#OH ALSO Gwen and Peter have MUCH better chemistry

[arugulafriend]

The amazing Spider-Man would be a much better movie if, when Flash is trying to have a heart to heart with Peter because of Bens death, they kissed

[spiderlandry]

Routine — ethan landry

Description: Ethan feels you slowly drift away as you spend time with another person.

Pairing: Ethan Landry x GN!Reader (they/them pronouns)

Warnings: unedited, kinda wordy, fluff, jealousy, some angst but happy ending

Word Count: 1.9k

Author’s note: can u guess who reader’s chem partner is ??

Tradition and routine are important to Ethan Landry. Since you’ve made the decision to have lunch with him every Wednesday at the diner a few blocks from his apartment, he eventually begins to expect you to show up there without a text message. It’s routine, now. It’s a tradition—and he didn’t realize how sacred it was to him until his phone pings with a text from you on a Wednesday:

hey im sorry i cant make it to lunch i got assigned a small project in chem and its partners :/ and we could only find a time for today (ugh) lunch next wednesday?

sorry again. have a good lunch!! dont have too much fun without me tho

He’s not bothered. Why would he be? You sound like you’d rather be with him than working on that project, so he’s flattered in that aspect that you sound somewhat possessive with the, ‘don’t have too much fun’.

It’s not like he’s already at the diner already.

(He was on his way.)

But it’s only a blip in the hundred other moments you spend with him, even if those moments are also spent with other people present.

So he doesn’t take it to heart. Even if his heart slightly aches without you beside him, almost a symptom of withdrawal, which he won’t realize until much, much later.

-

Ethan often spends time in the main library on Friday nights. He’s not a stranger to the usual people who also spend their time there, there’s not a lot of people because there are better things for a college student to do on Friday nights. Ethan is different. Although, he only started going on Friday nights because midterms are soon and he can’t afford to fail or retake anything.

However, a familiar figure comes into the library next to a tall stranger. You, with some guy, trying to playfully shush him as you enter the quiet space earning some dirty looks from students around.

You lightly slap the stranger’s arm with a grin, and you don’t see Ethan—he’s sitting in a corner and you’re turned away from him.

There’s no denying that the stranger is handsome. Tall, brown hair, somewhat dorky mannerisms but in a charming way. Ethan could be in love with this guy if he himself isn’t so in love with you.

Ethan opts to look down at his work instead, eyes almost unfocused as the thought of losing his chance being brought to the forefront of his mind.

What he doesn’t see a few seconds later, between the shelves, slightly closer to Ethan, you finally spot him. He doesn’t see the way your smile droops slightly, and how the man next to you asks who you’re staring at.

“Oh,” you whisper to your chemistry partner, Peter, “That’s Ethan. The guy I told you about.”

“You’d look good together.” He teases.

You almost kick him jokingly, but he dodges. “Just because I told you my crush doesn’t mean you get to tease me. Plus, if you do, I’ll tell Gwen about yours.”

But of course, this conversation happens outside of Ethan’s earshot. You’re not looking at him anymore, and as he glances up one more time, he only sees the smile directed at that stranger that used to be reserved for him on Wednesday afternoons.

Yeah, I’ve lost my chance, Ethan thinks.

-

Ethan has decided to spend more time with his friends. It has nothing to do with you, not at all. (It’s not denial.) He lounges in the Carpenter apartment on Saturday night with Chad and Tara. Mindy was also supposed to be there, but texted last minute she can’t make it.

They assure him he’s not third-wheeling, but he definitely is.

But he stops himself before he suggests he can leave. He gives it a chance, because otherwise he would be alone in the dorm—and on a normal occasion he’d leave and call you instead, but he has a feeling your voice will only draw him back to the reliance of your presence. You haven’t talked since Wednesday, since that text message that Ethan believes is the beginning of the end.

Chad notices Ethan’s faraway look, they’re both sitting on the couch while Tara gets a drink from the kitchen.

“You okay, man?” His roommate snaps him out of the daze. “You seem sad.”

“I’m not.” Ethan has answered that too quickly to either of their liking, but it goes unmentioned.

“You can talk to me. If you want.”

Chad’s become more emotionally available since the first time they moved in together, Ethan appreciates that his friend makes an effort even if it seems to take some work. So Ethan humours him.

“Y/N. They’re spending time with this guy and I just—I don’t know.”

Tara comes back with a few sodas, handing one to him and to her boyfriend.

“Y/N?” She echoes, sipping from her drink. “You mean they’re spending time with Peter?”

Ethan realizes maybe he shouldn’t have said anything because Tara’s close to you and if he says something she might say something—

“I won’t tell them.” She says, sensing Ethan’s panic. “They’re just friends, if you’re wondering.”

Chad is grateful for his girlfriend stepping in. She certainly knows more, at least in that respect.

“Aren’t they chem partners, or something?” Chad asks her, wanting to alleviate the tension he can sense on his best friend. He remembers Tara offhandedly mentioning it one time.

(Let’s be honest, anything Tara knows, Chad knows too.)

“Well,” Tara prevents herself from a grimace. “They were partners. Y/N told me they finished the project. So now they’re just friends.”

It has the opposite effect that Chad had wanted.

It only lets Ethan know that it won’t be long until you introduce this Peter to the group as your boyfriend, probably.

“Can we change the subject?” Ethan requests.

He’s thankful as they adamantly jump into another topic about something funny that happened recently, an inkling deep in his soul that they did it on purpose to make him laugh—a hint of relief as he thinks, friendship isn’t that bad. (It’s good.) You and him could still be friends, he thinks. And that’s what he wants, for you to be in his life in any capacity, long as you’d let him.

-

Sunday nights are movie nights in the Carpenter household. And that tradition is extended to the entire group, including you. He doesn’t know why he’s nervous—his palms are sweating, his legs are bouncing, and his mind is anywhere else besides the present.

You arrive late, and the movie hasn’t started because they’re waiting for you.

Ethan thinks Chad or somebody must have done it on purpose, because the only empty seat on the couch is the one right next to him.

Obviously, you take it. The proximity is almost too much for Ethan, but he’d be a damn liar if he said it didn’t help his anxiety just a little bit. You take away his nerves after they appear in the absence of you. You’re his medicine.

The movie starts and you still don’t say anything to each other. He ignores the looks from Chad and Tara, and you seem to be oblivious to it as you keep your eyes on the television.

By the second movie, you’ve both gotten more comfortable, leaning into each other— and to Ethan’s surprise, you put your head on his shoulder. He looks around and no one notices. Not because they don’t care, but because they’re all asleep.

You fit so perfectly almost as if you’d been like this before, in a different lifetime of another universe.

Unbeknownst to Ethan, you had your own intent coming into this movie night, late on purpose and nerves taking away your courage in the absence of Ethan.

SUNDAY MORNING

Sometimes, you’d invite someone to get coffee with you when mornings were pleasant enough to be with other people.

Today, Tara said she was available to get coffee after you’d sent a text to the group chat asking if anyone wanted to come—so you got coffee with her.

It wasn’t your intention, but still, you end up at her apartment half an hour later, chatting about what’s happened in the week.

Somehow the topic of dating has come up, and Tara rambles about Chad’s funny ideas about dates that you laugh at.

Much to your dismay, the question tumbles out of your mouth before you can stop it. “How do I know if I’m in love with someone?”

She can’t read your face, it’s blank. But she can read your tone: the layer of uneasiness and worry that you’re trying to hard to bury and keep hidden. She tries her best not to show any emotion, either. Because there could only be two possible answer to the question Tara is about to ask.

“Who are you in love with?”

“Who said I was?” Quick answer, deflect the question.

“You’re thinking it, though.”

“So what if I am?”

And she just decides to lay it on the table. “Is it Peter?”

Your instinct is to laugh, because from your perspective, not a universe exists where you and Peter have any romantic connection. And you say, “Why would it be Peter?”

Tara realizes you’re serious pretty quickly. “Everybody thinks that.”

Your face drops, brows furrow. “Seriously?” Tara nods.

“Does Ethan think that?”

Tara smiles.

She has her answer.

PRESENT

The feeling of being close to him is intoxicating. You snake your hand toward his, playing with it until you loosely begin to hold his hand.

Your hand in mine feels right, he thinks. For a split second, his breath is stolen, but the tiny space between your palms get warm—he can breathe—and the warmness travels throughout Ethan’s body and suddenly he wants to verbalize every unspoken word from each interaction with you, but all words come back to I love you I love you I love you.

But there is one thing.

“What about...” He whispers, gulps. “Peter?”

And that’s when you finally look up at him and he turns his head to face yours—a mistake—you are much too close for his heart not to burst. He can feel your breath and he’s sure you can feel his, and there’s nothing else he can think of as he waits with bated breath for your response.

“Why would I wanna be with him when I want to be with you?”

You say it so casually, so surely, as if you’re certain nothing can take away that statement—that truth—from your grasp. The tone catches him so off guard that his words are lost for a moment.

Your eyes aren’t expectant in that moment, though waiting. You’re patient, as if you know what he’s going to say.

“Will—” he tries to be quiet, “will you go on a date with me?” Your smile gets impossibly wider and it mirrors his.

“Always.”

Tara, laying next to Chad nearby—pretending to be asleep—suppresses a grin of her own.

Additional A/N: personally i think their first date is at the diner !! and the diner staff see the progression of their relationship every wednesday lol and yes the chem partner is peter parker (specifically had andrew’s peter in mind, i think that’s clear with the ‘tall’ if not the gwen part LMAO)

[redstarwriting]

things are looking up

peter parker x reader

requested by: me, bitch

word count: 1.8k

genre: fluff

warnings: language, awkward rambling, flash thompson, mentions of alcohol, angsty peter for a bit

a/n: and we’re BACK. fitting for me to return with writing something about andrew garfield’s spider-man. when i tell you i was OBSESSED with these films when i was like 12, i mean it. anyways, please enjoy, and take this as a peace offering for disappearing for like two years lol

───────────────────────────────────

After going to a different dimension and meeting two other Peters, he actually had hope restored. He knows it’s not ideal to have your whole life dependent on a significant other, but he just can’t help it. He has so little in this world already that Gwen was truly his everything. So, hearing that Peter and Peter both had MJs? That gave him hope. Because he probably had an MJ too, huh? Well, he better work hard to get her. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to do things again. His friendly neighborhood Spider-Man antics have picked up again, he’s been actually going places, Aunt May has been concerned about him because he’s going out instead of staying in again. It was all getting better. And he’s been going new places every day to see if he could find his MJ and trying his best to see new people as often as he can.

And that is why he decided to get a part-time job at a bar as a bartender. It’s an easy way to meet loads of people, and a good way for him to make some money so he doesn’t get evicted… again. He usually works during the day, but his kind-hearted nature made him agree to switch shifts with a coworker for a Saturday night shift. While, yes, it was a slight inconvenience to his main job, he had to take this shift. So here he was, advanced shock absorption earplugs he designed for his hypersensitive ears in and making drinks and listening to this local punk-pop band. Now, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying the sound of this band. And he would also be lying if he said the lead singer was incredibly attractive. And angry. So angry. It was kind of hot.

But he was running around, making drinks, getting tips, being “nice” to everyone and taking the occasional angry and rude customer, when he sees Flash walk in. Now, Peter hasn’t seen Flash since graduation, but he still looked almost exactly the same. Maybe a little bit more hair, but still textbook Flash, and he silently hopes he doesn’t have to make him any drinks. But unfortunately for Peter, mans just doesn’t seem to have any luck. Ever. At all. “Parker?!”

“Oh, hey Flash! Hey, man,” Peter mumbles out, spraying water into a glass for a patron who has had way too much already. “What’re you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you behind a bar of all places,” he says, and Peter shrugs. “Well, when you think about it bartending is kinda like chemistry, so I guess it makes some sense,” he says, grabbing the tip someone left him. “I guess, but I just expected you to be working in a lab or some other nerd shit, I don’t know,” he says, and Peter gives him a tight grin. “Yeah, well, I’m not, so. What will you have Flash?”

“A Long Island Iced Tea, bro.”

It takes literally everything for Peter to not roll his eyes. “Alright, man, coming right up,” he says, and turns to grab all the alcohol required for that damn drink. It’s too many alcohols and all-around disgusting and it gets whoever drinks it sloshed and Peter just really hates this drink, but he begins mixing all of it together. “So, uh, you going to college, or…?” he hears Flash start asking. Of all the times for the band to take a break, they pick right now so he has to speak to him because he can actually hear. To be fair, though, the crowd is pretty low energy and sparse right now, so he doesn’t blame the band. He just blames Flash, to be honest. “Yeah, yeah, I got accepted to Empire State University after we graduated and I’m currently going but it’s summer, so currently on break,” he answers and Flash nods. “Yeah, yeah… I actually go to ESU too, now, you know?” he says and Peter glances at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, I kinda hated Dakota State, so I transferred here,” he responds, and Peter gives a tight-lipped smile and nods, finishing up his drink and handing it to him. “There you go, man,” he tells him. “Thanks, Parker, maybe I’ll see you around this year?”

“Yeah, maybe you will,” he says, and watches as he downs the drink. Like, way too fast. He slides his card over to him, and clarifies that he wants to open a tab, so Peter tapes it to the wall next to the cash register and goes on to serve some more people. After about 10 minutes he hears the band start playing again, and he makes another Long Island for Flash. About 20 minutes into the band playing again, he sees the glass is empty. And now Flash is… visibly fucked up. He’s talking to a bunch of girls and trying so hard to look cool, this man is still… really stuck in high school ways it seems. Of course, he isn’t as much of a bully for no reason, but he still thinks he’s hot shit. And while Peter can accept the fact that, yes, Flash is attractive, he still can’t believe he’s so full of himself. But who is Peter to think that? At least Flash is able to ask people out. For now he’s just going to do his job, and listen to the music. And that’s a pretty solid plan until a significant amount of time goes by (in which he kept making drinks for Flash) to the point where the band is now done with their set. Now, he has to listen to Flash’s obnoxiously loud voice.

Flash stumbles back over to the bar and Peter sighs. “Give me a shot, Parker,” he slurs out and Peter shakes his head no. “You’re far too fucked up, Flash. Not gonna do that,” Peter says, and begins cashing him out. He ignores the protests from Flash and hands his card and the receipt he needs to sign back to him. “Come on, man, just one more?”

“No, Eugene. Sign. You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“Are you being serious right now?”

“Yes, I am now please sign and-”

“Here you go bud,” Peter hears a voice he doesn’t recognize and turns his head in the direction of the voice. He recognizes it as the lead singer of the band who played tonight, and he watches as you hand a shot glass to Flash. “On me,” you say, and Flash smirks at them before taking the shot. “Great, now why don’t you head home?” Peter says, and Flash begins to say something, but he gets cut off by you. “I think that’s a good idea, too, actually. Besides, it’s around 3am anyways, you don’t wanna be here while we’re packing up all our stuff and it’s basically dead anyways. Look, over half of the crowd is leaving, probably heading to a different bar,” you say, pointing to the big group of patrons who are exiting the bar. Flash huffs but gets up and starts following the people out of the bar. Peter watches and chuckles, looking down, before looking back up at you. “Thanks. For that,” he says, and you give him a small smile. “Of course. I bartend too, so I know how annoying that can be.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. And don’t worry. That shot I gave him? Water.”

Peter laughs again and points at you. “You, are a genius,” he says and you feign flipping your hair over your shoulder. “What can I say? Beauty and brains,” you joke, and he smiles. You got that right for sure. Peter has seen your band come to the bar a lot, but he was usually never there to listen to y’all. But he always notices you. And he liked your humor, he felt like he could talk to you for hours. So, time to ask the question that could either make him very upset or very optimistic. “So, uh… I’ve noticed your band is a regular here, but I have no idea who you are personally.”

“That’s because you always leave your shift before we play.”

“So you’ve noticed that, huh?”

“Oh, I definitely have...?”

“Peter. Peter Parker.”

“Well, Peter Parker. It’s nice to meet you. I’m-”

“MJ! We need to start loading this stuff up!” You get cut off by a band member and you turn your head to yell something back. But Peter can’t hear what you’re saying.

He called you MJ.

You turn your head back to him and give an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’m gonna have to go in a second, but yeah. My real name is (Y/n) but people call me MJ. It’s sort of like my stage name that turned into my nickname that’s used more than my name name now… it actually stands for Mara Jade… who is uh-”

“Luke Skywalker’s wife,” he answers, and you look at him a little surprised before smiling. “Yeah… yeah, it’s a little nerdy but…” you trail off and he shakes his head. “Nah, nah I like it. Good character,” he says, and you can feel your face flush. You just hope it’s too dark in here for him to notice. “Yeah, well um… we’re playing tomorrow night, too. I don’t know if you work but I’d love to talk a little bit more?” you ask, and he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll be here,” he says, and you smile. “Great! I mean… um… cool. Cool…”

“MJ!” You roll your eyes and give him a lopsided grin. “Duty calls,” you say, sliding off the barstool you were perched on. He nods. “I gotta start cleaning up the bar anyways… so.”

“Yeah… tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

You give him a small smile and an awkward thumbs up before running off to help your bandmates load all of your stuff into their van. Peter turns and starts cleaning up the bar and taking more orders. His head is swimming, did he really just meet his MJ? I mean, yeah, sure, your real name doesn’t actually make the initials M and J but people still call you MJ, so that counts right? He’s so lost in his thoughts, that his spidey sense doesn’t alert him that someone is lingering by the bar for a moment before rushing out. After lamenting for a little while longer, he turns around, and he sees what looks like a receipt. He goes over to grab it when he notices something written on the very bottom.

‘Don’t know whose receipt this is, but my number is (xxx) xxx-xxx. Just in case something would prevent you from coming tomorrow. - MJ :)’

He smiles and tucks it in his pocket. “MJ,” he says with a grin on his face, wiping down the counter. Maybe his luck was changing after all.

[spideymarvelws]

one true love.

Dark!Peter Parker x Dark!GN!Reader

Main Masterlist

Summary : Peter will go threw everything to keep you safe, protected and most importantly always his. He saw you as the person he observed and watched for the past few months, the sweet, kind girl that stopped to pet stray dogs or smiled at everyone who needed it. But somethings he never took notice of, some things that would’ve made him love you even more.

Warnings : THIS IS A DARK FIC! I am not responsible for your media consumption but if any of these topics or just dark fics on a whole trigger you please do not read! cursing, murders, blood, violence, mention of sexual assault, death, stalking, graphic description of a dead body, homicide, fluffy if you squint, use of guns and knifes.

A/n : If any description throughout the one shot does not pertain to a gender neutral reader please let me know :-) also if i missed anything in the warnings.

Word Count : 1.8k

...

The definition of love is something that never stays constant as its experienced from person to person. Even to that very being, the meaning changes every year, month, day even hour, from what that individual may feel in that moment. In some cases, it may be the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to someone, changing there life in ways they could never even imagine. 

In other cases, it could break a person whole, bit by bit, tearing down at who they once were. Emotions like guilt and regret, jealously and remorse running through there veins, thinking that love is only made to destroy the ones foolish enough to believe it exists.

Then you have the rare case of love at first sight.

Now, some may argue that this concept that only seems to show up in movies and TV shows is complete bullshit, that it doesn’t exist.

“You can’t look at someone and automatically know they’re the one for you,” Ned said to him one day, pulling his head out of his chemistry book,“What if they’re an awful person? What if they do something constantly that you don’t like? Seriously, looking at someone and knowing there the one is just basing It of there’s looks or something,”

Peter didn’t respond, afraid that he might lash out at the only friend he’s managed to keep throughout the years. He thought about the last statement a lot, wondering if all he ever really felt was the physical attraction.

But no, that pull you feel when you look at someone for the fist time, watching there movements with whatever tasks they’re doing at the moment, even if it’s nothing at all. Falling entranced with there every gesture, taking in every curve and colour, memorising every feature.

It wasn’t just looking at their appearance, it was taking note of how they moved, how they acted, how they laughed, god there laugh is like music to your ears. It was watching and observing, that’s what Ned missed in his little speech.

Then of course you have the people who don’t believe in love, which was something he could understand.

Before he saw you.

For Peter, love was not a strong enough word to describe what he felt for his one true love. The way you made his heart stop with one smile, his face red with one touch, his hands sweat with one word. In your eyes, he found his entire world.

And he destined for you to be his.

The countess nights he spent dreaming of you, laying besides him. He longed to touch you, to feel your skin against his, to mark you with his love. He shocked himself with the self control he had to maintain around you especially when it came to the people you hung out with.

The amount of times he wanted to run out of hiding and crack the skull of some idiot who decided to talk to you or dare even look at you in any suggestive matter. The thought make him gag every time, but he’d like to think that you already knew that he was looking over you, that you belonged to him. That’s why you never took any of them on, that’s why you turned them down.

He couldn’t blame them for trying, but they had no chance since they would be gone the next day.

Which is why he hoped you could forgive him for what he did, for what he had to do.

The body laid in the back seat, wrapped tightly in a bag. There was no blood spilled, sadly, only the indents of his hands on the base of his neck. 

It was fun, watching the life drain from his eyes as he listed off every bad thing he’s ever done, mainly to you, but he threw in a few more ex’s just to spice things up a bit more. Maybe he shouldn’t have killed him, maybe he should’ve just let him walk free with the threats he shoved down his throat.

But then he had to call you a bitch, from that point he knew his life would just be a waste of oxygen.

Peter let out a chuckle at the memory, at the fake confidence he showed, struggling in his hold. It truly was a sight to behold, one that made his realise why he enjoyed being Spiderman so much. 

Seeing people suffer for there terrible mistakes and knowing that he had the power to punish them.

The drive was long and quiet, one of his hands was on top the steering wheel, tapping to an imaginary beat while the other settled on the arm rest. The streets were rather empty at this hour to Peter’s surprise, making him smirk that he would get away with the murder.

Maybe he could’ve stolen a better car.

But he was doing everyone a favour and he was keeping you safe.

He took a right into a dense forest, his car moving with with the bumps on the course road. When he felt like he was deep enough down the path, he hit the breaks, cringing at the squeaking noise it made.

Regardless, the exited the vehicle, opening the trunk to grab a shovel. He knew that there were a number of more efficient ways to get rid of the body, one that could’ve used his position in the avengers to his advantage, but his old techniques started to grow repetitive. 

It didn’t take him as long as he thought though, the hole he dug was around eight feet deep and hopefully the right size to fit the body. Dropping the shovel to the floor, he walked back to the car not to worried about his surroundings knowing that no one ever visited this part of the forest. 

He grabbed the body from the back seat, throwing it over his shoulder carrying it to the hole and tossing it inside without care. He smiled at the bag as he filled the hole a quarter of the way.

“Time to find an animal now shall we?” He whispered to himself, pulling out the hunters knife from the back of his pants along with a flash light, “Just incase,”

As he walked threw the trees and bushes, keeping look out for any movements he heard a gun shot cut threw the air. He gripped his knife, walking carefully towards the noise. 

Oh how he was sorry for the poor lad that decided to be here this night, but he had too do what had to be done.

Suddenly he was sent back by a force jumping on his back. He fell to the floor with a thud, his body forcefully turned over with a gun pointed directly between his eyes.

“Y/n?” He froze, his breath becoming heavier at how close your face was to his. Now he understood why his spider senses didn’t alert him, because you weren’t a threat to him, you could never be.

“Peter,” you whispered, lowering your gun, scrambling off of his body much to his dismay, “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” He asked back, still shocked at you proximity to him, talking with him, breathing the same air as him.

“You answer first,” you said quickly.

“No you,” Peter said back, crossing his arms.

“I-,” you started, but looked down, trying to hide your bashfulness, but it only drew attention to the blood dripping from your hair.

“Baby,” Peter whispered, walking up to you to grab your face, any sense of self control left his body after seeing the state you were in, “What happened,”

Peter thought it was some attack on you and judging by the amount of blood covering your skin, you had to defend yourself. He expected you to look up with the innocent eyes he’s studied for so long, finally getting a chance to get a closer look.

But instead, you raised your head with a sinister smile gracing your feature, you stepped out of his embrace, taking his hand in yours.

“Let me show you,” you whispered, in an almost sultry voice sending shivers down his spine.

You pulled him to a tree, taking the flashlight held in his fingers and pointed the light to the base of the trunk. Peter stared confused at the sight, walking forward slightly to inspect the slumped body. It was tied down tightly with rope around the waist and mouth, cutting threw the skin deeply showing signs of struggle. There was multiple stab wounds in the stomach, words carved in there legs that he couldn’t make out with the dirt and blood covering them. He did however notice his name on her forehead and the bullet wound in the middle. 

The streaks of blond in the hair falling in front of the face told him that this body belonged to Gwen Stacy.

“When she started talking to you I could see how uncomfortable she made you,” you started, looking to the floor while playing with the dirt with the sole of your shoe, “I- I didn’t like how close she got to you, and- and since she bothered you too I- I thought we were doing us both a favour,”

Peter stood back up, looking back at you. He wondered how somebody so insane could hide it so well. Even with the evidence painted over you, he still saw you as incapable of ever doing anything like this.

The thought made him laugh loudly, walking up to you and grabbing your face.

“I fucking love you,” he laughed more, making you smile brightly as he put his forehead against yours, “You’re perfect I swear,”

You laughed along with him, putting away your gun in your pack pocket, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“I’ve- I’ve so long for this,” you giggled, pressing your nose into his neck, basking in his sick scent, “But, what are you doing here?”

Peter giggled as well, pressing a quick kiss to your lips, “Same reason at you my love,”

Your eyes widened, you placed your hand on his cheek, bringing his lips back into yours. It was longer and sloppier than the first, both of you getting use to the movements but also desperate for the feeling.

Peter backed you up against another tree, pressing his body against yours, his deluded mind not reregistering how fucked up the situation was, but he loved every second. His lips moved down to your neck, sucking and bitting at the skin, drawing out delicious moans from your mouth.

“Fuck,” you sputtered, biting your lip and tangling your fingers in his hair, both of you not paying mind to the blood, sweat and dirt, “I’ve- I’ve wanted this for so long Peter,”

“Me too baby,” he said, tightening his hold on your waist, “Me too, now how about we hide these bodies together hmm?” He tickled your sides lightly, grinning at the giggle you let out, “Then I’m gonna take you home and make up for lost time,”

...

--->Interested in more? check out my other Dark!Peter fic<---

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Taglist: @jadegill​ @joyleenl​ @ietss

[sheerfreesia007]

Webhead Chronicles # 5

Title: Webhead Chronicles # 5

Fandom: The Amazing Spiderman

Pairing: Peter Parker x OFC!

Author: @sheerfreesia007​

Words: 1,418

Warnings: Fluff

Permanent Tag List: @paintballkid711, @fioccodineveautunnale, @phoenixhalliwell, @linkpk88, @weirdowithnobeardo, @athalien

Author Notes: I really love close friendships that turn into romantic relationships. Also the whole you act like an old married couple already trope is my favorite.

Gif Credit: @amypondes

“Ugh! I need a break. Let’s stop here and come back after we eat something. Do you want to order something? There’s a really good Chinese food place not far from here and they’re really fast with delivery.” Gwen asked as she flung her head back and sat up from her bed rubbing the back of her neck. Ev looked over from her curdled up spot on Gwen’s plush armchair, the two of them were studying for their weekly test in Chemistry. Ev nodded her head quickly in relief as she let her head fall back onto the armrest and shut her eyes.

“Yes please! I think my eyeballs are going to fall out of my head if I have to read anything else about redox reactions.” Ev grumbled out as she groaned softly while tilting her head from side to side to stretch out her muscles.

“Me too! But you’re doing much better with this week’s material than you did last week.” Gwen said supportively as she stood from the bed and began stretching her arms and legs. Ev stood too from her spot and began stretching to work out her muscles as she smiled softly.

“Pete has been helping me a little here and there ever since he found out we study together for Chemistry.” Ev said fondly and Gwen looked over at her with a wide teasing grin on her face.

“Oh so Pete’s been helping huh?” Gwen asked knowingly and Ev blushed softly knowing that Gwen was going to tease her about her and Peter’s relationship. “Let’s order first and then we’ll talk.” Gwen said decisively as she picked up her cordless phone and dialed the number for the Chinese food place.

*-*-*-*

Once dinner was delivered and Gwen had grabbed drinks for the two of them they both sat in the pair of plush armchairs to sit and talk. Just as Ev was getting comfy her phone trilled with a familiar tone and she smiled as she pulled the cellphone out of her pocket, Peter had texted her.

“Is that him?” Gwen asked knowingly as she peered over to look at Ev’s phone. Ev chuckled softly as she nodded her head while opening the text. How’s studying going? Did our little study sessions help? Ev smiled as she looked over at Gwen and then instantly shrunk back when she saw the knowing probing look in Gwen’s eyes. She showed the text to Gwen who smiled warmly at the text.

“Aww that’s sweet of him.” she said kindly as she began eating her dinner. Ev quickly typed up a response to Peter and sent it off before turning back to Gwen who was watching with curious eyes. “So when are you two going to make it official?” Gwen asked as she shimmied her shoulders suggestively making Ev choke on her bite of food.

“What?” Ev asked after she took a sip from her water bottle. She coughed gently and began to eat another bite of her dinner before looking over at Gwen.

“When are you two going to make it official. Everyone already thinks you two are dating-” Gwen began to explain when Ev cut her off.

“Who thinks we’re dating? We’re not dating. I mean Pete’s never said anything to me. Why would everyone think we’re dating?” Ev rambled firing off the questions at Gwen in rapid succession. Gwen held up a hand and Ev calmed herself down before settling back in the armchair.

“Okay, so everyone at school has like this secret rule that you and Peter are dating. I mean everyone can see it except for you two. You two are always with each other, spend almost all of your time together. You’re both always checking up on each other and bailing each other out with any trouble you get into.” she explained. “I mean you both act like you’re each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend, I just don’t think you see it.”

“But we’re best friends. That’s how best friends act.” Ev said bewildered.

“Ev, best friends don’t hang all over each other or always need to touch each other.” Gwen said softly. “Do you have feelings for Peter?” she asked gently and Ev looked at her with wide eyes. Her heart began to race in her chest as she stared at Gwen wondering if she should confess her feelings for Peter.

Ev had known since about the age of twelve that she was in love with Peter. Having grown up with her Mom always yelling and screaming at her whenever she would get drunk she had a clear picture of what she didn’t want her future to be like. And with being so close to Peter growing up she had been given a view of what a loving future could be like whenever she saw Aunt May and Uncle Ben together. It was something that Ev craved for her own life, that close bond with her significant other. And at twelve years old she had thought just maybe she could have something like with Peter. But as the years moved onwards she would second guess herself and keep her feelings to herself worried that Peter didn’t feel the same way.

“I-I don’t think he sees me that way at all.” Ev confessed softly and Gwen looked at her with a shrewd look on her face.

“Seriously? That boy can’t go more than a few hours without needing to touch you. You truly think he doesn’t have feelings for you?” Gwen asked in disbelief.

“But that doesn’t mean that he likes me as more than a friend. Maybe it’s just a comfort thing. I mean I showed up on Aunt May’s doorstep the next day barging in and introducing myself to him. We’ve grown up together. Maybe he only sees me as a sister and is just used to always being around me.” Ev began to ramble and Gwen cleared her throat to try and stop her from going off on a tangent.

“Ev do you like Peter as more than a friend?” Gwen asked gently and Ev looked at her with worry written all over her face. “You do don’t you?” Gwen prodded and Ev nodded her head at her.

“I’ve been in love with him since we were twelve.” Ev said softly as she moved her rice and chicken around in the container.

“Since you were twelve?” Gwen asked shocked. Ev nodded her head and sighed loudly realizing that she would have to explain it to Gwen.

“His Aunt and Uncle are wonderful people, the best I know. And growing up around them they showed me what a loving relationship could be. It’s something I’ve always wanted and I’ve always thought that I could possibly have that with Peter.” Ev confessed quietly and Gwen nodded her head at her words.

“That’s really sweet. Now we just have to get the two of you to see that you already have that, you just don’t realize it.” Gwen said as she began to think of ways.

“You can’t tell him though Gwen.” Ev said hurriedly and Gwen looked at her like she had two heads.

“First of all I wouldn’t ever tell Peter something like that. Second of all you should be the one telling him that.” Gwen responded, almost sounding offended. Ev hung her head and then rolled it to the side looking at her friend.

“I know I should tell him but I really don’t think he sees me as anything other than his best friend.” Ev said softly. “And I’ve kinda gotten used to just being his friend. I’d rather have him in my life as a friend than not have him in my life because he doesn’t feel the same way and it’s awkward.”

“Well I can’t push you to confess to him but I don’t think you have anything to be worried about.” Gwen said and the two of them resumed eating their dinner. Ev stayed relatively quiet for the rest of the evening as she thought about what Gwen had said. Did everyone truly think that her and Peter were together? Did they really act like they were together? Ev tried to wrack her brain to see if they did act in that way and while she could see when Peter would cuddle up to her when they hung out but no one saw him like that. Shaking her head she promised herself to be mindful of it and see if what everyone thought was true.

[nitrateglow]

What I’ve been watching:

Gambit (dir. Ronald Neame, 1966)

This movie gets compared to How to Steal a Million often since it’s a genre-bending heist/romcom but it has its own unique vibe. The romance between Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine is less steamy than what we got between Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn, but they still have great chemistry. The plot involves Caine’s cocky cat burglar trying to pull off the perfect heist with MacLaine’s aid—only he might actually be the worst con-man in the world, constantly misreading and underestimating his marks. It turned out to be much better than I expected—highly recommended if you liked HTSAM.

Dial M for Murder (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) [rewatch]

On my first watch, I agreed with Hitchcock on this one: too talky and more of a technical exercise than an engaging suspense plot. However, I rewatched Dial M recently and enjoyed it a lot more. Ray Milland’s performance has a lot more subtleties than I originally picked up on: his expressions, his ironic line delivery, and his use of props are all on point. I also had much more appreciation for the clever camerawork and the performance of John Williams as Inspector Hubbard. While I still don’t consider it top tier Hitchcock, it’s definitely more fascinating than it initially seems.

What Lies Beneath (dir. Robert Zemekis, 2000)

Sorry to say I was disappointed. I love me a good Hitchcockian thriller, but this one had two problems for me: it’s way too long and there are too many fake-out jump scares. Were it not for those issues, I would have probably enjoyed this one more, because the acting and atmosphere are genuinely impressive. And the last twist did actually get me, so kudos there.

3 Bad Men (dir. John Ford, 1926)

I’ve been trying to watch more westerns recently. It’s not a genre I’m especially familiar with, but I find the mythology behind the western as a genre rather fascinating, especially in how the western has crossbred with other genres (samurai films, space operas, etc.). This silent western from John Ford probably doesn’t count among his career best, but I liked it a lot. I love eccentric criminals in my movies and the titular “bad men” are a trio of oddball thieves out to rescue a town from a corrupt sheriff. There’s a lot of humor here, but the ending is genuinely powerful and dramatic.

Damn Yankees (dir. Stanley Donen, 1958)

I’m by no means a Stanley Donen expert, but of all his work, I found Damn Yankees the most underwhelming. Gwen Verdon is about the only reason to watch: she just glows. The plot itself is flimsy and aside from “What Lola Wants,” I cannot hum any of the other songs.

Ella Cinders (dir. Alfred E. Green, 1926)

This is a silent film you hear about when you first become a fandom novice. Just about every silent movie nerd watched Kevin Brownlow’s Hollywood documentary series and Ella Cinders is featured prominently in one episode, so it’s been on my watchlist for about a decade now. The film itself is a cute trifle elevated by Colleen Moore, perhaps my favorite silent movie comedienne. She’s playing a comic strip character and just brims with cartoonish energy. She’s so adorable that I wish the movie was longer and had a less episodic plot, but maybe that comes with adapting a newspaper comic strip.

Fedora (dir. Billy Wilder, 1978)

Oh God. BAD. This was b-a-d, BAD. I cannot believe I am saying that about a Billy Wilder movie. The guy is a favorite of mine. His weaker movies tend to be underwhelming rather than rotten, but this—oh man, it’s like a burlesque on Sunset Blvd, only sleazier, poorly paced, and packed with characters who commit the mortal sin of being simultaneously uninteresting and unsympathetic.

Basically, Not-Joe-Gillis, a washed-up Hollywood producer, goes to a remote island to lure Fedora, an Old Hollywood movie goddess, out of retirement. She’s basically a Greta Garbo expy who has somehow defied the aging process. She’s interested in his new version of Anna Karenina, but her servants, personal doctor, and the severe Polish countess she lives with basically tell her no and keep her a prisoner. Shortly after, Not-Joe learns Fedora has committed suicide and then learns her dreadful secret.

Needless to say, learning the twist is not worth the watch, especially because you can guess the twist within the first half hour of the movie. The whole movie feels like unintentional camp—and worse, like a sleazy, cheaply made TV movie. There’s a smallness to the film’s presentation that does not jibe with the outlandish plot and grand figures of Hollywood’s past. The only interest it has is as a time capsule, giving us a glimpse of an Old Hollywood giant yearning for the past and resenting the present (Not-Joe laments that “the kids with the beards” have taken over the movie industry). Like Fedora herself, the film comes off as pathetic rather than ironic or bittersweet.

[swimmingtvshowghostwoman]

I just finished re-watching Andrews movies and oh my God I fucking love him and I honestly believe he’s the best Spiderman and I love Tom but there is something about Andrew that is better as Spiderman

Like every interaction in the movie with him and without him but especially with him it’s just so much fun to watch and it’s so good and well written and well directed and the photography is absolutely incredible

It is definitely my favorite origin story of the three it is very well explained and makes as much sense as a superhero can make sense with the experiments and science and the DNA of his dad it’s all so well put together .

I know some people say that Andrew didn’t make a good Peter Parker because he wasn’t nerdy enough but I honestly don’t agree I think that the fact that he had more coolness to him than Toby made it even better because even though he wasn’t that nerdy he still was dorky and nerdy and wasn’t exactly popular which made him more relatable in someways and even though I understand why some people say that Peter needs to be super nerdy and unpopular or whenever I think it made so much more sense for him to have some coolness to him rather than being this overly anxious nerd because Toby was this overly anxious nerd the one thing that made him ‘Spiderman’ was being Spiderman it completely changed him in more ways than one but with Andrew he was Spiderman even before he was Spiderman in a way he had the qualities and personality to be Spiderman even before the powers It didn’t make him a different person or anything like that it just highlighted parts of him.

I really liked Gwen in those movies I think she was a more interesting better love interest then Mary Jane and also MJ she had her own storylines and was interesting calculus of being with Peter I hate that she died and yes I did cry but I did love the affect she had on him but at the same time living her on life and not putting him before herself which was true for Mary Jane In my opinion even though I Think it would’ve been better if they wouldn’t have killed her and she would go to Oxford and he would’ve stayed in New York because it makes more sense for them to break up I mean I really like them together and they make a good couple but they are in college and it’s OK for them to find themselves and then either not get back together or get back together but still it would’ve been way better that way in my opinion.

I thought the first movie was really good but I did miss the best friend for Peter part in this movie i think it would have added more layers to his character they could have even maybe focus more on one of the kids he helped rather than just show him helping them as a personality trait. I really like the lizard as a villain because he has a good backstory like his reasons makes sense and generally he was just really cool as a villain and I liked him. I like that it didn’t take that much time for him and Gwen to get together and I really like the way they got together I thought it looked natural and real and Andrew and Emma have such good chemistry I absolutely love it and I really like the fact that he told her from the beginning about himself and that she was the only one who knew it was a nice touch to their bond.

I didn’t like the promise he made to her father I thought that was stupid and way too old fashion in my opinion it’s just kind of made the second movie annoying in that way and the promise In my opinion should have been keep her safe and not necessarily stay away from her in order to keep her safe.



I really like the second movie I thought that it was really real written the connection between Harry and Electro. It didn’t feel as overbearing like the third movie in tobys movie series.

Basically I think Andrew is the best Spiderman/Peter Parker I just love the energy and humor he brought to the role and I don’t think any other actor would be like that even with the same text and honestly I just think each of them brings a different thing to the role but this is my fav.

And those little jumps and skipping he dose is so cute and goofy I love it

[the-desolated-quill]

Why Spider-Man Leaving The MCU Is The Best News I’ve Heard In Ages - Quill’s Scribbles

Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Did you hear the news? I’d be surprised if you didn’t. EVERYONE has heard the news by now. A couple of days ago it was reported that the deal between Marvel and Sony that allowed the two studios to share custody for the rights of Spider-Man has fallen through. Spider-Man is no longer going to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Speaking as someone who is not only a big Spider-Man fan, but also a very vocal critic of the current state of Marvel and Disney’s cynical and convoluted ‘shared universe’, this caused quite a reaction when I first heard the news. I’m as happy as a man who just found out his high school crush likes him back on the same day he won the lottery. Happy, but not surprised. In fact I’m more surprised that other people were surprised by the news. The deal Marvel and Sony managed to strike was almost unheard of. Two rival movie studios in mutual cooperation. Never thought I’d see the day. But if you thought this was going to be the new norm, then I’m afraid you don’t understand this industry. I knew, or at least suspected, that once Sony had a hit on their hands, they’d cut ties with Marvel and Disney. It was only a matter of time. Now that Spider-Man: Far From Home has made over a billion dollars at the box office and now they have found success with their own non-MCU films, Venom and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, the simple fact of the matter is they don’t need Marvel or Disney anymore. So they’ve flown the coop. Yes it’s possible they could renegotiate the deal, but given how unlikely the prospect of the initial deal was in the first place, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. It’s more likely they’re going to take their ball and go home. Sony’s Universe Of Marvel Characters (despite its incredibly clunky name) is now going to be firmly built upon and expanded, and I for one could not be more excited.

Of course not everyone shares my excitement. Disney, for one thing, aren’t happy. Nor are the cast. Jeremy Renner has made his views clear, begging Sony to give the rights to Spidey back. (Perhaps he should focus more on his own character Hawkeye, considering what a mess he’s become). Die hard MCU fans aren’t pleased neither. Same goes for ‘celebrity’ fans like Kevin Smith, a filmmaker who preferred to be called a comic book expert on the Venom Blu-Ray bonus features presumably because he hasn’t actually been relevant as a filmmaker since the 90s. (it’s worth reading his thoughts just for a laugh. He honestly thinks Disney aren’t greedy, corporate bastards. ROFL). And of course the so-called ‘professional’ critics, who for years have deluded themselves into thinking the MCU is actually good, have been writing their own little think pieces about what all this means. Can Spider-Man possibly survive without Iron Man and pals to prop him up? To which the answer is obviously yes. Sony had the rights to Spidey for fourteen years before the Marvel deal. They made five Spider-Man movies, four of which were massive box office successes. They also released Venom and Spider-Verse last year. Both hugely successful and the latter even won an Oscar, which is one more Oscar than Marvel Studios have ever won (sorry Black Panther. You were robbed).Can Spider-Man survive outside the MCU? Gee I don’t know. I guess somehow Sony will find the strength to soldier on without them.

Although, that being said, there’s not as many journalists siding with Disney as I thought there would be. There are quite a few articles explaining how this split could help Spidey in the long run, which is both absolutely true and refreshing to see. Hopefully this is a sign that we’re finally turning a corner and critics are starting to use their brains again. Like how everyone worshipped the ground Steven Moffat walked on until Sherlock Series 4 where everyone realised that he’s actually shit and has always been shit. 

Spider-Man leaving the MCU is the best thing you could do for the character at this stage. The way he’s been treated since joining the Marvel clusterfuck has been nothing short of appalling. I’ve made it no secret how much I detest this version of Spider-Man and some might dismiss what I’m about to say out of hand, perhaps claiming I’m biased because I’ve said numerous times that I love The Amazing Spider-Man films starring Andrew Garfield. Two films I will go to my grave defending because they were bloody good movies. People were just butt hurt because it wasn’t Spider-Man 4. Never mind the fact that the original Sam Raimi films were never that good to begin with (seriously, have any of you actually watched Spider-Man 2 recently? Trust me. It’s not as good as you remember it). No, I promise you that if MCU Spidey existed in a vacuum, I would still hate him just as much for the simple reason that he has absolutely nothing in common with the source material. Under the watchful, Orwellian eye of Marvel, they took Spider-Man, a character most famous for being a working class everyman, and turned him into the most spoilt and privileged little bum-balloon I’ve ever seen.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was a terrible movie. Plain and simple. A cynically produced, written by committee, pile of wank that gets so much of Spidey’s character and story completely wrong, it’s almost impressive. No longer a teenager/young adult struggling to balance his superhero life, his school work, his career and his social life, instead we got a groomed Mary Sue who doesn’t have to fight for anything because everything is basically handed to him on a silver platter courtesy of Iron Man. We never see him struggle. He’s not relatable. He never has to face consequences for his actions. He misses God knows how many classes and debate group meetings and yet he never gets punished for it. Sure he gets sent to detention a couple of times, but we see him leave whenever he bloody wants to. It’s just boring. If there’s no struggle, where’s the tension? And the less said about the villain, the better. Taking an eccentric antagonist like the Vulture and turning him into the stereotypical blue collar dad trying to provide for his family has got to be one of the most uninspired and blatantly lazy bits of characterisation I think I’ve ever seen. And that’s not to mention the supporting cast. Aunt May is youthed for no reason other than to make sexist jokes at her expense with every man that comes within her general vicinity staring at her with their tongues hanging out and eyes as large as saucepans. Minor villains like Shocker and the Tinkerer have their characters reduced to unfunny comedy sidekicks. And then there’s Peter Parker’s gang of racial stereotypes. We have Peter’s best friend, the fat and nerdy Ned who has no real personality other than being fat and nerdy (and is without a doubt the most annoying character in the damn film). Flash has been racebent so now he’s the stereotypical arrogant Asian prick. Michelle has no character other than being the same sassy black teenager who don’t give a shit, a caricature so old now it’s practically been fossilised. And then there’s the love interest Liz, a character so bland and one dimensional that I had to look her name up. Oh and lets not forget that the majority of this Spider-Man’s story was nicked from Miles Morales because people are only going to empathise with his story if it revolves around a white kid, am I right?

You know, I get so frustrated whenever people slag off the Amazing Spider-Man movies and claim that these new movies are better because... well... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I’m sorry, but I was much more invested with Peter and Gwen than I ever was with Peter and... what’s her face? Or Peter and Michelle (who I categorically refuse to call MJ because she’s not MJ, is she? They just used the initials to pander to gullible fans. They didn’t have the guts to just make Mary Jane Watson black, did they? Of course not! We don’t want to alienate the casual racists, do we? They’re our main demographic after all). The reason why Peter and Gwen worked is because they’re well-written, three dimensional characters with great chemistry and whom we actually spend a significant amount of time getting to know. So when Gwen dies at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it becomes a heart wrenching moment because we’ve grown invested in this character and this relationship. If Michelle were to die in a future movie, I honestly wouldn’t bat a fucking eyelid. Even Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst had more chemistry than those two, and that relationship was a total shambles from start to finish.

It also helps that Peter and Gwen felt like real people. I loved the scene in the first movie where Peter awkwardly asks her out because it reminded me so much of how I asked my first girlfriend out. And that’s why I love the Amazing Spider-Man movies. Because out of all the Spidey films we’ve had over the past 17 years, the Amazing ones are the only ones in my opinion that manage to capture the humanity of the character. As fantastical as the world is, the characters, their relationships and their dilemmas are grounded firmly in reality. Homecoming on the other hand is just embarrassing. Despite casting teenage actors, none of the teenagers actually act like teenagers. They act like five year olds. It’s painfully obvious that the filmmakers are trying to pander to young kids and they clearly don’t know how to write them. Again, this is where the Amazing movies stands head and shoulders above the others. They’re not treated like kids or teenagers. They’re treated like people. Real people. Same goes for the villains. (Yes, even Electro, despite wonky execution).

But the main criticism people have with MCU Spidey is that these films aren’t actually about Spidey. They’re really about the MCU mascot Iron Man.

Now to be clear, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the idea of Iron Man being a surrogate father figure to Spidey. It could work. Captain America: Civil War, despite the clunky and contrived way in which Spidey was introduced to the MCU (oh you just happened to know about a masked vigilante we haven’t seen or heard of until now Tony? Okay. What about Daredevil and Luke Cage?... What do you mean they’re not in the movie?), did a good job of setting up the dynamic. Namely that Tony doesn’t actually care about Peter or his well being, merely using him for his own ends. Unless Americans have some kind of ‘Bring Your Child To A Warzone Day’  I don’t know about. 

Despite its flaws, Civil War was good because it gave us an unsettling look at the characters we’ve been watching for years. We see Captain America consumed by his own naivety and idealism to the point where he can no longer see the bigger picture and we see Iron Man go from being an industrial capitalist to an authoritarian fascist. Homecoming could have followed up on that. Have Spidey realise that Tony doesn’t have his best interests at heart, reject him as a father figure and grow into his own man. Instead the movie seems to go out of its way to undo all the interesting things Civil War brought to the table. Of course Tony cares about Peter! Oh and his relationship problems with Pepper Potts have been magically fixed off screen and now they’re getting married! Relax people, it’s okay! Nothing morally complicated going on here! We apologise for assuming you’re actually intelligent and promise never to make you think about anything ever again!

Not only is this quite insulting to the audience, it also negatively impacts Spidey’s arc. Turns out the movie isn’t about Spider-Man becoming his own man. It’s about him proving he can be an Avenger. He’s constantly in the shadow of Iron Man and, more to the point, we’re supposed to be happy that he’s in the shadow of Iron Man.

Again, this is where the Amazing Spider-Man gets it right. The first movie is very much about father figures. Uncle Ben, Curt Connors and Gwen’s dad all play a role in Peter’s growth and development over the course of the film. He’s able to take all the lessons and advice he gets from the three and use them to become his own man. As director Marc Webb so eloquently put it, ‘it’s a story about a kid who grows up looking for his father and finds himself.’ Compare that to the current iteration of Spidey where Uncle Ben doesn’t even appear to exist in this continuity because he’s been completely supplanted by Iron Dad. Remind me again why people think the Amazing movies are shit?

The latest film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, is no better. Same problems as before only this time Mysterio gets MCU’d to death. Instead of the pathetic loser trying desperately to receive recognition for his talents, we basically get a rehash of the plot from Iron Man 3, which in turn was a rehash of the plot from The Incredibles. Mysterio is basically trying to supplant Iron Man because he got screwed over when he used to work for Stark, and it’s up to everyone’s favourite wall-crawler to stop him because there’s only room in this universe for one Iron Boy. Even when Iron Man is dead, he’s still front and centre of the fucking narrative. Here’s a bright idea. How about we make a Spider-Man film that’s actually, you know, about Spider-Man? (Oh yeah, spoiler alert, Iron Man dies in Avengers: Endgame. Not that it’s really spoiling anything because Endgame is a big piece of shit).

Here’s the thing. Everyone is blaming Sony for the deal breaking down, and okay, I’m not going to pretend that Sony aren’t cynical. As much as I love The Amazing Spider-Man movies, I’m well aware the only reason they exist is because Sony desperately wanted to keep the rights. They spent a stupid amount of money on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to the point where it needed to make a billion dollars at the box office in order to make a decent profit (a feat only achieved at that time by Batman with The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) and they crammed loads of characters and plot points into an already overstuffed movie in order to rush out their own shared universe to compete with Marvel. When that didn’t work, they went crawling to Marvel and Disney in the hopes that the MCU could bail them out of the shit. I get it. There’s plenty to criticise. But for the likes of Kevin Smith and other idiots to only blame Sony and defend Marvel is really quite galling to me because Marvel and Disney are just as cynical, if not more so.

Does anyone here actually know what the deal was? Basically the agreement was that Kevin Feige would get lead producer credit for any solo Spider-Man films and Marvel and Disney would get five percent of the cut. Meanwhile Spider-Man would be allowed to appear in any MCU film. Also, because Sony still hold the rights to the character, they get the final say on any creative decision regarding Spider-Man. Or at least that’s the theory anyway. In reality that wasn’t the case. Reportedly Marvel and Disney were so anal about keeping the plot of Avengers: Endgame a secret that they didn’t tell the screenwriters of Spider-Man: Far From Home what happens in the bloody film. And considering that the film follows directly on from Endgame, that’s quite a problem. Sony may have creative control over Spider-Man, but Marvel and Disney can still call the shots, deliberately sabotaging Sony in order to boost hype for their own films. Also Sony are actually worse off in this deal because Marvel and Disney are the ones making all the money. Spider-Man has appeared in three MCU films. Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. All three of these films made Marvel and Disney over a billion dollars at the box office. Sony meanwhile have only made two Spidey movies, Homecoming and Far From Home, only one of which has made over a billion and both of which Marvel and Disney get five percent of the profit. Now that Sony have finally got their billion dollar Spider-Man movie, Marvel and Disney had the cheek to propose that Sony share fifty percent of the profits with them. Because it’s not enough for Marvel and Disney to be making shit tons of money off their own films. No. They also want as much money as they can get out of films made by other studios that are only tangentially related to their’s. God forbid a movie studio should be allowed to keep all the profits from their movie.

So yeah, I’m glad Sony have split and are free to make their own movies again. Because Disney have got such a strangle hold on the entire industry that I’m always happy to see any studio or IP slip through their fingers. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. Do you know who else agrees with me? Stan Lee’s own daughter.

In an interview with TMZ, Joan Lee slammed Disney for their lack of compassion when her father passed away:

“When my father died, no one from Marvel or Disney reached out to me. From day one, they have commoditised my father’s work and never shown him or his legacy any respect or decency. In the end, no one could have treated my father worse than Marvel and Disney’s executives.”

She then went on to support Sony’s decision to break the deal with Marvel, saying ‘whether it’s Sony or someone else’s, the continued evolution of Stan’s characters and his legacy deserves multiple points of view.’

And do you know what? She’s right. She’s absolutely right.

While people were celebrating when Disney bought 20th Century Fox because the X-Men and Fantastic Four were finally going to be part of their precious shared universe, I was watching in absolute horror because nobody was actually talking about the ramifications of this. Disney serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when capitalism goes unchecked. Seeing this mega-corporation consume and absorb other major studios like some Lovecraftian monster is both frightening and heartbreaking for me because the industry is going to be so much lesser for it. Less studios means less movies are going to be produced. It also means less variety in the entertainment we consume. Marvel and Disney have already done their utmost to homogenise and dumb down every MCU film to the point where most of them all feel the same, look the same and have nothing unique or creative about them whatsoever. And now we’re on the cusp of seeing that potentially happening to my most favourite superhero in the whole wide world:

Thanks to the Disney buyout, plans for X-Force and Deadpool 3 have been placed on indefinite hold with people reckoning we won’t see the Merc with the Mouth again until Phase 5 (Christ, give me strength) of the MCU so that Marvel and Disney can work out exactly how to fit him into their shared universe. Naturally the R rated nature of the character makes him difficult to integrate into the PG-13 MCU. Some have suggested toning down the character. Even David Leitch, the director of Deadpool 2, said they could make a PG-13 version of the character, which just feels like such a massive betrayal. After literally years of Ryan Reynolds, director Tim Miller, screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and the fans fighting tooth and claw to get an R rated Deadpool movie green-lit, it sickens me whenever I see people discussing how a PG-13 Deadpool wouldn’t be so bad and that they just want to see him pop up in an Avengers movie.

Here’s a suggestion. If you can’t make someone like Deadpool fit into the MCU, STOP TRYING TO FUCKING DO IT! Let him be his own separate thing! I’ve got no problem with that! But no. Everything has to be connected to this idiotic shared universe, but here’s the thing, I really don’t fucking care. I couldn’t give two shits if Deadpool and Captain America were to meet in a movie. I just want to see X-Force and Deadpool 3. I just want some good fucking movies. Is that really too much to ask?

The MCU, and by extension Disney, are slowly ruining the industry with this shared universe crap and I’m getting so bloody sick of this. Not only does the premise have absolutely nothing new to offer at this point, it’s also ruining the quality of standalone movies. Instead of telling compelling stories with likeable characters, they’re just adverts for more movies to come with nothing unique to offer. Oooooh, can the Avengers stop Thanos and unkill everyone who we know aren’t really dead because they all have fucking sequels planned? Tune in next week to confirm what you already bloody know! I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got planned for me down the road in ten or fifteen movies time. Right now I’m stuck here at a service station and I’ve got no fucking sandwiches.

Off the top of my head, the only MCU films I can think of that I’ve watched in recent memory and I’ve actually enjoyed are Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther. And do you know why? Because they actually have something to say. They’re not focused on teasing the next bullshit spinoff movie. Black Panther in particular has little to no connection with the rest of the MCU. It works as its own standalone piece and has its own unique voice, commenting on how black people are viewed in society. Civil War takes elements from previous films and goes in an entirely new direction with them, exploring the faults in our beloved Avengers and questioning their role as superheroes. It offers something beyond a tease for the next film. It poses thought provoking questions about the characters and forces us to confront some harsh truths about them. But in an environment like the MCU, where everything is pre-planned by committee, there’s no room for creativity or expression, which means the few good movies get stifled. It’s impossible to continue the themes of Civil War because Homecoming exists to contradict everything. Black Panther is an amazing and impactful movie, but its impact is lessened thanks to Infinity War where we see the Wakandans reduced to little more than cannon fodder so that the real heroes can fight the baddie.

It’s frustrating to see people blindly accept and support the poisonous business model of Marvel and Disney because it’s not normal, it’s not benefiting the industry at large and it’s not even financially viable in the long term. Marvel Studios’ success revolves around one franchise. What happens when the shared universe/comic book movie bubble bursts and people eventually stop watching these films? (and it will happen because it always happens. That’s how trends work). They’re going to be up shit street, aren’t they? At least Warner Bros have Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to fall back on. Their future isn’t entirely dependant on the success of the DCEU (thank God, some might say).

Also it’s worth noting that studios are slowly starting to move away from the shared universe format. Before the buyout, 20th Century Fox were taking risks with smaller budget, standalone movies like Deadpool and Logan. After the disaster that was Justice League, Warner Bros and DC have recently started focusing more on standalone movies to great success. Aquaman and Shazam, while still part of the DCEU, work as their own independent films. We’ve also got Joker being released in a couple of months time, which I think everyone should be paying really close attention to, because if Joker is critically and commercially successful, it could very well serve as the death knell for the concept of a shared universe. Definitive proof that you don’t need twenty movies and interconnecting stories with massive budgets to be successful. All you need is a very good idea.

Even Sony have finally learnt their lesson. They’ve taken a risk with Into The Spider-Verse and received an Academy Award for their trouble. As for Sony’s Universe Of Marvel Characters, they’re already off to a strong start with Venom. And mercifully they’re not making the same mistakes they did with the Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Ghostbusters. They’re not spending ridiculous amounts of money with unrealistic expectations of success and they’re no longer putting the cart way before the horse. They’re focusing on making a good movie first and worrying about potential expansion later. Venom may not be a masterpiece, but it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining and fulfilling than the majority of MCU films because it tells a complete story with a beginning, middle and end and it has well developed characters that we actually like and grow attached to. And if worst comes to the worst and Sony’s next film, Morbius, doesn’t do well, then they have Venom 2 to fall back on. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll still have Spider-Verse. They are no longer putting all their eggs in one basket and that’s good. That’s the smart thing to do.

Can you imagine something like Venom in the MCU? Of course not! Because Venom has its own unique tone and vision. That’s why it was so successful with audiences. Its mix of dark comedy and campy sci-fi horror made it stand out from the crowd. Marvel and Disney want us to believe that there’s only one way to make a superhero movie, when that’s simply not true. And now that Spider-Man is free to find his own unique voice again, hopefully people will begin to see just how creatively limiting and damaging the MCU truly is.

[feenyreadscomics]

Day 4: prompt: long distance relationship

Fandom: Spiderman

--

MJ waved her hand wildly in the airport, hoping Gwen would see her. She was carrying a sign that read "Welcome!" Gwen would probably find it ridiculous, but it was a good way to make sure she wouldn't be missed.

MJ smiled as she spotted Gwen's blonde hair, rolling through the crowd. "GWEN!" MJ shouted. She ran over to Gwen.

"Its good to see you!"

"Hey MJ," Gwen smiled.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah," Gwen stretched her arms. "I should not be allowed on transcontinental flights. It makes me homicidal."

MJ laughed. "Well, Gwen-girl, we got places to be. You can tell me all about it over dinner."

--

"And I don't really want to deal with the talk descending into 'oh, hey, look at Spiderman's ex because its tiring. I'm my own person with my own thoughts." Gwen complained, taking a bite of chicken.

"I'm sure you'll do great giving your talk." MJ reassured her.

"Still, it stinks that probably the only reason they want me to speak is because I dated Spiderman. It feels like I'm faking."

"You're also a world renowned chemist. Relax, Gwenny, and if it makes you feel better, I have several stuffed animals for you to practice in front of."

"That was only that one time!"

"True." MJ's phone buzzed. "Oh, it's Petey, mind if I take this?"

"Only if I get to talk too."

"Hey Petey! What's up? You're on speaker phone!"

"Hi, Peter," Gwen said. "How are things in NYC?"

"Not that much different than when you left seven hours ago.

"Glad to hear you made it in safely!"

"Yeah, the talk I have to give is tomorrow. It's on microplastics in the environment. Did you know Spiderman's web shooters are estimated to contribute 5% of microplastics in the Hudson?"

"Oh, I guess I'll have to let him know to change the formula to something less toxic," Peter said.

"If he needs a chemist to help, I know a stellar chemist," MJ chimed in.

"MJ, you passed high school chemistry with a C, and set off the fire alarm twice in one class," Peter laughed.

"I was talking about Gwenny girl here, chemist extrodinare," MJ retorted. "And besides, that was an experiment in bomb making!"

"You weren't good at it. Leave the chemistry to Gwen."

"Hey, I hate cutting this short, but I'm getting a call from Jameson. I'll have to call you later."

"Bye, Peter," Gwen said.

"I love you!" MJ said. She then hung up. "Its always good to hear from him. Shall we get the check?"

"Sure, let's go."

"Make like a bread truck and haul buns."

Gwen giggled. "Ugh, that was actually terrible, never say that again."

"You love it," MJ smirked.

"I do," Gwen responded.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Peter and MJ in Far From Home

SPOILERS!

I will be talking about the movie over all but I feel given the subject matter of this blog that this aspect of the film deserved it’s own section.

Basically they did our ship a disservice.

If you ever see anyone daring to bring up the MCU movies as superior to the Raimi films and are using the Peter/Mary Jane romance as ammo against the latter shut that shit down because they don’t have a leg to stand on.

I’m not going to die on the hill of the Peter/MJ romance under Raimi being the best thing ever or there being the greatest possible chemistry there. But at least from a plotting point of view it was competently executed, at least it was believable on paper. *

In this movie it’s like they hook up because the plot says so.

And I know this because in Homecoming, Peter had a crush on Liz and Michelle was...a rude jerk to him basically and then abruptly at the start of this film BOOM Peter has the hots for MJ. Out. Of. Nowhere.

In fact he’s MORE into her than he was into Liz.**

In Homecoming Peter’s drive revolves around his relationship with Tony whereas in this film his primary motivation at first is to hook up with MJ until that goal then has to be weighed against being a hero. Chunks of the movie are dedicated to him thinking about ways to get close to her, to get her the right gift, to take her to the right place, to charm her basically. And further chunks are dedicated to the obstacles he faces to that end (namely a deep cut comic book reference from Marv Wolfman’s run which was kinda cool)*** and her gradual reciprocation of his feelings...oh and her knowing he’s Spider-Man.

In contrast Peter’s feelings for Liz weren’t nearly as big of a deal and yet somehow were much more believable.

Oh and to say the PS4 game delivered a better relationship would be an understatement. I think we all knew that was going to be the case going into this but even I wasn’t expecting the chasm to be this big. I thought we’d get a competent teen romance story if nothing else. But we didn’t even get that.

As problematic (in all the ways you can use the word) as the John Hughes movies that MCU Spidey borrows from are, they were better than this.

I think the word that comes to mind the most when looking at the handling of the relationship is ‘rushed’.

And yet ironically when they finally do get together their first kiss is awkwardly overlong. I mean maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe that was the point because they’re awkward teenagers but I think it was just incompetence.

I look at both characters and I cannot really fathom why they like one another. They just do because the plot demands it.

You can headcanon and contort the plot as you like but the end result is the film gives you nothing. They are together because...Tom Holland is the lead and Zendaya is a hot property right now I guess.

Now MJ is better than in the last movie, much more likable and less Ally Sheedy from the Breakfast Club. I guess that goes against her prior characterization but I can buy it.

She’s gone from boring and someone you could never see hooking up with Peter because she’s a jerk to him to...well someone who’s a bland goth-lite stereotype I guess but is capable of the odd compliment.  Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill don’t see what either of them see in the other though. They have nothing in common and they also don’t have traits that balance one another out.

But that’s all looking at Michelle and the relationship unto itself...how does it stack up as an adaptation.

Well how should I put this?

FUCK THIS MOVIE, THIS ISN’T MARY JANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can’t believe Mary Jane has been given the Dark Phoenix treatment of screwing up once then getting a second chance only to screw up again.

What the fuck are (the live action) Spider-Man movie’s problem with just doing the female love interests from the comics rather than mix and match elements from different characters, AUs and OCs?

At this point Betty Brant and Liz Allan have been the most faithful!

...Sigh...

Okay so first of all if you were still holding out hope Michelle/MJ might not be Mary Jane sorry you are shit out of luck. When they kiss there is a visual reference to ASM #143, their first kiss. They also never refer to her as anything other than MJ in the movie.

So she’s MJ.

And no, despite your hopes she never dyes her hair red either.

As I already made clear her personality is nothing like Mary Jane’s. Which is like disrespectful even beyond how it’d be disrespectful for any character because Mary Jane’s personality is essentially her super power.

I died a little every time she was on screen and uttered some eye roll worthy bullshit about how people died here or there or how she likes broken things more.

It’s not even that they gave her a different personality to comic book MJ’s but rather that they almost went out of their way to give her the absolute opposite personality.

Just about the only thing they sort of took from the comics was her knowing Peter’s identity, but they play it more the way it was presumed she found out before Parallel Lives was published.

It even creates something of a plothole because it’s made clear she learned because it was an obvious secret, so why hasn’t anyone else deduced this besides this cynical high schooler?

I might write more about this as thoughts come to me but that’s all I got for now.

They fucked up MJ, they fucked up the relationship. Go rewatch that fucked awesome texting scene from the PS4 game.

*Hell in a rare instance where I will invoke the Webb movies and Gweema Stoney positively, even those movies did the romance better than this. Put aside the chemistry the pair had, at least you could understand why Peter and Gwen would like one another.

**I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I feel so sorry for Laura Harrier. Not only was she a good actress delivering a likable performance and had chemistry with Holland, but you could buy her and Peter getting together even if it was a bit fanboy wish fulfillmentey. Plus their relationship was seriously plot relevant beyond just coaxing one half of the equation to be in the right place at the right time and ultimately get themselves endangered.

And what did she get for her trouble?

Publicity played up Zendaya, Zendaya gets on the posters which Harrier is wholly absent from and she isn’t even mentioned in this movie.

***On a side note that scene where the SHIELD lady demands Peter strip in front of her and get into his new costume and then Brad stumbles across them...and takes a picture that he’s going to use to prove Peter was trying to hook up with her and thus torpedo Peter’s chances with MJ...

Um....WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An adult authority member lures a minor away into a secluded area and exerts their dominance by demanding they strip in front of them. Then in a state of undress another minor comes across them and their reaction is that this is perfectly fine but they’re going to use this as ammunition to protect their romantic relationship.

Like no dude you just stumbles across a scene from a PSA about pedophiles.

Why was this scene played for cringey laughs it’s really fucked up, imagine if the genders were swapped for a moment holy shit!

[meowloudly15]

Stranded: Day 9 - PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Hello, all apologies for vanishing on you all. Yes, this story will be completed. Yes, there are only six more chapters left. And yes, this is my favourite chapter in this story. So I hope the wait was well worth it for you all.

Also, big shoutout to @gammathetaalpha, my betareader, who unfortunately has other commitments and therefore can't finish betaing Stranded. She's been such a big help to me, though, and she's an awesome writer herself, so I recommend you give her stories a look!

As always, enjoy!

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When she woke up, Gwen’s first thoughts were about her Peter. She saw his face, thin and shadowed, his wire-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose and indenting the sides. She saw his blue eyes, squinting at a homework problem or a chemistry assignment. She saw his long, thin frame, a buttoned-up polo shirt hanging loosely off of his narrow shoulders, slacks supported only by a tightly-cinched belt.

Why couldn’t she forget? Why did it hurt so much, just thinking about those minuscule details, the simple irregularities that your brain latches onto and never lets go of? Why did she allow him to keep hurting her?

Peter was awesome. Sure, he wasn’t popular and wasn’t conventionally good-looking, but he was funny, good with a snappy comeback, intelligent, quick-witted, kind, honest, loyal…

Gwen was nothing of the sort. She tried to be, sometimes, but it never worked.

Was that why Peter was the hero in every dimension but hers? Was hers an anomaly?

According to her phone, it was 8:22 in the morning. There was no way she was going to fall back asleep at this point.

Gwen got up and sat on the wall of the room. The atmosphere in here reminded her of her granny’s house. From the floral accents to the tchotchkes in every nook and cranny, from the crocheted doilies on wooden tabletops to the weapons of caffeine construction… were there standard old-lady decor rules that she wasn’t allowed to know about? Did they all shop at the same Bath, Bed & Between or something?

It was a shame that May wouldn’t get to be a grandmother. She would have made a good one.

Upon inhaling deeply, she realised why she had woken up in the first place. The smell of coffee and waffles drifted into the room. Normally, Gwen would be out of the room in seconds, but her stomach was twisted into a knot.

“Breakfast is ready!” May called from the kitchen.

Peni bolted upright and rushed out the door, her spider in close pursuit. “Good morning, Gwen!” she bade the older girl as she left.

Gwen clutched her knees to her chest. She wished she still had Peni’s youthful exuberance. She was only sixteen, four or five years older than Peni was, but she sometimes felt more like she was sixty. Was that a normal part of growing up, feeling like you were older than you really were?

Imagine how Peter B. must have felt. Twenty-two years of fighting crime, of battling the dregs and vileness at the bottom of society. Eleven times as long as Gwen had spent doing the same. No wonder he was so worn out.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Well, speak of the devil.

A knock sounded from the door to Gwen’s room. “Hey Gwen, you awake? It’s breakfast time.”

Gwen shook her head, then remembered that Peter B. couldn’t see her from the other side of the door. “I’m not hungry.”

“What’s that?”

Gwen raised her voice, which had inadvertently dropped to a low mutter. “I’m not hungry.”

“You sure? May’s waffles are to die for. At least, they were in my world.”

Gwen detected a hint of mournful nostalgia in Peter B.’s voice. Still, she said nothing.

After a minute, Peter B. spoke up again. “You feel alright, kid?”

Gwen didn’t respond. The silence would speak for itself.

Oh, right. She didn’t want the silence to say anything.

“Go away.”

Peter B. slowly pushed the door open. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why you’re feeling so glum.”

“And I’m not saying anything until you go away.”

Peter B. sat on the wall next to Gwen.

A long silence ensued. Gwen could hear the clattering of cutlery and the distant murmur of conversation in the kitchen.

The silence was deafening. It stifled her thoughts. She was grateful for the silence, though it was tainted by the presence of another person, one who wanted to talk.

Perhaps she should speak first, to prevent Peter B. from commandeering the conversation.

Should she be here?

YES

Gwen finally relented and spoke first. “D’you ever feel like you’re not special? Like you don’t belong ‘cuz you’re too normal?”

“Uh… sometimes. Tell me more.”

At least he didn’t point out that she had broken her pledge.

Out of genuine concern for Peter B.’s emotional state, Gwen asked, “Why don’t you tell me? I’ll do my best to help you out.”

“Because you’re trying to change the subject. Tell me more.”

Gwen hesitated. What could she say that wouldn’t say too much?

“I… don’t really want to.”

“C’mon. Talk to me.” Peter B. sounded more annoyed than he did reassuring.

“Am I bugging you? If I am, I can just go. We don’t have to talk about this. I’ll just eat breakfast, and it’ll all be good.”

“No. It won’t be. You’ve gotta learn to talk about your problems, kid.”

Gwen tried to hide her grimace. It didn’t normally bother her, but she felt aggravated from being called a kid. She hated being treated like a kid. She was sixteen, for crying out loud!

The words flowed out of her before she could stop them.

“I hate being called a kid. I’m not one. Well, legally, I am, but I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I can do things by myself. I can solve my own problems. I can handle my own emotional crises. I don’t need to talk things out. I’m tough. I’m not gonna let any little mood swings bug me. I’ll seal it all in, and everything will be fine. I’m good at bottling up my emotions.”

Peter B. was silent for a couple moments. So was Gwen. Had she shared too much? Did she need to keep a closer eye on the seal to her inner self? If it popped open without her knowledge, she’d be in trouble.

Finally, the older man spoke up. “You can’t hide from your own feelings.”

“Oh yeah? And why not?” Gwen snapped.

“Woah, woah, woah.” Peter B. waved his hands to get Gwen to calm down. “Because they’re gonna spill out. Just like they did right there.”

“I know they did. I’ve just gotta cork myself up more tightly.”

Peter B. drummed his fingers on the wall for a couple of seconds. He asked, “You know anything about hydraulics?”

“No. Is that, like, a monster from Greece?”

“That’s a hydra. Hydraulics is the use of water pressure to move things.”

“You mean like a power washer?”

“Yeah, kind of. So, uh, power washers work by building up a ton of pressure in the hose leading to the tiny nozzle. Then, when you crank open the valve, the water shoots out of the opening. It can knock over pretty much anything in its path if you pressurise it enough.

“The problem is, you can’t build up too much pressure in the hose. If you do, and if you don’t open the valve, something’s gonna break. A seal’s gonna come loose. The valve might swing open all on its own. The hose could rupture. Something will backfire, no matter how tough the power washer is, if you put enough pressure into it.

“It’s the same way with emotions. You leave yourself bottled up, as you put it, for too long, and with emotional baggage still building up, something bad’s gonna happen. It doesn’t matter how tough or determined you are. You’ll snap. Everything’s gonna go to pieces. That’s why you have to let out the pressure, a little at a time, to ease the load it has on you.”

Gwen thought about what Peter B. had said. It was true, or at least it seemed true. It clicked, even though she didn’t really want it to. It made too much sense. It was too right to be true.

Peter B. asked, “You’ve had a lot of pressure build up in you, haven’t you?”

Gwen inhaled and exhaled. “What if I don’t wanna open the nozzle?”

“Sometimes, you don’t give yourself a choice. Sometimes, it hurts to do that. But it’s never a bad thing, I’ve realised.”

Gwen inclined her head downwards. A valve opened in her heart.

“Peter,” she whispered.

“What?”

“No. Not you. The other Peter. The one from my dimension. My best friend.”

Peter B. edged closer to Gwen. “Tell me more.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me about him.”

Gwen nodded. “He was really smart. He was super good at math and science and stuff. He helped me with homework a lot. He made webshooters for me, like three weeks after I got my powers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He designed the web fluid and everything. He helped make the suit, too.” Gwen cracked a smile as she remembered how kind Peter had been to her.

“The first time I used the webshooters, I fell into a rose bush. But Peter fixed them up, and they worked so much better. He even gave me instructions on how to make more web fluid. I remember adding potassium nitrate instead of potassium sulfate once, and the capsule blew up in my face just before I slotted it in.”

Peter B. chuckled. So did Gwen. A weight that she didn’t know had been there dropped off of her shoulders.

“He was always so nice to me, even though I wasn’t super nice to him back.” Gwen’s smile quickly faded. “I didn’t deserve to have him as a friend. He was too nice, and then I hurt him. I hurt him badly. I hurt him a bunch of times, but he finally snapped. And… that’s why he died.”

“He killed himself?”

“No…” Gwen winced inwardly. “I killed him. He drank a serum to make himself superhuman, but it turned him into a monster. I had to stop him... but he died.”

Peter B. looked solemn.

“I killed him, and you know what’s the worst part? He was jealous of me. Peter was jealous that I had powers and he didn’t, that I was cool and he wasn’t. Nobody should be jealous of me!” Gwen slammed her fist against the wall. A picture swung back and forth.

“I’m not a good person. I’m a terrible person. I pushed my own best friend to self-destruction. He should have gotten the spider-powers, not me. I should be dead, not him. Peter Parker is the Spiderman in all the dimensions except mine. I’m an anomaly. I shouldn’t be here. I’m a ghost.”

Gwen leaned backwards against the wall and exhaled.

Peter B. turned to look at her. “I let Gwen Stacy die.”

Gwen sat upright. “You what?”

“We… we were good friends in my universe. We went to the same college, and she ended up dating my best friend. So Green Goblin took her hostage on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then he shot a bomb just as I was about to reach him. It went towards a hospital, and I had to stop it. I couldn’t let everybody in there die. I got rid of the bomb, and then I saw Gwen falling… and I tried to get there, but she hit the river before my webline reached her…. Do you know what happens to you when you hit water at terminal velocity?”

Gwen shivered. An unpleasant memory rocketed through her brain.

Peter B. sniffled and wiped his nose on his wrist.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’re not alone. We’ve lost people, too. And we’re here for you. All you have to do is open up that valve, and we’ll be right there alongside you. All of us.”

Gwen nodded solemnly. Did it hurt Peter B. to look at her? Did it hurt him in the way that it had hurt her to look at Spider-Pete, in the way that it sometimes hurt her to look at him?

“Let’s go get breakfast,” she said at last.

Peter B. hopped down from the wall. “Yeah, before the waffles get cold.”

Gwen walked downstairs feeling as light as air. Her chest felt free. No water weighed her down. She could float like a specter if she wanted.

Why did she bother bottling up her emotions, anyway?

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[proofthatihaveaheart]

I'm gonna send a lot :) :DC, Marvel, Borderlands, Gayperion, Carol Danvers

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my (DC):

Favorite character: i have a lot of characters i really love in dc but no one really jumps out as my top favorite above all others…. i’m going to say selina because i love her in a lot of media and i picked up the current batman comic to read about her specifically (and then dropped them when she left lol, i’l have to pick up her solo series sometime too) 

Least Favorite character: hmmm………..i don’t know……….can i say jervis from gotham specifically? he makes my skin crawl in a very bad way and i kinda want to punch him in the face. although he also has his charming moments and i think his power-set makes for a very interesting villain hmmm. OH can i say all the various Big and Boring Cosmic Villains like Steppenwolf??? they all blur together and i just don’t care about any of them

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): selina/bruce, harley/pamela, oswald/ed, raven/beast boy, diana/steve

Character I find most attractive: diana aka wonder woman aka have my heart

Character I would marry: as much as i want to say diana, i feel like i would constantly be overwhelmed with awe around her so maybe that’s not a good idea………. can i marry bruce for his money?

Character I would be best friends with: if she wasn’t evil, pamela, she could be one of my fellow grad students (y’know, in another life). i would hang with steph too, she’s cool 

A random thought: dc was my first superhero love, teen titans specifically, and that show probably laid the groundwork for what i want in my superhero teams. also i should get back to reading dc comics

An unpopular opinion: i don’t think this is unpopular exactly but the joker is overused, there are so many other good batman villains 

My canon OTP: bruce/selina (GIVE ME THEIR WEDDING YOU COWARDS)

Non-canon OTP: harley/pamela except it’s canon in some verses if i remember correctly sooooooooooooooooo :) 

Most badass character: i want to say diana……..and i can’t think of anyone more badass so

Pairing I am not a fan of: clark/diana is just Bad, what were they thinking?

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): it’s comics, who hasn’t been screwed up by a writer at some point? ok but jokes aside, no one specific is coming to mind right now

Favourite friendship: i love all the batfam so *points at all of them* 

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my (Marvel):

Favorite character: i don’t know how you could possibly expect me to choose a single character when there are so many………….. carol at the moment, kamala and mj and peter (parker, not quill) in general are at the top of the list too

Least Favorite character: ……………….there’s probably someone i hate…… but no one is coming to mind…… i guess thanos? i can’t believe he got a solo series 

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): the spidey ot4 (peter/harry/gwen/mj), steve/tony, carol/jessica, carol/maria, clint/natasha

Character I find most attractive: ooooooooo, a good question. i think i’ll go with carol because brie larson is

Character I would marry: if it had to be a superhero, janet. if not, gwen and we would run away together and never get involved with the angst of superheroes

Character I would be best friends with: maybe cindy moon (she likes pokemon! and is just a lovely person!) or gwen 

A random thought: in the avengers tower that absolutely exists and that they all live in (at least part of the time), tony builds additional rooms for all the new members. he puts glowing stars up in carol’s room and calls her space-face and laughs when she chooses star wars for movie night because of course that’s what you pick, danvers    

An unpopular opinion: spider-man h*mecoming is bad and it isn’t a comics-accurate adaptation of spider-man, let alone the most accurate

My canon OTP: any of the canon ships within the ot4 - but if i had to choose just one, it’d be peter/mj. all the good comics history

Non-canon OTP: THE SPIDEY OT4, MY ULTIMATE MARVEL SHIP

Most badass character: CAROL ‘SORRY I’M A BADASS’ DANVERS

Pairing I am not a fan of: sp*deypool is the ultimate notp. i don’t get why it has such a massive following

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): see my above point about comics (though the other thing about comics is that once there’s a switch in writers, it often resolves itself). currently, i feel this way about peter (although i’m behind so maybe spencer’s undid all the slott nonsense) + eddie and the symbiote (not so much their individual characters but the relationship between them)

Favourite friendship: steve and carol and tony currrently

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my (Borderlands):

Favorite character: lilith or fiona

Least Favorite character: i love them all but salvador is….. well i just don’t have as much of a connection to him (sorry sal) 

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): lilith/roland, brick/mordecai, fiona/rhys, rhys/vaughn, athena/janey

Character I find most attractive: lilith. also amara who may outcompete lilith, we shall see

Character I would marry: would i marry any of them?? (the answer is no but i guess if i had to, maybe janey? at the very least, she could repair any problems in our house)

Character I would be best friends with: janey possibly

A random thought: each set of vault hunters is a weird dysfunctional family and nothing can convince me otherwise (i will be sorely disappointed if the bl2 gang aren’t close in bl3)

An unpopular opinion: there’s more to borderlands than handsome jack and i wish fandom would focus on some of the other characters more 

My canon OTP: lilith/roland or athena/janey

Non-canon OTP: rhys/vaughn just edges out fiona/rhys

Most badass character: zer0

Pairing I am not a fan of: rhys/handsome jack

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): no one really except where they killed roland and it was sad

Favourite friendship: i love timothy and athena as friends 

002 | send me a ship and I will tell you (gayperion):

when or if I started shipping it: i think it was sometime during episode 1???? i can’t remember a specific moment, it just kinda happened

my thoughts: they’re very good and it would be even more amazing for them to date now. can you imagine the ceo of atlas with the scruffy leader of a bandit gang (who also happens to be a math nerd)? SO GOOD 

What makes me happy about them: they’re best friends, they have a lot of stupid jokes between them, they very clearly would go to the end of the earth for each other

What makes me sad about them: the fear that they may never interact in bl3

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: there isn’t enough fic for me to have noticed any annoying tropes

Things I look for in fanfic: any fic in general

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: rhys/fiona

My happily ever after for them: they haven’t spoken for a while but vaughn comes along on sanctuary (idk how he ends up there, maybe he’s upset with his bandits leaving for the children of the vault) and then he hears rhys’ voice over the comm for the first time in YEARS, he could cry, he’s so happy. anyway us vault hunters help rhys out with his maliwan problem, vaughn and rhys reunite, there are tears and hugs and then they kiss and have to figure out what they want (hint: they want to be together forever but rhys has a company and vaughn has his bandits and they need to navigate that complexity - but they do and it’s awesome)

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you (carol danvers):

How I feel about this character: if you told me last year that i would fall in love with carol, and read everything i could with her, i probably would not have believed you. but here i am, almost caught up with the captain marvel comics and helplessly in love with her. i love her bravery, her humor, her impulsiveness, her kindness, her fight-me attitude, her determination, her cockiness - really i love everything about her and i’m inspired by her drive to be better and to protect as many people as she can (also the whole speech but especially this quote at the end of captain marvel (2012) #1: and we will be the stars we were always meant to be GETS me every time i see it, i love ambitious ladies who reach for the stars)

All the people I ship romantically with this character: carol/jess is the ultimate 616 otp while carol/maria is the ultimate mcu otp. i also like carol/rhodey and i read a ship manifesto for carol/wanda that has made me interested in learning more about them

My non-romantic OTP for this character: steve and tony, i can’t choose between her two relationships with them because they’re both so good (it might be tony??? he helped her through aa and i love their snark? but then steve and carol are also very good). also in the mcu, nick fury, their chemistry is GOLD 

My unpopular opinion about this character: i hate that so many people have started putting carol into the role of peter’s mom/aunt, not every adult that interacts with him is automatically his parental figure and she has no real reason to feel that way towards him. also they went on a couple dates in the comics and even though i don’t ship it, it’s weird to think about

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: LET HER DATE A WOMAN

My OTP: …………how could i possibly choose between carol/jess and carol/maria………….they’re both so good in different ways

My OT3: i don’t have one for her although now i’m considering whether a jess/carol/maria situation would work idk i feel like it wouldn’t just because there would be this imbalance in two of them having superpowers and maria unable to join in their superhero battles so??? idk. i need to think about it a little more

[popcornblotter]

Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

Following my review of Amazing Spider-Man, the next one is its sequel. In short, this movie tries to balance to many plates when it comes to subplots, the CGI doesn’t look great, and there was way too much slow mo for my liking.

Watching this film with the hindsight of knowing now what Sony was attempting to do with this film, it’s obvious to see why it failed critically and commercially. They were trying to set up a cinematic universe within this character’s world. They were planning a Sinister Six spinoff and an Aunt May spinoff. This was way too much to set up a film universe that would be viable for audiences, which is why I think this franchise ultimately failed and the studio had to rethink how they wanted this character to work. Now that we’re close to Spider-Man: Homecoming, more news is coming out that Sony has plans for spinoff films with Spider-Man characters, that may not be introduced in Homecoming, and that worries me. This movie is evidence that studios can meddle way too much into a film’s production. The main couple consisting of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were in an on again off again relationship, Garfield’s Peter Parker was trying to rekindle a friendship with Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborn, Aunt May is trying to work as a nurse so that Peter can go to college, which we don’t see, Peter is trying to uncover a mystery as to why his parents disappeared, and then Harry is trying to find a cure to his family’s genetic disease that causes him to turn into a “Green Goblin” of sorts. Oh yeah, and then there’s Jamie Foxx being as big a cartoon character as you can imagine in real life.

The only points of the film that are fairly enjoyable are the moments of interactions in between the characters when they aren’t in costume. The conversations that Peter has with Stone’s Gwen Stacy are believable and can feel their chemistry come to life. Or when Aunt May is having a heart to heart conversation to Peter about his parents, you can feel the heartache she feels for him. While that is all and good, if the parts of the film while your main character is in costume are the least interesting part, that’s a problem given that this is a superhero film.

This film also wastes some good actors in either short or ridiculous parts. Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn is a blink and you miss it role, and is merely there as an exposition piece to shell out Harry’s backstory and that he’ll slowly die of this disease. And god, Paul Giamatti is a caricature of what we thought Russian mobsters were back in 2000, all the way down to the Soviet accent and Adidas track suit.

Another thing that was a bit of an annoyance was the score. It seemed that it was bipolar, one moment being cinematic, a mix of stings and brass, and then you’d get assaulted by what I can only call is a swath of the Inception BWAH sound, along with irritating dubstep. This comes from composer Hans Zimmer, and musicians Pharrell Williams, Junkie XL, and others.

In closing, I think my memories of this film are better than it actually is. With finishing these two reviews, I leave with the hope that we’ll get the best Spider-Man film yet with Tom Holland leading it.

[meowloudly15]

Stranded: Day 2 - LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

I make my triumphant sort-of-return! Chapter updates may or may not be on schedule from here on out. If they can't be, then I'll post them as soon as they're ready. Thought you guys deserved to know ^w^

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Gwen stopped running when she saw, not too far in the distance, a large suspension bridge supported by two massive stone columns. She surveyed the area for street signs and saw one that read, "Brooklyn Bridge /|\".

There wasn't much further to go.

What would she do when she got to this town called Brooklyn?

Again, she needed to find shelter. And food, she recalled, as her stomach growled.

She would cross that metaphorical bridge when she came to it. Right now, Gwen needed to cross a literal bridge.

Was there a sidewalk running alongside it, or a maintenance walkway?

There was only one way to find out.

Gwen headed to the bridge. Sure enough, the sidewalk continued up a flight of stairs and crossed the bridge, running parallel to the road.

As she walked, Gwen tried not to think about Peter.

She couldn't help it.

Memories flooded back into her head, memories that she had tried to repress for two years.

Peter J. Parker had been Gwen's best friend since junior high, despite being a grade above her. They first met by chance: Gwen was held after school for detention (she had been caught letting Kevin Martin cheat off of her), and Peter had stayed after to attend coding club. Gwen had left the detention classroom and was on her way to the office so she could call her father for a ride, when she passed by Kevin, who was hassling Peter.

Kevin yelled at him, "What did you call me, pipsqueak? What did you call me?"

Gwen walked over to them. "Hey, Kevin! What're you bothering him for?"

"Stay out of this, blondie." Kevin grabbed Peter's shirt collar and started twisting it. Peter yelped in surprise.

Gwen stepped closer, hands on her hips. "What did he do to you?"

"He called me a… a… simple-"

"A simplistic prokaryote," squeaked out Peter. "But, you know, they both mean-"

"Let him go," demanded Gwen.

Kevin looked at her. "What did you say?"

"Are you deaf and dumb? I said let him go!"

Kevin folded his arms and pouted. "All right, fine, whatever."

Peter scampered away, and Gwen trotted after him.

They introduced themselves and started to chat. Apparently, they lived pretty close to each other. Peter had been on Gwen's bus until the bus schedules had been swapped around. They also both liked science class best (although Gwen initially claimed to prefer lunch). By the time Peter's aunt had arrived to pick him up, the two had become fast friends.

Although their paths diverged upon entering high school – Peter was fascinated by chemistry and studied it intensely, while Gwen chose to neglect her schoolwork in favour of music – the two remained close, although they never ventured beyond platonic friendship. Peter had a massive crush on Em Jay Watson, whom Gwen had admired at the time and who was considered "simultaneously the most beautiful and most rebellious girl in school". Gwen dated a couple of guys to seem cooler but was never truly interested in a relationship.

After the ill-fated field trip to Ozcorp in which Gwen was bitten by an irradiated spider, she had confided in Peter about her newfound abilities. He, of course, was extremely excited, at least at first.

"Holy cow! Holy cow! Do it again!" he yelled, eagerly hopping up and down after watching Gwen do a standing backflip in his basement. Gwen grinned, repeating the stunt. She was just as enthusiastic as he was, if not more so.

Peter jittered around for a second, then darted to his desk, grabbed a notebook and pencil, and started scribbling down notes. "Is that all you can do? Just the agility thing?"

Gwen replied, "I don't think so. That's not even the highest that I can jump."

She bent her legs and sprang up, easily placing her palm flat against the ceiling, which was around eight feet off of the ground. However, instead of coming down, she remained stuck to the ceiling.

"What the…"

Gwen panicked. She started jerking herself around, trying to unstick herself. She swung her legs up against the ceiling, bracing herself against it and pulling downward. All her efforts only made the drywall crack a bit.

"Peter! Pull me down!"

Peter obligingly rushed over and wrapped his arms around her torso. With their combined effort, they broke the plaster and freed Gwen's hand. She was left with a handful of sharp chips of plaster for her efforts.

They looked at each other.

"You can stick to things," Peter commented as Gwen asked, "Is your aunt gonna get mad that I broke your ceiling?"

They both started yelling at each other.

Eventually, after a lot more testing and just as much confusion, Gwen managed to get a handle on the extent of her powers, and Peter took it upon himself to design her a costume and a pair of web-shooters. He drew upon research from Ozcorp to develop a fluid that, upon exposure to air, would harden into a solid for a period of time and then disintegrate. Of course, he needed somebody with superpowers to be his guinea pig.

Gwen stood on the roof of her house at one in the morning for the first trial of the web-shooters. Peter watched from below, holding a stopwatch and notebook. "Whenever you're ready," he called up.

Gwen took a deep breath, stepped backward a few paces, and then ran along the ridge, firing her web-shooter at a nearby tree. She jumped into the air, grabbing hold of the webline, and plummeted to the ground as the line disintegrated in her grasp.

Peter ran over to her, saying, "Hey! Gwen! You okay?"

Gwen extracted herself from a rosebush, grumbling, "Oh, Dad's gonna be ticked off."

"I'm sorry it didn't work. Next time, I'll-"

"My dad's gonna be furious at me, and you know why? It was your bright idea to go jumping off the friggin' roof in the first place! And it was you who said we could just field-test this batch before we make any more! And now I've ruined my mom's old rosebush!"

Peter snapped. "'We'? Who's this 'we' you keep talking about? You're not the one who's taking huge chunks of time out of his schedule to help out a friend! You're not the one who spent hours slaving over Ozcorp's research papers! You're not the one who started getting Bs on all his assignments because of all the time he spent working on this, this stupid little pet project! You're the one parading around with your spider-abilities, starting impromptu arm-wrestling matches in the cafeteria to win pocket change, showing off in gym class, all because you think you're so special! Well, you're not! You're just a stupid wannabe punk kid who just happens to have superpowers and who'd be failing in algebra if it weren't for me!"

Gwen blinked, then huffed. "Go home, Parker. I'm going to bed."

It wasn't until later that night when Gwen realised how much of a jerk she had been to Peter. She had made him freak out, all because she was mad about a stupid rosebush. She should have known that Peter's confidence was as fragile as his body.

Gwen apologised to Peter, but their friendship was never quite the same after that night. Peter did perfect the web-fluid formula and gave her instructions for making more, but he stopped going out of his way to contact her. Indeed, even after stopping his web-fluid experiments, he seemed paler and more exhausted than usual.

Gwen noticed a little itch at the back of her skull, a little voice in her head whispering "GREEN MONSTER", every time she saw Peter. For the most part, she ignored it.

Gwen flinched unconsciously upon remembering these things. She wished she had listened. She wished she had reached out more.

But then again, at the time, she hadn't known about her precognition. She hadn't thought that Peter needed her friendship as much. She hadn't known what he had been planning.

Gwen finally shook herself free from her memories as she reached the end of the bridge and looked around. So this was Brooklyn.

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

She really needed a map, but going to a police station to fetch one was out of the question. Was there a tourist centre nearby?

Maybe she could get a better view from above.

Gwen put her mask and gloves back on and shot a webline to the top of the tallest building nearby. She leaped up and started hauling herself up the line, hand over hand, until she reached the fire escape to which her webline had attached.

LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

Gwen furrowed her brow, tensing up, preparing herself for any sort of action, no matter what it might be.

She turned sharply upon hearing a high-pitched scream inside the brick apartment and saw a little girl standing at the half-open window in her pajamas. The girl threw a cough drop at her and beat a hasty retreat inside.

Gwen chuckled to herself. She then realised that the little girl's mother would probably be on the warpath, so she decided to climb up to the next level of the fire escape in order to survey Brooklyn.

VISION OF BROOKLYN

The message was accompanied with a persistent, very faint itch at the nape of her neck. Gwen had to slap her hand to the back of her head to make sure there wasn't a bug on her. She spotted a billboard that read, "Visions Academy. Give your child a brighter vision for their future. Enroll now."

That must have been it. That was where she needed to go.

Gwen studied the billboard more closely. Did it mention the school's location anywhere?

Sadly, it did not. Oh well. She had nothing better to do than to look for it.

Gwen had begun to absent-mindedly drum her fingers on the railing of the fire escape when she saw a middle-aged lady peek her head out from the window of the apartment below. She hurriedly pressed herself up against the brick wall.

The lady pulled her head back in and said, "There's nothing out there. No need to worry."

"But I'm telling you, I saw a ghost! It was wearing clothes and stuff, but its skin was totally white, and it had no face! And it had this big weird lump on its back!"

"That's nice, Cassie. But there's nobody out there."

"Exactly! It vanished! It's a ghost!"

Gwen chuckled. She supposed her costume did make her look a little bit like a ghost.

Anyway, she had to find that school, but first, she needed something to eat.

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[the-desolated-quill]

Spider-Man: Homecoming - Reaction blog (No Spoilers)

I’m really fed up right now. Not just because Spider-Man: Homecoming was as bland, uninspired and tediously dull as I predicted it would be, but also because people have the fucking nerve to try and tell me that this is the best Spider-Man movie ever made. That this soulless, Frankenstein-esque assembly line production is somehow an improvement over the Amazing movies. I... Were we watching the same movie? We can’t have been watching the same movie, surely!

Let me just quickly recap my thoughts on the previous Spider-Man movies. I’ve never liked the Sam Raimi movies and I’ve always been continuously baffled as to why others still think these movies are good. Spider-Man 2 in particular keeps finding its way onto top ten lists, and just... WHY? It’s rubbish! The plot is ridiculous, the villain is stupid, the love story is a load of bollocks and Peter Parker’s ‘internal conflict’ doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense under any close scrutiny. I suspect the people that keep saying Spider-Man 2 is one of the best superhero movies ever made haven’t actually watched the movie in a very long time. Trust me, it really doesn’t hold up. The Amazing movies are, plain and simply, better movies. They have better writing, better characterisation, a better romance, more complex villains (okay, Electro was a bit weak. I’ll give you that) and the perfect Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield captured the essence of the character beautifully. So every time I hear somebody say that the Amazing movies sucked and that Tom Holland’s version is actually an improvement, I do get a little bit cross.

I suppose Spider-Man: Homecoming is technically not a bad movie. It’s competently made and I’m sure it’s possible to enjoy it if you switch your brain off beforehand (something which is increasingly becoming a basic requirement to enjoy these bloody movies). It’s just so shallow and so predictable. I could pinpoint exactly what was going to happen and when it would happen before it happened. It’s that formulaic.

It also doesn’t help that they’ve seemed to replace the comedy and characterisation that Spider-Man is famous for with forced slapstick and stereotypes. No. Seriously. It’s bad enough that with every reboot that Spidey keeps getting yanked back into high school as though he’s attached to a fucking bungie rope, but this has got to be the most cliched school I’ve ever seen. Every single character is a stereotype. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Flash is the bully. Why? Because he’s the bully. That’s his sole purpose for existing. Zendaya plays the disinterested loner... and that’s it. That’s literally her character. Liz is the popular girl/love interest and she’s the most bland character in this movie. We never learn anything about her, why Peter is attracted to her (apart from the obvious. She’s kind of pretty) and we’re never given a reason to want to see them together. And people actually think this is an improvement over the Amazing movies?! Peter and Gwen had so much more chemistry than these two!

And as for Ned...

You know, I didn’t think it was possible to be more annoying than Michael Pena’s character was in Ant-Man, but they somehow pulled it off. Ned fucking irritated me. He’s not funny. He’s not likeable. His friendship with Peter is never explored or developed. He exists solely to be the chubby nerd who waddles along behind the main protagonist in order to make him look good by comparison.

Also he’s clearly supposed to be Ganke Lee from Ultimate Spider-Man. YEAH! YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE MARVEL! WE SEE YOU!

Because that’s another thing that pisses me off about this movie. Having exhausted all possible creative avenues with this version of Spider-Man, they now start liberally borrowing from other versions, most notably Miles Morales. In fact, this Peter Parker is Miles Morales pretty much. So why didn’t they just use Miles Morales, I hear you ask. Oh no! They can’t possibly do that! It’s far more acceptable to give every excuse under the sun as to why Peter Parker must be the only Spider-Man and why this is absolutely not the right time to introduce Miles Morales into the MCU, whilst ripping off every single aspect of Miles Morales’ story in order to desperately prop up their white fave. Is this an example of Marvel’s creative bankruptcy or casual racism? I honestly couldn’t tell you. After Doctor Strange and Iron Fist, I could believe either one.

I can’t help but feel sorry for Tom Holland. He’s a good actor and I’m sure he could be a great Spider-Man, given the chance. He was pretty good in Civil War. Here it’s a whole other story. Holland fails to capture the essence of Spider-Man here, and I suspect it’s the fault of the director more than the actor. Have the filmmakers ever actually spoken to a teenager before? This is not how a 15 year old behaves. This is more like a 7 year old on a sugar rush. The filmmakers seem to have confused ‘inexperienced’ with childish. That’s the perfect word to describe this Spider-Man. He’s childish. He’s ‘socially awkward’ in inverted commas, and by that I mean it’s that really forced, clownish kind of socially awkward you normally see in bad British romcoms. The main reason why Holland’s performance suffers is because he’s given absolutely no good material to work with. His character doesn’t grow or evolve in any meaningful way and the comedy is woefully inadequate. The filmmakers also seem to have completely misunderstood the character on a a fundamental level, and I can’t really explain why without going into spoilers, but it’s unbelievably frustrating how much they’ve botched his characterisation.

You may have noticed I haven’t talked about Vulture yet... Good for you.

And obviously Iron Man is in this movie who, in the trailers, is presented as being a kind of mentor figure for Spidey. But in the actual movie, the character briefly offered a small glimmer of hope because it looked as though the movie was going to take the character in a completely different direction than was previously expected. I reached my hands out in desperation for this new development. Yes! Finally! Something interesting! Something morally complex! More of that please! But it was not to be. In fact by the end I felt pretty insulted by what they did with Iron Man and his relationship with Peter because it actually completely disregards what happened in Civil War. (Marvel also did this to Winter Soldier in Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Why do they keep disrespecting the Russo Brothers and erasing their contributions to the franchise? Don’t they realise that the Russos are the only people currently making good movies in this fucking shambles of a shared universe?)

So that’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. A painfully dull and hollow experience that offers absolutely nothing of substance. And apparently that makes it the best Spider-Man movie ever made.

Can we stop making Spider-Man reboots please?