#i had something to say about inhuman monsters and like. the alien + the eggs + the chestburster + giger's set design

[marypsue]

that post I promised about villain visuals

So I’m working my way (slowly) through Stranger Things season 4, and one of the things that came up as an issue, for me, early on, was the...aesthetically kitchen-sink nature of the season’s main Upside Down-related baddie. The further I get into the season (currently I’m between episodes 4 and 5), the more it’s looking like all of the disparate visual elements that the show is relating to the villain they’ve nicknamed Vecna are supposed to be connected because of Lore(TM) which is being dribbled out throughout the season. On the one hand, I can respect that as a storytelling move. But on the other hand, aesthetically, it’s still not working for me in this specific case, and I’ve devoted entirely too much brain power to trying to figure out why that might be. 

After making a case study of two of the Big Name Iconic Horror Movie Villains that the season namedropped, and a number of other Visually Iconic Horror Villains I have loved, I’ve come up with a handful of theories of why, say, Freddy Krueger feels instantly recognisable and memorable and aesthetically distinct, while Stranger Things’ take on ‘Vecna’, despite drawing heavily on Freddy Krueger for inspiration, doesn’t.

First off, I don’t think having a large number of visual/symbolic elements linked to your villain is necessarily always a problem. Or even that using various apparently unrelated visual elements to create a visual shorthand for your villain is a problem! But if you’re going to have a bunch of different, apparently unrelated symbolic visual elements associated with/representing your villain, you’re gonna want them to a) immediately and unmistakably cause the audience to draw an association with your villain, which means you’re probably going to want to b) use relatively few of them, so that that impact isn’t diluted. 

One of the easiest and most effective ways to make sure you don’t end up with all your visuals confusing your audience and failing to convey that immediate association is to establish a hierarchy of symbols/motifs/visual elements linked to your villain. So you have one or two elements that draw up a strong association with your villain from your audience, and then in concentric circles radiating outwards, you have more and more tangentially-associated symbols/motifs/visual elements. 

And a good way to establish a primary visual element, and link it strongly and directly to your villain in your audience’s mind, is to make it either a part of or directly connected to the villain’s physical presence/distinctive silhouette. If your primary visual element is something that, especially in a visual medium like television or film, can be repeatedly seen onscreen with the villain, it’s much, much easier for it to become linked to the villain in your audience’s imagination. 

Like. Let’s take a closer look at the Big Names the Duffers are dropping in season four. What’s the most immediately recognisable element of Michael Myers’ iconography? It’s the inside-out Bill Shatner mask. The most recent Halloween trilogy even used the image of it on its own as marketing material, since it’s such an immediate, obvious symbol of Michael, and pulls up the association at a glance. You see the mask, you know that’s a Michael Myers. 

Then you go down a level in the visual hierarchy, and there’s the coveralls and the big bloody knife. If you take away the mask, this is less immediately obviously a Michael, but it’s still recognisable once you link it to the mask again. The mask is the primary visual element to which some of these secondary visual elements are linked. The mask is the single element at the top of the hierarchy. 

Go down one more level, and you get into stuff that’s less related to that primary visual element of the mask, less related to the villain’s physicality and distinctive silhouette, and more related to the Lore(TM). I’m talking like the clown suit from the murder of Judith Myers (which they did use again for visual association with Michael, at least in Halloween 4), the jack-o’-lantern, the abandoned Myers house, even Judith’s tombstone. These elements, that orbit Michael’s hashtag aesthetic deal at a slightly greater distance, can be used to conjure up a sense of unease or building dread. But if you want instant recognisability and that sudden sharp jolt of fear, you go directly to the mask. If you ask somebody on the street to picture Michael Myers, they’re gonna think about the mask. 

I’m not as familiar with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise as I am with Halloween, but it seems to me that Freddy Krueger, the more obvious aesthetic influence on Imitation Vecna Flavour, has a similar deal to Michael Myers going on. Freddy gets two primary visual elements - the knife-glove and the burn scars. Then you go down a level and get into costuming stuff like the terrible sweater and the jaunty little hat, and then down another level for stuff like the nursery-rhyme-singing creepy children and the horrible boiler-room nightmare realm (which, again, connect back to him less through immediate visual identification/actually seeing them onscreen with him, and more through Lore(TM)). 

Because Freddy has those few main visual elements established as his aesthetic calling card, he can pull whatever nightmare bullshit he wants, and we the audience can see and understand that we’re not meant to be remembering and associating every Bed That Eats or whatever with him as a Distinct Visual Element Of His Whole Deal. If you as a creator throw the entire kitchen sink of ‘nightmares’ at him, and every visual element that gets associated with him (or a pale imitation of him trying to do the same shtick) is introduced on the same ‘level’ or at the same time, the audience isn’t going to form a strong mental link between him and any of those visual elements. And then he won’t have any memorable signature visuals at all. And that makes a villain more forgettable. 

This is, actually, probably one of the main reasons why the slasher genre fell into a pattern of ‘distinctive mask + signature weapon’. It’s an easy formula for creating a visual shorthand for your villain, and relates those visual elements that you want to be primary directly to the villain’s physicality. To bring up the third Big Name of slasher horror, there’s nothing inherent to, say, a hockey mask that links it to Jason Voorhees. Except for the fact that we almost never see him without it. The why of it being a hockey mask is not as important as the fact that it’s a fundamental aspect of his whole Look(TM). 

“But Mary,” I hear you say, “you’re talking about slashers. Stranger Things’ ‘Vecna’ isn’t technically a slasher. And what about villains who are more inhuman than slashers? Villains whose physical presence isn’t fixed or doesn’t even exist? Villains who are outright monstrous?” Well, you have a point, rhetorical strawman! I was specifically talking about slashers since the show was so obvious about drawing on Freddy, but I think these theories can also be more broadly applied. 

In terms of visually distinct, recognisable, memorable monsters, what comes to my mind first and foremost is the lineup of Universal movie monsters. And I’d say they’re actually incredible examples of the theories above in action. They tend not to have such a kitchen-sink assortment of visual elements associated to them, but rather, to stick to one or two primary visual elements, directly related to their physicality and silhouette. I’m thinking the flat-topped head and huge feet of Frankenstein, the hunched hairy figure of the Wolfman, Dracula’s widow’s peak and high cape collar, the Bride’s beehive, the Creature from the Black Lagoon’s armoured fish-face, the Mummy’s wrap...

These images became so famous, so memorable and recognisable, that they have visually defined entire genres of monsters. They get echoed and parodied across pop culture (Grandpa and Hermann Munster! Lurch! Abe Sapien and the Shape of Water fishman! Dave Vanian and Gerard Way in the Bela Lugosi evening dress and facepaint! etc etc etc!) to the point where people don’t even know where the originals come from (vampires in cartoons from the 70s-90s frequently had blue skin, because actors playing vampires in black and white films from the 30s-50s would be painted with pale blue facepaint to make them appear more deathly pale onscreen, because blue read pale and red read dark. This is the same principle behind the set of the 60s Addams Family sitcom being mostly pink!).

(As an aside, the whole ‘one or two primary visual elements related to the villain/monster’s physical presence’ thing might have contributed to why I feel like the Invisible Man doesn’t get nearly as much play in lineups of classic monsters. Gonna have to percolate on that thought.)

In terms of a villain or monster without a set physical form, I believe it’s even more important to establish a primary visual element associated with them. For something like a shapeshifter or a nebulous eldritch idea, they’re by necessity going to have a broader range of visual elements associated to them/involved in the storytelling around them. Having a primary visual element as a visual shorthand for that villain/monster means it can carry through the various scenes of that villain/monster exerting their influence on the world/the story, so that the audience can then identify it as that villain/monster’s calling card - and it can be used to create dread and terror easily and effectively without having to invoke the villain/monster by name or in person every time and breach the Law of Conservation of Shark (which is also the major storytelling problem I’m having with Stranger Things’ ‘Vecna’, but that’s a related but separate post). 

In terms of examples, I’m thinking of Mirrors, or Oculus, both of which had some nebulous, unembodied concept of evil reflections as their villain. Mirrors specifically linked its villain to any reflective surface. Oculus kept returning to the image of the ornate mirror where the evil made its home. I’m also thinking of Grave Encounters, which had a similar setup - the villain is an entire haunted mental hospital - and which did an okay job up until it abruptly fell into a trap at the end that I’ve seen at least one other villain fall into. (But I’ll get to that later.)

“But Mary,” you cry, “these examples you’re examining are all on film! Surely you cannot apply these theories of yours to a villain or monster with no set appearance, such as those featured in such media as books or podcasts? Surely it must be different when the eye of the audience’s imagination is responsible for all the visuals?”

To which I say: you make another point, rhetorical strawman! There’s a reason I believe Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to be (rightfully) unfilmable. Her haunting is so deeply psychological, so wrapped up in what is unseen, unspoken, indescribable, that to try to put it to film - or even put it into images - is to do it a massive disservice. The idea of boiling it down to a couple of pieces of iconography is downright laughable.

But not every literary villain or monster is a Hill House. And I believe that there are a great number of cases in which these theories still apply. Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart Is A Chainsaw - which, you may be unsurprised to learn, I loved - came up with two possible slashers right out the gate and immediately gave them each a set of primary visual elements. Stacey Graves and her Sadako hair and broken jaw, Ezekiel with his huge hands (and, a level lower, his creepy church). You don’t even see the slasher until the very end of the book, but you already know what you’re looking for, so the reveal Works. There’s Coraline’s Beldam, with her button eyes, spider hands, black keys, and world of putty. There’s Long John Silver and his peg leg. I keep seeing people say that, no matter what she looks like, they always know fanart of Ianthe Tridentarius on their dashboards by her golden skeleton arm. 

Hell, even returning to Frankenstein’s monster: in Mary Shelley’s text, he’s immediately distinctive. He’s Huge, and looks like someone who should have been beautiful based on his disparate parts but, as a whole, is instead corpse-like and repulsive. And this imagery is so thematically linked to his whole deal, so the imagery feeds the story and the story feeds the imagery, and the resulting creation is so visually distinct that even Frankenstein’s monster designs based on the book rather than the Universal movie are instantly recognisable to me when they cross my dash (which happens not infrequently). Frankenstein’s monster is so immediately visually recognisable and so memorable that he’s lasted more than two hundred years in popular culture. I think that’s a point in favour of primary identifying visual elements, even in text. 

And here, now that I’ve talked about these principles in relation to non-embodied villains and villains in text, is where I’m going to take a brief detour and talk about book!Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

In a lot of ways (a lot of ways), Stephen King did this right. Pennywise is a shapeshifter, without a set physical form (so no distinctive silhouette) and takes the forms of people’s worst fears. There is a whole kitchen sink of visual elements connected to this - literally a kitchen sink, since in one scene King has Pennywise taunt parents with the voice of their dead child from their kitchen sink drain. 

But King did a very clever thing in establishing two primary visual elements related to Pennywise from the outset. He gave Pennywise a favourite form - Clown - and a favourite haunt - sewers - and, from there, tied every other nightmare thing in some way back to those two elements. All of Pennywise’s monster forms have some kind of aesthetic element from his clown costume included - orange puffballs are the ones I remember most strongly. Almost all of the big setpieces that directly involve Pennywise and not someone under his influence, the fights and the near-misses and escapes, happen in or around plumbing. Which isn’t incidental, it’s very deliberately brought to the foreground. And these threads carry through the whole book - right up until the end. 

Right at the end of IT is where Stephen King makes the same mistake that Grave Encounters makes right at its end, a mistake that sits at the opposite end of the spectrum of You Fucked Up A Perfectly Good Aesthetically Coherent And Memorable Villain Is What You Did from what the Duffers are doing with Imitation Vecna Flavour. King tries to bait-and-switch the audience from the primary visual elements we’ve come to associate, strongly and immediately, with Pennywise, for some hitherto completely unrelated visual element that has nothing whatsoever to do with the extremely aesthetically compelling villain he’d built up until that point. There are a whole host of reasons the climactic fight of IT felt flat and anticlimactic to me, but the aesthetic betrayal is definitely a contributing factor. 

Anyway. Up until the end of the book, I’d say Pennywise is a beautiful example of how you can have a whole sideshow of creepy bullshit associated with your villain, and still make them visually distinct, memorable, and compelling. You just need to make sure you understand what you want the primary visual elements to be for your villain, establish them well, and thread them through the constellation of images and motifs you collect around that villain. 

And the problem I have with the Duffers’ ‘Vecna’ is that they simply haven’t done that. They haven’t identified any primary visual elements, they haven’t established a hierarchy of visual elements underneath those one or two primary ones, and they haven’t established a clear aesthetic link between any of the visual elements they’ve tried to associate with their villain. 

Part of the problem, I think, is that they tried to show too much, too soon. They really threw everything but the kitchen sink at the guy right in episode one. Is his main motif supposed to be spiders, or clocks, or the vines, or the rotting corpse thing, or the eye thing, or the flying demo-creatures, or the haunted house, or or or? I don’t know, and so I haven’t formed a strong association between him and any of them. And that’s before you even pull in the nightmare murder sequences, which I know now are tailored to the victim experiencing them and not meant to be recurring motifs, but I didn’t know that in episode one, when they should have been establishing their hierarchy of imagery! So I was trying to throw all of that spaghetti, mentally, at their Big Bad, and none of it stuck. 

It’s actually even worse for Imitation Vecna Flavour, too, because of the comparison that’s invited by his nickname. I’ve never played D&D and my familiarity with it comes primarily from The Adventure Zone, but the Duffers very kindly went out of their way to have their characters establish in dialogue that D&D’s Vecna does have an immediately recognisable primary visual element! Vecna’s missing (iirc) his left arm and his left eye! The characters all know immediately by that description that that’s a Vecna! The show itself told me this! So, by inviting the comparison, the Duffers just made their own shit look worse. (Which is exactly the problem they’re having with all of their previous-season callbacks, also, but that, again, is a separate post.)

“But Mary,” the voice of the rhetorical strawman whispers, in the back of my mind, with vicious satisfaction, “you love Dracula, which is an enduring classic and the source of a major recognisable, memorable pop culture monster. And isn’t this exactly like what Dracula would have been like for Victorian audiences? Bram Stoker basically invented the modern vampire mythos singlehandedly. And the Bela Lugosi evening dress, widow’s peak, high-collared-cape image didn’t exist until at least thirty years after it was published. Wouldn’t Victorian audiences, who would only maybe have heard of vampires through Slavic folklore, also have seen it as like throwing too much spaghetti at a villain and seeing what stuck?”

Unfortunately, as usual, the rhetorical strawman has a point. Dracula does have a whole lot of Apparently Unrelated Creepy Bullshit associated with him, aesthetically and visually. You could argue that the blood-drinking becomes his primary visual element, but in the whole novel, I think we only actually see him do it once, and it doesn’t exactly tie in to all the other bullshit he’s got going on. And he doesn’t even have the flimsy excuse of Tragic Backstory(TM) to tie it all together. He’s old and gets younger? St. George’s Eve? Lack of reflection? Wolves? Decaying castles? Coffins and grave-dirt? Lizard Fashion? Blood-drinking? Renfield? The brides? Burning eyes? Shapeshifting? The straw hat that suit neither him nor the time? Holy symbols? Garlic?? Victorians would absolutely have been justified in being like ‘hey Bram you’re sorta throwing the kitchen sink at this one’. And yet, for whatever reason, Dracula has endured long enough to get a visual shorthand so iconic it’s become a meme and a joke. 

The only theories I have to offer are: 

1) The ways in which the various visual elements related to Dracula were introduced was gradual and mysterious enough that they weren’t all introduced at the same time and with the same level of apparent importance, and the mystery made them memorable. 

2) The construction of Dracula as a villain was unfamiliar enough to Victorian audiences that they didn’t have an existing frame of reference to compare him against and find him a pale imitation of, and instead, they had to create an entirely new ‘kind of (horror) guy’ box to put him in, mentally. 

and/or 3) I just like Dracula better. Sue me. 

Anyway. This post has gotten more than long enough, and has wandered somewhat from its initial purpose, so I will simply say that even with the red thread of Lore(TM) starting to string together the visual elements of Stranger Things’ ‘Vecna’, I still find him unmemorable, not at all visually interesting or compelling or coherent, and basically the aesthetic equivalent of CRT TV snow. Visual white noise. 

(Also, to cap this rant off, since I mentioned the Law of Conservation of Shark a few times - is there any more iconic, recognisable, or memorable villain image than that great white shark fin, slicing silently up out of the water?)

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

@thecorteztwins

Once again, I’ve taken a silly, stupid idea and turned it into a silly, stupid ficlet.  Hope I got Fantasma’s voice even slightly right.

               “When you said you wanted to eat my meat, this wasn’t what I expected,” the red-haired mutant protested, thrashing against the dough that held him bound.  Phyllo dough was rolled thin, but enough layers made a nice, snug cocoon.

           “I thought the Craigslist ad was extremely clear,” Fantasma said coldly. “I stated that I wanted someone to devour, body and soul.  How could you misinterpret that?”  She continued pulling Cortez towards the oven, her massive claws clicking against the cement floor.

           “No one would ever possibly think you actually wanted to eat them!” Cortez screamed.  “Haven’t you heard of metaphor?  Nuance? Innuendo?”  His cries were muffled as Fantasma used her long, prehensile tongue to wrap more dough around his mouth and nose.  It was kinder to let him suffocate, really, before roasting him to delicious perfection.  And she wanted to be kind.

           Fantasma wasn’t entirely comfortable with what she was doing.  Eating people was a taboo that had been deeply ingrained in her during her short, confusing life as a human.  It was easier in her Dire Wraith form – she felt a greater sense of detachment from the entire species.  Because that’s what they were -  separate species.  Humans, mutants, Inhumans, Kree, it didn’t matter.  They may as well be poultry or cattle.  Humanoids were a delicacy rich in protein, and her children needed to feed.

           Still, something nagged at the back of her mind, as Cortez stared up at her in wild-eyed fear.  An expression like that might have sparked some pity in her, once, or at least an understanding that she should feel pity.  She could imagine the horror and disgust on the faces of her former team-mates if they saw her now, crouched over an oven like that fairy-tale witch. She didn’t want them to look at her that way.  She’d hoped the Craigslist ad would bring her volunteers (in her experience, humans were up for all sorts of bizarre experiences), but it only brought misunderstanding.

           “Mmmmph!”  Cortez tried to scream through the dough.

           “I have to do it,” Fantasma said, to herself as much as to him.  “My children need nourishment.  You understand, don’t you?”  Perhaps he wouldn’t.  Her bio-scan of Cortez had picked up enough of his memories and personality to suggest that he knew very little of selfless love.  She tried to comfort herself with this knowledge.  

           “You haven’t exactly lived a good life,” she continued, adjusting the oven. It wasn’t pre-heated yet, and she didn’t want to wind up with a burnt crust and Fabian raw and bloody in the center.  Her babies could be so picky.  “You’ve betrayed and alienated all of your friends and family – the ones that are still alive, anyway.  So you won’t really be missed.  Consider this a type of redemption for you.  You will become a source of life for my family.”  She felt another twinge, though.  Hadn’t she also “betrayed”  her former friends and team-mates?  But how else could she care for her children?

           “Not missed?!  Not missed! How dare you,” yelled Fabian. Fantasma looked down to realize that he had eaten his way through the dough over his face.  Mutants certainly had a strong survival instinct.  Or at least, this one did.

           “I am the very savior of homo-superior!  Their leader!  I will bring our people into the light of mutant supremacy!”

           “You’ll only be food for my own people,” Fantasma retorted.  Supremacy she could understand.  Wanting to merely exist in public, as her true self, without fear and disgust from humanity (and humanity’s answer to fear and disgust was so often violence).  Wanting safety and freedom for her babies.  And that could only be achieved if the Dire Wraiths conquered and ruled the Earth – humans would never let them peacefully co-exist.  Perhaps, in an odd way, she could relate to this terrible man.

           “Fabian Cortez is no one’s snack!  You can’t kill me!  I’m the world’s greatest lover!  Just imagine the mass suicides when all of those beautiful women realize that they will never again feel my touch!  Never again be truly satisfied!”

           In human form, Fantasma would have rolled her eyes at this obvious falsehood, but it felt awkward in her Wraith form.  Still, she snapped her claws together in nervous frustration, hesitating. Fabian should be no more than a cut of beef to her, but watching him struggle, seeing the terror in his face….it felt wrong.  Starlight would disapprove.  And she didn’t want to disappoint Starlight.

           Perhaps there was another way he could be of use.

           “A great lover, you say?”

           “Yes!”  The man’s face brightened.  “The very best!  I’m surprised you haven’t heard of me!”  He was greatly exaggerating, but he had been rather aroused when he first arrived at the warehouse and began rubbing the oil onto his body.  He seemed physically healthy, and she had noted a sizable bulge in his pants when she began wrapping the dough around him.

           “I need a virile man with a strong sexual appetite,” Fantasma explained, as she began cutting the dough off Cortez.  “Some of my eggs still need to be properly fertilized.”  The man known as The Presence had failed to complete that task – or rather, she had prevented him from doing so when her former team-mate Starlight informed her of the man’s cruelty and manipulation.  He had not been a worthy sire for her brood.  She and Starlight had temporarily joined forces to defeat the Presence and toss him into a far corner of Limbo, and she had torn open a portal to send herself and Starlight safely back to Earth – separately. They’d likely be foes if they met again, and Fantasma wanted to preserve the memory of working alongside her friend. Yes, friend, even now.

           Cortez was also an unworthy father, but he probably wouldn’t try to control her, and his sexual vigor was a point in his favor.  The mutant sprang up, wiping dough off his costume, the fear in eyes changed to excitement, and no small amount of lust.

           “If you want virile, look no further!  You see what a waste it would have been to cook me!  There is plenty of useless flesh in the world, but only one Fabian Cortez!”

           “Yes,” Fantasma sighed.  “I suppose you’ll do.”  She stretched a claw out to flick the oven off.  

           “You will, of course, change back to your human form,” Fabian continued.  “Even for a false face, it was gorgeous.  No one would ever guess that you’re a monster.”

           Monster.  Despite her usual detachment, the word cut her to the core, and she was tempted to simply bite Cortez in half.  But she’d need him alive to continue producing seed.

           “Not necessary,” she said calmly.  “You don’t need me to fertilize the eggs.”  She spread a claw out, the eggs clustered across the floor, walls and ceiling barely visible in the dim light.  “Just spread your seed across the surface of each one, and be sure to rub it in thoroughly. You’ll know you’ve done the job when the egg glows with…I believe the color is lavender, to humanoid eyes.”

           Fabian gaped, taking in the eggs for the first time.  He’d been a bit distracted before.

           “You….you want me to….”

           “It should take about this much for all of them,” Fantasma explained, using her tongue to place a large bucket in front of Fabian.  “I realize it may be more than you can produce in a single session, so I’ll allow some rest breaks.  And I’ll provide you with proper nourishment.  How do you feel about Chinese take-out?”

           Fabian stared at the bucket, and back at Fantasma, and then out again at the vast sea of eggs.

           “Do you prefer pizza?”

           “I um….I don’t know if I can….” He stammered.  Fantasma snorted.  She shouldn’t have turned the oven off.

           “I thought you were the world’s greatest lover,” she scoffed.  “Where else am I to find a big, strong man to help me in my hour of need?”  The jab at his pride seemed to work, and Fabian straightened, looking a little more determined.

           “Well, it’s…unconventional.  But never let it be said that Fabian Cortez backed down from a challenge!  I’m all the man any woman needs!”

           “Excellent.  Perhaps you could get to it.”  There was a pause.  “I can leave, if it would make you feel more comfortable.”

           “Oh, not at all!” Fabian said.  He leered at her.  “I was just thinking, this might go better with a little….visual stimulation.  That human form of yours is so delectable. There are all sorts of things you could do to help me…fill this bucket.”

           Fantasma sighed again.  She really didn’t want to shift back – it used a great deal of energy, and she was rather hungry.  She’d really been looking forward to roasted Fabian-in-a-blanket.  And she’d always felt awkward in her human form.  People assumed that she wore a skimpy costume because she was comfortable in her own skin, but it was really the opposite.  She’d seen no point in modesty with a body that had been so alien to her, and it served as a convenient distraction in combat or interrogation.  It had never properly seemed like her body, even back when she hadn’t known her true nature.  The Dire Wraith form felt so right.

           But she supposed she should offer Cortez something titillating to hurry this process along.  She decided to compromise.  While maintaining her Dire Wraith form, she shifted only her chest, allowing a plump, firm pair of humanoid breasts to pop out, and dangle invitingly.

           “You may gaze upon this for stimulation.  Or perhaps you are, as Americans say, more of an ‘ass man.’” She added a set of buttocks directly below the breasts.  Surely Cortez would see something there that he liked.

           Fabian’s eyes widened, and he began to scream.

           “What?  Are they not large enough?”  Fantasma let the breasts inflate fuller.  Some humans preferred extremely unrealistic proportions on women, she had seen on the Internet.  She was reluctantly willing to let him touch one if that would calm his hysteria.  But instead, Cortez turned and fled through the warehouse, jumping directly through a window in his panic.

           Fantasma slumped to the floor, re-absorbing the ridiculous human parts back into her Wraith form.  It was pointless to chase after a man like that.  He’d been useless from the start.  Useless as food, and twice as useless as a sire.

           But what was she going to do?  Her children needed protein.  Obviously she couldn’t bring herself to eat people – even horrible people like Cortez. As a Dire Wraith, mutants and humans should be no different from other inferior species….but they weren’t.  She couldn’t forget her time among them. Couldn’t imagine feeding on her old team-mates – the very thought made her shudder.

           Perhaps she’d start with pork.  Pig brains were a delicacy, even among some groups of humans, and surely they were of low enough intelligence to be acceptable?  It was hard to tell, now.  Her newly-awakened instincts saw all life as prey, and if eating humans was….wrong….perhaps eating animals was also wrong?  

           Never mind.  She would find a way to feed her children and remain true to herself.  Her children would be different from other Dire Wraiths, but they would be well-cared for.  Even vegetarians had their ways of getting protein.

           She picked up her discarded phone, and began to scroll through information about recipes and nutrition, ignoring the faint sound of Fabian Cortez continuing to scream as he fled through the underbrush.      

Notes:

I think it’s really funny to imagine Fabian being well-hung.  It would explain all of his unearned confidence, and you just know he’d be the kind of lover that doesn’t actually learn any techniques.  He’d assume that women will just collapse in pleasure at the very sight of it.  Fantasma deserves better, obviously.      

[spideytorchbigbang]

Spideytorch Big Bang 2017 Masterpost

,Between the Smoke and Ruins by gleesquid 

The Fantastic Four: Heroes. Villains. Gods. Ghosts.

Oh, how the mighty do fall.

In which Johnny Storm tries to save his family, Spider-Man tries to save the world, and they might as well save each other along the way.

Art by lamoscadomestica and Teshumai.

I Think I Need A Little Change by balancingbookact

Peter Parker is an average guy when he meets, and begins dating, Johnny Storm, of the darling Fantastic Four. With Johnny up in the sky and Peter down on the ground, Peter begins to question if he can ever fit into Johnny's super-powered life. Everything changes, however, when Peter is bitten by a certain radioactive spider and becomes Spider-Man. This should solve all of Peter's problems, right? The only issue: Johnny hates Spider-Man. Misunderstandings and hilarity ensue.

Art by Millielitre.

The Spider Prince and the Morning Star by Traincat

“Folks like to say there’s a monster that lives in the forest,” Old Swenson said the next day when Johnny told him his story. Johnny worked in his shop, when Swenson could afford to pay him. He fixed things, clocks and broken carriages. Johnny wasn’t good for much, but he had a hand for repairs. “And that it’ll grant you wishes, for a price. Folks will say anything, after a drink or five. Don’t listen to that kind of foolish talk, Johnny.”

When Johnny makes a deal with the monster that lives in the woods – himself for his sister’s happiness – he doesn’t expect the giant spider to take him to a beautiful castle, or to reveal himself a cursed prince. There’s only one catch: he’s only a man in the darkest night, and Johnny can never see his face.

Art by johnny-storms-hair and Pariah's Dream.

Happy Family Planning by amaronith

Peter always thought he’d have more of a say over when he had a kid, that it would be something decided between him and his hypothetical lover some time down the line. But between his board of directors insinuating that the public doesn’t trust a single and child-free CEO, and a rather insistent alien queen wanting him as some kind of stud male to save her people, Peter’s ‘someday maybe’ plan has ended up becoming 'no time like the present’ when said alien queen gifts Peter with an egg. In the face of Johnny’s depression over his still missing family, Peter invites Johnny to live with him as the baby’s nanny, because living with the guy you have over a decade and a half of repressed romantic feelings for and raising your daughter together under false pretenses is a plan that can’t possibly back fire.

Good Job, Pete.

Art by @millielitre and @haziart.

hope and fear, i think there is a pattern here by summerdayghost

As far as Johnny was concerned the notorious Spider was nothing compared to that Peter Parker, girlfriend stealing menace. The facts that Peter has no clue what Johnny is talking about when Johnny calls him out for it and that Johnny sort of sees the appeal do not make things better.

Or an au where Peter Parker chose to be a villain instead.

Art by Sciderman.

The Long Road Home by Bookdancer

A witch turns Johnny into a yellow lab, effectively leaving him in the middle of New York City with four paws, no way to communicate, and oh yeah - a dog that can flame on isn’t exactly inconspicuous. All his instincts scream for him to run home, but to his confusion, his paws aren’t leading him to the Baxter Building. Aka Johnny Storm turns up at a run down apartment only to discover that the place belongs to one Peter Parker. Only problem is, Johnny doesn’t know that Peter is Spider-Man, and Peter doesn’t know that Johnny is a dog.

Art by meereswiederkaeuer and hazirart, and a collaboration by them here.

This ain't no fairytale by theKasiaLin

When Peter gets dragged by Gwen into the Central Park in the middle of the night to look for a body he doesn’t expect to be bitten by a werewolf (it’s not like they exist, right?), but that’s exactly what happens. His life takes rapid turn, he’s lost his uncle, a crazed killer alpha werewolf is trying to get to him, and he can’t even control his own body. To make the matters worse the fate seems to like playing with him as it turns out that the only person who can calm him down is none other than Johnny Storm, a self-absorbed cheerleader who seems to embody everything that Peter hates. But maybe being a werewolf won't be as bad as Peter thought...

Art by @balancingbookact and intern-gershwin-palmer.

don't throw away my love by lamujerarana

When Johnny and Peter step through a magic doorway, the Inhuman Eldrac, they are sent on a trip through the multiverse where they encounter version after version of themselves, all at different stages of their lives…all of whom are deeply in love. Could Eldrac possibly be trying to tell them something?

*** “So how did you figure out you were in love with your Johnny?” Peter asks.

“Huh,” Elderly Peter says. “You know what, kid, it’s easier if I just show you.” He takes two steps over to the bed Peter's sprawled out on and whacks Peter on the back of the head, good and hard, and then barks, “You’re in love with him, you idiot!”

“Ow!” Peter complains, rubbing at the back of his head. “That hurt!”

“Well,” Elderly Peter says, not sounding very sorry at all, “you have a very thick skull. It’s going to take a while for that to sink in, but it will eventually.” He sighs. "Make that a very long while."

Art by Pariah’s Dream.

A big thank you to all of our participants! 

[lupinepariah]

It’s difficult to explain to a neurotypical why I’m Otherkin. I mean, I get it. It’s not something they could easily wrap their head around because it’s a very experiential thing.

If you grew up in a decent household and you were surrounded by supportive people, you may be inclined to stick you head in the sand whenever the evils of humanity rear their ugly head. If those evils feel particularly alien to a person—as they do to me, as autism has given me an overwhelming sense of empathy so strong that I could never wilfully hurt anyone—then it can create this sense of distancing, of exclusion. You feel like you’re on the outside and you’re not even certain if you want to be on the inside of that whole hate-riddled mess.

What does it feel like to be human? is a question many autistic people have asked. It’s not just Otherkin like myself. You’ll find that the heightened empathy of autism has left many feeling cold to humanity, humanity itself is unusually unkind and we don’t fetishise familiarity so we can’t overlook these factors just because something happens to look like us.

This creates a dissonance. In essence, we look like the average neurotypical but we don’t feel like them. This can be expressed in alienation to gender, body, or even species.

I wasn’t raised in a good home. I was raised in a very broken home. The only companions I had were dogs, many of whom died because they didn’t get their shots. The ones who lived had such a positive impact upon me that I imprinted upon them, I enjoyed their selfless kindness. The only time the humans of my youth spotted me was to abuse me in one way or another.

I’ve been abused in every way you can imagine. Yes, that includes the r-word that I won’t mention here. It’s only recently that I’ve managed to pick up the myriad pieces and get my life together. I did so through sheer force of will and through coping mechanisms and therapy that I devised for myself. I ended up with a genuinely caring partner who’s had more in-the-field experience with therapy than I have and they’ve contributed to my mental health.

I still feel alienated to humanity though, that won’t ever go away. I feel more comfortable and happy if I have animals around, I feel anxious and ill at ease if I’m trapped in a place that contains a lot of humans. It can trigger fight or flight if those humans happen to be very neurotypical and lacking in empathy for those who’re unlike them. I find that neurotypicals place familiarity first, well above empathy.

So it’s this feedback loop. I mean, neurotypicals are more than happy to make me feel like the odd one out, they’re happy to exclude me because I don’t meet their quotients for comfortable familiarity. It’s okay. It’s what I’ve learned to expect. Just... don’t expect me to not feel alienated?

It gives you this outside perspective.

I’ve used this thought experiment before, many times, as it really does help to illustrate how the fixation upon familiarity neurotypicals have tends to colour their perceptions. If I were to show you a painting of old ruins in a cave, where a great red dragon is lurking within and threatening to breathe fire at a group of humans standing atop those ruins... What would you say is going on?

The answer I would expect from a neurotypical is that they’re heroes slaying a dragon. The more familiar to the neurotypical the humans sound like, the more certain the neurotypical is that they’re heroes slaying an evil beast. I feel that contemporary awareness is slowly bringing people around so that they’re learning the toxicity of this fixation upon familiarity but it’s a slow process and I’ve lived through the worst era of this familiarity fixation. I’m not straight.

You can guess what I lived through.

The thing is? I’d look at the same picture and I’d see something different. The lurking dragon, to me, would look like they’re cowering and taking up a defensive position. It’s highly likely that they’re a mother protecting their eggs. And what of the humans? They’re looters, freebooters, and there to steal whatever worldly possessions the dragon has. It’s “okay” to kill a dragon and take what belonged to them, right? I mean, they’re just a dragon. A monster. A beast. A thing.

This is why I tire of dragons being depicted as evil. Every time we see dragons depicted as something other than evil I feel it’s a triumphant thing because yet another mind has realised that not everything is so cut and dry, so black and white, so one and zero.

I will drop in a note about dualistic thinking here, it’s worth looking into.

For me, then, Otherkin is a coping mechanism. I feel excluded by neurotypicals because I’m autistic and I’ve been tortured and abused. They don’t like that I’m not like them. I can’t help that, more than that though? I don’t want to change to suit them. I see so many people in the field of psychology talking about “cures” for autism without ever really asking us autistic people whether we want to be “cured.” What they’re really saying is that they want to make autistic people more neurotypical, like they are, for their comfort, not ours.

That’s a very neurotypical perspective, it’s a depressing one and it’s the root cause behind so many prejudices, hatreds, and wars. I’d like to think that as a species we’re just beginning to move past that, we’re picking up enough awareness to understand why this is problematic and why we need to evolve beyond it. I can see progress. I can. I see hints of it all over the place. It is, however, a slow process.

I’m not fully healed, not by a long shot. I mean, I’m well. I’m mentally healthy for the most part. On most days, I’m actually happy and I spend time laughing with my partner and enjoying life. I’m very slowly beginning to accept the presence of humans who aren’t my partner in my presence. It’s difficult but I’m getting there. I’ll admit that it helps if they’re autistic or at least introverted, though.

Being an Otherkin is a safe space. It means that I don’t have to be human and I don’t have to worry about that. It makes it okay to not be human. If your mind can accept that, it opens up a whole lot of possibilities.

Why be human when you can be any number of things? Why be human when you can be something that hasn’t had a history of familiarity fixation resulting in so much hatred, torture, pain, suffering, war, prejudice, and death? You can be a creature that has no such history tied to it. For me, that’s a werewolf. I mean, yes, I was raised by dogs to such an extent that I imprinted on them.

So it’s hardly surprising that my safe space is thinking of myself as a sapient dog. I mean, I do like aspects of sapience. It’s just specifically human I’m a little leery of. Others are less specifically leery of being quite so human and they can deal with just being a little bit inhuman, so they choose elves or whatnot and that’s fine too.

You may come to the conclusion here that I don’t like humans and... well, that’s silly. I like people. I just have difficulty dealing with the physical presence of a human, especially if they remind me of my captors and torturers. I’d rather be in the physical presence of a werewolf or a dragon. I’m more comfortable in the physical presence of a human who identifies as such.

Does that make any kind of sense to you?

See, I’m not fond of humans because they’re so good at hurting one another and hurting me. They excel at that and revel in it. I’m not a fan. I’m a bloody tree-hugging hippie werewolf that wants to redeem everyone and make everything okay because that’s my jam. I’m also a technology nerd so probably a bit of a Glass Walker then. That’s a reference very few people are going to get.

Anyway, just as I’m not fond of how humans are so good at hurting one another? I could never hurt a human no matter how much they’ve hurt me. I’d cry. I just don’t have it in me. I mean, I can be intimidating for my own safety... but I couldn’t realy ever hurt anyone. It’d kill me.

I’ll wrap this up, then. I think this is why I relate to some charr in Guild Wars 2. I feel that most of them just want to protect what they love, they want to be big and intimidating as possible so that potential foes choose not to fight them because those charr would rather avoid a fight wherever they can. I’ve noticed that about certain charr, not all charr are warlike. Indeed, most of them aren’t. They’re just... scared. That’s relateable.

[aaronstories]

The Exhausting Struggle, or Why Barbers are Scary

We lost two more today. Randolph went first. He fell off being chased by one of the six-leggers. Bastard went kicking and screaming. We lost Milli later that evening. She was a nice girl, really nice to be around. Always the type to make you smile. All that’s left of her now is a damned stump.

For us, losing one another isn’t anything new. We’d lose maybe one or two a week, but it was fine. They were old, these things happen. That was until we found the nests.

Those white, disgusting looking sacks. We saw them a month ago by Miller’s place. Dunno how he never noticed, but they were there. Those bulbous, veiny cone-shaped eggs were practically ingrained into his sides. We never noticed, though, until they started moving. We didn’t know what these things were, these long, nauseating pale legs that oozed out the top of the eggs. A body soon followed, and a head. A terrifying, inhuman face, wrangled with ebony fangs and bulbous, soulless eyes. They let out a scream, a low pitched cry of fury and hunger.

We never stood a chance.

These unnatural monsters started mauling us, rushing through our lines before we could react. Soon, we lost track of them in the forest of confusion that we had become. When we saw them again, they were larger, stronger, and hungrier. They weren’t pale anymore, they had fed on our brothers and sisters, and now they were red with their blood. And, of course, they had spawned even more.

We found more and more eggs, many of them hatching. It felt like no time had passed at all before we were overrun by the six-leggers. The crawling abominations hunted us all down, gnawing on us. Nothing we could do stopped them.

Things only got worse after that. As if dealing with these alien abominations wasn’t enough, we soon found ourselves constantly getting dosed with water. This happened to us before, but the intensity now was much worse. Frankie and Tess, the couple that lived around the corner from me, drowned. Dan found them dead. When he went to look, he got mauled by six-laggers. He lasted just long enough to tell us this. Then came the burning. The ground felt like it had caught on fire as white burning ooze seeped into us, as if it were melting and purging our insides. We lost Justin that day. He was only 3 weeks old.

There doesn’t look like there’s any hope, with the burning ooze, the torrent of water, and the six-leggers taking us out day after day. We need to live standing together, or we’ll be split at the end.

I was standing guard one day, watching out for the six-leggers. I hadn’t see any of them left for a while. I guess the burning ooze must have gotten them, too. We had done it, we had survived. Sure, we were weekend, and morale is at an all time low, but at the very least, we can keep on growing from here.

I was with Phil at the time. Phil’s a good guy. He’s great conversation, and he’s always there for you. Phil was cracking a joke at the time about the water making us feel washed up. It was in poor taste, but we laughed. We needed something to laugh about.

“Hey,” Phil said suddenly, looking upwards, “do you hear that, too?”

I was confused. What was he talking about? Then, I heard it.

*KSSSSSS*

The loud hiss reverberated all around us. Following the noise came a sudden misty downpour, slowly writhing its way through and around all of us. It was sudden, cold, but otherwise harmless.

“What was that?” I asked, feeling myself. It was…damp. “Was that water?”

“Oh my god…” I heard Phil say. He was staring up with abject horror on his face. Above us was something I had thought was only a legend. Something the elders told us to scare us. “Be good,” they would say, “or else the Devil’s Black Claw will take you away.” I never believed it, it was an old wive’s tale. But the truth was irrefutable. Hovering above us, and getting closer every second, was a large, massive claw, black and dark as midnight. It was covered in a massive row of long, sharp points.

“No…” I said slowly, as I watched helplessly in terror as the hellish thing out of nightmares descended, headed straight towards me. I closed my eyes. “Oh, God, please,” I began praying, “Our Father Who Art in Heaven! יהי רצון מלפנך!” I was never one for religion, but I prayed then, because any salvation, no matter how unlikely, was something I craved. If there was a God, I’d pray. I don’t know which one, though, so I better pray to the mall. “Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna!” I continued, “Namu Amida Butsu! Allah hu Akbar!”

I heard a loud thud. I opened my eyes. The massive claw landed at last, but just narrowly missed me. Phil was alive, too, and we both breathed a sigh of relief.

“Close, huh?” he joked.

Then the claw began moving again. It rose back up, and for the first time, we noticed it. Hundreds of our brothers and sisters were caught in it’s grasp, held so easily in place that it was as if the claw was designed for this exact purpose. We watched, helpless, as the flaw stretched our kin higher and higher into the air. Then, still above us, a bright glint flashed into our eyes. This was something the elders spoke about, too, but only occasionally, in hushed tones. Now, we saw it for ourselves. Two blades, held together by a fulcrum of sorts. They glinted evilly, light shining off their sharp, nightmarish edges. It snapped open and shut twice, as if testing itself, the painfully sharp sound of blades rubbing together practically etched itself into our minds, a terrible foreboding of what was to come.

“No! Don’t!” I heard Phil say, tears streaming down his face from furious eyes. I looked up, and faintly caught sight of his daughter, Susan, caught between the sharp tendrils of the monstrous ebony claw. The blade neared closer and closer, and I could practically hear her crying. I tried to look away while the blades opened themselves above the claw, right at the throats of all our kin it captured. I forced my eyes shut, and I heard Phil cry.

*SLICE*

The sound hit us hard, and I swear I could feel something in Phil die. He collapsed on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes. The claw soon moved, letting the stump remains of our murdered kin fall back on the ground. Phil did nothing but sob, and didn’t resist when the claw came down again, scooping up hundreds of us. This time, we weren’t so lucky. We stretched up higher, and we could see the rest of the world beneath us. It was hard to breath, the claw was pressing on my lungs. Everyone around was mostly quiet, with just a few like Phil sobbing at the hopelessness of our situation. I was quiet, panicking silently, looking around for some sort of escape. Then, as the blades began closing in on us predatorily, it reminded me of something, of those predators that had been mutilating us for months, that we couldn’t stop. I looked away from the blades, too scared to face them, but then I saw it. At the end of the sharp, long tendrils were small, white cone-shaped egg sacks. There were several of them, some spaces had marks on them, as if there were egg sacks there but they had already fallen off. I looked at the egg sack deep at the very top, and I saw it. Inside were six, long and pale legs, attached to a head with bulbous, soulless eyes and ebony fangs. I looked right at it, and it at me. I swear, in that moment, I could see it smile.

I began shouting in anger, not noticing the shadow of the blades begin to overwhelm me.

“You damn monster!” I roared, “this is how you got to us! The Six-leggers! They’re not gone! They’ll kill us a—”

*SLICE*

[spideytorchbigbang]

2017 Second Claims

Due to interest and the number of artist sign-ups, we’ve decided to open a second round of claims for the 2017 Spideytorch Big Bang. If you were unable to claim to a story in the first round, or you simply want to claim another, please e-mail spideytorchbb@gmail.com with your pick!

Summaries repeated under the cut:

JAILBREAK

Universe: AU [616-based] Rating: M Warnings: college rejection/dropouts, morally grey decisions, breaking and entering, involving a teenager in illegal things, dubious consent due to alcohol (not painted in a good light), manipulation, sexual regret, mentions of canon compliant character death, shady and illegal government organizations, prison Summary: When Johnny Storm is fourteen years old, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm move next door. Due to his sister’s strange attraction to them, and his intense love for his sister, Johnny finds himself sucked further into their world, until one night Reed decides to steal a spaceship and bam – along come the Fantastic Four. At first, the F4 are heroes, but they soon take a menacing turn, and it takes a chance run-in with Spider-Man, the new kid on the block, to remind Johnny that he can be a hero again. But when things take a turn for the worse, Johnny is left alone in a world of heroes, desperately fighting to find his family (and maybe even himself). Or: the Fantastic Four are well-meaning but evil, SHIELD is generally shady, Johnny kisses boys he shouldn’t, Peter Parker has a hot girlfriend and a motorcycle, and Spider-Man is always in Johnny Storm’s corner. 

FAMILY

Universe: 616, but current canon is more of a suggestion than anything Rating: Mature Warnings: Kidfic (but not mpreg), Peter Parker’s Poor Decision Making Skills, Tentacles, Implied Foggy Nelson/Matt Murdock/ Kirsten McDuffie , HEAVILY Implied Venom Symbiote/Flash Thompson Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson and Venom/Harry/Flash, child illness, Johnny Is Shirtless All The Time Because Reasons Summary:   Peter always thought he’d have more of a say over when he had a kid, that it would be something decided between him and his hypothetical lover some time down the line. But between his board of directors insinuating that the public doesn’t trust a single and child-free CEO, and a rather insistent alien queen wanting him as some kind of stud male to save her people,  Peter’s ‘someday maybe’ plan has ended up becoming 'no time like the present’ when said alien queen gifts Peter with an egg. Inside? A baby made up of his and Johnny Storm’s DNA, because name dropping Johnny Storm to get out of hot water was never a good idea. In the face of Johnny’s depression over his still missing family, Peter decides that Johnny could never know the baby was his, too. Instead, Peter invites Johnny to live with him as the baby’s nanny, because living with the guy you have over a decade and a half of repressed romantic feelings for and raising your daughter together under false pretenses is a plan that can’t possibly back fire. Good Job, Pete.

WOLF

Universe: MTV-Teen-Wolf-inspired AU Rating: Mature Warnings: secondary characters’ deaths including a police shooting scene, bullying incidents, scenes with Peter in chains, mild horror content (a wild werewolf chasing and threatening Peter), expletives (swearwords), animalistic characteristics of Peter in some scenes, shapeshifting into a werewolf, violent incidents, some scenes are heavily influenced by the Teen Wolf series Summary: When Peter gets dragged by Gwen into the Central Park in the middle of the night to look for a body he doesn’t expect to be bitten by a werewolf (it’s not like they exist, right?), but that’s exactly what happens. His life takes rapid turn, he’s lost his uncle, a crazed killer alpha werewolf is trying to get to him, and he can’t even control his own body. To make the matters worse the fate seems to like playing with him as it turns out that the only person who can calm him down is none other than Johnny Storm, a self-absorbed cheerleader who seems to embody everything that Peter hates. But maybe being a werewolf won’t be as bad as Peter thought…

SPIDER

Universe: AU Rating: M Warnings: violence, drug addiction as a minor plot point (Harry Osborn), alcoholic parental figure/legal guardian, a lot of bruises and visible physical injuries on Peter, one usage of a homophobic slur, one usage of a racial slur, heavily implied child abuse (and child abuse is discussed), very minor Peter/Flash is sort of there technically, perceived relationship between an adult and a minor, keep your eyes wide open and you’ll still probably miss it but it’s definitely in there reference to canonical childhood sexual abuse, a brief Spanish language conversation that while is not google translate bad I also am not very strong at Spanish, and I think that about covers it Summary: Possibly the worst part of being a superhero was dealing with villains such as the notorious and mysterious Spider. But Johnny has bigger problems to deal with. His girlfriend just left him for some twerp named Peter Parker. He meets the kid and he sort of gets the appeal. Oh god, no. Of course Parker has no clue what Johnny’s talking about when Johnny calls him out for stealing his girlfriend. The Spider has nothing on this sort of terror. Or: AU where Peter Parker chose to be a super villain instead. Featuring Johnny not knowing jack about Les Mis, Snitch the teddy bear, the magic of criminal profiling, “Dorrie Evans? Isn’t she gay?”, and a completely made up super villain origin story.

Additional Information from the author: In this fic Johnny and Peter are both Latino. To be more specific Johnny is Mexican and Peter is Puerto Rican. I felt that was something an artist should be aware of going in.

MULTIVERSE

Universe: Main Universe: 616, Guest Universes: Fant4stic, World’s Greatest Heroes, an original universe or two Rating: T or M Warnings: A character dealing with intense grief over an AU character’s death Summary: Johnny’s been hopelessly in love with Peter almost as long as he’s known him, but he’s never told Peter how he feels. During his lengthy stint in a Negative Zone prison, he promised himself that he’d finally tell Peter the truth if he ever sees him again. He’s been back a few weeks, but he still hasn’t been able to work up the courage. When he and Peter step through the Inhuman Eldrac, a magic door, he and Peter are jointly sent on a trip through the multiverse, where they encounter version after version of themselves, all in different stages of their lives…all of whom are deeply in love. Could Eldrac possibly be trying to tell them something? Featuring mutual pining, angst, babies, weddings, old marrieds, a widower, and tons of Peter being his usual oblivious (and possessive) self.

MORNINGSTAR

Universe: AU Rating: E Warnings: Canon and fairy tale typical violence, references to self-immolation, brief sexual assault (a forced kiss) in an encounter with the villain. The explicit rating is due to consensual sex between Johnny and Peter. Peter is a giant talking spider for part of the fic. Summary: When Johnny makes a deal with the monster that lives in the woods – himself for his sister’s happiness – he doesn’t expect the giant spider to take him to a beautiful castle, or to reveal himself a cursed prince. There’s only one catch: he’s only a man in the darkest night, and Johnny can never see his face. Still, they grow closer, and Johnny is happy with their strange arrangement – until a visit home ruins everything. Now he must travel east of the sun and west of the moon to reclaim Peter from the Goblin King. An East of the Sun, West of the Moon/Polar Bear King-inspired AU.

BARK

Universe: no clear universe, it’s a mashup (character-wise, I follow Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker pretty closely, but Johnny is also a bit of a mashup based on how I see him) Rating: Teen Warnings: canon-typical violence, kissing, injuries, brief nakedness (when Johnny gets turned back to human), Johnny is a literal dog for most of the fic, underage drinking (Johnny is nineteen), cursing (including at least three uses of the f-bomb), animal violence and abuse (dog fighting ring), non-consensual drugging (chloroforming Johnny while he’s in dog-form) Summary: A witch turns Johnny into a yellow lab, effectively leaving him in the middle of New York City with four paws, no way to communicate, and oh yeah - a dog that can flame on isn’t exactly inconspicuous. All his instincts scream for him to run home, but to his confusion, his paws aren’t leading him to the Baxter Building. Aka Johnny Storm turns up at a run down apartment near Empire State University only to discover that the apartment belongs to one Peter Parker. Only problem is, Johnny doesn’t know that Peter is Spider-Man, and Peter doesn’t know that Johnny is a dog.

CIVILIAN

Universe: AU Rating: Teen Warnings: canon-typical violence, identity porn Summary: Peter Parker meets and starts dating Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four, which is unusual, as Johnny is a super-human super-star and Peter is…not. Competing with an adoring public and the frustration of being stuck on the ground while Johnny is up in the sky makes Peter wonder if he fits in with Johnny’s spectacular life. Then he gets a bite from a certain spider and becomes Spider-Man! Problem solved, right? The only issue: Johnny hates Spider-Man. Misunderstandings and hilarity ensue.

This post will remain up until the 20th or until all summaries have been claimed a second time.

[spideytorchbigbang]

Art Claims Big Bang 2017

Welcome to the artist claims for the Spideytorch Big Bang! We have eight fantastic fics up for claiming! A big round of applause to all of our authors – you’re all spectacular.

Please read the summaries carefully and when you’ve selected your top picks, send an e-mail to spideytorchbb@gmail.com with the e-mail address and tumblr username you signed up with along with your first, second, and third pick. When you’ve successfully claimed a fic, you’ll be put in contact with your author.

Claimed summaries will be crossed out, so keep an eye on this post. We may be opening for double claims this year once all fics have been claimed. Thank you!

JAILBREAK

Universe: AU [616-based] Rating: M Warnings: college rejection/dropouts, morally grey decisions, breaking and entering, involving a teenager in illegal things, dubious consent due to alcohol (not painted in a good light), manipulation, sexual regret, mentions of canon compliant character death, shady and illegal government organizations, prison Summary: When Johnny Storm is fourteen years old, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm move next door. Due to his sister's strange attraction to them, and his intense love for his sister, Johnny finds himself sucked further into their world, until one night Reed decides to steal a spaceship and bam -- along come the Fantastic Four. At first, the F4 are heroes, but they soon take a menacing turn, and it takes a chance run-in with Spider-Man, the new kid on the block, to remind Johnny that he can be a hero again. But when things take a turn for the worse, Johnny is left alone in a world of heroes, desperately fighting to find his family (and maybe even himself). Or: the Fantastic Four are well-meaning but evil, SHIELD is generally shady, Johnny kisses boys he shouldn't, Peter Parker has a hot girlfriend and a motorcycle, and Spider-Man is always in Johnny Storm's corner.

FAMILY

Universe: 616, but current canon is more of a suggestion than anything Rating: Mature Warnings: Kidfic (but not mpreg), Peter Parker's Poor Decision Making Skills, Tentacles, Implied Foggy Nelson/Matt Murdock/ Kirsten McDuffie , HEAVILY Implied Venom Symbiote/Flash Thompson Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson and Venom/Harry/Flash, child illness, Johnny Is Shirtless All The Time Because Reasons Summary:   Peter always thought he'd have more of a say over when he had a kid, that it would be something decided between him and his hypothetical lover some time down the line. But between his board of directors insinuating that the public doesn't trust a single and child-free CEO, and a rather insistent alien queen wanting him as some kind of stud male to save her people,  Peter's 'someday maybe' plan has ended up becoming 'no time like the present' when said alien queen gifts Peter with an egg. Inside? A baby made up of his and Johnny Storm's DNA, because name dropping Johnny Storm to get out of hot water was never a good idea. In the face of Johnny's depression over his still missing family, Peter decides that Johnny could never know the baby was his, too. Instead, Peter invites Johnny to live with him as the baby's nanny, because living with the guy you have over a decade and a half of repressed romantic feelings for and raising your daughter together under false pretenses is a plan that can't possibly back fire.

Good Job, Pete.

WOLF

Universe: MTV-Teen-Wolf-inspired AU Rating: Mature Warnings: secondary characters’ deaths including a police shooting scene, bullying incidents, scenes with Peter in chains, mild horror content (a wild werewolf chasing and threatening Peter), expletives (swearwords), animalistic characteristics of Peter in some scenes, shapeshifting into a werewolf, violent incidents, some scenes are heavily influenced by the Teen Wolf series Summary: When Peter gets dragged by Gwen into the Central Park in the middle of the night to look for a body he doesn’t expect to be bitten by a werewolf (it’s not like they exist, right?), but that’s exactly what happens. His life takes rapid turn, he’s lost his uncle, a crazed killer alpha werewolf is trying to get to him, and he can’t even control his own body. To make the matters worse the fate seems to like playing with him as it turns out that the only person who can calm him down is none other than Johnny Storm, a self-absorbed cheerleader who seems to embody everything that Peter hates. But maybe being a werewolf won't be as bad as Peter thought...

SPIDER

Universe: AU Rating: M Warnings: violence, drug addiction as a minor plot point (Harry Osborn), alcoholic parental figure/legal guardian, a lot of bruises and visible physical injuries on Peter, one usage of a homophobic slur, one usage of a racial slur, heavily implied child abuse (and child abuse is discussed), very minor Peter/Flash is sort of there technically, perceived relationship between an adult and a minor, keep your eyes wide open and you'll still probably miss it but it's definitely in there reference to canonical childhood sexual abuse, a brief Spanish language conversation that while is not google translate bad I also am not very strong at Spanish, and I think that about covers it Summary:  Possibly the worst part of being a superhero was dealing with villains such as the notorious and mysterious Spider. But Johnny has bigger problems to deal with. His girlfriend just left him for some twerp named Peter Parker. He meets the kid and he sort of gets the appeal. Oh god, no. Of course Parker has no clue what Johnny's talking about when Johnny calls him out for stealing his girlfriend. The Spider has nothing on this sort of terror. Or: AU where Peter Parker chose to be a super villain instead. Featuring Johnny not knowing jack about Les Mis, Snitch the teddy bear, the magic of criminal profiling, "Dorrie Evans? Isn't she gay?", and a completely made up super villain origin story.

Additional Information from the author: In this fic Johnny and Peter are both Latino. To be more specific Johnny is Mexican and Peter is Puerto Rican. I felt that was something an artist should be aware of going in.

MULTIVERSE

Universe: Main Universe: 616, Guest Universes: Fant4stic, World’s Greatest Heroes, an original universe or two Rating: T or M Warnings: A character dealing with intense grief over an AU character’s death Summary: Johnny’s been hopelessly in love with Peter almost as long as he’s known him, but he’s never told Peter how he feels. During his lengthy stint in a Negative Zone prison, he promised himself that he’d finally tell Peter the truth if he ever sees him again. He’s been back a few weeks, but he still hasn’t been able to work up the courage. When he and Peter step through the Inhuman Eldrac, a magic door, he and Peter are jointly sent on a trip through the multiverse, where they encounter version after version of themselves, all in different stages of their lives…all of whom are deeply in love. Could Eldrac possibly be trying to tell them something? Featuring mutual pining, angst, babies, weddings, old marrieds, a widower, and tons of Peter being his usual oblivious (and possessive) self.

MORNINGSTAR

Universe: AU Rating: E Warnings: Canon and fairy tale typical violence, references to self-immolation, brief sexual assault (a forced kiss) in an encounter with the villain. The explicit rating is due to consensual sex between Johnny and Peter. Peter is a giant talking spider for part of the fic. Summary: When Johnny makes a deal with the monster that lives in the woods -- himself for his sister’s happiness -- he doesn’t expect the giant spider to take him to a beautiful castle, or to reveal himself a cursed prince. There’s only one catch: he’s only a man in the darkest night, and Johnny can never see his face. Still, they grow closer, and Johnny is happy with their strange arrangement -- until a visit home ruins everything. Now he must travel east of the sun and west of the moon to reclaim Peter from the Goblin King. An East of the Sun, West of the Moon/Polar Bear King-inspired AU.

BARK

Universe: no clear universe, it’s a mashup (character-wise, I follow Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker pretty closely, but Johnny is also a bit of a mashup based on how I see him) Rating: Teen Warnings: canon-typical violence, kissing, injuries, brief nakedness (when Johnny gets turned back to human), Johnny is a literal dog for most of the fic, underage drinking (Johnny is nineteen), cursing (including at least three uses of the f-bomb), animal violence and abuse (dog fighting ring), non-consensual drugging (chloroforming Johnny while he’s in dog-form) Summary:  A witch turns Johnny into a yellow lab, effectively leaving him in the middle of New York City with four paws, no way to communicate, and oh yeah - a dog that can flame on isn’t exactly inconspicuous. All his instincts scream for him to run home, but to his confusion, his paws aren’t leading him to the Baxter Building. Aka Johnny Storm turns up at a run down apartment near Empire State University only to discover that the apartment belongs to one Peter Parker. Only problem is, Johnny doesn’t know that Peter is Spider-Man, and Peter doesn’t know that Johnny is a dog.

CIVILIAN

Universe: AU Rating: Teen Warnings: canon-typical violence, identity porn Summary:  Peter Parker meets and starts dating Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four, which is unusual, as Johnny is a super-human super-star and Peter is...not. Competing with an adoring public and the frustration of being stuck on the ground while Johnny is up in the sky makes Peter wonder if he fits in with Johnny's spectacular life. Then he gets a bite from a certain spider and becomes Spider-Man! Problem solved, right? The only issue: Johnny hates Spider-Man. Misunderstandings and hilarity ensue.

ALL CLAIMED for now, but watch this space...