#this is like a goddam soap opera

[auadhdwildcards]

The day when the dopamine food stops dopamining is a very sad day.

[cater-diamond]

To all the freshmen that think that I am cool with you bragging about how you broke the rules because I'm chill I am not.

Not a snitch. Not a narc.

Yall just aren't that cool or funny. Like wow how original you ran from the cops (riddle) when they broke up a party. Tell me something new, or crazy or at least spice up the story by adding a ✨️flair✨️ when you tell it.

Give. 👏 Me. 👏 Hand. 👏 Motions. 👏

Give. 👏 Me. 👏 Experessions. 👏

Give. 👏 Me. 👏 Dramatic. 👏 Retelling. 👏

Make it sound like a goddam soap opera.

[starryalpacasstuff]

[PIT BABE NOVEL SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED]

My dumbass only just realized that the people who haven't read the novel spoilers probably really believe that Charlie is dead (for all I know he could actually be dead because they changed something, but it's highly unlikely). I feel so thankful I decided to check out the spoilers because holy fuck I would not have survived if I thought Charlie was actually dead. Like, goddam, they really went with the (not actually) major character death, didn't they. This show is living up to it's reputation in so many ways; live action fan fic, spiritual successor to kinnporsche, soap opera

[fluffypotatey]

watching Leverage: episode 2

ok i made myself some pb&js and i am off to ep 2

spoilers, duh

thoughts before i watch:

i feel so conflicted about sophie/nathan and not in the way you think

i feel conflicted as in i don't know if i want to know all the details of their history together

like i love just the added layer that says "these two knew each other and had something in the past but have drifted apart for reasons"

so it's a "tell me!" but also "don't tell me! let them be mysterious about it!"

so will the next episode kick off from the last one? or will it be like a little time skip and some cons later kind of thing?

i'm fine with either because with the time skip, it helps alleviate the stress of building new character dynamics in a way. like, they're still new and some character will clash at first, but it's lessened a little (or not and that will be one of the major conflicts in the episode).

but i also like seeing how they work immediately after, seeing the awkward kind of team up and such. do they hang out after a con? do they live together or is that just the base of operations?

but enough of me talking about that. let's get into it!

le thoughts while i watch:

ok apparently the site i was using crashed so i spent....too long (for my patience) finding another BUT I DID IT

got worried for a second because the first scene was not with our gang and thought i accidentally clicked on an army show

rip the soldiers you seemed like fine dudes, you probably would have joined a frat

right off the bat we have deaths. like i know i said i'd wait but this is episode 2! AND it came out of nowhere!!!!

ooooh we talking about veteran insurance??? and how the govt just sort of drops them if they're disabled???....yeah, this is gonna be heavy

"i'm sorry [talking about how the guy's finacee left him after the incident]" "i'm not mad, it happens" when i tell you my heart BROKE. no! no it shouldn't!!!

also the site..... is buffering on me..... and i WILL commit crimes if i cannot watch this episode

i am glad the doctor is looking after the dude tho, but she's upset that she has to let him down and my HEART

"you know this is a soap commercial right?" god, i love you sophie, make that soap commercial a soap opera

"peggy killed her first husbanD" I LOVE HER

they made their own office goddam

ok so did they just, not talk after the first gig? did they go their separate ways and just hope that one day they'd do another heist again? it seems like nathan and alec kept in touch but what about everyone else????

elliot i want to know your life

how can one know a type pf gun from the sound of its gunshot???

wow, they really just exPOSED lobbyist corruption with the government huh....damn

oh i wanna punch that congressman

so many things happening what is going on???

holy shit whyyyyy were they shooting army men??? they were gonna kill perry in cold blood. puppy eyes perry??? perry who was practicing physical therapy after hours be himself T^T because he knows his days in that hospital is limited???

parker is so cute, sure she's probably committed arson, but that means nothing

alec is the best, i love him, he's my boy

"yeah i hack the camera just give a minute or two--" *elliot just throws a rock* "...or steal my thunder why don't you"

no matter who's together, the ot3's chemistry is *chef's kiss*

parker was just WAITING for an excuse to blow up that door akdjsd i love her AND ALEC'S EXPRESSION I LOVE

ALEC MY BOY

"this is racial isn't it?" i cackled so hard.

man that congressman switched up so fast lmao then got caught

nathan bought a tesla.....i am so sorry all i can think of it present news lmao

it is nice to have a heist show where like....nothing goes wrong

everything that they planned for happens and if there are things that go left, they have a backup for it that they use and it's so.... n i c e and refreshing to watch a show like that

general thoughts:

like, i knew there would be episodes that criticize corporations and there'd be discussion of government corruption but....episode two???? they really aren't pulling any punches

also how they show the struggle a lot of disabled veterans go through because they don't have a funded safety net. like the doctor for perry really wants to help, and you can see that when she lectures nathan about trying to scam perry (he wasn't but from the outside, it's not hard to understand why she thought that). it hurts her to have to try and help these people who just want to get better, but have such limiting resources to the point that she has to turn them away after a couple months.

nathan is very much still a firm believer that this gang of crooks can become a gang of good crooks. and this is really sweet. you can see that they gang still helps him with the heist even if they can't believe that they are good people. but i like the ending for this because they're acknowledging that yeah, it felt great to help return the money to the people who needed it, and maybe they'd like to do this again.

moral of the story: corporations get fucked and i am enjoying it

remember kids, cleaning blood money works better with cold water, not shooting witnesses. that just adds to the dirt.

[selfproclaimedunicorn]

Tell me something about the kids that surprised you after you started Sins of the Father? What quirk in them came out of left field or a dynamic that surprised you?

Yorick’s goddam anxiety & Rhaella having the most elaborate self-insert OC that's out here putting my own childhood efforts to shame. I had such vivid ideas in my head of what they'd be exactly like & their trajectories, & that stuff is still there (at least in spirit. There's a little cut content that just doesn't exist anymore), but I got taken by the hands & these co-dependant 7-year-olds were like "we must show you the way."

Like, Yorick was always going to be the quiet & introverted one of the duo that kept a lot of shit internal & just kind of didn't really open up/wasn't 100% honest to protect people's feelings, but writing his chapters just kinda carried me away & had me giving him the most "oh, he's an old soul" trauma spirals of hyperawareness. It's honestly kind of interesting that this has happened? Sad, but interesting.

I can't really speak on TF is going on with Rhaella. It started as a silly little one-off to fill space in a game they were playing early on in the first chapter (just because I take how absolutely wild the soap opera ass plots little girls give their dolls very seriously), & now it has spiraled into "there is canon lore to Ella's games & stories that I keep dropping & she names her future daughter after this self-insert OC from her childhood." I don't know what's going on with how I keep pulling this stuff out of my ass, but I'm invested.

I can't say much for Aemon yet, because in narrative he's currently 2. I am very much looking forward to where exactly he winds up going if it's gonna be as wildly unexpected as things have been for his older siblings!

[aliceisinchains]

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted-One moment Would you capture it or just let it slip?

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgettin What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come outHe's chokin, how everybody's jokin now The clock's run out, time's up over, bloah! Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked He's so mad, but he won't give up that Easy, no He won't have it , he knows his whole back's to these ropes It don't matter, he's dope He knows that, but he's broke He's so stacked that he knows When he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it's Back to the lab again yo This whole rap shit He better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

The soul's escaping, through this hole that it's gaping This world is mine for the taking Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order A normal life is borin, but superstardom's close to post mortem It only grows harder, only grows hotter He blows us all over these hoes is all on him Coast to coast shows, he's know as the globetrotter Lonely roads, God only knows He's grown farther from home, he's no father He goes home and barely knows his own daughter But hold your nose cuz here goes the cold water His hoes don't want him no mo, he's cold product They moved on to the next schmoe who flows He nose dove and sold nada So the soap opera is told and unfolds I suppose it's old partna', but the beat goes on Da da dum da dum da da

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

No more games, I'ma change what you call rage Tear this mothafuckin roof off like 2 dogs caged I was playin in the beginnin, the mood all changed I been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage But I kept rhymin and stepwritin the next cypher Best believe somebody's payin the pied piper All the pain inside amplified by the fact That I can't get by with my 9 to 5 And I can't provide the right type of life for my family Cuz man, these goddam food stamps don't buy diapers And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life And these times are so hard and it's getting even harder Tryin to feed and water my seed, plus See dishonor caught up between being a father and a prima donna Baby mama drama's screamin on and Too much for me to wanna Stay in one spot, another day of monotony Has gotten me to the point, I'm like a snail I've got to formulate a plot fore I end up in jail or shot Success is my only mothafuckin option, failure's not Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go I cannot grow old in Salem's lot So here I go is my shot. Feet fail me not cuz maybe the only opportunity that I got

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

You can do anything you set your mind to, man

[dynamicks]

Let men in smut have tender feelings but not have it sound like a goddam soap opera. This is possible. I know we can do this.

[anonymousewrites]

Adolescent Antichrist

Father figure! Lucifer x Non-binary! Reader

Original Character x Non-binary! Reader

Book 1:

Follows the Events of Netflix Lucifer Season One

Chapter One: The (L/N) Family Scandal

Chapter Two: More Trauma, Yay

Chapter Three: My Therapist Won't Be Happy

Chapter Four: How Unusually Insightful of You

Chapter Five: He is Catholic, but Come On

Chapter Six: That's Better than What My Therapist Says

Chapter Seven: I Should Really Start Exercising

Chapter Eight: Do I Need to Warn Dr. Martin that You're Gonna Misinterpret a Feeling Again?

Chapter Nine: No Fashion Sense and Touchy-Feely

Chapter Ten: He's Been in Solitary for Way Too Long

Book 2:

Follows the Events of Netflix Lucifer Season Two

Chapter One: I'm Self-Obsessed and Forgot My Own Birthday

Chapter Two: You Saw It on Soap Operas

Chapter Three: The Respect You Have for Living Beings is Amazing

Chapter Four: You Owe Me Twenty Bucks

Chapter Five: She Couldn't Make a Paper Bag

Chapter Six: I Should Make a Bingo Card of Ways to Almost Die

Chapter Seven: I Didn’t Bet on My Life, that Would Be Stupid. I Bet on My Health

Chapter Eight: Heaven Forbid They Get Some Therapy and Fix Their Marriage

Chapter Nine: I'm Going to Take Him out for a Drink

Chapter Ten: I'm Won't Call You Grandma

Chapter Eleven: No More Therapy for Me, too Traumatizing

Chapter Twelve: Shadows are Doing the Macarena for Me

Chapter Thirteen: I'd Rather Play Frankenstein

Chapter Fourteen: I Thought You Were Wearing Grippy Socks and Doing Crafts

Chapter Fifteen: My Natural State is Annoyed and Snarky

Book 3:

Follows the Events of Netflix Lucifer Season Three

Chapter One: What Do You Mean There are Feathers?

Chapter Two: Don't Give Me an Identity Crisis on My Birthday

Chapter Three: LGBTQ Breakfast Club

Chapter Four: That's the Most Sensible Thing You've Ever Said

Chapter Five: It's a Long Story Involving My Parents Aiding and Abetting a Murderer

Chapter Six: That's Exactly the Type of Shenanigans You Like

Chapter Seven: You Must be a Great Business Partner

Chapter Eight: The Money had Better be Worth It

Chapter Nine: What are They, Going through a Divorce?

Chapter Ten: This will be My Problem because Lucifer has Terrible Coping Mechanisms

Chapter Eleven: She had been Doing Good

Chapter Twelve: I Liked It When You Wanted to Die

Chapter Thirteen: We're Family?

Book 4:

Follows the Events of Netflix Lucifer Season Four

Chapter One: You Can Never Look Gay Enough

Chapter Two: Death Doesn't Give Me Panic Attacks Anymore

Chapter Three: God forbid I Don’t have to Deal with Problems

Chapter Four: Someone has to Make Sure You don’t do Anything Stupid

Chapter Five: I'm a Goddam Person

Chapter Six: You should go back to Your Coffin, Lady

Chapter Seven: Freaking Out is an Understatement

Chapter Eight: You’re the One Saving Me this Time

Chapter Nine: Our Friendship is Based on Being Mean

Chapter Ten: God, Why is It Me You Always Test?

Chapter Eleven: He's Getting Himself Shot

Chapter Twelve: It Wasn't Your Fault

Chapter Thirteen: You've Done Enough Damage

Chapter Fourteen: I Think I'd Like a Dance

Chapter Fifteen: I Don’t Want to Go to Heaven

Chapter Sixteen: Adults Continue to be Clueless

Chapter Seventeen: You remembered who You were All the Time

Chapter Eighteen: God is Real, but That’s Not Really Important

Chapter Nineteen: Idiot from Head to Toe

Chapter Twenty: Two Demons and an Angel Walk into a Church

Chapter Twenty-One: They took Me for a Tea Party

Chapter Twenty-Two: Can I Order You to be Executed?

Chapter Twenty-Three: I Hate You

Book 5:

Follows the events of Netflix Lucifer Season Five Part One

Chapter One: Is That So Much to Ask on My Birthday?

Chapter Two: You Became an Idiot While in Hell

Chapter Three: He Doesn’t Just Throw Those Words Around

Chapter Four: Celestial Family Issues Strike Again

Chapter Five: I’m Still Pissed At You

Chapter Six: You’re Supposed to be the Demon on My Shoulder, not the Angel

Chapter Seven: Oblivious Gays

Chapter Eight: If They Try to Perform an Exorcism, I’m Out

Chapter Nine: Why did God make Adults Idiots?

Chapter Ten: You screwed up My Chance to Kiss My Crush

Chapter Eleven: That was the Most Mature Advice You’ve Ever Given Me

Chapter Twelve: I’ve Never Been Anyone’s Blessing

Chapter Thirteen: We’re the Best People to Find Out What’s Happening

Chapter Fourteen: Don't Touch Them

Chapter Fifteen: I Can't Stop Hurting People

Book 6:

Follows the events of Netflix Lucifer Season Five Part two

Chapter One: I’d say I feel like Death, but that would be Noa

Chapter Two: I’m not calling God “Grandpa”

Chapter Three: The Worst Birthday Dinner in all of Creation

Chapter Four: Since When Were We in High School Musical?

Chapter Five: If We join the Party, There’s Going to be a Musical Number

Chapter Six: I worked through a Mental Breakdown with Song

Chapter Seven: Poor Daniel

Chapter Eight: Can No One handle Anything with Some Amount of Sensibility?

Chapter Nine: I take back the Nice Stuff I said about You

Chapter Ten: Sit on a Beach and turn Water into Wine

Chapter Eleven: Someone’s gotta keep Things from going to Hell

Chapter Twelve: I hate Politics, but I’m Campaigning

Chapter Thirteen: I’m Starting a Rebellion to humble Michael

Chapter Fourteen: I’m Not Big on the God Thing

Chapter Fifteen: Do Something Worthwhile

Chapter Sixteen: Adolescent Antichrist to Adolescent Deity

Specials:

Christmas Specials: 2021, 2022, 2023

Pride Specials: 2023, 2024

Halloween Special: 2023

Valentine's Day Specials: 2024

Taglist:

@sammyscreencaps-13

@grippleback-galaxy-galaxy

@scarlettqueen190

@ziro-the-null-god

@sammy-13

@zeros-rot

@ceridwyn3

@technikerin23

@poetoflawed

@slytherinroyalty16

@ilse235

@theurbannoodle

@lookitseddie

@amberforest08

@snowy-violet

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. I'm not gonna deny that Minthe would be abusive irl, but I think I've figured out why she doesn't feel so to me in LO. Obviously because she's not the only person to slap someone and yet is the only person whose slap isn't played for laughs. But also because of how cheap the drama is in LO ("what's so bad about the slap, people do that all the time in soap operas") and because of the standard for violence being high (Hades carved someone's eye out once and we're pitying him for getting slapped).

2. idk why people say Persephone being nice/kind is bad characterization. That's arguably the only accurate part of LO in terms of myth. the real issue to me is RS and her fans seem to think Persephone has to reject those traits (as well as her nature ways) to instead be a violent, cold hearted capitalist like Hades and co. to be "mature". She was the kind one  in the couple! Whats wrong with her staying kind despite all the hardships she's suffered? Why must she become cruel to be taken seriously?

3. homer would hate literally every modern greek myth retelling but LO especially. ya boy adored demeter and would despise what RS did to her story for the sake of a weird DDLG version of a respected couple.

4. That one anon is right, it does seem like RS has lost her passion. No wonder! This story began as a cutesy (well, for some), romance-focused retelling of one myth, and it's clear that that's what RS wants to make, but now she's dug herself deep into those weird convoluted plots that she can't even resolve properly. I'd get sick of writing this too.

5. other anon is right. most of the LO men are boring but ares has no reason being so goddam ugly. why would you do this to him, rachel!!

6. werent most of the ancient greek writers and poets huge misogynists and xenophobes towards any non greeks? they wouldnt just hate LO for what a mockery its made fo their culture and story. theyd hate rachel too for being a non-greek woman. yall cannot claim rachel is better than the poets for "improving" the mythology then claim theyd adore her despite their ancient, regressive ideals. cmon guys, be real here.

7. ok but if rs is seriously lost passion for the project then why wasnt it wrapped up years ago? why not take a month off and work out an ending sooner than later? like if shes seriously so sick of it by now, then why drag everything out and keep adding more plots that will take months/years to get to? other webtoon creators also had popular series like her but ended them when they wanted to & are now making new series. not to be rude, but theres no one to blame for here but herself.

8. you know i would have thought hades using artemis to excuse persephone's actions would have been a perfect chance for persephone to stick up for her and to show for ONCE a female relationship actual meant something in LO, but no, Persephone just sat there and let her supposed "friend" be used to excuse her mass murder. I know people are speculating Artemis will be the next "twist" villain and considering how Persephone is already being shown as not her friend by this point im inclined to agree.

9. im not against the flower nymphs being pink but like ... cant they have different shades of pink at least? like make some dark magenta and some pastel, why do they have to be the EXACT same shade as persephone? how can the comic claim shes the most unique, powerful goddess ever even theres thousands of women who look exactly like her and her powers arent actually that unique?

10. idk to me wouldnt persephone being like 500 makes more sense to why she wants to be independent and free from demeter's house make more sense than a 19 year old? because as it stands persephone just seems like a selfish brat who doesnt care what her mother had to suffer and sacrifice for her, only for everything bad demeter was trying to save her from happening all within two weeks of her being away from home. im not excusing lo demeter's actions but shes the only character who is proven right.

[blake-belladonna-defence-force]

Another try: (1/2) So, I just had an interesting while trying to get back into my apartment. So at least I'm in need of distraction and will re-write my mind ramblings. You remember that point when we were playing with amnesia Yang idea? I thought, what if only Yang fell, Raven gets wind and tries her semblance and it works, but she rescues amnesia Yang, thus giving her the opportunity to have her be the daughter she wanted to add to the bandits. Long story short, next time RWBY meets,

Hm. That’s an interesting theory and it’d make for a fascinating, painful au but I really can’t imagine Raven being able to teleport to wherever Yang is. There’s gotta be limitations to her semblance, I feel like. Is it possible for Raven to teleport to team RWBY’s beach episode? Is she gonna pop in and just see Ruby, Weiss and Yang trying to hold a cursing, snarling Blake back from going feral on Neo again while Jaune dangles from a tree? Is Raven just gonna walk in with Tai like;

Plus... the Raven we know from canon may be a shitty person and an awful mother but I really, really don’t think she would go so far as to take advantage of her amnesiac daughter. At the end of vol 5, we do see beneath that mask and see that she’s actually far more affected than we (and Yang) first thought. For as much as I dislike Raven (while admittedly seeing her as a complex and fascinating character), I can’t see her doing something like that. The potential for Yang’s memories returning would be too much of a risk for Raven to take. She’d have more to lose than gain, I reckon.

(I’m also generally very uncomfortable with these kinds of storylines in media. Like... viscerally uncomfortable about stories where character A gets amnesia and gets taken advantage of by another character. Had to see way too many of them in every goddam soap opera that my mother watched when I was a girl -_-)

Although... and this is probably the helpless romantic in me talking... I like to imagine that Yang would see Blake and feel this... connection to her. Something that stops her from actually doing “her duty as the heir to the Branwen tribe” and hurting, maybe even killing her. Hell, it’d probably be the final straw since everything that Raven would be telling her would feel wrong because Yang has such a strong moral compass. She talks a big game about Ruby’s... but Yang herself has such a good heart and such a strong moral compass that I feel like everything Raven would say to her would just feel wrong to her.

All it would take is that first moment of eye contact and she’d see a part of her soul reflected in Blake’s eyes and suddenly, it all begins to unravel because, for some reason, this woman feels more like home than the tribe.

So... it’d probably result in a very confused and frustrated Yang stepping away from Raven’s shadow in search of answers and going to Blake for them; questioning her and learning the truth, leading to an even greater sense of betrayal towards Raven when her memories return.

[eeveelutionsforequality]

You know when people say things like "Why do you care that she's not muscular? It's a superhero show about superheroes and people dressed as bats." (I'm using the Batwoman example because it's the first one that came to mind, but there are lots)? And I'm like firstly, muscular women - genuinely muscular women - get sidelined for skinny people all the time, and it'd be nice if they actually got roles playing characters that should realistically have their physique. Secondly, Supergirl is an alien, the Flash got superpowers, there are in-universe reasons that they can do what they do without being muscular... that's not the case for Batwoman, she's a regular person, she doesn't have superpowers, so there's no reason for her to be able to do what she does without being muscular. Watching a scrawny alien who gets super strength from the sun beat up bad guys is like "Okay, yeah, she's an alien, whatever. Her muscle doesn't work the same as ours." but watching a scrawny human beat up bad guys is like "How is she doing that? No amount of skill will make you suddenly able to lift a man twice your weight if you don't have the muscle to back up that skill." and that is an entirely different scenario. Just because a television multiverse has supernatural or sci-fi elements doesn't mean that a character without those elements affecting them can be brushed away by those elements - the criticism is of a lack of in-universe justification, of bad writing and casting, not of the universe as a whole being unrealistic. You can criticise one aspect of a story being "unbelievable" within the rules established by a narrative, without saying that the entire narrative has to obey real world rules. Thirdly, it's affecting the choreography, because the actress isn't physically capable of doing the moves that the character can do, and any stunt double that could do the action would have to be proportioned the same as the actress and therefore subject to that same flaw. In action, fight scenes often (almost always) play a major role in making something enjoyable to watch, and if they fall flat then it's very difficult to rectify that without cutting it out and replacing an action show with a drama full of cgi explosions (aka looking like crappy British soap operas that got renewed for so many seasons that they keep having to amp up the conflict until there's giant explosions happening in something that used to be about some dude sleeping with someone else's wife and then turning out to have a long lost dead twin). Batwoman is crappy for numerous reasons, but choosing to cast an unrealistically skinny person to play the main crime-fighting hero is definitely one of them. Terminator and Alien and other older films didn't seem to be afraid to cast a woman with abs and biceps, but it feels like we've taken a step backwards and started casting drama actors in athletic actors' roles. Please just start casting buff women... the fans are not going to have a problem seeing a strong, intimidating action hero, they'll be happy to see some goddam good fight scenes done by an actress who can actually flip a man over her shoulder, instead of quick cuts that are meant to hide the fact that she didn't do that but even a casual viewer can see right through the ruse.

[hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews]

Untold Tales of Spider-Man 06: The Doctor’s Dilemma – by Danny Fingeroth

An unexpected gem!

Dr. Bromwell grabs Peter by the arm and tells him he must talk to him about "his double life." But Bromwell hasn't stumbled on Pete's secret identity. He's talking about the dangers Pete gets into as a Daily Bugle photographer. He asks Peter, for May's sake, to give up the job. Although Peter has worried about the dangers himself, he stiffs Bromwell, saying "I'd appreciate it if you'd mind your own business, Doctor." Regretting every word, Peter goes into an unfair critique of Bromwell and a defense of his photography work. Taken aback, Bromwell gives Pete a new prescription for May and heads toward the door. Peter calls him back and apologizes. He tells him he has considered the dangers but still thinks the reward is worth the risk. Once Bromwell leaves, Peter changes to Spider-Man, eventually web-swinging to the pharmacy to fill May's prescription.

Back at his office, Bromwell can't stop thinking about Peter. Suddenly, he gets a brainstorm. He wants to give Peter a job in the sciences instead. First he goes to Metro Hospital and talks to Dr. Gordon, who saved May's life after Spider-Man brought in the needed ISO-36 (in Amazing Spider-Man #33, February 1966). Gordon reveals that, shortly after Spidey left, a beaten and bruised Peter appeared. Bromwell doesn't know what kind of deal Peter has with Spider-Man but he suspects the web-slinger is taking advantage of him.

Out web-slinging, Spidey comes upon "an eight-foot tall, four-foot wide gent in the green spandex suit" who is trashing an armored car. He is also "amazingly fast and as strong as the Hulk." When Spidey asks for a name, the giant comes up with "Impact," revealing that he volunteered for an experiment involving radioactive steroids (a combination just asking for trouble) for which he never got paid. Now paying himself in his own way, Impact slams Spidey against a wall and escapes.

The next day, Bromwell makes a house call and finds Peter all battered and bruised. He offers Pete a job in his own office helping with his research and lab work. Peter accepts. Aunt May overhears this conversation and is wracked with guilt for letting Peter risk his life taking pictures simply because they desperately needed the money.

So, Peter goes to work for Bromwell. There he researches steroids and finds out that Impact is Walter Cobb, a family man whose mind was warped by the experiment. As the days go by, Peter works at Bromwell's office, just missing catching up to Impact at his various crime scenes. Finally, Bromwell is called to the ER to help treat some victims of Impact's latest assault. As he leaves, Bromwell asks Peter to not go out for news photos. But Peter has to go out to stop Impact. Arriving at the scene,he finds Impact holding two hostages. The police bring out Impact's wife and kids to plead with him. It appears to work, with Impact releasing his hostages. Peter starts imagining a day when his work with Bromwell will lead to greater things than his web-swinging. Then a shot rings out and Impact goes on the rampage again. Spidey tries to calm him but he is too far gone. After pounding on the wall-crawler for a bit, Impact collapses. Bromwell is on the scene and pronounces the giant dead. As Spidey swings home, he reflects on it all. "Bromwell tells me that I should think about my aunt – like I don't do that enough. Impact shows me that there's a right way and a wrong way to try to help those you love. All these lessons! But...what am I supposed to learn from them? Where's the curriculum? Where's the syllabus?"

A great ending, right? But, oops, there's more! On his way home, Peter realizes that he could be as dead as Impact and decides to give up the webs. But at dinner, Aunt May tells him to keep doing what he's doing if it's what he wants to do. The next day, Bromwell waves the Daily Bugle at Peter, indicating the front page photo Pete took, and tells him he let him down, abandoning his lab work for the very work he begged him to avoid. He tells Peter that he has done all he can and that he's letting him go from his job. Pete can tell that Bromwell is hoping he will ask for another chance but Peter doesn't. He has come to completely understand that he does not become Spidey for thrills but to help people and that Uncle Ben and Aunt May would approve if they knew. Or, as he puts it, "Love the power. Guess I'll just have to live with the responsibility."

Had you told me that a Spidey story (and a prose story at that) about Doc Bromwell witten by Danny Fingeroth was going to be cracking I’d have never believed you.

Fingeroth’s body of Spidey work is a mixed bag to put it kindly. This is the man who wrote arguably the single best page of Mary Jane ever in Web of Spider-Man #6, eloquently summing up her emotional conflict regarding her romantic feelings for Spidey. But this is also the man who editorially mandated the creation of Maximum Carnage.

And yet here he doesn’t make a single misstep.

Okay that isn’t exactly true. His opening narration makes Peter sounds like a goddam psychopath. “Love the power. Hate the responsibility.” Er….that’s not exactly true, Peter has moments of enjoyment of his power and frustrations over the burdens it places upon him. But he doesn’t truly revel in his power and typically treats his responsibilities as simply something that HAS to be done moreso than something he resents doing. But that’s nothing compared to “…to take what I need. And to make anybody who gets in my way real sorry they got there.”

WTF dude! I was half expecting that the twist here was going to be that this wasn’t Peter speaking but it was. Fingeroth nicely bookends these sentiments by the end of the story but that doesn’t change the fact those sentiments shouldn’t be there in the first place.

You can maybe just handwave this as Peter being in a really bad mood and not believing what he is thinking. But I dunno, I suspect the real intent here was to clumsily set up something to BE bookended by the end of the story and more poignantly to smack the readers in the face with the central theme of the story. This lack of subtly rears its head again towards the end of the story when Fingeroth seriously spells out for us that Impact is a dark reflection of Spider-Man and the exact ways how. Everything the dialogue says is correct and Impact is actually a very good reflection of Spidey. But couldn’t Fingeroth have been a tad more subtle about it?

But other than that this story unto itself is pretty much flawless. I say unto itself because through no fault of Fingeroth the story’s placement withint he anthology is kind of weird. It clearly takes place after ASM #33 as there are very direct references and fallout from the Master Planner Trilogy. However the nature of the story also makes it highly unlikely to take place after ASM #39 because in that issue Peter is shaken by Bromwell informing him of just how frail Aunt May is. He pretty much tells Peter that if May learns his secret she will keel over dead. So this happens between ASM #33 and #39 but the Looter story clearly happens after ASM #36. Whilst far from inconceivable that this story could happen afterwards, because the last story with the Goblin was obviously tipping the hat to ASM #39-40 this story would’ve been better placed just before the Looter story. As is it’s oddly the THIRD story in this book to take place in this extremely small and specific gap of time after ASM #36 but before ASM #39.

Enough of the nitpicks though. I said this story was a gem and I stand by that.

What pleasantly surprised me most about this story was that Fingeroth seemed to be able to handle the prose format better than every other writer thus far sans perhaps DeFalco.

He wisely knows to emphasis the inner conflicts within the characters’ heads and play up the soap opera rather than leaning in on the action setpieces.

And yet there are two significant action set pieces in this story. Indeed the crux of the whole story REVOLVES around the physical danger Peter puts himself in by going into action. Fingeroth handled these deftly. The action wasn’t over explained and painted a clear picture in your head but didn’t linger too much. Sure you might feel things would be more interesting if you could actually see things but you aren’t drifting off as the writer belabors the combination of punches and kicks Spidey lands. It’s all very streamlined and designed to support the emotional arc of the story as opposed to the action being the point unto itself or simply the means to REACH a conclusion.

In this regard Fingeroth actually edges out DeFalco. Reading/listening through DeFalco’s story the action scenes can just be boiled down to Spidey fights some thugs, drags out the fight for pictures and then one them accidentally dies the specifics don’t matter even though we do get them.

Here Fingeroth forgoes the specifics to simply give you the broad beats to the fight (Impact throws a car, Spidey webs people to safety, etc) whilst ensuring he returns to Spidey’s inner thoughts and peppering in dialogue that is moving the plot and exploring the themes, even if it is simply lightly.

In a way this is a rare example of an action set piece that works BETTER in prose than it would visually. Sure Mark Bagley or Ron Frenz could embellish the fight scene to make it look cool, but the visions of a possible future Peter imagines are more potent and organic when we simply read his train of thought like this. Were it a comic such dialogue would come off as excessive or (if communicated through art) needlessly existential. Additionally as a villain goes Impact is fairly generic, but having him not have any visual presence mitigates that because his importance is more about what he is doing and why than having a dynamic appearance.

To go back to Bromwell, he’s developed more here than he’s been in over 55 years of Spider-History. Were he written like this in his appearances he might’ve become a more beloved character. What’s great is how organic his personality feels. We learn new stuff about him but it feels like a totally logical extrapolation of what little we saw of him in the 1960s. He is a quintessential doctor and Fingeroth lends him a surprising amount of nuance. He isn’t endlessly caring, he has his limits but even so the fact that he wanted Peter to ask him for a second chance at the end was a brilliant touch. It’s a small moment but it helps make Bromwell feel more multidimensional.

And because of this characterization the story earns the pathos of Peter letting him down. You feel sad for Bromwell and for Peter that things didn’t work out for both of them.

Aunt May is also done very well here. She is in typical Aunt May mode but Fingeroth chooses to make that the central conflict of the story rather than a background element. Refreshingly though the issue isn’t that May is on her deathbed, but rather the impact (if you pardon the pun) upon her if anything happens to Peter.  The story is almost a spiritual cousin to JMS’ opus ‘the Conversation’ in that it comes to a reasonable and positive resolution.

What in particular what holds this all together is the brilliant (yet rarely used) idea of treating Peter’s cover story as Spidey’s photographer as a metaphor for him being Spider-Man. It’s something that’s pretty clever when you think about it because the cover story means his loved ones go into relationships with him knowing he takes risks and potentially endangers them, just as if they knew he was Spidey.

Through treating the cover story as a metaphor Fingeroth is able to have Peter get a lot of feelings about being Spidey off of his chest. This chiefly comes in the form of his bookeneded confrontations with Bromwell, his angry (and highly unjustified) outburst at the start and his quiet resigned acceptance at the end.

Perhaps the best bi of narration in relation to Peter’s character was when Fingeroth spelled out that Peter might enjoy being Spidey but even if he didn’t he’d do it anyway because he was hooked on helping people. It eloquently emphasis the innate heroism and core of the character. And it does so in a nuanced way too as too often writers have Peter outright hate being Spider-Man or else cynically lean on the idea he’s a thrill junkie of some kind. Fingeroth gets that peter DOES like his work but that isn’t the reason he does it.

Nuance is actually the key word here. There is a lovely sequence where the story acknowledges that Peter might subconsciously be avoiding Impact out of a loss of confidence. It plays very realistically. How often in life has one bad moment shaken us up and made us hesitant to do things we previously did without even thinking about it.

Really I don’t know what else to say about this story that isn’t self-evident by just experiencing it for yourself.

Tiny issues aside it’s really quite excellent and highly recommended.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Its definitely my favourite version of Mary Jane. Who’s changed careers from model and damsel to sassy investigative reporter for the Daily Bugle. A role that gives her more to actually, you know, do and embodies her with a lot of wit and drive. A smart update for a world where the bombshell party girl is no longer the romantic ideal it once was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqGs09OiyEQ

Let’s debunk this.

Whenever some dipshit talks about MJ not having enough ‘to do’ specifically in relation to her PS4 career it boils down to this.

MJ didn’t do anything in the comics directly related to Peter��s role as Spider-Man.

Which is asinine because the story of Spider-Man isn’t about Peter being a superhero!

It’s about the life of this guy who HAPPENS to be a superhero and exploring how those two sides of his life impact upon one another.

You know the whole great power/great responsibility thing?

Yeah you can basically translate that more linearly to “This character is about juggling the responsibilities normal people deal with against the responsibility of being a hero’

THAT is the damn point.

For example, literally every Aunt May sceanario from the Steve Ditko run.

Oh no, Aunt May is sick Peter has to get medicine for her. He can earn money as Spider-Man to do that but oh no that means he won’t be home to look after her and he’s so worried about her that it might impact how he fights.

Or.

Oh no, Aunt May is sick Peter has to cut out on this crime in progress to go help her!

I’m not saying Aunt May’s character was handled the best back then by any means. But people did adore how she was used in the JMS run where she was you know...also not directly involved in his superhero life.

Fuck even Alfred isn’t REALLY directly involved in Batman’s life but people still love him.* Same for Ganke Lee in Miles Morales stories.

The book is about Peter’s life not specifically his life as a superhero, but everything.

His job, his friendships, his romantic life, his financial straits, everything.

And they impact upon and get impacted by his life as a hero.

At which point Mary Jane doesn’t need  to directly interact with that side of his life because she’s already ‘doing stuff’ by interacting with the Peter Parker side of his life.

Her role works great in a video game because in a video game you aren’t going to play a character who has to study or has to pay the rent or has a mini-game about managing his anxieties and neuroses. Everything revolves and feeds back into what he does in the context of being a superhero which is where you don’t just spend over half the story (like in most Spider-Man yarns) but where you spend the overwhelming majority of the time because that is the whole point.

For many people Peter’s superheroics in the comics isn’t  the point or at best it is only half  the point.

People often say Spidey has the best supporting cast ever and that’s true but that’s a weird goddam statement to make if you define a good supporting cast member as someone who directly contributes in some way to his role as Spider-Man. Because Flash, Harry, Gwen, MJ, Liz, Aunt May, Betty Brant and everyone who wasn’t Jameson, George Stacy, Jean DeWolff or Felicia didn’t do that! 

And yet we were still invested whenever Flash became an alcoholic, or Liz got pregnant, or Harry and MJ’s relationship hit the rocks, or Jameson got engaged or Betty left her husband or whatever.

Why?

Because we cared about these characters because Peter cared about them and we cared about Peter because we were reading it for his LIFE over all not his superhero side of it.

MJ thus would’ve been doing enough by just interacting with Peter via normal life soap opera and human drama. Was it always handled great? No. but the fix for that isn’t giving her something that directly taps into his job as a superhero.

Let’s move on to the rest of the quote.

Being a journalist embodies her with a lot of wit and drive.

Why the fuck does this specific profession innately give people who work that profession these personality traits? That’s not how life works.

More poignantly it presumes that MJ in the comics didn’t have any wit.

And certainly no drive.

And how about that whole ‘bombshell party girl isn’t the romantic ideal it once was’ huh?

Um....what?

First of all a ‘romantic ideal’ is rather subjective. Some people (for the sake of argument let us presume for a moment heterosexual men) want a party girl. Some people would prefer more of a chilled out person. Some guys want a bombshell but other guys might be physically attracted to girls who are more amazonian in their appearance. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Second of all, even by modern stereotypical standards (again from a heterosexual male POV) classic Mary Jane is still absolutely within the ‘romantic ideal’.

Third of all MJ was presented as not  being the romantic ideal when she was introduced in the 1960s. She was played as a foil for Gwen Stacy with Peter (shallowly as young people are want to do) finding her party girl personality a major turn off.

Fourth of all this statement speaks to the absolute ignorance of the author (and many fans) who seem to weirdly think MJ was a party girl when she debuted and then stayed exactly like that until she married Spider-Man.

She didn’t. Her party girl personality had even been reigned in by the time she began dating Peter in the 1970s.

Fifth of all why the fuck is ‘updating’ MJ from party girl going to naturally land on journalist?

Finally let’s tackle the bullshit model and damsel thing.

This mentality needs to fuck off and die ASAP.

MJ was not placed in a damsel-in-distress role any more frequently than most recurring superhero love interests. 

Defining that as her role, as her ‘job’ practically is bullshit, insulting and an erasure of her whole goddam character.

Being a damsel-in-distress isn’t an act of negative penalization upon your character, wherein you can be awesome outside of that instance in the story but it doesn’t matter because you were made into a damsel in distress.

I mean FFS NOBODY treats male characters this way in spite of the uncountable times Robin, Jimmy Olsen, Commissioner Gordon, Harry Osborn, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson or whoever have been in need of rescue by Superman, Batman or Spider-Man!

I can understand criticising using a female character like that but it’s nevertheless a BAD thing to treat it like it erases and boils down a female character to nothing but that merely because it happened.**

And then there is the modelling thing.

Jesus Christ do I hate the modelling thing.

Not only is MJ’s jobs in wider media NOT as a model, not only was that NOT her first job, not her job for over a decade and never her most noteworthy job...it’s just fucked up. 

It dismisses rel life people with that job as shallow or less worthy and it defines a female character specifically through her looks. 

And real talk MJ being a model is LESS relevant to her character than Peter being a photographer is. Photography isn’t even one of Peter’s passions, science is, science actually speaks to who he is as a person. Photography is just a means to an end. So being a photographer is not important to who peter is as a character and MJ being a model is even LESS important to her character.

And yet people like define her entire character through that job. I dunno if that’s sexist for reasons I talked about above or messed up because it defines her purely through her job when real people are more than the job they do.*** Either way it’s fucked up.

And as a fan it just grinds my gears because the ONLY reason MJ being a model is talked about as much as it is or appeared as much as it has in the comics is BECAUSE writers and fans keep throwing the term around in relation to MJ.

It’s a shitty self fulfilling prophecy

*And Batman unlike Spider-Man actually does  prioritize his costume life over his superhero one.

**And not for nothing the video plays clips from the Raimi movies when talking about her being a damsel in distress (specifically a moment where she was substituting for Gwen Stacy) because of course it does. Because everyone knows judging a comic book character by their comic book versions would be stupid and Dunst MJ is everything comic book MJ was.

***Someone who works as a janitor isn’t less worthy as a person or wholesale defined through that job, they have a life and personality beyond that.

[rfergusondaily]

British Vogue, November 2017

Running the Show ACTRESS REBECCA FERGUSON DIDN’T WANT TO DO A MUSICAL – SO HOW DID SHE END UP IN THE LATEST ALL-STAR PRODUCTION, ASKS VIOLET HENDERSON

When newly minted film director Michael Gracey met actress Rebecca Ferguson to pitch her his film (still then only an idea, albeit one to which Hugh Jackman had committed), he knocked on her front door wearing a beanie and clutching a television set. “Can you show me to your living room?” he asked. Ferguson raised an eyebrow. “Did I want, then, to do a musical? Hell, no,” she recalls.

Unlike the chart-topping former X Factor contestant with whom she shares her name, she makes no claims to be a singer. Gracey introduced his montage of video clips with razzmatazz. “The year is 1880,” he began, with a clap of his hands. By the time he was done, Ferguson felt “electrified”, certain she wanted to be a part of this all-singing, all-dancing vision. That part turned out to be the one of Jenny Lind, the world-famous Swedish soprano, so good at her trade that Queen Victoria befriended her and PT Barnum (played by Jackman) recruited her to his travelling circus (which also includes a dancing Zac Efron). The Greatest Showman features music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the duo who worked on La La Land.

It was canny of Gracey to cast Ferguson as Lind. Even if the actress’s own singing is not used in the final film (that’s a decision still to be made in the editing room), her speaking voice is pure opera with its deep timbre and clipped clarity, heightened by the sort of meticulous enunciation that comes with not being an English native; like Lind, Ferguson grew up in Sweden. Starlets and ingénues don’t speak like Ferguson, who in person is neither girlish nor a slip of a thing but in secure command of her significant charisma. “In my life I never sat on my arse waiting for this or that,” says the 33-year-old, her pale blue eyes bright. “I actually make things happen.”

And happen they have. Before The Great Showman hits the big screen, Ferguson stars with Michael Fassbender in The Snowman, in cinemas this month. “My publicist keeps calling to say, can we talk about The Show... No, The Snow... Oh, Jesus, one of the men!” says the actress, laughing. They are, however, very different films. The Snowman, based on a novel by Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø, is a spartan spine-chiller, directed by Tomas Alfredson, another Swede, whose previous work includes Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The shoot for the film began in Norway the day after The Girl on the Train wrapped in America (Ferguson played Anna). “I wouldn’t worry too much about my workload. After all, I had four months with Michael,” says Ferguson, who is in turn knowing, funny, conspiratorial; in sum, an excellent raconteur.

We meet in the garden of a London square. The actress has rented an apartment near the Thames while she is shooting Mission: Impossible 6. She entered the high-grossing franchise in the fifth Mission: Impossible as Ilsa Faust, a sassy, gun-wielding assassin who may come to Tom Cruise’s rescue. She remembers the experience the first time round as “like going through labour: it was exciting, it was new, it was so goddam painful.” But then Ferguson went from smoking cigarillos (sometimes a cigar) and eating like a normal person, to training for six hours a day on a heavily restricted diet. “This time I’ve kept up my fitness so it’s not so hard. I could now practically sleep on the Pilates reformer, I love it so much,” and she inhales on a vaporiser that looks like a bullet.

Until recently, when Ferguson was not on location, she based herself in Simrishamn in Sweden, a small fishing village where her 10-year-old son, Isaac, lives during school term time with his father, from whom Ferguson split a couple of years ago. Now she’s renovating a house in London and her plan is to divide her time between the two countries. She has a new partner, who is English and “doesn’t work in the business”, she adds protectively, and although the travelling her job requires makes motherhood a challenge, “we make it work,” she says with a shrug. “It could be so hard, but it’s not because everyone gets on and supports each other.”

She pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her wrists. “I feel British,” she says. “Mum brought us up that way.” In the family home in Stockholm, she and her elder sister kept rats, mice and budgerigars, watched Cracker and Inspector Morse, and learnt English manners. “Never answer a question with yes or no, always with a sentence,” she tells me diligently. Their summers were spent scaling Helvellyn in the Lake District, “until I discovered French boys, and then we went to stay with my aunt in France”. Her parents divorced when she was three and she lived between their houses. “We didn’t have a lot,” she recalls, “but because of Mum we never felt poor.”

Ferguson paints her mother, who originally hails from East Anglia, as a big character who has cast a colourful influence over her life, in many shades of Edina Monsoon. For a while she translated songs for Abba and lent them her wardrobe. “I think my mother finds my androgynous style very mundane,” says Ferguson, gesturing to her Acne black tailored trousers. She laughs – it’s a very big laugh. It was Ferguson’s mother who enrolled her in Adolf Fredrik’s Music School, a primary education with a musical and performing focus. “I think she wanted a lot for me,” she says.

At 15 she won the lead role in a national soap opera. So she switched school for a TV studio to shoot two and a half episodes every day each week. Her mother told her, “You’re going to pay rent now because you’re a working woman who is earning more than me, so you give back to the family.” Ferguson still respects her for it: “I learnt then the value of making money and taking responsibility for myself.” And she liked it. A year later, when the show had ended, she felt the ache of being separated from her peers. “I remember thinking, I’m just not a part of that world any more. I wasn’t going to university, I couldn’t, I’d left school early. By 16, I’d left home, too. My friends were older and I’d begun to drift from one friendship to the next.” With no roles coming in, she worked in “day care, restaurants, shoe shops, anything just to support myself ”, until a television series took her to Miami Beach, and although that went “tits up”, she says, “it didn’t really matter because I was 17 and I got to live in another country for a year”. 

Unusually in the world of entertainment – where women’s careers are so often made or abandoned by the time they’re 27, the industry’s unofficial line in the sand – Ferguson’s international break came at the age of 30 when she was cast as Elizabeth Woodville opposite Max Irons in The White Queen for the BBC. “I got the part and three days later we were shooting,” she says. “I never really asked, what is happening here? Where am I going? Do I want this trip? I just decided to go with it. I thought, why not?’’

[twofacetoo]

*sigh* You're just another of the "RTD rules, Moffat drools" gang, huh? Hope you enjoy new showrunner Chibnall, who went on TV as an arrogant teenager to whine about 1980s DW, so obviously hated Classic DW, which means his DW will suck (to use your fractured "logic" about things Moffat said while a bit drunk about DW he grew up with). Whatever. To me, Peter Capaldi's all that made NuWho tolerable to watch; the rest has been terrible soap opera garbage.

Okay so I had an entire response typed out and then my fucking Chrome crashed on me and deleted it all, so I’ll summarise:

1. I like RTD, but I’m a classic show fan before that, I’d rank it as some of the best sci-fi I’ve ever seen

2. Chibnall wrote one of my favourite Modern Who episodes, ‘42’. I’m willing to give him a fair shot at the show, rather than writing him off judgmentally like you’ve decided to do

3. RTD didn’t always have great episodes, but he was better than Moffat, that’s all I’m saying

Bottom line: quit being so goddam negative about things that are over, try and be positive about the future or you may as well hang yourself with a vintage ‘Doctor Who’ belt if you life is really that fucking empty

[jomiddlemarch]

Happiness is like England

“So, you like him,” Amy said, drawing out the i in like the way they had when they were 7th graders and had first begun to think that there might be something to soap operas and all those lingering close-ups. When they might have spent hours on the phone after dinner, Vivian perched on the kitchen counter, the coil of the phone cord wound around her like a cocoon-in-progress, Amy hanging halfway off her bed, the handset in the shape of a pink stiletto pressed against her cheek. They’d already been friends for a long time then, what seemed like a century ago now, and it had been such a day today that Vivian had known her tether to sanity was all tied up in a call to Amy.

 “Amy, c’mon, I’m an adult,” Vivian replied, looking at the draining board covered with dirty mugs, the lap-top splayed in front of her.

 “So what? I can hear it in your voice—at least, I think I can. Are you picking up a British accent and it’s just that?” Amy asked, wryly enough Vivian was forced to laugh, just a little.

 “No. It’s complicated, though, the case is so…fraught and he can be hard to read and I need to focus on the experiment too. It’s not that easy,” Vivian said. She thought of the offices, his and hers, and the lab that Q had set aside for her, all that gleaming tempered glass and an incongruous and exquisite Persian rug “to make up for the lack of a view,” Q had said, his version of sheepish, which was always three-quarters distraction and 5% complete, laser-like focus.

 “You’re making it complicated, Vivian. I say that with love because you know I love you, which is why I agreed to do that research for you on Beowulf, even though you know I’m not a specialist in Old English and there must be someone at Oxbridge you could be asking about this instead of me and I had to get in touch with Vance, Vance! and listen to him for like eighty-seven hours, when I have that lecture on Christine de Pisan to finish for Friday, and it’s 5 o’clock here so my three children have basically devolved into horrifying prehistoric monster versions of themselves all wanting goldfish,” Amy said, ranting as she picked up steam, operatic as a proper British tea-kettle.

 “Goldfish?” Vivian interjected, not quite managing the innocent tone she’d hoped for.

 “Pepperidge Farm. Like you don’t remember. Seriously, as much as I want to know, and by the way, I totally admit I want to know, I want you to know. For real, be honest with yourself—I’m going to try not to ask this like a leading question. Does he make you happy?” Amy said.

 She’d been avoiding asking herself the same question. She’d been avoiding asking herself why she was avoiding it. She’d focused on the work, on deciphering the arcane hierarchies at MI6 and what the fuck was going on with Bond, on keeping up and staying ahead but now, she let herself consider it. Gareth’s eyes and his manner, that keen intelligence and that shockingly gentle touch, his afterglow voice reciting not Auden or Larkin but Stevie Smith, asking questions and listening to her answers. What it felt like when he looked for her as soon as she entered the room, when he called something out, anything really, just to say her name with it, as she left.

 “Yes. He makes me happy,” she admitted.

 “You don’t have to sound so broken up about it. It’s good news,” Amy replied, not missing a beat. Not missing a trick.

 “Is it?” Vivian asked. There was a muffled howl through the phone, less muffled cursing mingled with apologies for said-cursing, Amy’s voice echo-y, half-away from the phone yelling for her husband Chris to come out of your goddam study and finish the pasta!

 “Yeah, I think it is,” Amy said, as if there’d been no interruption. Her voice said it could be complicated and easy in all sorts of ways and that Vivian could figure it out. And when she got stuck, there was the phone and the original Peyton Place to re-watch and Skittles to chuck at the screen, however wide the seas were that parted them.

 “Okay, I’ll let you go,” Vivian said.

 “It’ll be all right, Vivi. You’re happy and that’s a good place to start from. I’ll call you tomorrow—I think I’ll have something for your case, Vance was actually helpful, believe it or not, and you can tell me about everything else,” Amy said.

 “Everything else?”

 “You know, the juicy stuff,” Amy said, laughed, and the phone clicked. Vivian held it in her hand and smiled. And then tapped in another number, wondering what she’d hear when he answered, “Mallory” or “M?”

 “Vivian?”