#to be clear i actually do kinda like brad as a character and i think the actor playing him is really good

[agir1ukn0w]

@ antis: how does it feel knowing that brad, the traitor and coward, was basically your stand-in on the show?

[sillydeafwitch]

Sdmi au post 2! Or is it 3?…

If you don’t know what I’m talking about this is the previous post for my sdmi au, which has a link to the first one.

I’m gonna call the og mystery inc the “OG gang” and the current mystery inc “Treasure Hunter gang.” REMEMBER THISSSS (this is more to me than to you lol)

More info time! <3

Brad and Judy are doctors and their job takes up a lot of time, though they do make a good living off it. They are pretty exhausted and aren’t around at home during most of the day for Fred. And when they are they are very burnt out from work. (Of course they don’t mean to neglect Fred, but they do- see my last au post for what Fred does due to that.)

Marcie is actually considered a popular student in this au, she won a certain competition (probably a science fair or something like that) and got a lot of recognition. Her fathers theme park is a little more active but they are still relatively poor. She isn’t a fan of being popular since she doesn’t really like all the kids being on her for questions, or asking her to do their homework.

Jones…I actually kinda struggled on what I would do with his character since a lot of it hinged on being a greedy mayor and Fred’s father, at least on the surface. But I think I did pretty decently with his character.

He would be double crossed by Pericles instead of the other way around, and get a pretty long sentence in a maximum security prison. But their comes a time in the story where the og gang want information about the planispheric disc- so they can get all the pieces before Pericles does. Jones gives them some information, but leaves out some of the aspects that reveal how truly dangerous this treasure is, so they don’t take it away from him once he plans to get it.

Him staying at the prison has let him be VERY corrupted. He really lacks any sort of feeling other than a desire for the disc- but this in turn makes the best part of him just that desperate so he latched onto anything that could keep him somewhat resistant to the curse.

He escapes prison soon after the visit from the og mystery inc and teams up with Pericles early season 2, or whatever this aus equivalent of it is, under the promise that he and Pericles would share the disc and whatever power they had. The Treasure Hunter gang would also team up with Pericles again at this point.

Pericles uses him as a tool to demonstrate to the Treasure Hunter gang what will happen if they don’t fall in line. (Jones gets the snake torture :[ ) Jones defends the kids when Pericles goes a bit to far in his harshness towards them, which results in what I just said.

I would add more too this but I wanna also focus on other characters in this post so that’s all your getting of him for now.

George Avocados is the mayor in this au. He’s also after the treasure since he found some old research papers from Jones. He doesn’t have clear idea of what he’ll do with the treasure, but he assumes he will prosper once he gets it since he doesn’t know why anyone else would want it so bad other than for fortune. Eventually he gets caught trying to steal pieces from the Treasure Hunter kiddos and gets arrested. The Og mystery inc end up taking Avocados research finding along with Jones research papers and documents.

Sheriff Stone is still Sheriff in this au, and he is constantly catching Daphne and Fred doing vandalism or catching them hanging out with dangerous people. He occasionally catches Velma and Shaggy staying at libraries WAY past their closing time.

He puts on a tough face and a grumpy attitude toward the kids, but does genuinely worry for them- and their parrot gives him the creeps!

Avocados often orders him around and treats him worse than Jones would. Plus they are hardly friends. The Sheriff catches the OG gang trespassing and once they explain their situation and why they are doing it he is skeptical, but he lets them go, since he doesn’t want those kids getting into anymore freaky business.

He often lets the OG gang go and makes excuses so they don’t face charges for their mysteries, he really only ever arrests them once or twice, and it was because he couldn’t make any sort of defense for them.

Once Mayor Nettles shows up their relationship progresses pretty similar to the show, but it’s gonna be sorta sweet since Sheriff Stone isn’t used to have a mayor treat him with respect.

Mayor Nettles tries to take more initiative to protect the kids but she ultimately ends up failing, for reasons I’ll take about in the next post.

I think I’ll stop here but this ain’t the last post! I’m very excited to continue with this au.

[alitgblog]

ok thoughts for volume IV bc I actually enjoyed it a lot lol

also I'm currently on a Jin route (i might switch to claudia i have not decided) so that's important context lol

I Spy was an interesting concept for a game but if i can nitpick here, it felt much more like a firepit game than a challenge and that would be nice to have some variety since last week was the Heartbreaker thing and next week we have Excess Baggage.

For whatever reason I can't remember the format of the show rn but I think if the game is gonna continue with doing about a day more or less per volume, it should be like the show where there is at least one or two major events being either dates (where couples are either all in the same area, one couple goes out of the villa, or there's bombshells involved), challenges (where they go out onto the stage and do some physical challenge), or parties (which can include games). And right now I feel like we're getting three challenges in a row and I'd rather we change it up. But that's besides the point

anyway i believed Jack when he said his secret wasn't supposed to cause drama but I did not believe Theo at all and the fact that we got to tell him that later? Great choice. (and also so in character for MC to tell him off and him to just continue pretending like she didn't say that)

Also very flirty moments with Claudia is what is making this Jin route so hard. she's very forward and the fact that you can pursue her so soon is great actually. I thought maybe she and theo would share a slow burn route but it seems like it might be just Theo (or that you can't officially couple up with her later but apparently you can kiss her and go to the hideaway and stuff so that's cool).

I'm always hoping for non MC centered drama and we got it (but also there WAS MC centered drama too so that's even better)

I love to have a character to hate/dislike, so thank you so much Sophie and Jack. I can't imagine what it would be like with Luna and Jin though because they seem way more chill whereas I can see Sophie (a PERFORMER) doing all that and Jack (self proclaimed romantic) also just doing stuff to fit with Sophie.

And honestly still having residual feelings from the previous episode works. Like, yes to the Jack and Emel kiss (at least from Jack's POV about being insecure about Sophie,,, I'm not so sure about Emel but as someone who played it flirting with Oakley up until the end of Vol II and knowing Emel wants a romantic guy like Jack, I will let it slide). I kinda wish it implied more that Jin rejected Sophie so that's why she didn't pick him at the last recoupling so she's still hurt and still antagonizing MC and Jin for that reason. Otherwise it's just like, why are they still mad though?

Emel and Oakley are so cute. I also kept wishing after S5 and S6 that we got more strong couples in the game and I'm very glad they seem happy and if anything happens to them I'm gonna be so upset.

And tbh Jack and Sophie making it work is so nice too. Even though I think they're gonna keep having a lot of drama, it's entertaining and it's also great to have a couple that's probably gonna get dumped or split up at some point (and you know they're not gonna make it on the outside).

I don't care for Brad and Christy at all but why is that option 29 gems?? Like even asking for drama about the Islanders currently in the Villa is 17 gems (which I still don't think should be behind a pay wall but it feels like that one might be more relevant).

I do like that Jack is trying to be sweet to Sophie because even though he has also been an asshole to MC and her couple, he's still a possible route for if you replay, so that's nice they're not making the other LI's unappealing like in S6 (...yet???? im not giving fusebox the all clear yet)

I hate that Jack called his apology thing a game, I wish he just gathered everyone at the firepit and did the same thing but not called it a compliment game.

in the same vein, why did he invent the chemistry game because that feels like they should've gotten a text about that and then the next text about voting for the couple with the strongest chemistry to go into the hideaway would make more sense.

regardless, I really liked Jack's compliment to MC because that's how I've been playing this character and the fact he pointed it out, I feel like she'd love that. Also everyone else's compliments were fun too except maybe Sophie's which is funny.

And then he tried to make a joke at the end which was bold, but then I found out it might have been Jin's fault which is far more in character but again I don't know how well that would play out if I was playing a different route.

Also you can cheekily ask Oakley how he felt about Jack's joke about Emel being the best kisser in front of everyone and you best believe I did that

Then everything seems fine until the chemistry game and then suddenly Sophie, Jack, Emel, and Oakley are doing fine and everyone else is not and I love that turn in drama. Again, can't speak for a Theo route but the way suddenly Claudia is in between Jin and MC is crazy and Jin has a somewhat reasonable response (considering that fusebox wanted to give you space to go to the hideaway with Claudia). he probably forgave MC too fast imo but that's on me for playing the messy route.

Also Claudia's response after hearing Jin and MC are going to the hideaway together instead of her and MC is so good. Like she does convey she's disappointed but understands, and MC says there's still time for them, and Claudia's response is like it would blow your mind like we gotta give Jin a fighting chance, and I love that. also bc I'm indecisive so I'm glad her routes not closed yet.

as much as I like the drama, Tyler did not make a big splash so it does feel like we just got drama four volumes in a row, so I'm kind of hoping we get a bombshell mid challenge. Unfortunately, it's the excess baggage challenge, which I do like and I think we're due for this challenge to show up, but a bombshell showing up mid excess baggage challenge is literally what happens in S3 so I don't think I'm right.

I already posted my little joke about the Hideaway scene but yeah it's so much better than it's been recently. And like it looks like there's a few more options to change up the scene/dialogue so that's good they put effort into small stuff like that

and I'm not advocating for them hiding scenes behind a pay wall (like I rather them put these expensive gem choices behind drama I don't care about, that's fine) but like if there was ever a time to have a pay to win part of the game I would've made it this and not the kissing challenge. HEAR ME OUT: so it's like an early in the game hideaway first of all, technically you've known each other for like four days and if it comes up again for free, i wouldnt even miss it. Second, it kinda dismisses the drama that JUST happened. Like, either Theo or Claudia have just blown up their strong couple to pursue MC and their LI doesn't do anything? And the other couples vote for them anyway? Like get rid of the gem choice early on for MC and Jin to prove their chemistry and have them stumble anyway. Then after the Claudia/Theo confession, the gem choice is MC announces she wants another shot and because Sophie, Jack, and Emel like her for solving their drama they agree. And then MC can choose her second try with Theo, Claudia, or her LI. And then still has the chat later with her LI and then you win with whoever you pick (or I guess if you pick Theo then you don't bc I guess it's the slow burn route. Maybe you get a chat with him on the daybeds or SOMETHING lol). And third, Jack did this whole campaign to get him and Sophie to a stronger place so like there was a perfect backup couple right there.

and also some non volume specific thoughts:

I'm kind of excited to replay and like couple with Jack or Oakley at this point because I'm curious if the dialogue is much different. I really like Jin's dialogue and it fits his character, so I'm wondering how much of it is copy paste (but most people here are also on a Jin route so I can't cross reference damn).

also I would've reordered the past couple of episodes so that like Luna and Tyler would stay for longer and have a bigger impact but I don't need to make this long post even longer so maybe I'll post it some other time

still don't know why it's called tempting fate but if we're returning to the non themed seasons I'm not complaining

[j3st3r-13]

jimmy and michael parallels

so i was watching the reuniting the family mission and the conversation between jimmy and m is fucking insane because they completely parallels one another. 

these ate some quotes 

“im a fat shit that you ruined!” this is said by jimmy however it works in michaels perspective too, you could argue that his family “ruined“ the old Michael. they also both clearly have low self-esteem issues.

 “your just a lame and angry psycho sometimes,” jimmy says to Michael but jimmy could be considered an angry psycho. when gaming jimmy trolls and torments others on the game to such extreme lengths that someone actually kidnaps and tries to kill him over it. and it’s pretty well known that jimmy is lame and I think tracey calls him lame multiple times. im pretty sure that her main insult to him which is far too much of a coincidence.

“I get so mad and I can’t control things.” jimmy talking about himself but this quote alone sums up Mikey’s character perfectly. although jimmy talking about the helplessness he feels in his own life probably due to his unique upbringing and his clear low self-esteem, it is far too much of a coincidence that this quote can also be about Michael and how his anger and his inability to keep in control is what sets the game into motion. he pulls down madrazos house in a blind rage which means the vangelico job and Trevor coming back. and back in Yankton he couldnt control Trevor and brad, which leads to the actual game. this quote is followed by “shit just falls on top of me.” jimmy talking about how he’s struggling to navigate his parent’s rough marriage and finding his place in the world but in therapy, michael complains that it’s all getting on top of him and he’s lost on what to do.

“I wanna say I love you and hug it out but all that wimpy shit is just...... lame” the ellipsis is where jimmy goes on about his gay friends which ill will mention in a minute but anyway. Jim has probanly picked up struggling to open up from his parents, im willing to bet money on Amanda and michael haven’t said I love you and mean it since north Yankton, which is proven to hurt kids. Michael himself also struggles to tell his family how much they mean to him when i play I thought that Amanda thinks that Michael doesnt love them, he does but just cant express it all that well. also michaels family never like hug or anything, with franklin m gives him fistbumps which he doesnt with his family the most that they’re touching one another is the occasional bump into one another. 

“I would say gay but that’s not cool anymore.” jimmy talking about his gay friends rn but if you watch the actual cutscene look at Michaels face he looks angry and a little scared. looks like denial to me. as someone who was part of the LGBTQ community i can see the gay denial ive experienced it myself. and rockstars aren’t complete idiots they knew what we would think about M and T. they hint at it themselves and the fact that jimmy talks to him about being gay?? too much of a coincidence for me. it also speaks volumes about how repressed and in the closet Mikey is, he gets angry/ scared when his family talks about being gay. I wanna shake mike until it clicks that he’s fucking gay. 

“im so upset that we can’t even see each other,” jimmy says this to mike but we know for a fact that Michael is heartbroken when Amanda and the kids move out. paralleling each other again!!

“your just a drunk lame dad.” “you know what, that’s the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.” how often is jimmy insulted in the game, not only in missions but you overhear it all the time. so swap whos speaking to who and it still makes sense. jimmy is prolly so staved from regongition from his father, look how much jimmy copies him and his ideals/ thoughts. to me? seems like he’s trying to mirror him so mike starts treating him like a son (this one kinda got away from me tbh)

then jimmy ruins the mood and asks for a car. amazing. 

I love this game so much because all of it has much-hidden meaning and it’s so fun to analyze. im not saying I like jim, in fact, i hate him cause he is so annoying but,. It shows how much effect michael's behaviour and words affect the rest of the family. im so glad that they went to family therapy. sorry that this is so long but i just had to give my thoughts on this, we analyze amanda and michaels relationship but never anything with the kids. idk really but yeah

[mable-stitchpunk]

I kinda think that originally they were gonna explore more in detail how Creepy the subtext between William and Vanny was, in the AR game we hear that Glitchtrap apparently set himself as Nessas 'Boyfriend' "But then there’s the side of you that ordered chocolate and flowers for yourself and pretended they were from your boyfriend 'Brad.’ I’m not judging you for being lonely - I definitely understand where you’re coming from there. But, Ness, I also saw what you had written on that card. 'Flowers for your grave’? Why would you have an imaginary boyfriend who’s threatening to kill you? You know that’s not healthy, right?" the Relunctant follower line about her suit was 'I think youll like it', and of course the cut dialogue from SB makes it very clear how abusive he is too her, with her pleading this 'Wont be like the last one', Granted, topics like abuse Grooming and A disturbing relationship like that would be, and the Obvious PTSD one would have from it...A bit heavy, and would maybe cause confusion on 'So are people supposed to find Vanny sexy or think her outfit is part of Aftons disgusting treatment of her, Pick one', but still, I am curious how far they were planning to take this.

I feel like if they went the whole way with the creepy subtext and had it as a real addressed plot point that they could've made one hell of a statement. It could've also addressed and built on some of the questionable themes that I mentioned before. It could've been great!

...Problem is, it wasn't, and all we get from it is a few cut content lines and not a lot of concrete stuff on what actually happened. As it is now, we don't even know how willing Vanny was, how much physical to mental control William had, because neither the games nor the material around it make it entirely clear.

And that is the sort of thing that you can pretty much clear up in one or two lines if you manage to put them in the right place. I mean, I would prefer more than that, but you can clean that up.

I think it might have to do with how downgraded Vanny was in the final product, but I think it goes to show that she was an interesting character design concept first and didn't get much time to build up the rest.

But who knows. We'll probably see her in another game or two, but it would take a bit of work to fix what's broken... Or to at least take the plunge and decide whether or not they want to show it, since there was so much censoring in the game.

[writing-good-vibes]

for the dvd commentary ask thing;

I think this is the part that made me reconsider Grima even more (although i always had a dark fascination with the character, that strange appeal), so i wonder how this came to be, and why you had choosen the format you had (with reasons). I enjoy your works greatly and think you are such a skilled writer. Each piece I've read so far has so many interesting things in them, that i could read them time and tiem again (also thinking of your Bo/Vincent characters studies etc). If you decide to answer (no pressure); thank you! and i hope your day is going well!!

Citation from The Same Old Safe Bet:

Reason #3

You didn’t like Gríma, but you did like how he was friendly with you when you brought new sheets and furs to his room, or when he passed by as you swept the long, cold halls.

You were sweeping the halls between the royal bedchambers. The King resided here, as did his son and his brother’s children. Gríma has a chamber at the far end, a benefit of his station.

As you approached his door, you heard footsteps behind you. Turning, you saw the man himself, creeping up the hall. A pale grey light streamed in from the windows, but he faded into the shadows in between.

“Good day,” he greeted you.

When this first started, it was something of a novelty. Very few of the Royal household acknowledged you, let alone spoke to you, let alone –

But Gríma seemed to take a liking to you. You hadn’t asked any of the other girls if he ‘spoke’ to them, but you suspected he didn’t.

“Good day, My Lord,” you replied, eyes locked with his, even as you continued sweeping.

“You know, I’m sure you have enough brains to figure out that you don’t have to sweep this hall every day.”

Your lip quirked, “My Lord, I thank you for your vouching for my intelligence, but I have little better to do with my time anyway.”

“I’m sure you could find something to occupy yourself with, a pretty girl like you.” He turned away and went into his chamber, leaving the door open just a fraction. Just enough for it to be obvious.

Looking around, you checked the coast was clear, before discarding your broom and following Gríma into the familiar, dark cavern of his room, your hands already unlacing your bodice.

ahh thank you so much for sending an ask !!

oh grima, my beloved. honestly i was surprised how many people liked the grima fic, i really wrote it going "wow, everyone is going to think i'm a weirdo" and then everyone was like "you know what, actually, he could kinda get it". grima is a complex character that even i don't think i appreciate fully.

he's sly and clever and will do anything to save his own skin. i love him because i know no one else does and if you're the only one who loves him? well he's going to do anything for you isnt he.

the fact that my little fic made you reconsider parts of grima ?? i am humbled, i am in love, i am -- thank you so much for saying this !! 💖

fic commentary:

okay so honestly i wrote it as 5 reasons because the first line i wrote for it was "you didnt like grima." and it developed into "you didnt like grima but"

grima is easy to dislike and i honestly think that is kind of how a relationship would start with him, neither of you necessarily like each other, but theres something that draws you in

theres an understanding there that i really pine for so it was enevitable that is how a grima fic would go

i kept thinking of different scenarios of "we're not meant to be doing this but we're doing it anyway" that would work for 5 different reasons

honestly i wrote this as a thirst fic at the height of my brad dourif obsession and i would take any character i could get my hands on

grima is strangely alluring, i think, because he's the exact opposite of what is considered good or strong or manly or handsome. you're meant to find eomer attractive, and aragorn and legolas. all of these people are righteous and brave so you're meant to trust them.

i think theres something dark and dangerous about grima (in a much more unconventional way than the "bad boy" trope) that makes him the centre of my attention, at least.

he isnt trying to prove anything, and at the same time he's hiding everything

now to really get into reason #3, i kinda loved this one !!

grima is sneaky, he's coy, if he knows you're going to listen to him, why would he bother outright saying anything.

he does not underestimate people. underestimating people can get him hurt so he's always wary.

he can sense you're clever, he isnt going to disregard that.

there's a lot of things that pass for unspoken agreements between you and sex is one of them

you're someone he doesnt have to dumb down around, and he doesnt expect you to either

i think in this scenario there would be something thrilling about being the one grima respects (even if he doesnt act like he does later, but he's not good with Expressing Himself)

i kind of love the ending of this reason. if i dont say so myself.

just like, there is an inevitability about being with grima that i think would ground both of you

like the title says, his same old safe bet. he knows you'll always say yes and even if he's kind of an ass and all aloof about it, he needs that validation.

so even though he doesnt say anything outright, leaving the door open says so much for him. if you didnt follow him, boy his ego would be bruised.

honestly i wish i was better at dialogue to actually be able to write grima in a clever way -- the dialogue hear feels clunky but i like the essence of what i happening more anyway. the door being left open.

and another massive thank you, cannot tell you how much it means to me that my work is even slightly interesting enough for you to re-read !! i'm so glad you enjoy my sinclair stuff too, bo and vincent are endlessly interesting and i honestly get so much out of writing domestic sibling fics, theres so much to explore with them and it really helps me develop my world building to think about who they are outside of the glimpse that we get in canon.

thank you again for sending an ask !! i'll take any excuse to talk about my faves 😊😊 have a brilliant day/evening/night 💖

[actualbird]

nobody asked but here i analysed polygon’s “unraveled” and bon appetit test kitchen’s “gourmet makes” and i think they are similar and use three key story elements to their success | a 1.9k word long analysis by an unhinged creative writing fresh grad trying desperately to use their degree to connect two dots

If you asked me who my favorite internet celebrities are, I would not hesitate for a second to answer. Brian David Gilbert from Polygon and Claire Saffitz from Bon Appetit Test Kitchen. They’re awesome! They both host popular YouTube webshows about video games and cooking respectively, two things I am terrible at and don’t do very often. And yet I am enraptured by every episode of their shows. Why? How?

My thesis is this: Polygon’s “Unraveled” and Bon Appetit Test Kitchen’s “Gourmet Makes”, while wildly different shows on many levels, are extremely similar in how they use three key story elements very, very, well.

These three story elements are 1) Plot, 2) Character, and 3) FAWWIEOT (it’s an acronym, I’ll explain it later, I promise)

Let me start with the first and most basic story element these two shows wield amazingly: Plot.

Plot is, in simplest terms, what “happens” in a thing. This is what you’ll find on a movie’s Wikipedia page summary, the details of what went down, the events that took place, the things that occurred. There are many different types of plots because there are many different types of stories, but one of the most basic kinds of plots is very clearly illustrated by something called Freytag’s Pyramid.

Freytag’s Pyramid is a very simple plot that is moved forward by a non-negotiable in many, many stories: conflict. All is well, the line is straight, then a challenge arises and things start to escalate. At the climax, a decision or a group of decisions are made that leads to a de-escalation of the conflict, bringing things down until we are back at a flat line and the conflict has been resolved.

Every single episode of Gourmet Makes can be plotted onto Freytag’s Pyramid

Nearly every single episode of Unraveled can be plotted onto Freytag’s Pyramid too (with the exception of some, like a number of the categorization episodes, the Kojima name generator)

I know what you’re thinking. “So what if Gourmet Makes and Unraveled fit on some funky pyramid? What does that mean?” Well, dear reader, it reveals to us just one of three reasons why these shows are so enjoyable.

Freytag’s Pyramid is basic as shit, and yet it is one of the first plot structures taught to fictionists because people, up to this day, like it. Why? Because Freytag’s Pyramid fulfills two very important desires that we, as humans, love. 1) The desire for there to be a problem and 2) the desire for that problem to be resolved. It scratches our eternal itch to want to watch shit go down but doesn’t leave us up on a cliffhanger, it gives us our catharsis.

Gourmet Makes gives you the entertainment of watching Claire struggle with her task. Then Gourmet Makes shows you Claire slowly and surely rising above the challenge (notable in literally every episode of Gourmet Makes). Unraveled makes you watch BDG work himself up into a frenzy trying to do something stupid, but then Unraveled shows the payoff of...of watching BDG do something stupid, but this time towards some kind of resolution (very notable in the latest Unraveled “How to increase your stamina with terrible video game tactics”).

It is clear to me that Gourmet Makes and Unraveled both use plot in a way that gives viewers satisfaction. But what keeps them coming back for more?

Well that leads us to the second story element: Character.

People love Claire Saffitz and BDG.

Don’t believe me? Look through the tags of literally any gifset of either of them. Here, I did it for you. Here’s some tags for Claire:

And here’s some tags for BDG:

It’s pretty obvious to see that these two are well loved, but why? It’s not just because they’re both good looking, it’s because Claire Saffitz and BDG, with how they are presented in their shows, are good characters.

Claire Saffitz in Gourmet Makes isn’t scripted. She brings her own human frustration, determined hard work, and joyous glee to the show and it makes watching the show all the more enjoyable. BDG in Unraveled, however, is scripted, but he brings to the table his chaotic performance and ‘off the shits’ lecturer energy that brings the viewers in. Regardless of their differences, Gourmet Makes and Unraveled are similar when it comes to character because of one thing: they actually have characters.

What am I talking about? Well, for a period of time on the internet, people in the cooking media sphere and the video game media sphere settled for video content that was divorced from who was presenting the information. Videos like the ones from Tasty where everything was filmed top down and you only saw two hands perfectly putting ingredients into a bowl. Videos like the myriad of video game walkthroughs or video essays that are presented only by a disembodied voice who also seems allergic to actually having fun. This is content that hinges on the fact that people like seeing cooking or video games and that the presenter will mostly just be a background thing.

Bon Appetit Test Kitchen and Polygon both did not want to succumb to this style of presenting information. They both made the decision to bring their presenters into their video content, highlighting their respective presenters’ personalities, quirks, and styles. This is evident in all of Bon Appetit Test Kitchen and Polygon’s video content, not just Gourmet Makes and Unraveled. Do I watch Bon Appetit's show It's Alive because I want to actually make foccacia? No, it's because I love how Brad Leone  mispronounces words and makes me laugh. Did I watch "Fixing Anthem’s boring mech’s with ballsy design" because I actually give a shit about video games? No it's because I love how Pat Gill jokes about fake testicles and also I think he's hot.

The fact that there are actually characters for us on screen to see, makes Gourmet Makes and Unraveled good shit. We’ve got a plot with clear conflict, but that means nothing if there are no personas for us to root for. Gourmet Makes and Unraveled gives us these personas. They give us Claire Saffitz whom we want so desperately to see smile and succeed. They give us Brian David Gilbert whom we want so desperately to see go a little bit crazy. They give us people to connect to, and that often bridges the gap to viewers who honestly don’t give a shit about cooking or video games. Viewers like me who just keep coming back to Gourmet Makes and Unraveled because of the fact that these are characters I care about, these are characters who I want to see smile after finally nailing the recipe or slowly take off their suit as they tell me shit about Zelda I don’t understand.

Gourmet Makes and Unraveled utilize plot in a way that makes these webshows satisfying, and they use character in a way that makes these webshows accessible and keeps people invested.

But they go further.

This brings us to our last story element, not exactly a common or rudimentary one, but an important one nonetheless: Fucking Around With What Is Expected Of Them.

(I know there’s probably a legitimate literary term for this, but sue me, quarantine has kept me stuck in my house since March, so I may have forgotten the exact words I learned in class. FAWWIEOT will have to suffice.)

The gist of FAWWIEOT is that stories have been around for fuckin ever, and because of that, there are clear patterns and tropes that stories follow. FAWWIEOT is the recognition of those patterns and tropes, using them, but finding a different outcome or flair to make themselves special, to make themselves stick out. Kinda like when you’ve got a fic on AO3 tagged with ‘friends to lovers’ but also tagged with like, I dunno, something completely random like ‘character is also a dragon’. Use the tropes, but do something different. Give the audience something they already know, then throw in something new to make them remember your content specifically.

Gourmet Makes and Unraveled FAWWIEOT (I’m using the acronym like a verb now, this is my post, I’m allowed to) very purposefully using an important technique: Flaws.

The standard trope of a cooking show is the chef easily talking to the camera as they perfectly put the ingredients together. All the food comes out perfect on the first try and everything is heavenly and wonderful. Classic cooking shows like Barefoot Contessa (hosted by Ina Garten) and Everyday Italian (hosted by Giada de Laurentiis) followed this pattern, and it made for good television.

But who fucking watches television these days? Everything is online now, and the internet is vicious. If you aren’t interesting, the internet will throw you out to the gutter. So how did Gourmet Makes set themselves apart?

By showing you that things aren’t perfect after all. Gourmet Makes shows you every trial that Claire tries, they show you her successes, but also her failures. They show you when she gets tired and hopeless, they show you when she bounces back and tries again. Gourmet Makes made a cooking show that was flawed, and people loved it.

And what about Unraveled? The design of Unraveled, from BDG’s suit and mug to his presenting style, key us in to the fact that we are watching some sort of lecture. Some kind of educational performance. Personally, this makes me think that Unraveled is FAWWIEOT-ing academia and basically any other media where an “expert” talks at you.

The standard pattern of experts talking to you are basically like TedTalks. You have somebody very well versed in the topic trying to explain to you something, showing you their hypothesis, their process, and their findings.

Unraveled FAWWIEOTs expertise by making BDG research the most crazy shit like OSHA regulations or the Geneva Convention, make the wildest hypotheses like ‘Monster Energy in the morning will be a good idea’ or ‘Sonic is blasphemous’, and then, ultimately, completely unravel himself. The expert in Unraveled isn’t an all knowing being who is always right, he is flawed (and loses his marbles, more often than not.) And we love it.

FAWWIEOT-ing is key because of how it gives us a pattern we know, and then does something new. Novelty is important on the internet, and Gourmet Makes and Unraveled have made a name for themselves on the unique way they Fucked Around With What Was Expected Of Them.

Gourmet Makes and Unraveled are two of my favorite webshows on the internet as of now, and there are many reasons why, many reasons I didn’t include in this post. What I wanted to do here is to highlight how these shows use story elements to be good content because at the core of these videos, even if they aren’t literary fiction, they are good stories. Good stories with a plot that satisfies us, with characters we can see and love, with new twists that keep us on the edge of our seats.

Good stories make for good content, and Bon Appetit Test Kitchen and Polygon have me as a subscriber for as long as they continue on this road.

Thanks for reading!

(Read my other Polygon-adjacent analysis essays at actualbird.tumblr.com/tagged/nobody-asked-but

If you have any suggestions or ideas for more Polygon-adjacent analysis essays I can write, send me an ask!)

[sometimesiwritebadly]

Rehearsal (Peter Parker x Reader)

Summary: Peter and you have to rehearse a scene for your theatre class, which just so happens to have a kiss in it. (Gender neutral reader!)

Prompts: 1. “Why would you do this?” 22. “This is the part where you kiss me.”

Warnings: good old fashioned fluff

Note: Lol this one kinda got away from me. I used a random number generator to choose the prompts and only expected this to be like 800 words max but I ended up with over 2k so. but I really like what I ended up with so I hope y’all do too <3 mostly from Peter’s POV btw. oh and I tried to keep it gender neutral but it’s natural for me to write with a female reader so let me know if I accidentally left a few she’s/her’s in there.

Word Count: 2.1k

Masterlist

Peter Parker is a nerd. He’s good at science and math, which is why he’s attending Midtown School of Science and Technology. Despite the STEM focus the school has, there’s still a requirement for at least one art-related class in order to graduate. When Peter chose an entry level Theatre class, he hoped it would focus more on the study of famous plays than actually having to stand on a stage and act. Peter was very, very wrong. For the first assignment of the semester, students had to pair up and perform a short, dramatic piece. He had been paired with Y/N Y/L/N, who he had a minor crush on. Ok, major crush. After he and MJ broke up last year, he honestly didn’t think he’d find anyone else for a while. But then Y/N transferred to Midtown, and he was whipped right from the start. 

“Look man, you gotta use this opportunity to make a move!” Peter and Ned were walking down the hallway between classes, Ned trying to convince Peter again that this was a great chance to finally tell Y/N how he feels. “Just look up some cute scene for the two of you to perform! It’ll be like when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fell in love on set!”

“I’m pretty sure they broke up, Ned.”

“Whatever. The point stands.”

The pair approached their lockers, where you were waiting. You had a few papers in your hand, which held your attention until you noticed Peter in front of you.

“H-hey. What’s up?” Peter tried his best to contain his stutter, but couldn’t help it. Y/N just had that effect on him.

“Hey Pete, I, um, I found some potential scripts for us to use for our assignment. I thought you could look over them before we rehearse at mine on Friday? I like them all, so whichever you wanna go with is fine...although I did put a star next to my favorite piece.” You handed half of the papers you were holding to Peter, keeping copies of each script for yourself. Peter noticed that the copies you kept had already been highlighted and annotated, while his were straight from the printer. Except for the small star at the top of the first script in his stack. Before Peter could respond, the warning bell began to ring, signaling only a minute to get to your next class. “Just text me whichever one you want, and we can walk to my place after school tomorrow to rehearse.” You said this as you began to walk away, giving Peter and Ned a small wave before you turned around to race to your final class of the day. 

~~~

Instead of paying attention to his teacher’s lecture during Chemistry, Peter spent the 50 minute period reading through the scripts you had chosen. Peter already knew he wanted to perform the script you liked, but he was nervous. Your favorite scene happened to be the only one which called for a kiss, but he didn’t know if he had the guts to go for it. He could easily choose either of the other scenes and call it a day, but...well, was this your way of making a move? Had you intentionally chosen the script with a kiss to find out if Peter liked you? Did you like him? Or did you just choose that one because you genuinely thought it was the best option?

The bell rang, interrupting Peter’s thoughts and signaling the end of the school day. Hopefully a few hours of swinging through the streets of New York would be enough to distract Peter from thinking about you all night. For once, Peter was actually hoping New York criminals would keep him busy.

~~~

When Peter slipped through the window of his bedroom, his thoughts were unsurprisingly still revolving around you. Despite a somewhat busy night - two muggings, an almost-car crash, and one lost little girl now safely back with her mother - He still hadn’t been able to come to a decision. Half an hour ago you had texted Peter asking if he had chosen a script yet, and he still hadn’t responded. 

“Just go with the script they want, Pete. Even if Y/N doesn’t like you, at least you’ll get to kiss them.” He thought as he removed his skin-tight supersuit and changed into some sweats and a t-shirt. He grabbed his phone from the pocket of his backpack, and, after another minute or so of arguing with himself, finally began to type.

8:31 pm

Y/N:

hey pete, have you decided which script you wanna do yet?

9:06 pm

Peter:

Uh, yeah. I think the one you liked is the best.

9:08 pm

Y/N:

yesss, i was hoping you’d choose that one. i have great taste ;)

9:08 pm

Peter:

Haha, yeah, you do. We’ll rehearse tomorrow after school right?

9:10 pm

Y/N:

yup! i’ll meet you by your locker again :) see ya tomorrow pete

Peter decided to let the conversation end there. Honestly, he had no idea what to think. What does “I have great taste ;)” mean? Is that a reference to the kiss? Does this mean they like him? Or is it just a joke? Peter sent a screenshot of the conversation to Ned for help, but Ned being Ned wasn’t helpful at all. 

9:15 pm

Ned:

Just. Make. A. Move. 

9:16 pm

Ned:

Betty thinks you should make a move too.

Despite his confusion and nerves over tomorrow’s rehearsal, Peter managed to fall asleep at a reasonable time. Hopefully tomorrow he’d get the answers he was looking for.

~~~

Peter waited by his locker after the final bell rang. As the hallways began to clear, he noticed you making your way over to him.

“Sorry, I hope you weren’t waiting too long. My English class is basically all the way across the school.” You looked nervous. Is that good? Or bad? Have you been thinking about the kiss too?

“Y-you’re fine. I’ve only been here for like a minute.” That was a lie. Peter’s Chemistry class was just across the hall from his locker, but you didn’t need to know that. After he finished talking, you seemed to lose all sense of nerves.

“I guess it wasn’t me causing the nerves then…” Peter thought, his mood dropping a little.

“Oh good. Let’s get going then, my apartment is only a couple blocks from here.” And so you began the short walk to your place. You made some small talk on the way there, talking about your other classes instead of the one class you did share. 

“You have Mrs. Jenson third period right? I have her during fifth. Maybe we can study together for her tests...I know the school year just started, but I can already tell she’ll make her tests unnecessarily evil.” You said as the both of you entered your building. 

“That’s a good idea, I know someone who took her class last year and they said she always had essay questions. Not to mention 5 choices for multiple choice questions instead of the usual four.” Peter responded. As he spoke, they headed towards the elevator, and Y/N pressed the button, causing the doors to immediately open. After hitting the number 4 on the wall, the doors slowly began to close. Despite the unfortunate news he was sharing with Y/N, his voice had a hopeful tone to it; They want to hang out with him again. Sure, it’s just loose plans to study for a test sometime in the future, but hey, he’ll take it.

“Damn. History has never been my subject, so I’ll definitely need the extra study time. I can never remember all the important dates.” Your phone buzzed after that, causing you to glance down at it. As you responded to whoever had texted you, Peter was left to his thoughts when the elevator began to move. It wasn’t until the elevator doors opened and you stepped out that the conversation resumed. “That was my mom, guess she’s gonna be at work for a few more hours. We can order a pizza if you want, I’m not sure how long we’ll be rehearsing today.”

“Pizza, uhm,” Peter’s voice cracked, “Pizza sounds good.” Peter cursed to himself, but if you had noticed his voice cracking, you had the decency to ignore it. You pulled your keys from your backpack, and unlocked the second apartment on the floor. 

“Cool, I’ll order something online. Pepperoni ok for you?” You asked as you walked into the apartment, holding the door open for Peter. Peter only nodded, not really trusting his voice for the moment. He took a second to look around the place as you closed the door behind him. When you came into his eyesight again, you were looking at your phone, presumably ordering the pizza. “Since my mom isn’t here we can rehearse in the living room, it’s just this way.” Peter followed you as you led him across the apartment, then sat on the couch. He tried to give you space as you continued punching in the pizza order. While you were busy, Peter opened his own backpack and pulled out the script you had agreed upon. Last night he had highlighted his lines, although luckily for this assignment the teacher had mentioned that memorization was optional. After all, the school year had just begun and it was a beginner’s class.

“Ok, pizza will be here in like half an hour. Now we can get to work!” You quickly pulled out your own script from your backpack, and turned to face Peter. “Do you wanna just read through it a few times, then once we’re used to it we could start working out the blocking?” You suggested.

“Y-yeah, sure, that works for me.” Peter was relieved at this option; read throughs meant he didn’t have to worry about the kiss yet. “Your character starts, right?”

And so the two of you began reading through the script. It was short, only a few pages, and featured someone on the day of their wedding, and the man who was trying to convince them to leave their fiance. At first, the reading was a little awkward, as neither of you had any experience in acting, but by the third or fourth time you had gone through the script together, both of you were feeling much more comfortable. Instead of sitting away from each other on opposite ends of the couch, you were close, the way your characters would be. The blocking had even begun to take shape naturally, so you and Peter stood for the fifth reading, walking around the room, trying your best to embody the characters as they argued. This time, as you approached the end of the script however, Peter’s nerves returned.

“Why would you do this? Just barging in here on my wedding day?” You said, trying to act as frustrated and confused as you felt your character would be. 

“You and I both kn-know you don’t love him! You’ll never be happy with him!” Peter tried to keep his nerves in check, but he knew what was coming.

“And how do you know I’d be happier with you?” Following the stage directions indicated on your script, you stepped closer to Peter. Instead of continuing with the scene, Peter just stared at you, no longer looking at his script. “Uh, Pete?” He still didn’t respond. You were confused, until you looked back at the script. You weren’t sure how you had forgotten, after all, this is why you chose the scene in the first place. “Peter, this is the part where you kiss me” You said quietly. You had taken his choosing of this scene to mean he liked you too, but you weren’t sure. His eyes widened a little at your words though, which made your confidence drop. “O-or not, um, we could do a stage kiss, or you could just kiss my cheek, or we could just cut it complet-” Peter cut off your rambling by putting his hands on your cheek and bringing his lips to meet yours. You were shocked, but easily melted into the kiss. He was gentle as he kissed you, his nerves disappearing the second you kissed him back. After a while, you both separated from the kiss. Neither of you spoke for a minute, just staring at each other.

“U-um.. that was ok, right?” Peter whispered, as you were still pretty close to him. You only smiled, and gave him another short kiss as a response. Before you guys could do anything else, there was a knock at the door.

“Pizza!” Someone said loudly through the wood. Before you could make a move, Peter had grabbed his wallet and was already walking towards the front door.

“I’ll pay...after all, what kind of gentleman would I be if I let you pay on our first date?”

[dajaregambler]

HeliosR - Akira Otori Character story - part 3

Translation of the third part of Akira’s character story from ‘Helios Rising Heroes’. 

Juvenile boy: Excuse meee! Could you please throw that ball over here?

Gast: Ooh, gotcha. Make sure to catch it, alright?

Young boys: Thank you so much!

Gast: Haha, these lil’ guys ‘round here are pretty polite. Have the times changed?

Akira: Well, obviously they have given how I’m in charge of South now.

Gast: Yeah, yeah, though it hasn't been more than half a month since we got assigned. Always in high spirits, aren’tcha

Gast: Man, this basketball court s’pretty nostalgic. We’d often hang around, wasting our time there back in the day

Akira: Or these underground café’s in alleyways. But we started gathering in warehouses after some guy goofed up and police got their eyes on him

Gast: Aaah, right, right. That’s from ‘bout 4, 5 years ago now, eh…

Akira: Hmm, has it been that long. Don’t really remember much of it

Gast: Anything that’s inconvenient doesn’t stick for too long with you, don’t it, Akira. Does with me though, like back when you wanted to join me and all

Gast: You showed up out of nowhere, acting pretty cocky. Going all “I’ll bring ya down and become the best delinquent out there~”, somethin’ like that

Akira: W-what….? Ya sure you ain’t mistaking me for some other guy?

Gast: Guess I gotta leave it at that. Anyways, thanks for inviting me to hang out today, Akira

Gast: You’re gonna tag along to that darts bar after we’re done eating too, right? Really lookin’ forward to it

Akira: I kept saying how we should definitely come and hang around again in Red South after being admitted but, didn’t really have the chance due to how busy I was

Gast: Can’t say it's the same for me though. Well, you do look like you gotta bring South to number one on the sector ranking?

Akira: ….Don’t wanna hear any snark from the guy who’s sector is standing in first place

Gast: Haha, m’bad for that. How’s stuff goin’ lately anyway?

Gast: Brad’s your mentor, but it don’t feel like you two are hitting it off?

Akira: Oi. I’m enjoying my day off here, don’t rain on my parade by making me think of that guy’s face 

Gast: You sayin’ that means it’s the same as usual, eh…

Akira: Aaaugh~ just remembering it made me angry! I’ll definitely prove myself by become THE strongest hero!

Gast: He got fired up… Ain’tcha gon’ burn out by going on like that?

Akira: A genius doesn’t mess up like that

Akira: Though you say so but how’s stuff on your part, Gast. Didn't ya say how North’s got a lot of Northy things to it?

Akira: With Ren, well, I can imagine it already but… Don’t both of ya mentors come over as crazy guys

Gast: I’ll keep my mouth shut ‘cuz I ain’t wanna sound like I’m being grumpy but… It is pretty crazy, in a different sense than you think it is 

Akira: Really…. That Marion’s pretty self-important towards you too, ain’t he

Akira: Actually I’m sure I asked this before but, aren’t Marion and Will the same age? Don’t that make him a year younger than ya?

Akira: He’s younger and yet he acts superior, why don’t you say anything to him

Gast: Hey, hold on there, age’s got nothin’ to do with it. It’s damned clear who’s the mentor and who’s the rookie?

Gast: Besides, Marion acts like that towards everyone, he’s got what it takes

Akira: Would’ve ya taught him a lesson if he didn’t?

Gast: Man, you’re really…. Enough of that, it’s time for you to graduate from that behaviour

Akira: Just wanted to try and say it. Besides I’ve graduated long time ago, I’m no longer some kinda delinquent, but a hero

Akira: But…honestly, there is something that’s a liiiiiittle bit unclear to me though

Gast: What is it?

Akira: ‘Cuz you’re, like---

Delinquent A: All of you, get your sorry asses outta this court. This is our territory

Gast: Huh, what?

Juvenile boy: Eh, um… We always play basketball here though…

Delinquent B: Does it look like I care. It’s ours now from today on, guys that get in without permission will be… don’t think I gotta say anything else ‘bout that, aye?

Juvenile boy: Wah...a k-knife!?

Akira: Grr, what’re these guys doing….

Gast: Oi Akira, you ain’t gonna just suddenly barge in are y---

Akira: Bastards! What’cha all doing there!

Gast: Haah, he totally didn’t listen…

--

Akira: Ya shouldn’t be pointing something so dangerous at others, hurry up and drop it

Delinquent A: What the fuck’s up with y-.... Huh, it’s some guy from Helios. We ain’t scared of you or the police, so beat it

Akira: ...Fine. I was just giving a warning but, what’ll happen after this is lies on you guys for ignoring m-

Gast: What did I tell you about yapping like a delinquent, Akira

Akira: Ouwch!?

Akira: You fu-...Gast! How dare you bonk me on the head, I was killing it with my cool act!

Gast: Yeah, yeah. You’re the same as those guys who don’t listen, always storming off first and snapping at the others with no hesitation

Delinquent A: Oi…. Didn’t that guy just, say “Gast”?

Delinquent B: I heard it too… Actually, haven’t I seen that face somewhere before?

Gast: Hm?

Delinquent A: Um, excuse me, my good sir~.... If I’m not mistaken, are you perhaps Gast Adler….?

Gast: Yeah, what ‘bout it?

Delinquent A: Hweeeh…!? He’s THAT “Gast” for real!

Delinquent B: I heard that he had retired, so WHY is he here? I don’t want anything to do with this, we gotta run!

Akira: There they go… So they knew about you. Well, you were petty well-known back in your delinquent days

Gast: Guess my dark past is gonna keep on trailing behind me, how embarrasin’...

Akira: Heheh, I think it’s really awesome♪

Gast: What are you actin’ so proud for….

Akira: Aah. If only I could’ve shown this to that Marion

Akira: Showing off Gast scaring off delinquents with only his face and name, how his younger bros still idolize him till this day

Akira: Honestly, if ya were to tell me that you we’re a mentor, I wouldn’t think twice about it. That’s the kind of guy you are, a good senpai.

Gast: Akira, did you just call me your “senpai”?

Gast: Going back to the day we met, you’d always be calling after me with that cocky ‘tude of yours...

Akira: We’re buddies but, strictly speaking we are senpai and kouhai. Ain’t gonna say it again though, take it as a one time thing

Gast: Yeah, that’s fine. It’d be nice if you were to call me “Gast-san” while wagging your tail like these bros of mine once in a while

Akira: Haaah? I’m not gonna wag my tail for anyone, I’m a man who’ll become the strongest hero!

Gast: Haha, got it

Gast: ….Honestly, with how he’s doing now, I’m sure he’ll be saying how good of a mentor Brad was down the line

Akira: Hmm? What did ya just say, Gast?

Gast: Hm- … Aah, just how you’re in a good mood as you usually are, and how it makes you a loveable idiot

Akira: Bwughagh!? What the hell, you bastard!

Gast: C’mon, let’s get moving and grab a bite. Wanna play darts as soon as possible too

Akira: Wah, wait Gast! I ain’t an idiot….!

[sallyannthearts]

Netflix Series ‘Sex/Life’ Review

*Spoiler Alert* 

So I don't know why I even started the series. Was tired, couldn't focus on anything and decided 'Hey, let's watch something 'guilty pleasure' worthy (think Twilight... etc). The premise of the series seemed interesting enough so I went with it.

Watch it for the sex? 

It's okay. Some parts were rather steamy contrary to what other critics said. 

And yes, there was A LOT of sex. The beginning few episodes even felt like a soft porno with all the stereotypical ideas of sex locations played out. I managed to get to the infamous shower scene where you see Brad's huge thingy (it was kinda the reason why I continued at first); and no, it wasn't as shocking to me as Billie's face portrayed when she sees 'it' for the 1000th time via Facetime (What a choice of acting..., though she's not as bad most of the time. I actually found her acting rather touching and teared up for her character a few times.) 

The Debate of Sex vs Life: 

Actually there is a good debatable subject to the whole series. The one about whether someone who gives you the same stability in a relationship can give you the same summer fling butterflies forever. It also questions the younger self who's reckless and the older one tied down to responsabilities, choice or not. 

Of course, no surprise, nobody has the answer. But they could have done a rather good series around the subject. 

But no...  the ending of the series makes it clear that her happy married life -her husband looks like Captain America with six packs and all, she's rich too- can't ever be enough. And sure, it's her POV and her life. But the build up towards it was not good. It left viewers - as one critic put it- depressed of both sex and life after watching it. HAHA. 

The show portrays married life to be dead, despite trying to show the cute kids (who as one critic put it- is rather scary... and I have to agree on this one). They put Billie in suburbia with typical desperate housewives... of course it's a no brainer! 

I guess you gotta take a step back and let the ending be one only for Billie because of her situation and her location. I think she should have just left suburbia to work out a better life with her- personally I find hotter than the ex- husband. Why do you need so much space in that mansion where you barely spend time anyway? 

Too bad for the ex: 

Sure, he gets her back at the end... physically. But he will never get the family he wants. Halfway through the show, you learn that Brad is a typical badboy because of childhood traumas. He finally dares to go see his real father and magically works out his shit years later. He comes back to ask her to marry him since he now understands it all... She turns him down because she's so into her family. She comes back to his doorstep at the last minute. She tells him 'I will never leave my husband.' but... 'Fuck me now.' Ouch. Poor dude is only ever be good for one thing. The Writing / Acting: Okay, some parts were... But generally, I think with what the actors were given, they did quite a good job. I wouldn't slam them for their acting as many critics have done. And god, not especially when you have to film so many sex scenes in public, dieting the rest of the time off screen for that hot bod. Like I said, I even teared up for Billie a few times. Sure, I'm very sensitive but still! 

Watch it? 

Hmm, for the controversy surrounding it... If you're braindead and just wanna bingewatch something quickly. It's 8 episodes of 40 minutes or so.

[theadorablespderman]

Everything to love about Far From Home not in this order:

Literally seeing that opening with all our loved avengers that are no more.

Whitney Houston “I will always love you” made me cry because damnit Tony’s face was right THERE! NOT OK!

The blip footage was pretty damn funny not gonna lie.

Peter’s cute ass plan to tell MJ how he feels.

MJ’s favorite flower being a Black Dalia because of the murder. Literally a girl I can relate too. Murderinos for life sister. Idk but it just made her sooo relatable!

The fact that Brad is a kid grown up from the blip and that made him seem all the weirder for MJ.

Jealous Peter was so freaking amazing! Oh my gosh! That face he’d get. I’m a sucker for jealousy and they did it so good.

Making MJ this awesome character she was before but also obviously has this softer layer where she does have flaws and insecurities and she’s really sweet but also so badass. That was amazing.

The starting relationship between Peter and Beck. It was cute and so I was sad knowing that Beck was somehow going to be the villain.

Also let’s talk about how Beck is basically Syndrom from the incredibles.

That scene with Peter and Brad....the pure terror when he snapped that picture

Also seeing how big of a dick Brad is and how unhealthy jealous he was.

“Nick Fury” getting ghosted, showing up in Venice, tranquilising Ned (don’t touch him you monster) and then promptly highjacking Peters Summer trip.

Showing the emotional trama Peter is going through. The anxiety, the greiving. It was very reminiscent of Iron Man 3 when Tony suffers from PTSD after the battle of New York. I loved that they showed Peter reacting as any kid would, many adults too, which is to just try and forget anything happened but being faced with the reality every day. So well done.

Happy and May’s relationship. Enough said 😂😂

I feel cheated we didn’t see Mr delmore again.

Addressing all the problems the Blip/Snap created. High school aging, school, drinking ages, homelessness and housing issues. That’s just the start of it I’m sure but they covered those pretty well and I love that.

The technology that made Beck into Misterio was so well done. Instead of some frankly, kinda far fetched story that he came from an alternate earth (which I was willing to believe but felt it was a cop out in terms of plot and character) they showed the real world issues that superhero’s can create. The Enemies that have a real deep rooted hatred for hero because they’ve personally been betrayed or wronged by them. Because marvel has always made clear, everyone is not on the hero’s side.

Steeping Misterio’s powers in tech which is classing marvel but again, so brilliantly done in this movie. I loved the development. Because at first glance, half way through, I was thinking “wow this is really kinda weird and unexplained and too witchcraft for what marvel usually brings to the superpower backstory” I know it’s weird to say after everything marvel has done. But it seemed just a tad out there without being too hard to grasp. Which again was brilliantly done because that was the whole point.

The nod to Misterio’s helmet even when Beck was in the hologram suit watching everything play out. I guess it was his screen? But I loved the staple of even without his big over the top suit he still had the trademark helmet. Great costume design.

Peter’s soft gazes towards MJ. Nearly gave me a cavity they were so sweet! Ahhh sooo cute

Mr. Harrington’s marital problems nearly made me pee my pants....we all knew here in the fandom that shit like that would half to happen but my god lol

The opera scene was sooo freakin cute and that one step Peter took when he saw Brad move in was so freaking cute and hot!

MJ running after him and finding the critical peice of information to crack the case wide open. Loved it.

Betty and Ned’s Sicily sweet romance that you knew couldn’t possibly last. They really nailed the realistic high school romance. But I still ship it.

The bus scene was epic. And when Peter knocked Flash out...god it was amazing.

Mj obviously having love eyes towards Peter same as he does for her.

THE FACT THAT HE ACTUALLY BOUGHT THAT NECKLACE FOR HER OH MY GOD! I CANT GET A GUY TO TEXT ME BACJ LET ALONE BUY A NECKLACE LIKE THAT WHICH PROBABALY COST A GOOD CHUNK OF CHANGE IT WAS SO FREAKING AMAZING AND CUTE AND TOUCHING.

All the iron man images got me feeling depressed as hell

“are you being serious because I was only like 67% sure?” That was amazing. Seeing MJ get so excited and trying to keep that hidden was awesome

The fact that she was so pleased with herself but also played it hella cool when Ned walked in and she said she figured it out. Literally that is me.

The shirtless Peter trope that we all wanted and freaking got! So freaking cute how she tried to peak at his abs. Like understandable girl.

The fucking illusions. Turning our sweet trusting Peter into a ball of mess. I was too.

God when he had to tell himself it wasn’t real but it still totally feels like it is.

Him trying to save MJ when she’s “thrown off the Eiffel Tower”

Every traumatizing thing Beck shows and tells him during the illusion. So shitty.

Seeing Tony’s grave, seeing iron man come out. That was awful and we all felt it in the movie because we’ve lost him too. We could FEEL that slap same as Peter.

Beck telling Peter that Tony’s death was his fault. I was abouta hurl myself at the movie screen.

Every illusion done in a way that just when you think it’s over, it’s never stopped. You forget what’s real and you feel trapped in it same as Peter does.

WHEN HE GETS HIT BY THE TRAIN!!!!!!!!!! Nearly had a damn heart attack!!!! My mom had to look over and ask if I was ok because I literally stopped breathing for a solid 30 seconds.

Showing gradually just how insane and evil Misterio was.

HAPPY BEING CONCERNED FOR PETER! LIKE SINCERELY AND HONESTLY CONCERNED! It’s good to know he’s got Happy to take care of him and May but that Peter still has a father type figure he can count on after Tony. Because you know Tony wouldn’t have put up with any of that getting hit by a train shit.

Also where the hell was Karen? We missed her. We got Edith but Karen wouldn’t have let Misterio take her over. WHERE WAS KAREN!!

Peter crying and needing to know Happy was real. Broke me heart

That hug between them was so sweet and you can see the concern on Happy’s face

Happy and Peter opening up to each other was so awesome considering their relationship in Homecoming.

ALL THE TONY and PETER PARRELLS! All of them!!!!!!!!! Not the people saying “Spider-Man’s the next Ironman” no the actual hints and glimpses at how similar him and tony actually are. The hologram gauntlet shot, a straight parallel to Iron Man when Tony is building his first real suit. Obviously “Back in Black” by Led Zeplen (formally known as AC/DC) playing. Another obvious hint toward Tony. The Stark sunglasses. Peter falling with the parachute and it literally looks like Ironman with his jet stream behind him from a distance. There’s so much more I’ll do a whole other post on.

Of course: “I love Led Zeplin!” Hahaha it’s such a kid thing to say! I’ve said it before I knew the big differences between AC/DC and Led Zeplin. It was so freaking perfect.

Peter making his suit and Happy’s face. Bittersweet and I live for the affection he holds for Peter now.

The Netherlands Holding cell...must I say more?

Brad’s downfall and MJs amazing comment about him taking pictures of people in the bathroom. Ep-ic. Even flash was like “bro that’s so weird”

Mr. witchcraft was hilarious and I loved his aside with Brad “I’m gonna be the cool teacher and tell you you can’t do that anymore.”

Flash is definately Gay or Bi and I’m so here for it. That wink he makes to Peter proves it.

All the near death truths in the vault of the tower.

MJ BADDASS COMES SWINGING WITH THE MACE AND IT WAS LEGINDARY OH MY GOD! YES GIRL! She’s my idol I love her so much.

Peter and his “Peter Tingle” And while we’re on the subject the banana he gets to the face while packing.

Important. His amazing skills at the end trusting his instincts (which is great because May says in regards to MJ, but it applies to this too) May tells Peter to trust his instincts and don’t think too much. And that’s what he does when he defeats Beck.

The bad ass “you can’t fool me anymore” after redirecting the gun away from his head at the end. Literally was so intense and well done.

Peter and MJ’s kisses! I loved how awkward it was at first and the slightly less awkward one. They really accurately captured the awkwardness of teenagers in love. Like that’s what it’s like guys.

Show me MJ’s parents you cowards, or show me something. Anything. I just want to know the nature of the situation.

Ned and Betty’s breakup. So funny and honestly not surprising at all. But still I ship them.

The hand hold. So cute.

May and Peter still being the cutest aunt and nephew duo there ever was.

I totally thought Peter was going to end with telling the world he was spiderman....BUT SOME OTHER ASSHOLES DID IT FOR HIM AND MADE HIM INTO A VILLAN AND IM PISSED. LOOKING AT YOU MR JAMESON YOU PEICE OF SHIT.

The movie ended and I have no idea what’s next.

Mid credit of MJ swinging through New York. Home girl doesn’t like and neither do I. Looks full on terrifying we don’t blame you hun.

After credit where the skrulls have been playing Maria and Nick fury for the whole movie. Honestly it made more sense because Nick fury seemed just a bit off. ALSO WHERE IS THE REAL NICK FURY at and I’m so psyched to see where this new movies are gonna go!

Alright that all for now folks!!!! Everything about the movie was great!!! I will have to watch again ad see if anything more pops up. Sorry for any spelling errors I’m on my phone.

[avauntus]

Supernatural - a retrospective

This is super self-indulgent, and I have so much else I’ve promised-- I owe a long-fic rec post, and ao3 comments, wip work, and that’s just my fandom stuff I’m behind on. *sigh*

But it’s late on a Saturday and now I’ve finished Supernatural, I want to share what I think are my top few eps, and a few other comments. I promise some of this will be different from the “greatest hits” you probably usually see, and I’ll try to make it worth your time. *wry smile*

Look, we have to have categories like: “Most Likely to Live in My Head Rent-Free for the Rest of my Life” and “Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction” that are different from “Favorites,” because that’s just the cursed energy this show has. ;-)

My top five

#5 - 13.01 - “Lost and Found”

Written by: Andrew Dabb | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia

In fandom, this is most often referred to as the start of the “Grieving Widower” arc, tongue-in-cheek. Also has Alexander Calvert (Jack) walking around completely in the nude for the first third of the ep. (Neither of these are why this is in my top 5, but he has a good story about wardrobe for his ‘first day.’) 

I didn’t expect much out of this episode the first time I watched it, but I’ve gone over this ‘section’ of the show maybe 3-4 times in my Netflix catch-up, and I watch this one in full every time. From Jack being...not at all what anyone expected and an unsteady vindication, to the stunning cinematography (there’s a post that compares shots to Brokeback Mountain, but I think the shots here might be better), to the sheriff who takes the time to remind her deputy that “...there’s no such thing as ‘weird.’ Everyone’s normal in their own way,” to the slow reveal of exactly how hard the events of the previous night (12x23 - All Along the Watchtower) are hitting Dean and Sam and in different ways...(how long the episode takes to reveal to you how Dean fucked up his hand, and what he was saying when he did. Augh!) The Winchesters are trying to rally, but they have been taking hits for a long time, and the cracks are showing.

 #4 - 15.06 - “Golden Time”

Written by: Meredith Glynn | Directed by: John F. Showalter

Supernatural  has a terrible track record with representation in all stripes. It is infamously consistent in killing off anyone minority, female, or non-White. One of the interesting things about the chaotic meta-narrative of season 15 is you can see the lack of fucks some of the writer’s room had to give about not even being subtle about tearing down that type of ‘White-male-hero-journey” now that they were in a literal “what will they do, fire me?” situation.

I’m a Cas fan, and this episode, which gives him an actual, ‘case-of-the-week’ hunter’s narrative where he gets to save the day on his own, successfully, was wonderful. I love that for him! But more than that, for me, this episode is emotional to me for other reasons-- the way Dean and Cas circle around each other on their angry phone call (with the body language! They are broadcasting so LOUD and neither can see because they’re on the phone!), Sam’s story here, where he’s inheriting things from Rowena that allow him in turn to save Eileen, to Cas’ speech and quick anger at the lake when you reflect on his entire journey of self-realization from a soldier of blind faith to an agent of free will... “You selfish little men in your positions of authority...” I just... *clears throat, grabs tissue* 

#3 -  6.20 - “The Man Who Would Be King”

Written & Directed by: Ben Edlund

Speaking of Cas’ journey... I know some folks don’t like the angst and drama of the ‘Heaven and Hell’ plots of Supernatural, but I am here for it. Oh, did we need another reason to include this episode? This has some of the most metal quotes I have heard from any TV show. Ever.

I mean, look at this:

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have said: Freedom is a length of rope. God wants you to hang yourself with it.”

“Explaining freedom to angels is a bit like explaining poetry to fish.”

The delivery of: “It's not too late. Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!” “Dean, it’s not broken!” is one of those Supernatural bits that will live in my head until the end of time. All of Edlund’s episodes are among my favorites, but this (along with “5.04 - The End”) was on another level. 

#2 - 5.16 - “Dark Side of the Moon”

Written by: Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin | Directed by: Jeff Wollnough

I think of this episode every time  I hear Bob Dylan sing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” This is kinda a giant montage episode, but the connecting concepts are so...satisfying. 

“Heaven is your favorite memories.” “ It’s called the axis mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt.” “This is your idea of heaven? Wow, this was one of the worst nights of my life.” “I don’t think I realized how long you’ve been cleaning up Dad’s messes.” “It’s awesome to finally have an application—a practical application—for string theory.” “Everyone leaves you, Dean. You noticed?” “Why is God talking to me? Gardner-to-gardener, and between us, I think he gets lonely.” “You son of a bitch, I believed in... ” Whoosh.

#1 - 4.01 - “Lazarus Rising”

Written by: Eric Kripke | Directed by: Kim Manners

So...this is the episode where Castiel, angel of thee Lord, shows up. And that’s primarily why it earns the no. 1 spot, because 80% of my enjoyment of Supernatural from this point on was Cas-adjacent. Plus this entire episode just hits. ALL OF IT. Dean’s homecoming. Ruby, my darling. Bobby’s entire vibe. Pamela Barnes, easily one of the most interesting women Supernatural ever introduced. Cas being so hot to say “Hi” to Dean he forgets he wounds people. 

But beyond that-- the way the show writes their ‘oh, by the way, angels’ narrative! If you haven’t seen this episode, would you believe me if I told you that THIS EPISODE, the episode where Supernatural said “canonically, Judeo-Christian Heaven is real, btw” involves no churches but does involve a séance, a soulmark handprint brand, and a himbo angel that “gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition”...but they were all “no homo, guys” for years?

Truly no one was out here doing it like Supernatural even back in 2008.

Others--

15.18 - “Despair” 

“Most Likely to Live Rent-Free in My Head for the Rest of my Life”

Written by: Robert Berens | Directed by: Richard Speight, Jr.

You know why this episode is here. It broke reality. I could be wrong-- but I’d put good money on this episode being the subject of academic theses in the future. That doesn’t automatically make for interesting story, but...

Has there ever been a case, in a mainstream US TV show where a major lead character (Cas) came out as queer so late in the game in a narratively-important way? I’m not aware of it, but I might just be behind on my television.

This episode has great writing, and (blessedly) amazing direction and blocking anyway. Check out the above gif - that is some next level foreshadowing going on in the cinematography, and this isn’t even the most remarked upon shot in this episode. (Seriously, I had to search for 40 minutes for this gif, please respect my game, lol.) Everyone who was involved in 15x18 is giddy talking about their investment, from the costume designer to the actors to the director to the writer...

...And then a bunch of them steadfastly have avoided posting much Supernatural-related since. So that’s...loud. There is a bunch of subtext in this episode that is screamingly loud; there is a bunch of text in this episode that makes several things clear fandom has been chattering over for years and years. The meta-commentary around this episode continues, months later. There are over 700 fics on AO3 with this episode tag.

I have more to say about the themes of ‘free will’ and ‘love’ and ‘identity’ tied to this episode, but seriously-- you’ve probably read 17 versions of it on Tumblr already, so.

This is the last time we see Cas, and the last time Supernatural can claim anything close to narrative consistency. For that alone, it’d earn free head-space.

Runners-up: “4.20 - The Rapture”; “5.04 - The End”; “7.21 - Reading is Fundamental”; “8.21 - The Great Escapist”; “9.06 - Heaven Can’t Wait”; “12.19 - The Future”; “14.08 - Byzantium”

6.17 - “My Heart Will Go On”/8.07 - “A Little Slice of Kevin”

“Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction”

Written by: Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder (6.17); Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia (6.17); Charlie Carner (8.07)

Usually the show kills off it’s “one-episode” female characters, but do you know one time it didn’t? When the Moirai (the Fates - specifically Atropos, the shearer of the Threads of Fate) showed up in canon in 6.17. She was posited to have “two older sisters that were bigger than her- in every sense of the word,” ...and Castiel had to back down when she challenged him to a cosmic game of chicken over the Winchester’s lives.

Then they never returned to that idea again. 

“A Little Slice of Kevin” is on here for the opposite reason -- an amazing idea that was really underwritten in the episode it showed up in. Dean Winchester has been dragging himself across the fabric of universes; the literal Word of God is in play in a warehouse in Middle America; Cas is back from Purgatory, but what does that mean, micro and macro? As a person on the street, what would it mean, or feel like, to learn you were a Prophet of the Lord, uncalled? That what you are, everything you are, is a cosmic contingency?

Maybe Fate has an opinion on all these shenanigans?

Perhaps all that doesn’t make sense, but it certainly made an impression on ~2012 me. To this day, it remains the WIP I can open up and fool myself with the ‘twist.’ I wish I remembered where I was going with it so I could finish it.

Runners Up: “2.20 - What Is and What Should Never Be”; “5.04 - The End”; “6.15 - The French Mistake”; 12.12 - “Stuck in the Middle (with you)”; “13.05 - Advanced Thanatology” “14.03 - The Scar”; “14.10 - Nihilism”; “15.15 - Gimme Shelter” ... and “15.20 - Carry On” (obviously)

Fifteen seasons. There were plenty of other episodes I loved that didn’t make these limited lists. But overall -- thank you, Supernatural, for the run. Even if I’m upset at the ending, I can appreciate the game. If you watch the show, what were your favorite episodes?

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

*yawn* Wow, I finally got some good sleep. Back to the Ranma Rewatch, then. Hey there, long time no see, going to try and get back on track. This week we’re still in the middle of the season 2’s opening story arc, and another main character shall be introduced to us. Will I like him better than I did ten years ago? Only way to find out is to look at the next paragraph, from when I’ve watched the episode.

This episode raised my hopes and then gently lowered them a little, but on the whole I’m happier than I thought I would have been.

The story starts with Akane taking Ranma to see Dr. Tofu, under the assumption that as someone with lots of experience with Chinese medicine, he’d be able to fix what Cologne did to Ranma. Sadly, the technique used is something only a master could do, far outside of his wheelhouse. However, there is one thing he could do.

To counteract the Full Body Cat Tongue, Tofu hits a different pressure point in Ranma, one named after old men from Tokyo. Why? Because apparently they’re well known for being able to stand even the most scalding heat in their baths, and this technique gives the user that same ability. Sure enough, it let’s Ranma return to his uncursed state, but there’s a catch. Kasumi calls, turning Dr. Tofu into a bumbler before he can give the warning, so Ranma and Akane just head to school.

After class, Akane harangues Ranma into taking her out for food, which their classmates immediately notice has a lot of romantic energy to it. Then Shampoo and Cologne appear, amazed that Ranma somehow found a way around the elderly amazon’s strategy, but Cologne seems sure anyway that this won’t be an issue.

But wait! Out of nowhere, someone new appears. His name is Mousse, and he’s a man from the amazon village who has been in love with Shampoo since they were kids. He has terrible eyesight, so bad that he frequently mistakes people for the love of his life, and after a series of confusions he learns that Shampoo is dead set on marrying Ranma.

Mousse attacks Ranma, and challenges him to a manly duel for Shampoo. But she refuses that, so instead makes the duel over Akane for seemingly no reason, which Ranma agrees to. Oh, and he’s known for using ‘dark magic’ which is in practice more sleight of hand and weapon-based techniques.

That evening, Akane is doing what she frequently does when pissed off, namely training in the dojo. Ranma shows up, clearly aware he really stepped in it and wanting to make amends by making it clear there’s no way he’s going to lose to Mousse.

But Akane makes it clear that isn’t why she’s mad. The reason she’s upset is that she doesn’t belong to Ranma, and she won’t belong to Mousse. She’s her own person, and this duel doesn’t respect that. Hell, if he loses that’s fine with her, she’ll just beat up Mousse herself. The entire family shows up, interpreting this as kind of a romantic confession to Ranma.

The next morning, it Dr. Tofu calls and gives the warning he’d meant to tell them earlier: the technique he used is a one-use, so if Ranma gets splashed, he’s stuck again. Akane only finds this out after Ranma takes a dip in the pond while sparring with his dad, and they all freak out over what he’s going to do. Why none of them think to just tell Mousse that Ranma has a Jusenkyo curse, I have no clue.

Someone, Cologne probably, turned the match into a huge spectacle, with food carts and seating around the arena and everything, there’s a huge crowd. Ranma’s late, but that’s only because he made a disguise to hide his cursed body. He clowns around a little at first, having prepared a bunch of lame magic tricks, but then ‘does a trick’ by ‘turning into a girl’, giving him an excuse for how he looks.

Mousse buys it, but he’s angry that Ranma’s not taking it seriously. He takes of his...robe? Tunic? Whatever, either way he’s buff as hell under there, and an attack from his barbed footwear ruins the front of Ranma’s stage assistant outfit, bearing his boobies to everyone. This causes a bunch of men in the audience to storm the fighting area so they can sexually assault Ranma and then I paused Hulu and stared at my computer screen for three full minutes before continuing the episode.

*sigh* Anyway, the Kuno siblings show up, interfere with the fight, Mousse gets deadly series, then Akane reminds Ranma he can use his new technique in battle, which he does to win. Then a bunch of his admirers crowd Ranma, and Akane is annoyed. Done.

Let me get into the stuff I found really interesting with this episode, to start with.

The first half was honestly just really enjoyable. Akane and Ranma had a really good chemistry going on, it reminded me a lot of the episode where Shampoo first showed up. There was a casual closeness to them, still tempered with occasional arguments, that was just cute.

I also liked that they thought to try asking Dr. Tofu for help, since his expertise has helped so often in the past. Making it clear this was a problem he could only barely help out with, and only one time, sold how Cologne and what she’s done to Ranma isn’t something that’s going to be solved easily.

What was a bit odd in that scene was we actually got to see the curse take effect, as Ranma’s torso changed, something I’m fairly sure we’ve never gotten that much detail on. It’s usually either off-screen or a cutaway. But I like we saw it with the curse turning him back to his uncursed form, since it emphasized this was Ranma regaining the body that felt right to him.

I’ve talked about this before, but I also couldn’t help noticing throughout this episode the weird dichotomy in who uses Ranma’s preferred pronouns and who doesn’t. Akane, Shampoo, and Cologne all call Ranma ‘he’ even when he’s in a feminine form, but Akane’s siblings call him ‘she’ instead.

The dojo scene was also a treat for me. I just kind of love how it put the focus on how this whole arrangement devalues Akane. Both the engagement from their parents and the terms of this duel take away her say in what she does with her life, and she isn’t having it. It almost sounded like she was comforting Ranma, taking a burden off his shoulders, when she told him he didn’t have to stress over the fight because she’d be fine either way. I am here for Akane stressing her independence and making it clear that no matter what happens in the fight, she is her own person.

That was a lot of nice stuff, but sadly the second half of the episode didn’t really carry it through. It wasn’t terrible, but the fight wasn’t really anything special, and the whole bit with the guys storming Ranma...yeah. Didn’t care for that. But hey! It’s finally time to do another Character Spotlight!

Unlike Cologne, who I am still holding off on doing a Spotlight for since I don’t feel like we’ve gotten to really see enough of her yet, this one episode basically gave us most of what we need to know about Mousse, so let’s just do it.

In terms of voice acting, his English performer is Brad Swaile. He’s done quite a few things, but he’s most well known for being the voice of Light in Death Note, which is quite a funny comparison. Both characters have huge egos, that’s to be sure, but Light is usually taken seriously, while at least in the dub Mousse is basically just a joke the entire time. Swaile plays him very comedically, which does fit the generally goofy tone of his character.

It is in contrast, however, to his original Japanese voice actor, Toshihiko Seki. Like a lot of the seiyuu, he has done a million things, but of particular note are his roles as Legato Bluesummers from Trigun, another anime I love quite a bit, and as the Japanese Dub actor for the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who. Honestly, finding out the Japanese dub castings is a treat every time I do a Spotlight. But anyway, Seki largely plays Mousse more seriously, as a confident warrior, only going for comedy with how over-the-top some of his attacks get, considering how silly they are. I’m going to tentatively say this is another performance I think works than the dub, which is fairly rare for me as far as anime go.

So, who exactly is Mousse? Well, like I said before, Mousse is Shampoo’s childhood friend, and the first member of their tribe we’ve met who is a guy. His character motivation is literally just that he wants to be with Shampoo, and will beat up/kill Ranma to get her. Pretty simple.

What makes him silly is the combination of his terrible eyesight, a fairly common trope that now that I think about it is kinda ableist, and how he fights. He’s a master of hidden weapons, but more often than not the items he’s fighting with are silly things, like a toilet or a yoyo. Combined with his high self-confidence, and Mousse is fairly Kuno-like, only quite a bit sillier.

Only enough though, he’s more similar to Kodachi than to Tatewaki. Why? Well, because he’s deadly. Of all of Ranma’s primary rivals/reoccurring antagonists, Mousse is easily the one most ready to kill, not unlike Shampoo. When he gets serious, he trades in the silly weapons for genuinely dangerous weapons. He started choking Ranma with his bare hands in their first encounter, then tried doing it again with rope not long afterwards. Ryoga might talk a lot about killing Ranma, but Mousse has done a lot more to actually attempt that.

All of that said, I’m pretty ambivalent on Mousse. I don’t hate him, but of all of Ranma’s primary rivals, he’s easily the most boring. He doesn’t have the je ne sais quoi of Ryoga or the pompous elitism of Kuno, he’s just a deadly joke character who’s obsessed with Shampoo. Maybe my opinions will change over the course of the rewatch, but for right now I’m still pretty meh on him.

But you know what I’m not meh on? This episode! Even with the weaker second half, the first ten minutes or so were good enough that I’m overall pretty sunny on it. Listen, I’m an easy mark, give me some Ranma/Akane fuel and some decent drama, and I’m happy. I’ll put this in the top half of episodes so far between the ending of the fight between Ranma and Kodachi and the climax to Shampoo’s introductory arc.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

But once again, this arc still! Isn’t! Done! No, the end of the Phoenix Pill Arc, if you want to call it that, comes next week with “Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen". Most of my memories of this episode come from a YouTuber I used to follow hating on it, but I’m ready to give it a fair shot. See you then!

[jlf23tumble]

i meant other pairings and not 1d i’m kinda bored of them at the moment lol sorry if this is annoying

efinitely NOT annoying! I tend to jump in and out of pairings based on authors, so my recs tend to be a bit all over the place yet narrowly focused on those authors, especially because I tend to jump in and out of pairings as I’m re-inspired/re-watch or as my fave authors write about them. Here are some recent faves (last six months or so), so I hope that helps! 

1. Forever in my heart is Napollya (Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin, Man from UNCLE). I read both TV and movie versions, and yes, they have the same characters, but they differ quite a bit??? I tend to prefer the movie, tbh, plus it gave me the gift of wonderful friendship in the form of @alienfuckeronmain and @newleafover, so I vote starting with their fics, which are here and here. I have tons of other faves I can rec if you want a wider variety, but here are my top five. 

2. When the first Star Wars sequel or whatever we call it came out, pretty much all my fave TMFU authors drifted straight into the Finnpoe (Stormpilot??) pairing, and I followed right along with them because SO MUCH GREAT FIC. Here’s a list I did for someone a while back, but it doesn’t include one of my newer faves, one that packs so many fic tropes into one piece it’s breathtaking. (Sadly, I find it harder to find newer fic in this pairing that has the same level as four or so years ago--way too much Rylo Ken for me, even MENTIONED).

3. The Witcher has at least three amazing pairings, depending on who you’re asking and whether they’re referring to the show, books, or videogames. Phoenix has written some amazing Geralt/Jaskier, of which this is one. Kim rec’d me some great Geralt/Emhyr, but I think I love this amazing space au the best? That said, there’s an AMAZING cross-fandom author who’s written a bunch of Witcher fic that I’m slowly picking through (I wanna say Terran might have recs for Yen/Geralt, but that’s a wild guess I haven’t followed up on and probably will once I read the books).

4. Speaking of Star Wars, old school Han/Luke is a solid, can’t-miss fic staple. Phoenix has tons of canon, but Blake did a kick-ass punk AU recently, if you want something similar but not exactly in that U (they also did Lando/Luke, which is SO GOOD). Yes, yes, there are other authors apart from these two, but their fics truly do stick, so they’d be where I’d you if you liked other stuff they’ve written.

5. Lightning McQueen/Doc Hudson, and before you scoff, READ THIS. Phoenix pretty much built this pairing, any of her fics for it are amazing, but this one? This is a movie starring Paul Newman and a young Brad Pitt (or some other Hollywood himbo), and it will break your heart while it wins every indie award out there. (Before you ask, yes, they’re humans, zero cars are fucking other cars--what i see on twitter is why I want to make that crystal clear, lmao)

6. I don’t go here yet, but I’m ready to fling myself into the sun that is the Untamed in a few months when I finally work my way through the series (then back over the first few eps to see what I missed and work out all my name issues). No recs yet, BUT YEAH, I feel the pull, definitely rec the show!

I’ll stop here because it starts getting hyperspecific in a way that I’m not sure is actually helpful, but basically, if you like a piece of media, and you feel vague feelings for a pairing, there’s fic for it. I’m being pulled into Columbo of all things because of a blog I follow, and I’ll definitely rewatch and read up. I doubt there’s a ton of stuff out there for that one, but sometimes there’s a LOT of fic for your random pairing, and that’s where the fun starts! Think of all the hockey fic waiting out there, ay yi yi--at any rate, hope this intrigues you, at least!

(p.s. one last suggestion: you don’t need to know ANYTHING about the Hobbit, god knows I don’t, and I edit it, but I cannot stress highly enough how good this one is, modern AU)

[popculturebuffet]

House of Mouse April Fools Special: Donald’s Pumbaa Prank (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome to my April Fool’s Special! And it’s also my patreon review for the month as Kev just so happened to randomly hit this one and once I realized it was an april fools episode I moved it up since things have been kinda hectic in the old brainpan lately, and as such my output slowed down a bit so I really wasn’t in great shape to do 4 episodes in one day. So instead see what hyjinks, fart jokes and murders of beloved disney characters insue under the cut as the hosue of mouse gets a bit foolish

The Wraparound:

It’s April Fools day at the House of Mouse and Donald pulls a prank on MIckey by cutting his break lines.. wait no that was last year. No this year he just puts some wax on the stage and MIckey trips, Donald laughs. Now if this were the real world this would be really dangerous and probably destroy their friendship and MIckey’s spine. But this is a cartoon that runs on cartoon physics. He was in no real danger. So Mickey’s retaliation on the other hand.. is just showing embarassing footage of Donald. It makes him come off as unecessarily cruel as instead of an actual prank or joke it’s just “Hey look at this embarassing footage of my friend I dug up”

This plot DOES get a lot bettter though after the setup: Pete talks Donald into kidnapping Pumba, planning to use Pumbas farts to clear out the club...

Yeah i’m not big on fart jokes. I’m not against them, when used right they can be comedy gold.. this song from bobs burgers is one such example

It’s just a lot of times farts and other bodily functions are used as the joke alone. That’s it. There’s no actual laughs or content too said laughs, i’ts jsut this is gross.  Thankfully this episode does not go really deep down the grossdout rabit hole, as we don’t see the fart on screen.. but it still dosen’t make “Pumbas’ ass gas is going to destroy the house of mouse” funny. 

There are some funny gags though: Donald’s method of distracting Timon so Pete can kidnap Pumbaa is to just stand there not saying anything and weirding Timon out , their replacement is just a bowling ball, two horns and a sack of something, and when Timon goes looking for Pumbaa, finds Zazu under a plate the hyena’s have.. and then just leaves him there. Seriously Timon just.. let’s Zazu die and I am here for it. 

Donald meanwhile thinks Mickey is planning another prank after mickey apologizes and has a special thing planned but it’s really jsut a lifetime achivment award, so Donald tries to stop it, then reveals the truth when Pumba shows up.. and gets his award taken away. Even though he had every reason to think Mickey was going to pull something because honest as he is i’ts april fools day. Mickey just... obnoxious in this one and it speaks to a larger problem with the series I remember from when I was a kid that i’ve noticed once or twice now: The show tends to have Squidward Syndrome, i.e. it treats Donald who can be obnoxious as wrong.. even when he’s done nothing wrong THIS EPISODE, like spongebob did to squidward at times, or if he has done something wrong his punishment is dispororitante. Donald did a minor prank.. and MIckey publicly humiliated him and Donald TREID to stop his prank. And goes above and behond to stop it, taking the fart attack at ground zero. Speaking of which the fart attack scene from parks and rec, also a good fart joke. 

And MIckey.. learns nothing by playing the test footage again even though Donald was just ground zero at an attomic level ass.

Final Thoughts for the Wraparound: It’s not great. I”m noticing that trend with Season 1 in general, where they really just didn’t have a ton of idea of what to do with the wraparounds. The episodes still vary in quality, but outside of the pilot most of the season 1 episodes are pretty disapointing as an adult, very simplistic plots that often don’t use the club’s nature to their full advantage or the characters to the same. It would get better though, but it’s something to notice. onto the shorts. 

The Friend for Life: This is a pretty simple one. Sam and Max, are after the mad Thesipian, whose exactly what he sounds like. We even get a really neat visual gag as sam just.. uses his little buddy as a sword while the Thespian uses a candelabra. But while our Freelance Police catch the weirdo, and Max takes a ride in the saftey tramp they set up for the guy, he escapes when the two are distracted by Norm, THE FRIEND FOR LIFEEEEEEEE. An obessive fanboy played by Patrick Mackenna of the Red Green Show, esentially playing an older and stalkery version of Harold.. now I think about it this might be his dad. I mean we don’t know where he went or what hapepend to the guy. Maybe he just went to the states to obesss over a rabbit and Dog. I don’t know. 

Lorne wants to help our heroes while Max understandably wants to run him over and sam just runs past him the minute they can. But despite finding the thespians layer  Max: (Singsong) We’re here to arressttt youuu Sam: (Also singsong): Rememberrrrr.. crimesss against humanitty? But it turns out Lorne, THE FRIEEEND FOR LIFFFEEEE, kidnapped him and puts on a show for htem of fighting thier old eneimies and a roller coaster death trap. Our heroes escape and begrudignly thank lorne even if they find his stalker shrine a bit much. 

Final Thoughts for The Friend For LIfe: A really solid episode and the fact i’ve binged several sam and max episodes since then really speaks to how good this one was. Seriously really funny stuff and I didn’t even cover half the great jokes in this one. Check it out, it’s on youtube. 

Mickey’s April Fools: An odd one but a fun one. MIckey is taking his asshole pills and goes overboard with his pranks, faking proposing to Minnie and faking his death after Mortimer pranks him. But it works... I mean is it grossly out of character? Oh god yes. Would it have made more sense by swapping out Mickey, Minnie and Mortimer with Donald, Daisy and either the boys or pete? Entirely. Is this short still hilarous. Yup. While i’ts not the best they’ve done on the show, it’s still really entertaining. The two end up getting him back, MOrtimer by faking a will reading only to have it go really poorly for Mickey as his death was reported, donald refuses to help due to Mickey’s last words to mortimer being “I’ve never undestood him” and Goofy being.. goofy. And MIckey is left hanging from a pole by minnie because fuck him. An out of character one.. but the sheer oddity of mickey being this dickish in the house of mouse shorts makes it work.  Be A Man: As a debut album for Randy Savage this Album is audotirally fucktacular, and with some polish randy could’ve had a long and successful rap career. As it stands, it is a sad one off not ein his career. 

Critters: On an asteroid prison, a group of dangerous aliens known as Krites are set to be transported to another station. The Krites engineer an escape and hijack a ship, prompting the warden to hire two shape-changing bounty hunters to pursue them to Earth. Studying life on Earth via various satellite television transmissions, the first bounty hunter assumes the form of rock star Johnny Steele, while the second remains undecided, thus retaining his blank, featureless head. On a rural Kansas farm, the Brown family sits down to breakfast. Father Jay and mother Helen send teenage daughter April and younger son Brad off to school while waiting on mechanic Charlie McFadden. A former baseball pitcher, Charlie has become the town drunk and crackpot, with claims of alien abductions foretold by messages through his fillings.

Playing with overly potent self-made fireworks and Charlie's slingshot, Brad takes the blame when Charlie accidentally shoots April and is grounded as a result. On the roof that evening, Brad mistakes the Critters' crashing spaceship for a meteorite; Jay and Brad investigate and interrupt the creatures consuming a cow. The creatures thereafter kill and feed on a local police officer, and later besiege the farm and cut its electrical connection. While checking the circuit breaker, Jay is attacked by one of the Critters and, being severely wounded, just barely manages to escape

.In the barn, April is about to have sex with her boyfriend Steve when he is killed by the one of the Critters; the creature itself is slain when it devours one of Brad's lit firecrackers. The remaining Critters sabotage the Browns' and Steve's cars, forcing the Browns to hole up inside the main house. Meanwhile, the two bounty hunters search the town for the Critters, causing a panic at the church and bowling alley, with the second hunter assuming the form of various townspeople, including Charlie. Brad escapes the farm to get help and runs into the bounty hunters, and upon learning of their true nature and intentions, he leads them to the Critters' location.

The last surviving Critters kidnap April and return to their ship when the bounty hunters arrive, and attempt to flee. Charlie and Brad manage to rescue April, but Brad drops a large firecracker he intended to use to destroy the ship when the Critters discover their escape. Just as the Critters take off and destroy the farmhouse out of spite, Charlie throws a Molotov cocktail made from his whiskey bottle into the ship, causing a fire which detonates the cracker and kills the Critters. The bounty hunters leave in their ship after giving Brad a handheld device to contact them in case of future invasion, and also restore the house. Unbeknownst to them, Critter eggs can be seen in the barn inside a chicken's nest that seem to be ready to hatch.

Final Thoughts on Critters: Critters is a wonderful film, despite what Rapheal from the teenage mutant ninja turtles might think but fuck him he has scabies. It’s fun, energetic, and ahs a great premise of instead of it JUST being on our heroes to repel the invaders, their caught between two diffrent sets of aliens instead and instead of a chisled jawed heroes the good aliens are simply bounty hunters with no care about collateral and only doing a job. It’s a damn fine film and I still need to make time to watch the sequel. 

Donald’s River Thing:

This is a simple one. Donald plans to go fishing, finds out it’s his and Daisy’s anniversary, her half birthday and valentine’s day and has to take her along and make it like a thing while being a dick about wanting to still fish, but in a very funny way while the local fish fight back. This is easily the standout of the episode incredibly funny, increidbly wholesome, and an incredibly good time. Really great stuff. 

Invincible Episodes 1-3:

This seires is fucking fantastic and you should go watch it. GO WATCH IT. 

Final Thoughts overall: 

YOUR NOT WATCHING IT

Final Thoughts Overall: This is a decent episode not much to say except HIT IT BOYS

[fanficsaremylifeline]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ben Parker & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Dum-E, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Tony Stark Characters: Peter Parker, Ben Parker, Dummy (Iron Man movies), Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony Stark Additional Tags: he likes to talk, who cares if nobody answers, Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV) References, whump warning: fire, ironfam, Irondad, IronDaughter, spiderson Series: Part 12 of Ironfam Summary:

Not everybody Peter enjoys talking to always answers. Doesn't mean that Peter can't talk to them though.

1

“Hi, Uncle Ben”, Peter smiled, somewhat awkwardly. “Happy birthday!” He toyed around with the card he held in his hand. “Unfortunately, they didn't have any 'For the awesome Uncle, who is practically your father' , so I went straight with 'For the world's best Dad'. I mean it's true on any level except genetically. Though I'm not sure how human my genes are any more, so I guess that's even true of my parents... Sorry, I'm digressing.”

Gently, he placed the card just by the bouquet of daisies, Uncle Ben's favourite flowers. They were somewhat wilted, but Aunt May was sure to come by later, and get him a fresh one for his birthday.

“Don't tell Aunt May that I skipped school, though”, he pleaded as he sat himself down, just by the head stone. “She'll ground me from Ned, or Spidermanning, or the Avengers and that's not cool... Oh yeah, that's right, I'm an official Avenger now!”, he beamed proudly, after having made sure that nobody was around to listen in on Peter talking to his Uncle's grave. “I know, it's so cool, right? And woah, you should have seen Aunt May, when she took on Tony Stark, and made very clear that every little thing that'll happen to me, she'll make sure he'll suffer too.” Peter couldn't help but giggle at Tony's grimace. A man who didn't seem to be afraid of anything was seriously scared of Aunt May. Not that Peter could blame him for that; he'd rather go up against the Vulture again, than Aunt May when she was angry with him.

“She's alright. I know I don't have to, because she's like the most badass woman out there, but I'm still looking out for her. And she is doing good.”

There was just this big, burning thing, looming in Peter's mind. “So, this might be a little awkward, but she's seeing someone again. He works for Tony, he's a really good guy, actually. And yeah, it's plenty weird. But Aunt May says, that he's not here to replace you, or anything like that, so I guess that's something...”

Fidgeting nervously with his fingers, Peter looked down on his hands. “I'm not gonna do that, I promise”, he vowed, “I'll never forget you, and I'll always love you and as good of a guy Happy is, you'll always be my Uncle, and you'll always have that place in my heart that nobody ever can have.”

At this point, Peter wasn't sure if he assured Uncle Ben or himself. Him it definitely helped; things were sort of out in the open. It'd be so much easier though, to hear some sort of answer, get some kind of reaction. But that wasn't gonna happen, was it?

2

“What? No!”, Peter groaned and dropped to the ground. “Why, WHY?”

At his outburst, Dum-E wheeled over, looking at Peter with a somewhat tilted head. Not that he really had one, but he definitely seemed to be curious what had Peter so frustrated.

“It's not working Dum-E. Nothing is! So, you see, that thing here is supposed to light up.” He pointed at the robot he built for the science fair.

It was slightly embarrassing, Peter had worked on far more advanced projects in here, mostly with Mr Stark, but also when by himself. “And I can't just ask Mr Stark, it's way to easy.”

Dum-E followed him around the table, curiously inspecting everything Peter explained to him. “So you see, with these cables connected, it should react to my commands! Ugh.” He rolled his eyes at his own idiocy and turned to Dum-E looking at him somewhat dubiously. Great, even the robot thought Peter was an idiot.

“Don't look at me like that”, Peter made clear, pointing at him.

The way Dum-E looked up at him, with his head somewhat tilted to one side, it reminded Peter of a puppy dog, realizing that something was wrong, but not really understanding what it was.

“I'm sorry”, Peter sighed and patted the little head, “I'm just stressed and annoyed and...” He just let out a deep sigh. But, all moping wouldn't help him, so he went back to disassembling the circuitry.

“I know you're not gonna answer”, Peter eventually remarked, “but I think I'm gonna keep on talking to you.”

The beep that came from Dum-E sounded to Peter like the robot consenting to be talked to.

“Great. Alright, so the idea is that the robot can walk and follow a few simple commands. It's not like I'm creating an AI here, so it shouldn't be too complicated. I know, I know”, he hurried to say, when he felt Dum-E looking at him all funnily. “I shouldn't give too much thought to the aesthetics, but it's a damn science fair, so I'll just have to bother with that, even if the rest suffers for it.”

“Beep.”

“Come on”, Peter rolled his eyes, “that was really uncalled for.”

“Beep, beep.”

“Wow, Dum-E, there is no need for name-calling”, Peter shot back, staring the robot down, who eventually dropped his head.

“Beep.”

“Yes, of course you're forgiven.”

“Beep. Beep, beep.”

“Omigod, yes, that's it!”, Peter cried out, leaned over to press a kiss on Dum-E's head, before turning back to his own robot, where – whether by himself or with help from Dum-E – Peter had finally found the mistake.. “Thanks so much, Dum-E, you're a genius!”

3

“You full?”, Peter asked, looking down on the six months old girl, who dejectedly threw the biscuit through the room. “I guess that's a yes”, Peter snorted and repositioned her on his lap.

“So, Morgan, as your honorary older brother, it's my duty to teach you the important things in life”, he explained. “And one of these things I need to introduce you to is Brooklyn Nine Nine.”

Peter didn't even have to ask FRI to play it, Netflix opened automatically on the big TV screen. He was on his umpteenth rewatch, currently somewhere in season 1 again.

“So, that's Jake”, he explained.

“Shdkpf.”

“Yeah, he's pretty smart”, Peter agreed with her. “That's Amy.”

“Giggidgsh.”

“Exactly!”, he grinned, “he's totally into her. But he plays over it, because, well, he's a little awkward.”

“Pfffrm.”

“I'm not awkward!”

“Gskgsk.”

“Oh, that is so unfair of you to bring up”, Peter complained. “And it's totally not the same! I kept on lying to MJ to keep her safe!”

“Mmmhpff.”

“I can't believe that you would say that to me, when we both know what your Dad did for you Mum.” He looked down on Morgan who beamed up with wide eyes. “He got her an oversized stuffed bunny. I got MJ a necklace.”

“Brrrrrrrrm.”

“Thank you, Morgan. But now let's get back here. See, that's Teddy.”

“Pshhhmmm.”

“Mo! I know he's not the greatest, but we don't say words like this! Anyways, he's also into Amy. And she's kinda into him. And Jake doesn't find that so great.”

“Gshkshsga.”

“No, it's nothing like me, MJ and Brad. I don't even know where you'd get that idea. Besides, Brad doesn't even matter any more. And Teddy won't matter for too long, either.”

“Gashmmmm”

“Sorry, spoiler alert”, Peter apologized and tapped his finger on her hand, prompting her to grab it, squeeze and pull on it. “Dude, we can be happy I got superpowers, otherwise that'd probably hurt. Like a lot. You're really fierce, hey?”

“Hmmmmpf.”

“Yeah”, he beamed, “exactly like your Mummy.”

+1

The first thing Peter realized, was something or someone holding onto his hand, and a soft voice talking to him.

“How often have I told you to call me when things go pear-shaped? I'm a genius and I can't even count how high.”

That sounded a lot like Mr Stark. Why was he holding Peter's hand, and why were his eyes so heavy?

“You really are an absolute pain in my ass, Parker”, Mr Stark continued. “I mean, I'm absolutely impressed by how smart you are, by your innate desire to help people, but do you have to be so damn self-sacrificial? Remember, I got a heart condition and that shit just ain't good for me!”

A calloused thumb gently stroked the back of his hand. “Fuck”, he mumbled, “I guess I should probably tell you how awesomely you did, how you saved all the people from that burning building, but did you have to breathe in that much smoke? You're lucky you got your spider-healing, things could have looked very differently.”

Slowly, things came back to him. KAREN directed him to some office building, where a fire had broke out, trapping a bunch of people on the top floors. Peter didn't even think twice before climbing up the wall to get everybody out.

“And by the way, I'm not the only one who thinks that”, Tony made clear. “Your lovely girlfriend said something along the lines of her going to kill you if you end up dead. And Aunt Hottie... Damnit, I really should stop calling her that, especially in front of you, it's just all shades of wrong... Well, she definitely agrees with Michelle, as does Morgan. In summary, you've got three of the fiercest women on this planet on your ass.”

“That being said, I am still so proud of you. And I really am one lucky son of a bitch to have such an exasperating, snarky, pain-in-the-ass Spiderling in my life. So please, to all that's holy and good in this world, please, just please...” A deep sigh followed, before Mr Stark continued to speak: “Kid, I love you. Which means I worry so damn much. And as good as I look with grey hair, there's no need for you to give me any more of those, you got that?”

“Yeah”, Peter mumbled and squeezed the hand that was holding onto his.

“Wha...” Mr Stark jumped, clearly having thought Peter was asleep. “And how long have you been awake, mister?”

“Long enough”, he sighed, feeling himself already drifting off again. “I love you, too, Mr Stark.”