I did it. Because I wouldn’t have time. The only thing I could act in would possibly be Doctor Who. WAIT A MINUTE! I’ll DO IT!”

At this, Mark begins giggling like a madman, throwing his head back and repeating “I’ll do it! This will effect my whole life? HA HA HA HA! I’LL DO IT!!”

The comedian, the sketch-comedy writer version of Mark Gatiss has emerged! Fittingly, we switch our conversation to the importance of humor in his writing. How and why is he just so damn funny? Is Doctor Who and Sherlock nothing without humor?

“Humor is fundamental. I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of why we love these shows. Essentially from slightly humorless people who thinks it needs to be po-faced all the time. The man who created the Daleks—Terry Nation—was Tony Hancok’s writer. He was a very, very funny man who could also write great science fiction. That’s what Russell is. That’s what Steven is. What I am. Lots of people. Humor is bound-up in the DNA of [Doctor Who]. ‘Robots of Sherwood,’ for instance, is a straightforward romp. But, you should no more criticize a show for being too funny—what’s wrong with too funny, anyway? You hear that a lot. Someone says ‘it’s too funny.’ WHAT? Too funny? Would your prefer it was moderately funny? I’d go for much too funny any day. That doesn’t mean you’re messing with the format, that you’re spoiling it. And if you look back at the history of the show, that’s what it’s always been at its best. It doesn’t get much grimmer than “Genesis of the Daleks.” But of course there’s humor. Of course there is. It might be pitch black, but it’s there. And sometimes the level is pitched one way and sometimes the other. But to me, it’s absolutely quintessential to Doctor Who, it’s a fun show.”

Though I would have loved to talk to Mark for hours only about Sherlock Holmes and his favorite stories and which movies are his personally, secret preferences, I decide that since we’re already best friends, we’ve had that conversation in some alternate world. Instead, I’m interested in continuity. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle flippantly didn’t care about continuity. Does Mark Gatiss care about continuity?

“Because we live in such an overly-examined age, in which everything is easily consumed and spat-out, everything has taken on a ludicrous level of importance. If Conan Doyle hadn’t had his famously lax attitude toward continuity, we wouldn’t be able to have the fun we have. From speculating on the strange fact that Professor Moriarty and his brother have the same Christian name, that Watson’s war-wound moves about, that Mary calls John “James”! I’m sure people did write to [Doyle] and complain, because there were always fans! But the thing is, it’s fine. My attitude is this: get it right if you can because if you’re perversely getting it wrong, it looks careless. But. Absolutely frankly: if someone came up with an idea for Doctor Who that flatly contradicted something that happened in 1967, fuck it. Of course fuck it! Someone once said to me ‘six months ago is ancient history,’ in terms of television. That’s true, because you’re talking about the general audience and not the fan audience. AND if you flatly contradicted something that happened in 1967, the fans would find a way of explaining it. I remember—in talking about Star Trek—someone telling me that reason William Shatner has so much eye shadow on in “Journey to Babel”—more than ever—is because Star Fleet officers are allowed to wear a certain amount of make-up during formal ceremonies! WHAT?!! I mean you don’t have to explain it! The Master was a snake at one point!”

Looking smooth, and talking smooth are something Mark Gatiss knows how to do, and that’s partially because he’s a big Bond fan. Could secret government mastermind Mycroft exist in the Bond universe?

“He does exist in the Bond universe! We made an explicit reference. In ‘His Last Vow,’ I say ‘As my esteemed colleague is fond of pointing out, what the country needs sometimes is a blunt instrument. Which is M! From the books! And of course I’d love to write a Bond film. It’s the one that’s eluded me. Me and Steven we both wanted to do Bond. I did From Russian With Love on radio!”

As our time comes creeping up on us, and the Spider-Man cartoon winds down, I ask Mark if there’s a world for a gay Bond? What about a straight Sherlock? The last one gets a guttural laugh from him, and we launch into the territory of diversity among established characters and fandoms.

“The point is to me, none of these things should be done because anyone feels pressure to tick a box. A show like Doctor Who has brilliantly celebrated gay people, incidentally, which to me is proper progress. But I think personally, there should absolutely be a female Doctor, a black Doctor, an Asian Doctor, but it’s because someone comes along who is absolutely indisputably the person for the job. With James Bond, it’s a literary antecedent. If you were for reasons of box-ticking made James Bond gay, that’s not James Bond. By all means have a gay spy! I’ve written about one myself! [Mark’s Lucifer Box novels] If you want to do a gay British Spy, adapt my books! That’s my advice. Do a franchise based on my books!”

Will Mark Gatiss fulfill his dreams of creating the next “new” thing that we will all love and obsess over? What is the future for our beloved Doctor Who/Sherlock writer? In addition to a film, more Doctor Who and the three new Sherlocks, that is. What is Mark’s secret project he hasn’t talked about yet?

At this he narrows his eyes, pats my leg and says with a Mycroft twinkle and almost a sneer:

“Can’t talk about it.”

Mark’s Doctor Who episode “Sleep No More” airs this Saturday.

[thedeaditeslayer]

Josh Becker interview: Thriving, surviving and doing it his way.

Here’s yet another interview from 1428 Elm except with Josh Becker. You can support the Evil Dead/Michigan Mafia alumni by giving his latest film Morning, Noon & Night a look. You can read the interview at the link above or attached below.

Josh Becker is a talented writer and director whose film school was the Super 8 shorts that he made with pals, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Scott Spiegel while growing up in Detroit. Known for quirky films like Lunatics: A Love Story and his ode to Hitchcock and film noir, Running Time, he is a maverick with a unique voice in a cookie cutter Hollywood.

Josh Becker is an independent filmmaker who honed his craft writing and directing majority of the Super 8 shorts featuring Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Rob Tapert and Scott Spiegel. Known for his candor and his innovative approach to moviemaking, he is a modern-day storyteller.

Currently, in post-production on his western, Warpath, (which coincidentally sparked a murder investigation but more on that later) we were fortunate enough that the director was able to take some time out of his busy schedule to chat with us.

So, without further ado, here is our interview.

The Interview

Birth of a Maverick

1428 Elm: When you were growing up in Detroit, did you always want to be a director? Was that what you originally set out to do?

Josh Becker:  When I was a young kid, I first wanted to be an actor.  Then, when I came to realize there was such a thing as a director, perhaps when I was 9 or 10, I switched goals.

1428 Elm: Everyone knows how Sam and Bruce met initially. How did you become a part of the group?

JB:  My family moved to Franklin in 1968 and the Raimi family moved in around the block from us a few months later.  I immediately became best friends with Ivan Raimi, Sam’s older brother, then soon became friends with the whole family.  At that point I was in 4th grade and Sam was in 3rd grade. Then, when I started junior high (now called middle school), the lockers were alphabetical and about five lockers down from me was Bruce Campbell.  We became buddies and were both in the drama club and in a play together. That’s where we met Scott Spiegel.  Then, the next year, Sam started junior high and became friends with Scott and Bruce and that’s when we all started making Super-8 movies together.

1428 Elm: You cut your teeth as a director on the Super 8 shorts. What was your most memorable shoot?

JB:  The many various slapstick comedies, like: “The Blind Waiter” and “Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter” were all fun to make, but my epic was “Stryker’s War,” which I spent $5,000 making.  That was my biggest, and most memorable Super-8.

The Lunatic Is on the Grass

1428 Elm:  Umbrella Entertainment recently released Lunatics: A Love Story. I feel this is one of your underrated gems. Very trippy. What was the inspiration for this movie? How did Bruce become involved as a producer?

JB:  The inspiration was my desperate need to make another movie and make some money.  I got the idea from listening to Pink Floyd, and when they sang, “The lunatic is on the grass,” I thought, “Hey, no one has yet used “lunatic” as a title. I then dreamed up a story to go with it and pitched it to Sam and Rob. They liked it and optioned it.  After a year of development (meaning 14 rewrites), they hired Bruce to produce the film.

1428 Elm:  Running Time is another terrific film of yours. Everyone knows about the “single take” like Hitchcock’s Rope. Tell us something that isn’t common knowledge about the film.

JB:  It’s nearly ready to come out on Blu-Ray from Synapse Films. I wrote an essay about it that’s in my book “Rushes” that explains everything.  It was shot on film so there’s a hidden cut every five minutes.  I think it turned out pretty well and I know Bruce likes it a lot.

1428 Elm: For those of us that like the 50’s style B-movie sci-fi thrillers, Alien Apocalypse is a great deal of fun. Do you remember your pitch to the SyFy Channel?

JB:  I didn’t pitch it to SyFy.  Bruce and I were working with a now long-defunct company who pitched SyFy on making any movies with Bruce, and they said “send us some scripts.”  I dug out “Alien Apocalypse” (which was 14 years old) and Bruce dug out “The Man with the Screaming Brain” (which was 16 years old) then at some point not too long later we were in Bulgaria making both films.  I never talked to SyFy at all about it.

“Everybody’s Gotta Choose Their Own Poison”

1428 Elm:  Morning, Noon & Night is getting a special showing in Royal Oak, MI on June 6. This is a darkly comedic take on addictions which relies on actually telling a story which isn’t something filmmakers do anymore. Can you see Hollywood ever getting back to doing that and where can our readers view this film?

JB:  “Morning, Noon & Night” is available right now on Amazon — and will soon be on many other platforms, too. I can’t see the future, but I can’t imagine Hollywood correcting itself any time soon.  It’s a thousand times easier to do sequels and remakes then to come up with a good story that everybody agrees on.  I think the entire Hollywood system is broken.

1428 Elm:  Let’s talk about your latest production, Warpath. Something unusual happened when you were doing pick-ups. Gerry Kissell told me about it. Can you tell our readers the story because it sounds like an incident that would be on the ID Channel?

JB:  Well, “Warpath,” which will probably be fully done by July, just had its final pick-up shoot a few days ago where we got the few missing shots we still needed.  As we were shooting in the woods not far from my house, folks in the cast and the crew kept mentioning a funky odor. Finally, someone pushed back a pile of branches and underneath was a decomposed human body. Suddenly, my set became a crime scene.  The police showed up and we all had to fill out witness reports.  Then me and the co-producer quickly found a new location, hustled everybody and everything over there and got all of the remaining shots.

1428 Elm: Wow. That’s crazy!

JB: That pile of branches is in the foreground and background of a couple of shots, so it will be in the film.

**An interesting footnote to add regarding this unfortunate turn of events, one of the cast members, Joaquin Guerrero is an active duty K-9 officer. He stepped in and took charge of the situation before local law enforcement arrived. According to the actor/officer:

“My main concern was preserving the scene and the well-being of the crew, because of the traumatic effect it may have on them afterwards.”

Riding Off into the Sunset

1428 Elm:  You have an impressive cast, horror vets Thom Matthews and Ted Raimi. The film synopsis sounds like a fresh take on The Searchers. Are you a fan of Westerns? This feels like a new subject for you to tackle.

JB:  I’ve always been a fan of westerns.  I was the film critic for True West Magazine just a few years ago. “Warpath” certainly owes something to “The Searchers,” although in this case it’s a wife out looking for her husband, with the aid of a tough bounty hunter played by Thom. I’ve always wanted to make a western and now I have.  I think it turned well, and the lead, Sasha Higgins, is terrific. Thom has aged into the perfect Marlboro man and plays it wonderfully.

1428 Elm: Do you have any upcoming projects in the pipeline? Anything you can talk about?

JB: As for the future, me and my cohorts at Panoramic Pictures — one of whom is Gary Jones, maker of such cult classics as “Mosquito” and “Spiders” — are gearing up to make my JFK script that was previously called “Head Shot” but has been retitled to “I Killed Kennedy.” It’s the account of how the assassination really came down and the professional hit men who were brought in from France by the mafia who actually did the shooting, as well as how Oswald got set up, then murdered. Th-th-that’s all, folks.

Thanks so much to Josh Becker for speaking with us. We look forward to seeing Warpath.

[ominousflare]

It’s Been A While

So I haven’t been using tumblr for a long time (or used it that much to begin with), but since I’ve found myself some fellow Spider-Man fans here converse with, I feel I might as well become more active, or whatever.

Anyway, I might post my future Superior Spider-Man review here in the future once I get my lazy ass to finish it. I know, I know, it’s a five year old story. I’m incredibly late. Anyway, it’s also an incredibly long review, so I don’t know whether if I should post it here or just the link of it.

For now, I guess I’ll just post a past review of mine. Here’s a review of

ASM #698-700: Dying Wish

Well, it's finally happened. Peter Parker is dead. The bad guy wins. Happy 50th anniversary, Spider-fans! Hope you enjoyed watching your favorite hero kick the bucket on his special day! 

I'll be honest with you. I've been preparing for the worst. I was really uncomfortable with the idea of this arc just from reading about its details, that Doc Ock was going to swap brains with Spidey and assume his mantle. It sounded very gimmicky and contrived. Ever since "One More Day" happened, the Amazing Spider-Man comic seemed less like a character study of Peter Parker, with each story becoming a product the writers pitched as the next big thing to draw the readers of tomorrow and keep the book afloat for the next 10-20 years. Even Straczynski's run spent more time exploring the kind of person Peter was as a husband, adding new layers and depths to the hero, instead of turning each book into the blockbuster of the month. That being said... it's a good story. Not a great one, but certainly not the horrible nightmare some of us had hyperbolically generalized in a fit of panic. Somewhat disappointing, but not worth writing death threats about. And honestly, after reading an insightful article written by Cody Wilson of the ever-reliable Spiderfan.org, I realized that we were partially to blame for this "new direction" anyway. It's partly on us, the death of Spider-Man. We can gripe and complain about the writers, editors and Marvel's entire company all day long, but when it comes down to it, we have to face the facts: Spider-Man is a product, and business was booming in spite of all the supposedly "terrible" creative decisions they've made. And like any product, we the customers are a key source of how the business will be run. Over the years prior to ASM #700, Marvel had been selling us different ideas by introducing story elements that would later be used again in "Dying Wish," and our feedback to those elements in earlier stories was what ultimately led to the "Superior Spider-Man," the book that would replace "The Amazing Spider-Man" title for better or worse - at least for a year and 33 issues. Through this review, I hope to address these "elements" and analyze which of them worked for me and which merely raised my anxiety levels.

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO BETTER

This wasn't the first time a supervillain stole Peter Parker's identity. Back in ASM #602, Chameleon seemingly "killed" Peter in an acid pool and subsequently went about the rest of the day being him; even interacting with Peter's acquaintances and friends. Having the eccentric behavior of improving the lives of whomever he had disguised as, Chameleon did a few selfish things, including punching Mary-Jane's stalker (with the butt of a gun), calling Flash Thompson "Puny Flash" the way he called Peter years ago, and moving Harry's homeless butt into Peter's home. These "improvements" Chameleon made in Peter's life were well-received by readers, myself included, thereby providing Marvel the first piece of the puzzle they needed. I have to admit, Peter calling the ex-bully "Puny Flash" was a guilty pleasure on its own, giving payback to the football star after so long. On the other hand, he's a crippled war hero, so it was still a scummy thing to say. And while it could be fun to see someone carry out these naughty deeds in Peter's favor - doing and saying things some of us wish Peter would just have the guts to do - it could also lead to some really creepy scenes. Let's not forget, these were bad people taking over Peter's life, Octavius the sociopathic egomaniac included. In ASM #602, Chameleon made out with Peter's roommate, who wasn't aware who she was really kissing under that mask; this lack of consent was tantamount to an act of rape.

And then in #700, Otto (in Peter's body) was clearly thinking of having sex with MJ, a woman who would be unaware of the real person she's really sleeping with. This would eventually lead to some even more sleazy storyline in the "Superior Spider-Man," which I'll touch on in the future. Playing devil's advocate for a bit, one could argue that crippling a woman and stripping her naked to show how evil a villain is was in poor taste too, yet Killing Joke was held by millions as some gold standard of storytelling. What Dan Slott wrote seemed trivial by comparison.

KILL HIM TWICE, SHAME ON YOU

There's a reason why "Death of Spider-Man" worked in the Ultimate universe: Peter Parker died being known to his world as a hero, giving us a fitting finality. In the 616 universe, on the other hand? He died leaving a villain perving on his ex-girlfriend! What kind of finality was that?! What a way to shit all over our favorite hero! Of all the feedback Marvel took into consideration, this had to be the dumbest. It's like simple math to them: "People loved Ultimate Death of Spider-Man, therefore they must be okay with killing off 616 Peter Parker and replacing him with a murdering sociopath on his 50th birthday." Unfortunately, the best storytelling is anything but simple math. And unlike USM, the moments right before Peter's death here felt rushed. Ultimate Spider-Man had the benefit of "Ultimate Fallout", a mini series dedicated to addressing how everyone reacted to the death of such a great hero. Amazing Spider-Man didn't have that advantage and had to slap together several "closures" to end the book, including MJ finally confessing to Otto-Peter her love for him, Jonah Jameson finally approving of Spidey as a legit hero, and Peter experiencing a dream sequence where everyone he cared about who died came back to greet and thank him - all within a single issue. These "closures" should have been, in my opinion, focused on in an entirely separate issue of their own, not crammed together with the already crowded plot of #700. It ended up reading like a last minute homework assignment written hastily to beat the deadline.

There's also another thing that bothered me about Peter's final moments. Using the last remnant of his energy in Octavius' dying body, Peter was somehow able to channel the memories in his own body and forced Otto to experience all the guilt and pain he ever felt being Spider-Man. Afterwards, he almost seemed content to pass on the mantle to Doc Ock. Why was he so content with letting this potential killer take over his role as Spidey, and why would his dying wish be for Otto to take care of MJ and his loved ones? He's a selfish and self-centered jerk who only ever cared about himself! Why would he trust him?! No matter how sympathetic Otto came across, and no matter how desperate Peter was, it just didn't make sense. I wish there would have been at least a last desperate struggle on Peter's part to resist letting this psycho do whatever he wanted with his powers, not quietly accept his takeover. In fact, it would have made more sense if Peter had gone to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four instead, where he could have made it his last request to have them stop Doc Ock. Not to mention, they would have bought this "mind-swap" story a lot more than Carlie - who shot him multiple times when he tried to tell her the truth - did.

DRACO IN LEATHER PANTS

The third feedback Marvel collected was the sympathetic side of Octavius. There were a number of stories detailing this, depicting him as a frail young boy in the past who had aspired to be scientist (just like Peter Parker). And there's grounds for such sympathy too, for Otto never received the proper grooming Peter had, thereby being an ideal mirror of Spidey (much like the Joker and Batman). This ambiguous side of Octavius' morality was well-received, along with, of course, Spider-Man 2, where he was made into an even more sympathetic antagonist than his comic counterpart. Yet, the decision to place a murderer behind the mask of the webbed hero for a long period of time is strange and definitely inappropriate. Octavius is tied to at least three deaths, two of which were intentional: Bradley Miles in "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" Vol. 2 #40, James Warden in "Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure" #4, and the accidental death of George Stacy in ASM #90. Would that be appropriate for the kids reading this? Spidey's been a huge recognizable icon all over the world, and now kids are going to follow in the footsteps of this scum who thinks it's okay to break the other criminals' jaws or just straight up kill them (the latter of which we'll see in "Superior" later on)? With the recent "racial/sexual diversity" movement a more political Marvel was trying to gun for, I'm surprised they would risk such an idea in our SJW climate, not to mention the aforementioned sexual aggression towards MJ.

Again, there is potential for a good story here... if it's a tale of redemption, which would only work if Octavius turns himself in. Unfortunately, a move like that could possibly end the Spider-Man books for good (unless Peter returns), which is the exact opposite of why Marvel shook things up with this brain-swap in the first place (to keep the sales of Spider-Man books from dying). And even if the books continue with Otto being some kind of anti-hero vigilante hunted by the law, there's no way Spider-Man fans (and probably many parents) could approve of a murderer remaining as the new face of the inspiring hero for long. I think Marvel knew that. Marvel's not stupid. And we knew that Marvel's not stupid, so I'm sure lots of people have speculated Peter Parker's return long before he did. What I don't know is why Marvel even bothered to hide it. It's kinda an obvious eventuality. But when all is said and done, I admit that the idea of a Spider-Man who's not so morally clean does intrigue me, somewhat. Over the years, Spidey cutting loose and unleashing all the strength and powers in him can be cathartic. While it was his integrity that made him an amazing character we could look up to, there was also an underlying pleasure in seeing him punish those who deserve it; in seeing him get a little dirty to get things done. So to have "SpOck" (god that's an awful nickname) stay for a while before Peter eventually come back? I'm actually okay with that. I wouldn't mind seeing a "dark and gritty" chapter for Spider-Man. However, a key reason I would like this approach lies in a factor that applies to me: I haven't read the other darker Spider-Man spin-offs, which brings us to our final feedback and problem.

DARKNESS WITHOUT LIGHT BREEDS APATHY

There were two other Spider-Man spin-offs around the time this story arc was released. "Scarlet Spider" (Vol. 2) and Venom (Vol. 2), both of which received very favorable reviews (Venom, in particular), and were darker takes on the Spider-Man theme of power and responsibility (Scarlet Spider, in particular, since he's literally a clone of Peter Parker). If I want a darker story, I would read either of those. The only reason I didn't was because I only have enough time for Spidey alone. No time for the myriad amount of spin-offs out there. And now a third dark Spider-story is introduced, filled with murders and bloodshed - and believe me, there will be blood. I've mentioned before that I love dark stories. I live for them. They can touch on our basest emotions and provide us a form of catharsis the lighter and warmer tales couldn't. But this is another case of businessmen blindly relying on the numbers without considering the context. Too much darkness can ultimately lead to indifference in your audience, not to mention the fact that the "lighter" stories have their place in storytelling too, offering something dark stories couldn't either: hope, and moral inspiration.

Batman is an amazing character. His stories (often through his rogues' gallery) delve into a complex analysis of the human mind; of our darkest and most frightening emotions and personalities. But not everyone likes reading Batman, and even Batman fans probably don't want every superhero to be like Batman either! That would just dilute his unique quality. Besides, would you want all your heroes to be brooding or morally complex? Did you enjoy the dark and morose Superman in Batman v. Superman or even Man of Steel? Sometimes, we just want heroes to be heroes! Not straight up kill criminals without offering redemption like The Punisher and Wolverine! We already have those in the Marvel universe! Sigh. I'm merely playing devil's advocate here. As I've mentioned, 'Spotto Octavius' wasn't going to stay for the long-term, so it's fine. A temporary period of dark Spider-Man stories is fine. For me. But I do have to put my foot down and lay out what a darker Spider-Man means for the world, and why both writers and business executors alike must be careful not to push the scale too far. Balance. There must always be balance in all things. Take it from Thanos. 

WAS THIS STORY ANY GOOD?

I talked a lot about the aspects that came to piece together this Frankenstein monster. But was the story entertaining in its own right? The short answer is yes, especially #698. That first part of the story was truly like Doc Ock said, a magic trick. It began with an ordinary day in the life of Spidey. Nothing seemed unusual. But by the end of it, I was left slack-jawed and so utterly impressed by Slott that I had to read the ending twice to see if I had misread something. The second and third issues went a step further. Essentially, the entire story arc could be summed up with "Peter trying to get back into his own body." But after we knew Peter was running out of time, the pacing of the story started to pick up really, really quickly. The readers would be as concerned as Peter, and at that time, nobody knew what was really going to happen because there was an announcement around that time that "The Amazing Spider-Man" book would come to an end. It's a real page-turning thriller in spite of its simple premise. Most gut-wrenching of all, they made Peter plead for his life. On his birthday.

Talk about a punch to the gut. Brings back tearful memories ("I don't want to go, Mr. Octavius"). Humberto Ramos' art really didn't help things. His depiction of Peter trapped in a dying body was a horrifying sight to endure for me. You could see all the horrid details; his skin decaying, his eye-socket popping out, and blood spilling out everywhere. I could only imagine how painful Peter's final moments were. No wonder many fans were outraged. This wasn't an honorable death in the arms of his loved ones like Ultimate Spider-Man; it was pure torture. Does Dan Slott actually hate Peter Parker? Still, I have to give credit where it's due. It's an emotional story (albeit for the wrong reasons at times), and it's a really ballsy one too where the bad guy actually won. And it wasn't just any bad guy either - it was one of Spidey's biggest bads of all. Since Norman Osborn had already became an Avenger villain, it made sense for the next biggest Spider-Man villain in line, Doc Ock, to be the one who would finally do him in. Now onto the other question: do I like the overall story? No. I don't hate it as much as certain stories in the past (marriage and The Devil come to mind), but on principle, I can't accept this story. I know why they made this story. It's almost the same thing as One More Day. I'm guessing the sales for ASM must have been dropping. And even if it wasn't, even if I'm completely wrong about the comparisons to OMD, I still don't like how shoddily his death was treated. I don't mind a Spider-Man death - I LOVED "Death of Ultimate Spider-Man." It respected and really reminded us why Spidey was the hero we loved. This story felt like just another rushed effort by Dan Slott to clean up the book and move onto the thing he seemingly loved more, Spotto Octavius "The Superior Spider-Man," a book that he's written far better than his entire run in ASM. Are we sure Dan is a Spider-Man fan? Or did he just like Otto?

To clarify, I don't begrudge Dan. It's more of the corporate decisions of Marvel executives that I'm so infuriated about. It's always the executives at one point or another whenever we are talking about a creatively-skewed story. And while his work might have been sloppy throughout most of his run, I was reminded recently that it might be due to Marvel pushing him with agendas and deadlines, so again, not his fault. What's done is done. And I've already began reading "Superior", even as I'm writing this. It's not bad, and it's everything I expected: an extremist Spidey willing to cross the line to get things done. I like it, just not how we got there. I mean, give me a break, Peter was my hero. Is it too much that I wanted a death that wasn't as insulting? At the least, I wish that "dream sequence" I mentioned was more than just a dream, and everyone Peter cared about actually came to pat him on the back for doing a good job, that it was time for him to rest. The fact that it was only a dream felt like the final slap to his face. "Good job, hero. Now get the f*** out of here."

Final Rating: Two webs out of five

I was going to give this story three webs initially. I really did. But looking back now at how Peter's death was treated, I feel more infuriated than satisfied, and also annoyed that it was just another corporate decision that never stuck, since he would come back later anyway. It cheapened the already cheapened idea of the comic book death. Now, even one of the most iconic heroes of all time suffered from the tired cliche of meaningless death.

Next time, I shall finally witness the birth of this supposedly "Superior Spider-Man" and see if Otto could truly surpass our lovable Pete as the hero we deserve:

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: I Don't Know Who'll Win the Anime Awards, But Here's Who Should 2021 The More Correct-er Edition

  Ah(hhhhhhh!), the Anime Awards. It comes earlier every year. It was only some 360-ish days ago that Demon Slayer took the coveted title, and I went 0/6 on my predictions for who would win. But as another awards show comes, much like the changing of the seasons, does a whole new collection of hot takes begin to bloom. And oh how I have been taking care of them like my new pandemic succulents (poorly)!!

  There's a lot you can say about the last year. There's a lot you can say about the last year in ANIME! But since I don't have a Clubhouse invite yet, you're gonna have to hear about it right here in written form. This is also the only opportunity I have on company time to talk about who should win and who actually should have gotten nominated in the first place, as well as make up my own totally fake awards because this is my article!!

  When presented with the likelihood of something being infinitely close to zero, Simon from Gurren Lagann said that means it isn't inherently zero, so as far as he's concerned, that makes it the same as a 100 percent chance. That's the sort of cartoon logic that is very healthy to bring into the real world, as well as guessing who is going to win an awards show, so let's get to it! 

  1. Best Director: Shingo Yamashita

  While he is not nominated, Shingo Yamashita has had an incredible year, not only directing two of my favorite openings, but also ones I could consider all-time highs. Simply put, I really like the guy and his art direction, and he always seems to deliver something unique and interesting when he is in the director's chair. Through that unique style, he was able to work with a team of really talented animators to make that statement right from Episode 1. Pay attention to the people in your life who have opinions on the direction of the Naruto vs. Pain fight, but then turn around and talk about how cool the aforementioned openings are.  

2. Best Japanese VA Performance: Mamoru Miyano's Kansai Accent

  This is a very indulgent choice (well, this whole article is), but out of all the voice actor performances this year, I'm still thinking about Mamoru Miyano's Kansai accent. Playing the volleyball star Atsumu Miya from Inarizaki High in HAIKYU!! TO THE TOP, either Miyano or the people he worked with really made sure to train him to have the thickest Kyoto accent imaginable, and I was enthralled. It's kinda hot? I think Miyano works best when he plays characters with a bit of an edge and goofiness to them (see his performance Kotaro Tatsumi in Zombie Land Saga), so having him star as the eccentric setter was a perfect fit. I do wonder if Atsumu Miya and Kotaro Tatsumi ever met if it would be an unstoppable force/immovable object situation.  

3. The "You Were Right" Award: Akudama Drive

Image via Funimation  

This is not a real award in this year's Anime Awards, but I think it deserves mention for a series that was so under-nominated. So, Akudama Drive started last October and everyone was losing it. One person (I think it was our own Adam Wescott) described it as "a show where every episode feels like the season finale." But I continued putting it off. Sure, the first episode has a guy who swings around Osaka like Spider-Man on his motorcycle, but there's no way it could keep up. I also haven't played any Danganronpa, so I wasn't familiar with this sort of Kazutaka Kodaka romp, as his storytelling and style is written all over it. But after the show finished, I went back and gave it an honest shot ... and you were all right! It's really great and doesn't let off the octane at any point! This was definitely one of the strongest series I watched this last year, with its pointed cyberpunk storytelling and a particularly fantastic season finale — which might be my favorite episode. So whatever categories Akudama Drive is nominated in, sure, I think it should win ... wait, it was only nominated for Best Fight Scene!?  Anyway, I should have listened to you all sooner. Mr. Kodaka, I'm sorry for doubting you. 

4. Best Animation: Beastars

Image via Netflix

  As I wrote in our Best of the Decade list last year, Studio Orange's utilization of 3D animation is a treasure to behold and a jewel of the industry. Eiji Inomoto and the staff at Orange are putting out shows that are frankly the gold standard for the form. Beastars is no exception, far exceeding any expectations I had for what an adaptation of Paru Itagaki's animal drama would look like. However, in the case of Beastars, it's not only the CG, but also the multitude of other animation styles the staff integrated throughout the show, and none of those unique styles ever repeats! I think it says a lot for a studio and a show that not only perfects its main style but also includes phenomenal companion pieces that are fantastic on their own. For such drive and direction, and excellence in their field, not only would it be a win for Beastars, but also a win for the everlasting creativity coming out of Studio Orange. 

  5. Anime of the Year: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

  In any other time, I would have chosen Beastars as the Anime of the Year winner (see my praise above). But this hasn't been any other year. It's been quite a terrible one, to be honest. But in some sort of cosmic irony, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! started 2020 as one of the most optimistic and deep-hearted series I've ever seen.

  A lot of people pitch Eizouken as an anime about making anime. I agree, to an extent. Anime seems to be the surface for the themes the show is playing with, as it's far more a series about the creative process and the imaginative fuel artists use when molding their ideas into something tangible. It's also about the interpersonal relationships of those creatives and how people can create community and teams around their strengths and weaknesses. It's also about how tiring and expensive it is to make one of these things! Truly, it takes a village. Eizouken grabbed a lot of anime fans' attention early last year, particularly those who enjoy these sorts of explorations of the artistic mind. My former editor and good friend Zac Bertschy was one of them and wrote the episode reviews for Eizouken every week. Each time I read one of his articles, that passion and enthusiasm lept off the page. And let me tell you, when Zac was passionate about something, he'd let you know. His thoughts and takeaways were genuine to an extent I hadn't seen in a while. This series truly was something special to him. Zac's passing still hurts, and seeing Eizouken's nomination continues to remind me of what was not so long ago. But seeing it nominated in the first place gives me confidence that anime fans around the world also saw that passion Masaaki Yuasa and Science Saru were presenting. Seeing Eizouken take a big win would be a triumph for the art and artistry we all love so much, as well as an exemplary showcase of the drive that truly makes this stuff magical. Jonathan Clements ended his book Anime: A History with a line I've been thinking about recently: "... the future of anime as an art form, and as a thing of enduring value, still rests as it did at the time of its inception, in the hands of artists and artisans with vision." I truly believe Eizouken is a celebration of that ethos. And for that, I hope it wins Anime of the Year.

  Anyway, as always, waitin' for the big one when I'm 5/5 on these predictions.

        Kyle Cardine is an Associate Editor for Crunchyroll. You can find his Twitter here!

By: Kyle Cardine

[aion-rsa]

Do You Feel Like I Do? Review: Peter Frampton Lets Loose With a Killer Solo Memoir

https://ift.tt/3m41AiN

Just to count it off, Peter Frampton’s Do You Feel Like I Do? A Memoir is as much fun as hearing a talking box guitar solo for the first time. Live and with an audience, of course. Each of Frampton’s best-known albums, either with his bands like Humble Pie or in his solo career, are live records. He may also love the studio albums he made, but just like The Who, whose studio albums he loves, those records are a different breed from a live show. Frampton should know, one of the first gigs he ever got was touring as an opening act for The Who.

And, as much fun as they were to see on stage, even their live shows paled when compared to ducking bottle rockets Keith Moon and John Entwistle aimed into his motel windows between shows. Frampton had fun, and it comes across on the pages of Do You Feel Like I Do?

While still in the school era of the book, Frampton talks about going nuts when he first got to jump on a trampoline. He was the first in his class to do a somersault, and then a backwards somersault. It got him shoved into a crate, but it sounds like a blast. Almost as exciting as meeting a young David Jones at school. No, not the Monkee, the one who had to change his name because of the Monkees: David Bowie, who remembered seeing Frampton in a band on TV before he had a hit. 

Bowie was a few years older than Frampton and his recollection of seeing the young guitarist he jammed with outside his favorite teacher’s office was “what’s he doing on TV? He should be in school.” Frampton’s father, the teacher Bowie loitered with, initially agreed. Frampton left school early to go pro as a musician. Years later, when Frampton brought his parents backstage to a Bowie concert, his father disappeared with the Thin White Duke. The stories make you grin. They are exactly the kind of rock and roll parables we want to hear from musicians.

That’s not to say Frampton doesn’t foist some stories we would never have expected. Like one about his father in the war, the details of which you have to read to believe. It’s not the kind of thing you want to know happens in reality. But you won’t stop reading it, not even if you’re just looking for the rock and roll gossip. There are a few of these stories thrown in, and Frampton is upfront about his drinking and drugging. He even explains why it took him so long to take his first toke. The very smell of some of the shit Steve Marriott smoked made him want to throw up. That didn’t stop him from getting high though. Nonetheless, the book doesn’t dwell in sadness.

It dwells on guitars, and jubilantly. Frampton’s favorite guitar, the Phenix, a modified 1954 Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty with the same three-humbucking-pickup configuration as the guitarist in Smokey Robinson’s Miracles, gets a book in itself. The ode of the Phenix could be a miniseries. Guitarists would watch. But that’s not the only guitar that the mostly monogamous Frampton fingered. He talks about seeing the set list still taped on the back of John Lennon’s red Rickenbacker when he played for Harry Nilsson. He was the first person to touch the guitar since whatever show the set list fit.

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Frampton’s journey through the guitar is as interesting as his trek through life. Oh, and just hearing how everyone in Humble Pie was a Star Trek fan is a giggle, especially as they discuss Spock’s ears. But Frampton’s mission to seek out new sounds led him through from The Shadows to Django Reinhardt, through George Benson, and back to Kenny Burrell, giving him an arsenal of tonalities Eric Clapton didn’t touch. Everyone wanted to be Clapton, except Frampton who makes it clear he wanted his guitar sound to be uniquely his. He also talks about drums and filling in for drummers who don’t show. He talks about the balls of covering Stevie Wonder songs. He makes it all sound like a dream.

Great musicians refer to respected peers as motherfuckers, and the one thing anyone who’s ever pushed a beat or a melody out of their fingers or throat will agree on is Peter Frampton was one lucky motherfucker. He could play, he took in everything he heard so that he could do whatever it was he wasn’t hearing from other guitarists and made it his own. But he had the good fortune to play with the best, and at the earliest of ages. Before he could even get into clubs he was playing them. Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones asked Frampton’s mother permission so he could play. He didn’t ask permission to get Frampton laid though, but when the teenaged guitar wiz came home with crabs, his mother took it in stride. Musicians, it’s an occupational hazard.

Frampton released Frampton Comes Alive! nearly 45 years ago. It’s always been thought that the album made him a pinup. He’s fought this all his career, since he was named the “Face of 1968” as an 18-year old guitarist/singer for the rock-poppy band the Herd. Sure, he got laughed at a few times for one-sleeved shirts with frills on the crotch, long before he put on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band uniforms for an ill-advised movie where the Bee Gees also carried that weight. Frampton didn’t want to be Vivien Leigh, so beautiful you forget what a phenomenal actress she is.

Peter is a musician, and a lot of artists owe him a big debt, not only because of his fretwork influence. He gleefully recounts Dr. John telling him how he got out of jail on a drug charge with the money he earned when Frampton recorded his song “I Walk on Gilded Splinters.” Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones thanked Frampton for including “Jumping Jack Flash” on the gazillion-seller Frampton Comes Alive! He bought a house with the royalties.

As sad as the circumstances, it is a joy to hear how other rock stars come to collect. Frampton recalls when his career was in a slump and he got a phone call from Pete Townshend. The Who’s guitarist and songwriter was sick of touring and asked Frampton to take his place, before even consulting Roger Daltrey. Frampton says he told Townshend he couldn’t fill his shoes, but think of the fun Frampton had on the trampoline. Townshend was known as “Bouncy” in the “Meaty,” “Beaty” “Big” and “Bouncy” quartet. He jumped higher than Daltrey’s shoulders, often in self-defense to get away from the swinging mic, but still. Frampton could have made the leap.

The era of Humble Pie, which also included ex-Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley, is also where producer Frampton really gets to work with Glyn Johns. They’d had a happy history, and it continues through the Humble Pie albums Rock On and Rockin’ the Fillmore, which made them huge when it came out in the fall of 1971. So big, Frampton had to jump ship onto a solo career before he’d never be able to get out.

Frampton keeps the telling light, but is absolutely candid. He never thought he could be as good a singer as Steve Marriott, who had been in the Small Faces, but at least he’d know enough not to balk at opening Jimi Hendrix on his first American tour. Frampton also explains how he went from one Johns brother to another as he embarked on his solo career.

Oh, and the book’s got mob stories. Not quite as heavy as the ones surrounding Led Zeppelin, who Frampton credits with a sonic boom as great as the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, but suspenseful nonetheless. His manager Dee Anthony has a meeting with Genovese family soldier Joey Pagano in front of Frampton, and when the rock star became a pop idol, he was kept high, happy and distracted. Frampton had no idea he was totally bankrupt until the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band bombed at the box office. The only reason Frampton did Sgt Pepper was because his manager said Paul McCartney would be in it.

Frampton can’t quite say enough about his school chum Bowie. Not only did Frampton credit the older musician with a few needed pushes, gigs, and music store jobs when he was coming up, but Bowie reenergized Frampton when he was running out of steam. In 1987 Frampton played guitar on Bowie’s Glass Spider world tour. Two years later, Frampton comes back with a vengeance, which happens, as he says, on the album title When All the Pieces Fit.

Many will see this book as an example of rock stardom gone wrong. But as a reader, it really is what we want to hear, except for the inflammatory muscle disease, Inclusion-Body Myositis, which threatens to end his career as a live performer.

Frampton’s still working, and the book, co-written with Alan Light, is as happy to say it as fans will be to read it. But more than fans, most musicians should read this, not because of any cautionary tale titillation. Because of his explanation of how he found his sound, the horns Frampton listens to, the piano parts he plays and appreciates in others. Yes, the most fun are stories like having a Beatle (Ringo Starr), an honorary Beatle (Billy Preston), and a long-time Beatle artist and an alternative bassist (Klaus Vorman) backing him at a music pitch; or being told by George Harrison he’d like to hear him on every track. But for musicians, Do You Feel Like I Do? rocks loudest when he speaks about what he’s playing. Imagine it coming out of a talk box. It’s that enjoyable.

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Do You Feel Like I Do? hits bookshelves on Oct. 20, from Hachette Books.

The post Do You Feel Like I Do? Review: Peter Frampton Lets Loose With a Killer Solo Memoir appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[hollamd]

The Story of Us - Peter Parker

Summary: Peter and Y/N break it off at the end of high school, leaving them both heartbroken. 4 years fly by, and their paths cross at a press conference, with Y/N being a reporter and Peter being the person in question. Will the story of Y/N and Peter end?

Warnings: None, maybe like 2 swear words?

Word Count:  2743 (I didn’t mean for it to be THAT long)

A/N: So this is kinda based of off Taylor’s song The Story of Us. I’m not a big fan of her, just this song. I recommend giving it a listen if you read the story. I was gonna have the story end a different way but it ended up like this??? Anyway if this isn’t a flop I’ll a part 2 so if you want a part 2 comment :^) thanks for reading and it might be messy, I didn’t proofread it. 

The Story of Us

Chapter 1: When it all broke down

“I’m saying goodbye, Peter. I have to.” Y/N was trying her hardest not to cry. “High school is over…And…And so are we.” Peter on the other hand, already had tears starting to pour out of his eyes. “Y/N, baby please I know we can handle it. You won’t even be that far, I can still see you everyday and-” “No, Peter.” She took a sharp breath in. “This…Us… It’ll only ever be  part of my childhood.” “Are you kidding me? Was I just a toy to you? A heart you could throw around until it breaks?” Peter’s voice cracked. “No, that’s not what I-” “Y/N, I’m not gonna fight for you if you don’t even care to let me.” He hung his head and turned around.

“I still love you.” Y/N whispered. He walked out of her life that day, and she’d never regret anything more. Did she mean it? Of course not. Did she need to do it? Of course not. Y/N still loved Peter, but for some reason she thought it’d be easier to start a new life with no strings attached. How wrong she was…

Chapter 2: So many things that I wish you knew

4 Years Later Cutting all ties with Peter was a process for Y/N. First she was in denial, thinking he’d come back and understand why she did it. Then she experienced heartbreak, and thought she was never good enough for him in the first place. Then she experienced anger, blaming it all on Peter for pushing her away (She later realized the pushing away was all her doing). And after a few months, she accepted it. He was gone for good. Of course there were moments, where she’d see news of Spider-man on the television, or she’d see a shirt she knew he would’ve loved… Or maybe someone would even mention Star Wars, and her thoughts would immediately go to Peter. Her heart would ache for his embrace. After a year of getting over him, she had finally taken the last step, and moved on as best as she could from Spider-man. She had just been promoted from being a paid intern to a full on assistant to Scarlett Magazine’s Executive Editor, Sylvia Sloane. Y/N made an amazing best friend through the job, Gina, whom she shared an apartment in NYC with. The two girls told eachother everything. Y/N eventually told them everything about Peter, except the fact that, well, he’s Spider-man. Y/N was quickly promoted to an actual writer for the magazine, as she was actually quite skilled at writing, and enjoyed informing the readers. A year into the job and she’d already achieved so much, with all her celebrity interviews, fashion tips, and for even exposing one politician! One day Y/N was starting to type up an article on “Why Being Strong Doesn’t Make You a Diva” when Scarlett Lynn, the Editor in Chief, told her she had a new assignment. “Tony Stark apparently has an announcement regarding the Avengers, and our readers just eat anything with super-heroes up!” Scarlett talked with such confidence and authority that nobody would dare defy her. “I want you to go to that Press Conference being held on Sunday.” “Yes, ma'am, I understand, but-” “But what? You’re one of the best interviewers on the team! You’re so pretty and charismatic Y/N, I have nobody else to send but you!” Y/N couldn’t exactly turn her boss down, so all she mustered out was “Okay, I won’t disappoint.” Later that night at their apartment Y/N started to complain to Gina “Gosh, I hate press conferences, especially with superheroes!” Ginaust rolled her eyes. “Y/N, you’re literally going to be in the same room as the Avengers, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is…” Y/N let out a deep breath. “Nevermind… You wouldn’t understand.”

“Get over yourself! So many girls would kill to be in your position! Especially if you get to see Spider-Man, I heard he’s around our age…” Gina winked

“He’s the worst one!” Y/N felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “He just looks dumb, he’s not even an avenger.”

“Ugh, just go to bed already.” Y/N lied in her bed, trying to not think about Peter. She had no idea what he was doing now, because she’d tried to avoid any mention of Spider-Man at all costs. Her mind was racing of all the possibilities, but then realized he might not even be there. Y/N was still overthinking everything until she fell asleep.

The two days before the conference she only spent avoiding any thoughts of the conference, and before she realized it, Sunday was here. Y/N spent a little too much time getting ready, and she knew why. She wanted to impress him (if he was even there), and show just how much she’d changed. She pulled her y/h/c locks up into a messy, wavy ponytail, and made sure to do her makeup nicely. Y/N slid into a maroon bodycon dress, and black strappy heels. She grabbed a black clutch and went out the door with a recorder in hand.

Chapter 3: Alone in a crowded room

The conference was filled with reporters, all there for the same reason Y/N was. This was a reason why she dreaded attending; it was just a sweaty pit of people asking questions. A million other magazines would be writing just the same things she would.

However, the main reason she dreaded this conference specifically was because of the possibility he might be there. She probably wouldn’t even see his face, but just knowing that they’re in the same crowded room, and not even speaking would break her heart. Y/N understood that it’s been four years, and that this shouldn’t even bother her, but she can’t help but imagine what she would say to him.

He won’t be here. Y/N kept telling herself. He’s not even part of the Avengers, he turned it down. Plus, isn’t it just supposed to be Tony Stark? Her heart sank. She didn’t realize that before and was almost sure he wouldn’t be here now. But what if he does show up? He probably won’t even see me, all of these reporters are bigger than me… She kept overthinking and only increased her conflicted feelings.

While she was lost in thought, Tony Stark appeared from the dark curtain, with a confident and charming smile on his face. The murmurs of the room came to a hush once his presence was noticed. People began taking out their iPads and phones to record, and Y/N just took out a little notebook.

Cameras began flashing, and Y/N sat up straight to see over the people seated in front of her. Her seat was somewhat near the front, three rows away from the table. Of course, there was another row of photographers in front.

Tony Stark had taken a seat at the table, with a microphone and water in front him. There was another set up to the right of him. Y/N could feel her heart speed up in her chest. Tony Stark began speaking, but the girl was oblivious. She was too focused on the fact that Peter could actually be here? Y/N wanted to get up and leave, she didn’t want him to see her.

“I would like to welcome Spider-Man to the Avengers.” Was all Y/N had heard from Tony’s introduction speech. She threw away all thoughts of leaving the room and froze where she was. In walked a hero in red and dark blue spandex, with gold lining. Spider-Man’s costume was a lot more glamorous than Y/N had remembered.

Her eyes were glued to the man who had emerged from behind the curtain. He had the same lanky yet muscular body frame, but she couldn’t tell if he looked the same. She wanted to rip his mask off, throws her arms around him and tell him just how much she missed him… But all she could do was stare.

“Hello everyone.” Spider-Man gave a small wave and cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, Spider-Man. It’s a huge honor to be welcomed to the team and I’m just really excited to be here.”

Chapter 4: I was losing my mind when I saw you here

“We’ll be taking questions now.” (UmMmmM Idk how press conferences work exactly BUT lets just imagine these are how they go o k??)

A man raises his hand behind you, and Tony nods to him “I’m Joshua and I’m from California. I was wondering if you were ever going to reveal your identity?”

Spider-Man shook his head. “I don’t see it happening anytime soon, no. It’s something I like, because I can still be a normal guy while still being a superhero.”

His voice hadn’t changed, and it was still pretty high-pitched, just as Y/N remembered. She always loved Peter’s voice, even though he self-conscious over the fact that he “sounded like a girl.” She loved his fruity laugh, and it always managed to put a smile on her face.

The conference continued on, and Y/N would write down answers and questions on her notebook. The questions were somewhat the same:

“Do you think you’re talented and strong enough to share the weight of the world with the Avengers?”

“Well that’s a big question. I’d say I’m prepared, yeah, but is anyone ever really strong enough?”

“Don’t you feel like you’re a little too young, compared to the rest of the Avengers?”

“Well, at first yes, but not now. I’ve been in this superhero business since I was in high school. After six years it’s nothing new.”

There was, however, one question that really stood out to Y/N:

“Does Spider-Man have a Spider-Woman?”

“Is that you asking if I have a girlfriend?” Peter chuckled.

“Yes.”

“Well to answer your question, no. The last relationship I had was four years ago.”

Once Spider-Man made a comment about one relationship, other questions came flooding in:

“Why haven’t you dated anyone else since then?”

“You see, this girl was a big part of my life, and it took me quite a while to get over her…” He scratched the back of his head. “Also, life has been pretty busy and I just haven’t found room for a woman in my life right now.”

“So this girl, you two broke up… Why is that exactly?”

“Um I’m not really going to go into details but we broke off at the end of high school. Our lives were going in different directions and it was just easier to end the relationship there than see it fall apart.”

Y/N’s cheeks were red the entire time, and she kept her face down. She didn’t come here to hear Peter tell people about herself.

“So, Spider-Man, the girl-”

Tony Stark interrupted the man trying to speak, “Okay enough with the relationship questions please! He did just join the Avengers you know?”

Questions resumed on the path that they were before. Y/N checked the time on her phone to see she had gotten a message from her boss, Sylvia.

I’m watching the livestream, and the relationship topic is interesting. I’d much appreciate it if you could ask what type of girl he likes? Our readers would love that!

Y/N sighed. She didn’t want Peter to even look at her, let alone speak to her. This was the one thing she was avoiding for so long, and she wasn’t going to break the silence now for her boss. She began to type a reply.

Ms. Sloane, we were asked not to ask anymore questions about his relationships. I’m sorry, but I did write everything down!

Y/N, dear, I don’t like asking twice, and I don’t like doing this to you. Ask the damn question or you’ll be demoted back to my assistant. I took a leap of faith making you a writer, don’t make me regret it a year in!

The girl’s heart pounded in her chest. She couldn’t lose this job, she loved writing. She only had one option. She lifted her hand up, and waited to be called on like she was in elementary school again.

Tony Stark saw her and said, “Yes, the little lady with the ponytail.”

Chapter 5: Is it killing you like it’s killing me?

Y/N stood up slowly and plastered on a smile. “Um hi, I’m Y/N from Scarlett magazine.”

The girl took a deep breath and looked directly at Peter. “My question for you, um, Spider-Man… What type of girl… What’s the thing you look most for in a woman?” She said the last bit rather fast, and she was quite nervous.

Peter’s eyes were wide under the mask. This was the last place he wanted to see her… He didn’t even know she was a writer for Scarlett magazine… She loved that magazine in high school. He couldn’t help but feel proud of her.

“Look, I said no more relationship ques-”

“Mr. Stark, it’s okay. I’ll take this one….” His voice faltered. “Hi Y/N. Um what do I look for in a girl? I like a girl who can make me feel better on a bad day, one who’ll tell me everything will be okay because… We have each other. Or someone who will nerd out with me when we watch movies, or when I make science jokes…A girl who’ll patch me up after the worst of fights… Is that too specific?” Y/N couldn’t quite see his expression, under his mask, but she sure could hear the grin in his voice. She couldn’t hide her shy smile from him like he could from her.

Peter described her. She’d constantly tell him when he felt bad, that it’ll work out; they had each other. They had movie nights every week and would watch Star Wars, or some Disney movie. She’d laugh at his dork science jokes. He’d come to her window sometimes, with a small cut from a fight, so Nurse Y/N would make an appearance and patch him up. Memories from high school surfaced in Y/N’s brain…

“No, it’s perfect. Thank you.” Y/N sat back down in her chair.

Peter’s eyes were on his ex for most the interview after that. He couldn’t believe Y/N was here… He wanted to talk to her afterwards, he had to. Spider-Man tried to stop staring at her, but he couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t see in her so long, and look at her now. She was a writer for a magazine!

Y/N looked down at her phone, seeing a few new messages from her boss.

Great work Ms. Y/L/N! I’m trying to schedule a one-on-one interview with Spider-Boy.

Thank you Ms. Sloane. I appreciate it.

Y/N let out a deep breath. She’d done it. She’d spoken to Peter and pleased her boss.

The conference wrapped up shortly after, and Y/N was on her way out when her phone started buzzing.

“Hello?”

“Y/N, it’s Sylvia. I did get the interview scheduled for you. It’s in 30 minutes. They denied me at first, but then they said it was Spider-Man himself who agreed to it. Be ready.”

“But-”

Then line went dead. Y/N really couldn’t catch a break.

Chapter 6: How’d we end up this way?

Y/N timidly walked up to the table, and walked behind the curtain that Peter and Tony Stark appeared from earlier. There was a body-guard right behind it.

“Oh um. Sorry. Hi…” She tucked her hair behind her ear. It was her nervous habit. “I’m Y/N Y/L/N, from Scarlett magazine? M-My boss told me…

“Right this way Ms. Y/L/N.” He nodded toward you, and you followed him to a some weird hallway. “He’s waiting for you in there.” And then the bodyguard walked away.

She hesitated. She grabbed the door knob. It’s just Peter behind that door… Just- “Peter..” Y/N huffed out. She’d opened the door to find Peter standing there, in the Spider-Man attire, without his mask. Y/N looked into his deep chocolate eyes just as she did many years ago.

“Hi Y/N…”

To be continued…

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