#the piece of white bread who somehow had the best character development out of all of them

[mushroomtrailer]

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[hikari-kaitou]

Capcom's Official AA Fanclub Surveys - DGS Edition

Many Western fans may be familiar with the Turnabout 4koma comics that get posted on the official AA fanclub site that Capcom runs, thanks to some lovely fans on tumblr and elsewhere who have shared their translations. What fewer people seem to know about is the character surveys.

Back in the old days, they used to hold a survey on Capcom's official AA fansite every few months where they'd write about the seasonal activities of a handful of characters and ask fans to vote for the funniest/most pleasant/strangest/etc answer.

They stopped doing them in like... 2016? 2017? The original text is lost for good as far as I can tell. Even the wayback machine couldn't help because the content was password locked and you can't get past the password wall while remaining in the archived version.

Fortunately, I saved some of my translations of them so I thought I’d share them.

Cut for length...

"February has begun, and the DGS cast is nearing the end of their journey aboard the RFS Alacrei. Which of them acted the most strangely?"

Ryuunosuke ~ Exhausted from his intensive study session, he decided to try some katana swinging practice as a change of pace and to combat his recent lack of exercise. But because he wasn't used to handling the katana, he swung it too hard and it went flying out of his hands and got stuck in the wall right next to Sherlock, who had just entered the room. Sherlock asked him, "aren't you supposed to be studying right now, Mr. Naruhodo?" and handcuffed him to his desk.

Susato- worked on developing a curriculum for Ryuunosuke. 'If we keep going at this pace, he won't be able to learn it all in time... It'll be hard on Naruhodo-sama, but we'll have to work hard through a couple of nights together.' With that thought, she created a harsh study schedule, and almost seemed to be looking forward to it for some reason.

Sherlock- Driven by excitement over the thought of returning to England after a long absence, he went up on deck to stare at the ocean. Being February, it was very cold out there and he ended up being chilled all the way to the tips of his fingers. He returned to the ship cabins and amused himself by putting his frozen hands on Ryuunosuke, who was stuck in his room studying.

Van Zieks- Upon hearing from Vortex that there was a Japanese exchange student coming to England to study law, he smashed a Lord's Bottle. He apparently also didn't care for the fact that that Japanese student wouldn't be alone, because he proceeded to shatter his chalice, too.

Hosonaga- in order to provide a respite from studying, he provided some hot chocolate. They enjoyed a pleasant tea time, marveling over how sweet and delicious the drink was until Sherlock piped up with some unnecessary trivia: 'Actually folks, chocolate has long been used in Europe as an aphrodisiac!' Everyone promptly spat it out."

"The long winter is nearly over and spring is on it's way, putting the DGS cast members in a celebratory mood. Who found the best way of enjoying spring?"

Ryuunosuke: the Yuumei University faculty members were holding a flower viewing event, and he joined the assistance committee. He exhausted himself keeping the blankets clean so the intense shower of flower petals wouldn't pile up too high on them, delivering sake and snacks, and mediating whatever pointless fights arose. To top it all off, for some reason his compensation was only a single piece of leftover candy. Talk about a sad result!

Susato- her father and the others living in his dormitory were  holding the flower viewing event, so she got up early to prepare the bentos. But her father carelessly forgot to tell her that they wanted tea cakes, so she had to go around the house and neighborhood collecting sweets. For some reason, she ended up being able to gather caramels, biscuits, candy sticks, basically everything but tea cakes, for the tea ceremony.

Sherlock- he disguised himself as a beat officer and infiltrated Scotland Yard to have some fun. There was a real beat officer napping on his feet in the spring sunshine, and while observing him, Sherlock ended up falling asleep too. Detective Gregson gave them a good scolding when he found them, but then Sherlock revealed his true identity with a "hey, it's me, folks!" "What the blazes do you think you're doing?!" Gregson shouted, his rage growing even more, and Sherlock ended up making a run for it.

Van Zieks- went to the vineyard to oversee the production of the contents of his Lord's Bottle. As he viewed the still unopened grape blossom buds, he thought about how they would someday grow up to fill his Lord's Bottle, and ended up going around to look at each one. But the farm hands couldn't stop wondering whether the bottle itself or its owner's heel might come flying at them and were quite uneasy.

Asougi: exhausted himself running around since early morning helping with the professors' flower viewing event. When it was over, he took a break, sharing his reward candy stick [the name of the candy literally translates to 1,000 year candy] with Ryuunosuke, who had also been helping out. 

"I wonder if the candy's effect is halved if you share it with someone."

"That still gives us 500 years."

They laughed and enjoyed looking at the flowers until dark. Then they parted ways with a handshake and a "see you later, best friend."

(This one was something about celebrating New Years. For some reason I didn't save the original question)

"Ryuunosuke ~ To celebrate New Years, he planned to pound mochi with everyone at the office. He somehow managed to get his hands on some mochi rice and he and Sherlock started pounding. Iris was having such fun watching them that she steamed a whole bunch more mochi rice so they could have some to share, and he and Sherlock spent the whole evening pounding mochi like crazy.

Asougi~ Because it's New Years, he went around to a bunch of shrines. When he drew his new year's fortune, he got a "horrible luck" result. "I'm not worried about it," he claimed, and headed up to the mountains early on New Years morning and work hard on a full training course of purification by water, meditation under a waterfall and wooden sword practice. It seems that he was working really hard to clear his mind of all earthly thoughts

Sherlock- Agreed to help Ryuunosuke pound mochi. As Ryuunosuke was flipping the mochi over, he carelessly dropped his badge into the bowl and Sherlock mixed it in without noticing, so they had to crack open both the hard and soft mochi to look for it. Fortunately they found it in the 4th one they checked, but apparently Sherlock got his hands and face covered in sticky white mochi in the process.

Susato- Wore a furisode and went with her father to do the first shrine visit of the year. The shrine was incredibly crowded and they had to wait in line for a long time, but she brought the Encyclopaedia of British Law and a copy of the Strand Magazine in her sleeves to secretly read as they waited so she actually ended up enjoying the wait.

Van Zieks- Ryuunosuke cheerfully gave him some mochi as a New Year’s (which at that time was celebrated at the same time as the Chinese New Year) gift, which he accepted confusedly, wondering “...Can the Japanese not even keep track of when the New Year is?” Because Ryuunosuke referred to it as a rice cake, he tried to eat it like a regular cake without softening it with heat first. It was so hard that he couldn’t imagine how it could possibly be food, and ended up misunderstanding the Japanese even more!

"Autumn has arrived, and the weather is starting to cool off, which means that everyone is becoming more active. Which character chose the most pleasant autumn activity to keep busy with?"

Iris was making bread but her hands are small and it’s difficult for her to knead the dough, so she asked for Ryuunosuke’s help. She wanted to make enough to hand out to Gina and all the other homeless children in the East End, so she made a massive amount and Ryuunosuke was stuck kneading this massive mountain of bread dough all day. Apparently he became such a expert at kneading that he could be a baker now.

Asougi was practicing with his sword, slicing autumn-colored ginko leaves as they fell from the tree. He cut so many leaves, though, that he ended up making a big mess on the ground, the number of fallen leaves now having increased, and it took him a long time to clean it all up.    

Sherlock: Ryuunosuke told him that he was making anpan (bread filled with sweet red bean paste, the bane of my Asian-dwelling existance) and asked Sherlock to help by being in charge of getting the poppy seeds they’d need to sprinkle on top, so Sherlock went out and gathered a ton of poppy seeds. In fact, he got so many of them that no one knew what to do with them all cuz they had a huge amount of leftovers. Sherlock said, “Well, they’re only the size of poppy seeds! Surely you two can deal with them somehow! Ahahaha!” and Iris scolded him.   

(I couldn’t capture it in English, but Sherlock’s line contained a pun, and a pretty stupid one at that, so that’s part of why he got scolded)

It’s grape harvesting season, so Van Zieks commutes to the winery regularly to direct the production of the contents for his “Lord’s Bottle.” He demands perfection in everything from the selection of the grapes to the way they’re squeezed, and the winery staff is terrified by the “grim reaper’s” gaze and heel swinging (i.e. the leg thing he does in court) so they grumble as they work. 

"Hearing that there’s a holiday in the West called Halloween, the people involved with the court in Japan decided to try it out themselves. Naturally Halloween is a big deal in England as well. So, which member of the DGS cast had the best celebration?"

Team Ryuunosuke and Asougi- Asougi got Naruhodo up on his shoulders and they draped a white sheet over themselves to make a ghost costume. They went out like that, but Naruhodo had such exaggerated reactions to the fear of the people who saw them and to bumping his head on tree branches that they ended up losing their balance and falling on top of each other?!   

Sherlock Holmes- went wearing a horse’s head mask. Iris used her skills to make it a fancy horse covered in stars, but the eye holes weren’t well made and he had to wander around blindly. Because of that he tripped hard over a pile of coal! He ended up getting so dirty that the stars on his costume were covered up!

Van Zieks- took inspiration from his nickname and dressed up as the grim reaper. He covered himself up with a skeleton mask and hood figuring no one would know it was him. Unfortunately he got angry when he saw Megundal (McGilded) pass by and started throwing bottles and glasses and ended up giving himself away.

"November has arrived, and autumn is nearing its end. However, the DGS cast is still keeping busy, even on their days off. Which character chose the most interesting way to spend their late autumn day?"

Ryuunosuke- Thinking that he’d better learn more about British culture if he was going to be a defense attorney in Britain, he went down to the East End with Gina for a little observation. However, because an Asian like him stood out so much, he got mobbed by the other children. On top of it all, his arm band got stolen from him and he had to send a replacement request to Yumei University on the other side of the ocean.

Asougi- He went for a meal at La Quantas. The customer at a nearby table got a persimmon for dessert and scarfed it down, saying “Mm! This is it! This sweetness makes it worthy of being called a treasure among foods!” Asougi tried to comment on this by saying, “The customer at that table sure is enjoying his pershim--gak!” but he may or may not have accidentally bitten his tongue in the process and been unable to finish his sentence.

Iris- She accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and prepared a bagpipe and kilt costume for him. “This outfit sure is breezy,” Ryuunosuke said shyly upon trying it on. With Ryuunosuke now dressed, he, Iris, and the others from their office headed over to Gregson’s place to get him to treat them to some fish and chips.   

Sherlock- He accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and cooked up some European style curry for dinner. Thanks to the fact that his secret ingredient was a large amount of Chinese herbal medicine style spice, it caused some strange side effects and Ryuunosuke, who’d eaten it, ended up passing out and falling over.

“Another taxing trial for Ryuunosuke has finished and now it’s December. As the year draws to a close, which character acts the strangest?”

Ryuunosuke- he was recruited to help with snow removal around Yumei University and the courthouse and he enthusiastically began his task with the help of a large shovel. He got a little carried away, though, and ended up accidentally burying his umbrella, which he’d left propped up against the side of the building, in the snow he’d just finished shoveling.  He had no choice but to share Asougi’s umbrella on the way home.

Asougi- On the way home, he nods silently to Ryuunosuke’s question of whether he’d finished his travel preparations and changes the subject: “...Come to think of it, it seems that tomorrow is celebrated in the West as God’s birthday.” “I’ve heard that they eat chicken as part of the traditional celebration. Wanna try it?” Ryuunosuke asks invitingly. Asougi is strongly opposed to that particular menu item, however, and they end up going out for their usual beef stew that night instead.           

Susato- in addition to her year-end travel preparations, she also was busy with straightening up the book room in her home. She managed to get the law books in order when she suddenly stumbled upon some old issues of Strand Magazine! She hurried through the rest of her cleaning, then began flipping through the magazines she’d found, trying to decide which to take with her on her trip. She accidentally lost herself in her reading and didn’t realize it until it was already the middle of the night.

Sherlock- he was in the middle of a long ship voyage when Christmas night came. His mind on his partner in a far-off country, he made a toast alone on deck, when suddenly the crew began shooting off fireworks with a cry of “Merry Christmas!” Sherlock had to dart back and forth across the deck to prevent the fireworks from hitting him and setting off the explosive chemicals he carries with him.

Main series edition

[vaultureculture]

Meet my Guardians :) [part 1?]

I have been playing Eldarya ever since I was 14. For the past few years, I had been reading the story religiously, mixing in headcanons to fill plot-holes, and  fleshing out Erika until she became something entirely different. 

Her character soon split into my three mains, all of whom I will introduce to you all in this post! In my Eldarya AU, they all exist in the same universe, and the three of them play crucial roles in the Oracle’s prophecy. I will develop them more as time goes by hmhm

1-Monnika

Name: Monnika Defreine (she/her)

Birth date: 14th November  [  ♏︎  ]

Age: 22

Species: Faelienne (Aengel+Human)

MBTI: INFP

Guard: Absynthe Guard

Familiar: Lillith (Bâkhrâhell)

LI: Leiftan (both in TO and in ANE)

Occupation in the Guard of Eel: She has taken on the role of a teacher for many children inside the H.Q’s walls. She specializes in lyrical poetry and composition. Whenever she is free from her teaching job, she adventures out into the forest to collect ingredients for ointments and potion spells. 

Sub-occupation: Trained alchemist, Oracle visualizer. Monnika has frequent premonitory dreams and visions featuring the Oracle, but she cannot understand them nor speak in their tongue. Her visual communication with the Oracle is important regardless, and she’s the most attached to it.  

Weapon of choice: Sword

Pros: Forgiving, educated, compassionate, patient, reliable. 

Cons: A push-over, easily biased, indecisive, self-victimizing, very edgy.

Monnika follows the more “canon Erika” path. She is the only one of the main three to have come from Earth through the portal we see at the beginning of the game. She is also the only one to retain an element of Aengel blood, albeit stronger than Erika’s. The option was ruled out for canon Erika, but Monnika is indeed adopted and a faelienne. She’s aware of her adoption but does not know anything else about her background, nor has she cared to know.

In her childhood, she was often reported to affect nearby light and energy sources. Her parents believed her to simply be sensitive to electromagnetic fields. This explanation is usually given to spiritual mediums: The energy they accumulate is said to be what causes paranormal phenomena around them. 

Once she crossed the portal into Eldarya, she began regulating her Maana, and her powers started manifesting more. The eventual blood transfusion and ‘soul-tethering’ with Leiftan jumpstarted a physical transformation, leaving her stuck out of her human disguise. Now, do not let her edgy appearance fool you: she is an Aengel. 

Monnika's form is inspired by traditional Seraphims— that is, ominous balls of eyes and feathers. Her blood is ancient, and her outside reflects it:  Upon transforming, all of her grows in size monstrously. She prostrates, back heavy with wings, as blazing white light fills her sockets. Her spindly fingers dig into the soil, like the feeble limbs of a black widow spider. She is one with the earth her mother bore her from; in her presence, one feels as though judgment is neigh.

There are no reasons to fear her, though, for she is kind and reserved. Monnika finds joy in tranquility and avoids company most of the time. After her initial transformation, she grew more distant, ashamed of her new condition. Her human blood keeps her from smoothly regulating her powers, so she is stuck in her angel form from the first time it occurs to the end of the War for Eldarya, before the 7-year coma. With training, she is finally able to change back to a more human disguise. 

Leiftan and Monnika are, indeed, soulmates. She always felt herself gravitate towards him and followed this attraction without remorse. Her alliance stands with Leiftan and with Leiftan only, which made her position in TO quite complicated. Her lover's crimes were heinous, but her eagerness to build bridges between them again kept her from understanding the seriousness of it all. After their coma, her spirit and trust are broken by Leiftan's distance. She's then left to pine from afar, desperately trying to comprehend how she's supposed to live with half a heart.  

2-Astraea

Name: Astraea Varma (she/her)

Birth date:  5th March [ ♓︎ ]

Age: 24

Species: Euryhalin nomadic mermaid

MBTI: ISFJ

Guard: Obsidian Guard

Familiar: Thetis (Blobbiathan)

LI: Valkyon (TO) & Mathieu (ANE) 

Occupation in the Guard of Eel: Unwilling to find herself (or her peers) wounded and helpless in the midst of battle, she started working as a nurse under the protection of Ewelein. Her eagerness to learn and help others soon turned her into a sponge for medical knowledge.

Sub-occupation: Obsidian infantry soldier, Crystal fragment detector. Astraea can easily sense the presence of crystal fragments, corrupted or not. She can easily follow them to where they are, as if they left a visible trail. 

Weapon of choice: Hammer or enchanted fists. 

Pros: law-abiding, empathetic, just, optimistic, fun to be around. 

Cons: Inflexible, holds grudges, bad loser, stubborn, quick to judge.  

Astraea washed up on a small stream that crosses the forest of Eel. She was found by Ykhar and Alajéa on the noon of the same day that Monnika appeared in the Crystal Room. Astraea had no recollection of her journey upon waking up beside the fact that she was looking for something significant. She made allusions to it being noted down in her journals, all of which she lost in the last half of her trip. 

She comes from a clan of Euryhalin nomadic mermaids, aquatic creatures who can travel both through rivers and oceans according to migratory seasons. These migration patterns are marked by the moon and the stars, so these mermaids are essentially nocturnal. This is similar (if not the same, even) to the structure and tradition of Alajéa and her sister Colaïa’s clan. The likeness between Alajéa and Astraea’s experiences will eventually strengthen the bond between them, and make them grow closer than ever— despite the initial moments of sourness. The only thing that could throw a spanner in the works is Astraea's distaste for Karenn, Alajéa's best friend. The breach between them is no different in ANE, as Karenn's overall demeanor is quick to make Astraea's blood boil.

Despite being an Obsidian, Astraea fears conflict and very much dislikes harming others. She is not one to await battle with a smile, nor is she an outstanding warrior by herself. Nevertheless, it is her wit, perseverance, and fairness that landed her on that guard. Moments of doubt, like passing mists, may have clouded her self-perception; She may have broken down many times but always stood up again to dedicate more effort to her cause. She fights when necessary, using her knowledge in enchantments to gather up fists of rocks as her weapons.

Incredibly passionate about justice and discipline, Astraea held the Obsidian chief Valkyon in high regard. He became one of her confidants in the tortuous search for her memories; then, a partner to stand by as the world caved in. After the War and the 7-year coma, Astraea withdrew into isolation, grieving over the loss of her lover and mentor. The cherry tree that once was Valkyon’s shelter is now Astraea’s place of reflection— a deep, melancholic pondering only Mathieu, a new friend, and Sonzaishinai, an old friend, can get her out of. 

3)Sonzaishinai

Name: Hélène “Sonzaishinai” Müller(she/her)

Birth date:  20th May [ ♊︎ ]

Age: 25

Species: Nocturnal fae (moth variant)

MBTI: ENTP

Guard: Shadow Guard

Familiar: Skade (Owlett)

LI: Nevra (TO) & Lance (ANE)

Occupation in the Guard of Eel:  Hélène had always shown a questionable interest in the archives of the H.Q. When Ykhar offered her to work as an adjoined archive librarian, she could not pass it up. She knows the catalogue by heart and has gathered a bunch of...information that may be of use to her. 

Sub-occupation: Master archer, Oracle interpreter. Sonzaishinai has auditory hallucinations featuring the Oracle. She is able to understand her tongue and speak in the Ancient tongue of Eel, thus being able to interpret many crucial pieces of information. 

Weapon of choice: Bow and arrow.

Pros: Diplomatic, humorous, witty, loyal, affectionate. 

Cons: Hides information, violent under stress, impulsive, patronizing. 

Sonzaishinai was brought to the H.Q disheveled and delirious by a group of local Purreko merchants. They had accused her of theft (bread? a dragon tear? so they said), and she was thrown into a cell pre-emptively. Nevertheless, her worn-down state and the lack of evidence ended the trial period rather quickly. For lack of planning and information about her, she was kept in jail for an extra day. Sonzaishinai was in prison at the same time as Monnika. The 'masked man' freed both, and the girls parted ways at the Hall of Doors. 

As a disoriented newcomer, Sonzaishinai was granted shelter. She was allowed three days to recover and decide on her fate. She would either hit the road and return to her homeland or commit to becoming a productive citizen of Eel— by settling and supporting local markets, or joining the staff. Her affairs were thoroughly searched, and nothing was found but a couple notebooks filled with inscriptions in an alphabet unknown. Under questioning, Sonzaishinai soon proved to be, somehow, proficient in languages galore, many of them forgotten and unused. 

She soon joined the same recruit program as Monnika and Astraea...not without the Guard's persuasion, of course. There, Sonzaishinai and Astraea grew close beyond belief. They learned to lean on each other, bound by laughter and blind trust. Sonzaishinai considers Astraea a sister and does not hesitate to call her so— while Astraea always goes to Sonzaishinai for guidance. In ANE's weapon giving ceremony, Hélène chooses to call her new bow (it is Monnika who gets the sword) "Astraea", for she believes the younger mermaid to be her protection and good luck charm.

The nickname "Sonzai Shinai" was given to her by a guard colleague from the Jade Coast. It is a verbal expression of Japanese origin, meaning "there is not", "it does not exist". The culprit behind Hélène's telling nickname is no other than her silence: One can barely hear her arrive, and she always seems to appear as suddenly as she fades away. With time, she fully adopted the nickname, and nobody really calls her Hélène anymore—with rare exceptions.

Nocturnal faes are beings as mysterious and charming as they are dangerous. Most of them present themselves as delicate young women, who seem far too attractive or even stuck in time, never aging.  Behind their lips, however, hide sharp teeth. They are carnivorous and oftentimes conniving, some even venomous, just like the habitats or plants they frequent. It depends on the individual, of course, but they do not have the best reputation around. Whatever they really are, it is not advisable to seal deals with them. They always have a trick up their sleeve.

Although Hélène can be 100% trusted if you are her ally, she does tend to keep many things a secret. It was her that contacted Lance in TO, never telling Miiko and even asking him to take her along. She built a sense of trust between them that allowed Lance to feel comfortable enough to kidnap her in particular, hoping she'd be the one to understand his goals the most. He'd never thought that she'd know as much as him and that she'd been using him to get new leads the entire time. Despite it all, they were always capable of dialogue, which threatens to come back in an incredibly mentally stimulating way upon their new meeting. 

Regarding Nevra, Sonzaishinai had always felt a strong, nurturing love towards him. He'd proven to be an ambitious brat with too big of an ego one too many times, but his light-heartedness and genuine attachment got to her rather quickly. Upon waking up after the 7-year coma, she did not recognize the moody and regretful man before her. He'd promised to love her forever, but now she stood alone spiteful, facing empty words. Despite their falling out, she will always have a soft spot for him and won't doubt to put herself in harm's way for him.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

The Stripping Point

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: E (explicit sexual content) Word count: 6387

Happy Birthday, @spiderman-homecomeme​!

Summary: Peter's ready to turn his new hobby into a profitable sideline. Unfortunately, he writes down his very first client's address incorrectly and shows up at the wrong house.

MJ opens the door to find some guy dressed as Spider-Man and decides the best way to mess with him is to let him stay. Almost immediately, she loses the upper hand.

Quarantine puts people out of work. A lotta people at first, then less, but never Peter. He keeps shooting for the Bugle, lugging his camera all over the city (instead of squeezing onto buses and subway cars that never really get that much less crowded) while he breathes heavily through his mask. He only takes pictures at outdoor spaces to try to avoid both crowds and loners who hassle him for taking preventative measures during the pandemic. They’re stressed, he gets that, but Peter doesn’t wanna be anywhere near conflict. Spider-Man, on the other hand… Well, when he puts on that mask, it’s pretty much business as usual. He appreciates his face covering more than ever and, hey, it’s cool to do a job with social distancing built in.

His gratitude for the web-slinging side-gig only increases as the weeks of pandemic life stretch into months and Jameson starts ordering him back into situations that are just plain stupid from a health perspective. Never mind that he got kinda accidentally stabbed the other week. It’s a totally different set of dangers. Peter resists the new assignments and because Jameson’ll be in deep shit if his number one Spider-Man photographer makes a fuss about working conditions (and because people are getting so desperate for employment that he can pay a new hire even less than Peter’s paltry freelancing rate), the Bugle shells out for another photographer to cover the work Peter won’t do. Good for Peter’s health, bad for Peter’s bank account―which is already whimpering with hunger pangs from sitting near-empty after paying rent. This gets him thinking. It might be time to turn his early-quarantine hobby into his mid-to-late-quarantine money-maker.

Yeah, pandemic hobbies! By April, it seemed to him like everybody was picking something up. Bread-making, yoga, sewing masks for healthcare workers left criminally under-equipped. The hobby Peter picked up, well… it’s a little different. He began practicing it indoors (obviously), by himself, and with skills gained from reading and watching material on the internet. In those ways, it’s a lot like other people’s hobbies. In some other ways, it’s very, very different. Like, instead of putting on specialized clothing like an apron or yoga pants, Peter’s hobby requires taking clothes off. It’s stripping. Peter’s hobby is stripping.

A few things led to him picking that over sourdough or Sun Salutations. Peter loves not only old movies but also old music. Old movies with iconic dance scenes? That’s, like, the perfect combo. He spends a lot of his downtime playing music in his apartment and, when he’s not wiped or injured, dancing along. He figures it’s good for his mood as well as his fitness. Seriously, he can only do so many chin-ups on the metal bar braced in his bathroom doorframe (which is starting to crack). Patrick Swayze’s solo routine from the end of Dirty Dancing is way more fun, even if Peter did tear the knees on a couple pairs of sweatpants because of it. The more music he listened to, the more he started freestyling his own moves in between those of leading men. It was that―trying to create something good of his own―that helped him understand the routines he watched. He figured out the balance between precision and sex appeal and somewhere in there, he realized he was performing for an audience in his head. And what this imaginary audience wanted wasn’t always the goofiness of acting out Risky Business and sliding across the short strip of bare floor between his kitchen and living room in socks, underwear, and a white shirt. Sometimes, the audience wanted him to lose the shirt.

At that point, Peter was once again wandering out of what he knew. He was comfortable with movie dances, had a little of his own repertoire, but he lacked this extra element of storytelling; it was the one that took him from fully dressed down to boxers and socks without tripping and struggling and falling into his meager possessions. That was when he turned to the internet and confronted the fact that he wanted to learn how to strip. If he happened to stumble into related tutorials on how to give a lap dance, who would know? Who was there to judge Peter as he performed for an empty kitchen chair, dragging his hand along the back and body-rolling to buck his hips towards where someone’s face would be? Yeah, it was kinda embarrassing while he was learning, but he had the endurance to try a move over and over until he nailed it, the strength to draw out isolated movements like twitching his hips to keep his butt drawing circles on the lap of his invisible patron, and the overall coordination of, well, Spider-Man. Which ends up being the most important piece of all because, when Peter decides to take his show on the road (or at least out of his tiny apartment), his ‘stage’ name requires about a second of thought. Spider-Man. He’ll go by Spider-Man. He laughs his ass off when he thinks of it. It’s fucking genius! Spider-Man stripping as himself is the last thing anyone would ever suspect!

Naturally, Peter can’t use any of his actual Spidey suits. Those would probably give him away. Also, he’d feel weird about having Karen’s voice in his ear while he flexed his abs next to somebody’s head. Fortunately, after a little digging―which turns into a lot of digging and leaves his room a mess of comingled clean and dirty clothes―he finds his original suit. The zip-up hoodie plus sweatpants one. Yeah, its technological capabilities are basically zero, it’s a little grimy, and too tight, but he doesn’t need it to do anything besides come off. The wear-and-tear will lend genuine-fake authenticity to his character and the snugness around his more developed muscles (it’s been a decade since he wore it last) will make it… sexier? He guesses? The most important thing is the mask, which is the only part of his costume he won’t strip off. Apart from his underwear, obviously. He’s not that wild.

He gets to work cutting a vertical line up each leg of his sweatpants, then sews in snaps. Boom, tearaways. They look kinda shitty, but if he’s any good at all, whoever he dances for shouldn’t be staring at loose threads.

So Peter has his moves, his costume, a few songs in mind, and no engagements. Oh, he thinks he can figure out how to get jobs, it’s just that he somehow keeps coming home, sitting down to compose his ad, and then doing something completely different instead. He’s truly scared witless. Nobody’ll see your face, he chants in his mind to psych himself up every time he’s heading home to his apartment. Still, he freezes at his laptop. There’s nothing about his body that he’s ashamed of―he uses it every single day to help people as Spider-Man. Maybe it’s that, this time, he’d be using it to help himself. Is he a monster for making a buck off his superhero persona? Peter holds onto that question for about a week until the date to pay rent is approaching and his bank account shudders in horror. Ok, money’s tight and he hasn’t been hit by a car lately, so he won’t freak anybody out with road rash or bruising or more of his hand-sewing to close gashes. With a little self-pedicure here and hair-removal there, Peter looks at himself in his bathroom mirror and decides this is as good a time as any.

He advertises online and his hands are still trembling when he gets a call from an unfamiliar number ten minutes after his ad goes live. The ringing phone actually makes him jump. It’s probably a telemarketer, or a wrong number. Nobody would call him with a job this fast. He was counting on having at least a day to sit with the choice he made. Peter fumbles for the phone and answers. For the next minute and a half, he struggles to hear the woman’s voice over the blood rushing in his ears. She thinks he’s the Spider-Man Stripper. He is the Spider-Man Stripper. This is hilarious and terrifying and oddly similar to the brief moment of freefall between slinging one web and the next as he darts around Midtown. Her friend’s birthday party, she tells him, two days from now. Something else she planned (Peter’s adjusting his sweaty, slipping grip on his phone and misses the details) fell through and if he can be the entertainment for a half-hour or so it would save both the party and her friendship. Not to add extra pressure, she jokes, laughing. The sound Peter makes is a weak echo. So can he be there? Is there space in his schedule? He pretends to check that ‘schedule’ so she doesn’t think he’s a total amateur. Yep, yep, he has an opening for her. She has an opening for him, she flirts back, making his eyes go wide as he clutches the phone. God, why couldn’t his first gig have been for some 22-year-old’s bachelorette instead of this middle-aged-sounding woman who possibly wants to eat him alive? By the time she’s telling him her address, Peter’s hands are shaking worse than ever, he can’t immediately find a pen, and she reels it off to him way too quickly. He’s scrawling the address on his arm and right as he opens his mouth to ask her to repeat it, she hangs up. He peers at his arm doubtfully. Should he call her back for confirmation? No, he doesn’t have the guts. Anyway, he can figure this out. The street name was Woodman, right? Or was it Woodlawn? And the number was 712. Or 271. There was definitely a 7 in there somewhere. And his client’s name was… Lisa? Lana. Maybe Linda?

Peter cradles his face in his hands and groans. When his phone starts ringing again―different number―he frantically declines the call, then deletes his ad. One job at a time. Even that, he now thinks, seems ambitious.

―

MJ’s glad she’s not the one throwing this party together. As Liz’s best friend, it’s Betty who took the reins, organizing and then scrapping everything more than once as New York moved from phase to phase during this pandemic. The end result is still less than what MJ knows Betty wants; ideally, there would be more than a handful of guests and things like shiny helium balloons and fancy desserts would be hand-delivered to Liz’s front door on the day of the party. Instead, MJ sits on the arm of Liz’s couch as she inflates yet another latex balloon the good old-fashioned way: blowing it up by mouth until she’s dizzy.

Cindy stomps over and plops down next to her, snatching a balloon from the party pack of 50 (and Betty insists they need them all). She’s been banished from cupcake decorating. MJ would offer a word or two of sympathy, but balloon duty has the prior claim on how she spends her breaths. All she can do is toss Cindy a plastic tiara (Betty bought one―just one!―reading ‘Mom-to-Be’ for Liz, but the online shop screwed up her order and sent two dozen ‘Birthday Girl’ tiaras in its place) after tying off her finished balloon. MJ’s already wearing one. Meanwhile, the tiara-less Mom-to-Be is being driven around the block a million times by her cousin because they’re having the party at Liz’s place and Betty wants the decorations to be a surprise. Liz’s husband, more simply, was banished for the entire day. MJ originally thought they could’ve put him to work, since it’s pretty hectic, but she’s too oxygen-deprived to worry anymore.

Finally, Betty declares from the kitchen that she’s frosted her final cupcake. MJ begs for a reprieve from balloon-inflating and Betty, feeling accomplished and generous, agrees they probably have enough balloons now. Cindy casts her half-inflated one away in disgust before going to help Betty clean up baking ingredients and do dishes. MJ does her best to shoo the balloons to one side of the living room, then carries spare chairs in because their couch won’t fit everyone. Fortunately, they’ve all been recently tested for illness and been vigilant hand-washers and mask-wearers since then, so at least she doesn’t have to find a way to keep every seat six feet apart. She’s just positioning a final chair, still a little out of breath from the balloons, when the doorbell rings. In the kitchen, Betty screams.

“IT’S STILL A MESS IN HERE! STALL HER!”

“’K!” MJ agrees.

She kicks a couple stray balloons out of her path and goes to get the door. They weren’t supposed to come back to the house until Betty texted, but maybe they got tired of driving around, or Liz started feeling carsick. MJ knows she’s been pretty delicate her entire pregnancy with twins floating around in her uterus like a pair of nausea-inducing astronauts.

As she opens the door wide, she sucks in a deep breath to call out a sarcastic ‘Surprise!’ But it’s not Liz and her cousin. It’s… a guy? In a red and blue costume. She thinks it’s a guy. She can’t even see the person’s face, but when MJ reaches up to self-consciously adjust her ‘Birthday Girl’ tiara, they tilt their head and seem to follow her movement.

“Oh! I’m here for you! You’re… not what I was expecting.” It’s a masculine laugh. Young. Nervous.

She crosses her arms suspiciously.

“You’re not what I was expecting either,” she accuses.

“Shit,” he mumbles. “I guess it was supposed to be a surprise.”

What? Betty might have planned a few surprises for today, but MJ does not recall a dude in a mismatched sweatsuit being one of them.

“Guess so,” she says slowly.

“Sorry, I’m, uh, Spider-Man.” He gestures to the costume. Well, she can kinda see the very distant resemblance to what the real Spider-Man wears; there is a crudely-drawn spider on the chest.

“Uh huh.”

MJ’s suspicion is shifting into amusement―this guy really seems to think he has an invitation―when Cindy comes up behind her. MJ darts a look at her friend and is glad Cindy’s no longer sporting her own tiara. No need to confuse this poor… Spider-Man impersonator.

“What’s up?” Cindy asks, poking her chin over MJ’s shoulder, happier now that she’s fled the tasks Betty continually assigns.

“Hey,” says ‘Spider-Man’. “I, uh, I was hired to, uh, dance for the, um…” He gestures at MJ’s tiara. “…birthday girl.”

At ‘dance,’ MJ’s eyebrows shoot up. She looks quickly at Cindy and realizes she’s going to say something. Cindy will handle this how she handles any inconvenience or anomaly: with forthrightness and concision. She’ll have this faux-venger hitting the road before MJ can blink. With a short, friendly laugh towards Spider-Man, MJ angles herself to block Cindy from view and locks eyes with her friend. Cindy’s face says, What are you doing? We don’t know this guy. MJ’s counters with, Let’s see how this plays out. Cindy rolls her eyes, but nods, so MJ steps away from her again.

“As long as you haven’t traveled outside the country in the last fourteen days or experienced symptoms of fever, etcetera etcetera, come on in,” Cindy invites, gesturing Spider-Man through the doorway. “I’m so sorry, but we were running a little behind with the food, so I have to disappear back to the kitchen. But why don’t you get started for her?”

“Cindy,” MJ hisses as she closes the door. “You have to stay.”

“I believe the man said he was here for the birthday girl.”

Cindy smirks and they both glance over to see that Spider-Man has found the speaker and connected his phone. Something catches MJ’s eye and her gaze skims down his leg. What’s up with the side of his pants?

“I’m not the birthday girl,” she reminds Cindy in a panicked whisper. “There is no birthday girl.”

“Well, in her absence, it looks like you’re the one getting her presents. Careful with that one.”

“Because it seems fragile?”

“Because I feel like it’s the kind that comes with a big package.”

Cindy pokes MJ hard in the side and flees when she squirms away. MJ glares after her. Yes, she’s curious about what the hell this impersonator’s doing here in that crappy costume, but it’s so much easier to be curious when she can observe something unfolding without actively having to participate. What she was thinking was that he’d come in and the three of them―Betty, Cindy, and herself―would see how far this went before something either gave them away as not being the people who ‘hired’ him (so he claims), or the guy crumbled under the quavering weight of his own anxiety. Nothing about his look or his manner announces experience. Now, MJ’s on her own as she takes a seat in one of the chairs she brought in. She crosses her legs, bobs her foot, and hopes to hell that Spider-Man’s a breakdancer.

“Listen…” she begins to say, leaning forward to address him, but as she speaks, he turns up the volume and her uncertain voice is drowned out by chimes tinkling above throbbing bass. Oh no.

It’s the tempo that scares MJ. She thinks she could deal with a rabbiting drum intro or the bright squeal of quick fingers on an electric guitar. This song is tauntingly slow and it’s obvious, by how Spider-Man turns in her direction and walks to her with measured steps, that what she’s about to experience will look nothing like handstands or the worm, nothing youthfully, recklessly acrobatic. It’s also clear that she’s in this alone now because the guy putting his back to her and swirling his hips with agonizing slowness as the gravelly vocals come in is in some kind of zone she can’t follow him into.

When I look in your eyes… the song goes. …I can feel the fire.

Nope, MJ’s outside of this, in the real world, where she hears him lower the zipper on his sweatshirt. When he rotates to face her, taking his time, she finds her hands are gripping the seat on either side of her thighs.

A see-through disguise can’t conceal desire.

Spider-Man’s disguise is hardly see-through―seriously, he must’ve been sweltering in those sweats on his way here―but it’s open now, from his clavicle down to where the band of his pants grips his taut abdomen. He probably can’t hear the groan that pushes out of her mouth when she’s just trying to exhale. God, please let the music cover it, MJ thinks. His hood’s still up as he steps even closer to her chair, subtly twitching his hips in her direction, and the ends of his sweatshirt dangle, flashing glimpses of more chest, more abs. MJ swallows and reminds herself that this is all kind of a joke. That she’s the one indulging him and they’ll laugh when this is over. She’ll apologize for the mix-up and he’ll shrug it off as he accepts monetary compensation for his time.

I’ve been readin’ your lips… the singer announces in a louder growl. Spider-Man abruptly strips the blue sleeves from his costume, leaving his torso bare beneath what’s now just a hooded red vest. He’s a fake superhero, but those arms are the real deal. Wow. …they don’t need no translation.

He widens his stance, drawing her eye down to his solid-looking thigh, then slides his hand across her shoulder to grip the back of her chair. His hips roll forward and she instinctively uncrosses her legs. With the extra room, Spider-Man briefly presses his thigh to hers. It scrunches the hem of her dress up before dragging it back down as he retreats. It’s reasonably innocent, likely not even intentional, but heat flares up MJ’s face like one of the candles she might blow out if this were actually her birthday. Honestly, she keeps forgetting it’s not.

They want more than a kiss, I come to make my donation.

Ok, she feels more than just thigh when he glides higher on her lap. MJ automatically flicks her gaze lower, because he’s a stranger and right in her space, and it lands on his groin. Spider-Man bucks suggestively and MJ immediately raises her eyes from the bump in the front of his close-fitting sweatpants. Jesus, is it warm in here? Somebody should do something about that before Liz gets home, fiddle with the thermostat or, or something…

So turn out the lights! the singer’s voice rockets up and goosebumps ripple up MJ’s arms as Spider-Man’s hands smooth down them in his fingerless gloves. He bounces low into a crouch and can’t be more than an inch away from the fabric of her dress as he rolls up her body, face in her lap for, I’m goin’ down slowly. Her pounding heart and rapid breathing almost push her boobs into his forehead when he reaches her chest.

Don’t tell me what’s right, just tell me you want me.

When their heads are level, Spider-Man surprises her by sitting lightly on her lap, nearly chest-to-chest. He takes her hands in his―MJ’s sufficiently stunned to allow him to break her grip on the seat―and guides them to his head, making her push his hood off. It’s strange to feel the mask under her palms. Wondering what his hair looks like really shouldn’t be a main concern right now.

Oh, tell me you want me. Just tell me you want me, want me, want me!

The more insistent the song becomes, the more persuasively Spider-Man gyrates in her lap. Sliding a hand over his head shouldn’t be this seductive without visible hair to push his fingers through, but the way his arm bulges with the motion makes up for it, in her opinion. MJ doesn’t know what to do with her hands. They hover in the air between their bodies.

Let’s make it, baby! the song explodes as he thrusts forward powerfully, throwing his head back.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

His hands go to his shoulders.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

He works his vest off, revealing the rest of his chest.

Let’s make it, baby!

He flings the vest toward the sofa. MJ doesn’t know whether or not it lands there. She doesn’t turn to look. This is… more muscle than she’s ever seen in person on a single human body. Once more, he takes hold of the back of her chair, but it’s with both hands now and his forearms squeeze her in, compelling her to lean forward as he grinds across her lap, forward and back, to, Come, come, come a little bit closer. His face angles into her neck; she feels his nose brush her skin through the mask. She can hear him breathing and it electrifies her. The only reason she clamps her thighs together like she does is to give him more room to straddle her. Really, it’s for his comfort, as a professional. Because this is all just… very professional.

She hasn’t determined where to lay her hands, which is fine because he has another use for them.

I wanna play doctor, the singer drawls while Spider-Man brings her hands to his pecs. Is his heart beating as hard under there as hers is right now or is she imagining it? He effortlessly takes gentle hold of her wrists and encourages her hands down his body. She doesn’t even notice when he lets her go to peel the gloves from his hands and push his sneakers off, leaving MJ to trace the thick, defined ridges of his abdomen.

It keeps gettin’ harder, harder, harder to keep it away!

With the end of the line, Spider-Man rips the sweatpants off―a series of metallic popping sounds too close together to count. Not that counting’s on her mind. Eyeing the cherry-red boxer-briefs that are even tighter than the sweats, she swallows. She can’t remember how to exist on the outside of this. She can’t find the door. Believing that this guy―who’s not really Spider-Man, just like she’s not really a birthday girl―understands, that they’re sharing the scorching intimacy she suddenly feels, is naïve. MJ is not naïve. She just can’t exactly explain why what should be an obvious (skillful, but obvious) pantomime of sex is working on her like real foreplay.

I wanna taste the sweat…

She swears he’s breathing harder than the dancing alone can explain when he palms her knees and pries them apart. Her legs are slack and willing. She is sweating.

…that’s runnin’ over your body.

Tucking his fingers into the backs of her knees, Spider-Man jerks her forward on her seat. It raises her hem to mid-thigh and her pulse to low orbit. He hikes her legs around his hips and she crosses her wrists behind his neck without guidance as he stays in what has to be a strenuous squat to body-roll. Everything comes forward in a delicious wave, from his shoulders to his crotch. From lots of angles, it probably looks like he’s fucking her into Liz’s kitchen chair.

In actuality, there’s no contact between them―not anyplace interesting―until…

Get the sheets all wet!

MJ doesn’t know if his hips nudge between her legs accidentally or intentionally on an overzealous roll. She’s never been given a lap dance before! Is this right? Is this permitted? He seems ready to run with it, repeating the action with greater certainty.

Yeah, I wanna make ya feel nau-nau-nau-nau-nau-nau-nau-naughty!

When the singer quits stuttering out the word, Spider-Man lifts MJ right off the chair into his arms. She inhales hard, desperate for air as the song returns to, Let’s make it, baby! And let’s make it, baby! Well, let’s make it, baby! And let’s make it, baby, baby! He has one hand grasping the underside of her thigh, the other clutching the middle of her back. He thrusts toward her through the chorus, shy of nudging the way he did before. The motion sways MJ fairly gently, thanks to his sure grip and ability to carry her weight with ease, but she might as well be tumbling around inside a washing machine for all she currently knows of up and down.

The animal urgency of the chorus drops down to the slow lull of instrumentals and Spider-Man sets MJ on her feet. She just about rolls her ankle and plans to never admit this made her weak in the knees. As irregular drumbeats keep her on edge, he sneaks around behind her and takes her wrists, raising her arms over her head as she fights the instinct to turn and stare at this guy’s mostly-naked body. She hasn’t dated anyone since before the pandemic, but it’s more than that. While she holds her arms up there, Spider-Man rocks against her from behind, the inside of his thigh rubbing the outside of hers, messing up her skirt, confusing her heartbeat. His hands clamp down on her hips and work them in a circular motion with her ass pressed directly against him.

Wait.

―

Peter’s hard. Of all the things that have definitely gone wrong (having to make up a routine from scratch after blanking in the face of a woman 20 years younger and 500 times more beautiful than who he expected to find) and probably gone wrong (he hasn’t shaken the exhilarating feeling that he’s almost certainly at the wrong house), this is the most serious. He’s in so, so far over his head and sinking deeper, metaphorically, as the woman he’s wrapped around cautiously returns the pressure, pressing his erection.

He was so nervous after meeting her that he went straight to setting up his music and forgot to ask for her name. It’s not like he can casually ask now. It feels like things have gone too far for that. Wasn’t he supposed to feel some layer of detachment, doing this? Stripping’s supposed to be a part-time job, like taking pictures for the Bugle. Maybe he’s too used to caring about people to set himself apart from this. Maybe it’s the shock of her youth and the feeling of touching a real-live person after practicing with an empty chair over months of physical distancing.

Maybe he’s just horny.

The instrumental section goes on and on and Peter yearns. This is a job, he thinks, running his hands up to her waist and back to her hips. As the musical intermission’s finally drawing to a close, he improvises again, scooping the woman up into his arms in a bridal carry just to eliminate the sweet friction against his dick. Where does he go from here? He knows what the tutorials told him, what really gets the target of a lap dance/strip show going. Could go with the couch and push his red vest aside, but the soft rug underfoot beckons.

Now turn out the lights! Bon Jovi rasps as Peter moves gradually to his knees and nuzzles his masked face into the woman’s chest because, at this point, why the hell not? She smells so good. He hears her gasp, then her fingers dig fleetingly into the back of his neck like she wants to hold him there. But she lets go and he lays her on her back in the valley created by leisurely-migrating silver balloons. The light refracted on the woman’s face is crisp and ethereal.

Don’t tell me you love, love me, no… Just, just tell me you want me.

Peter springs on top of her, arms braced and locked, and performs an exaggerated horizontal roll, his hips close above hers. This is the million-dollar (or, like, twenty-dollar) move. The one that unambiguously mimics sex. Though it’s so overstated, so dramatic, the tutorials claimed that, by this stage, the person being performed for would be so wound up, so aroused, that they’d just about believe it was the real thing. He watches the woman’s shaky breathing and flushed cheeks, feels her hands caress his abs, and thinks he’s doing pretty damn good. Too bad he can’t count this as a performance. The desire he feels when he lowers himself closer to her is not an act.

Don’t tell me you love me.

The skin-tight front of his underwear skims her dress. And, though she should really keep her legs out straight to do her part in preserving the distance between them (because he’s fucking failing), she slides her foot along the floor, raising her knee. Peter snatches hold of that knee with the feeling that they just signed some kind of contract and grinds himself against the fold of skirt between her legs. The woman’s chest heaves as she pants. His balls ache for him to stop playing.

Oh, tell me you want me, want me, want me, want me, want me, want me, want me! Bon Jovi and Peter’s sex drive demand, from a rumble up to a scream. Let’s make it, baby!

The woman beneath him tosses her head and bats away a balloon that clings to her hair. Her birthday crown’s askew.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

Peter’s hand is on her ribcage, too near her breast.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

He huffs, loud inside his mask, as he thrusts against her like she’s not some accident, like she asked him to meet her here. For this.

And let’s make it, baby!

Distinct lyrics burst into a high, expressive shriek of noise that sounds enough like a woman being pleasured to send a tingle up Peter’s spine. He grinds down hard, gripping the woman’s hip. By the second shriek, her back’s bowing, her hands commandingly squeezing his arms. By the third, she’s moaning as she rocks against him, tearing an appreciative grunt from him in response. The fourth shriek finishes her right before the song. Peter’s breathing hard on top of her, on the jaw-clenching edge of climax himself, feeling her writhe as the music fades out. It just leaves the two of them here, damningly entangled.

After a long silence, his playlist moves on. Peter stares down at her another few seconds as she strokes her fingers across her mouth, then her eyes snap to where she can’t see his through the goggles.

“Oh shit,” he mutters.

The woman laughs awkwardly like those two words are an understatement for the degree to which this has not gone as planned. She didn’t even know the plan, but anyone would know this was not the intended conclusion―a stripper dressed up in a novelty Spider-Man costume should excite, entertain, inspire lust. But he should stop short of dry-humping his client to completion. Yeah, that has to be an unwritten rule someplace. Peter really shouldn’t have needed to read it to know better though. This has just gotten incredibly out of hand and he has no idea what to say or do.

“LIZ IS ON HER WAY!” a female voice yells from the back of the house, maybe the kitchen that the other woman vanished into earlier.

Peter jerks to his feet, still rigid in the front of his underwear. He thinks the woman he just, uh, danced for is requesting help up, but she’s actually pointing. He looks and sees the bathroom just off the stairs.

“I’m good,” she says. “Go before Cindy sees you.”

Snagging his pants from the floor and the vest portion of his sweatshirt from the couch, Peter bolts for the bathroom as the woman sits up from the rug. Inside, his hands quake with adrenaline as he zips his sweatshirt and refastens all the snaps on his pants. He does his best to adjust things so his waning erection’s not too obvious. For a minute, he yanks the mask from his head and stares at himself in the mirror as he breathes. This is not the side-hustle for him. This was his first and last gig as the Spider-Man Stripper.

Mask back on, he returns to the front room to find the woman he was grinding all over standing with her arms crossed protectively as her friend appears to grill her under her breath. They both look at him as he stuffs his feet back into his shoes and grabs his gloves and the blue sleeves of his sweatshirt. He’ll just carry them. If he stood here and began redoing them, he’d probably die from mortification before he got the last snap snapped. He collects his phone, stopping the music mid-song. He doesn’t know what’s playing. Could be his favourite song in the world and he wouldn’t be able to hear it right now over the volume of the look his ‘birthday girl’ is giving him.

“I’ll just, um, show you out,” she offers, shepherding him away from the woman he takes to be Cindy. She doesn’t volunteer anything about the other person, Liz, who they seem to be expecting.

“Great.”

He’s thankful that Cindy gives them a little space and doesn’t follow. They pause in the entranceway. The woman presses two fifties into his hand, avoiding eye contact. Peter clears his dry throat and nods, closing his fingers over the money because he’s more uncomfortable about the idea of prolonging this with a back-and-forth over him saying it’s too much while she insists than he is about the idea that she’s kinda paying him for sex, even if thinks she doesn’t mean to.

She pulls the door open and Peter jumps aside for two women, one very pregnant. There’s a flurry of voices all of a sudden and when he slips outside onto the step before someone can ask who he is and what he’s doing here, he doesn’t expect the birthday girl to come after him.

“MJ,” she blurts out.

He grins under the mask.

“Peter.”

He never gets to tell people that when he’s in disguise, but she doesn’t know he really is Spider-Man. The honesty feels good.

“So, that was…”

“This wasn’t supposed to be… Um,” he starts again, swinging his arms slightly. “That was my first time. Doing this. I’ve never done a routine for anybody before, so I want you to know I haven’t, like, done that with a bunch of people. I’ve never done this. And I think, uh, based on what happened in there, that I probably shouldn’t.” Peter’s laugh is strained. “I really don’t―”

“Do you want my number?”

He chokes.

“What?”

“I… thought I might as well ask,” she says, clearly self-conscious, looking prepared for rejection.

“No, of course I do,” Peter tells her quickly, holding out his phone. “Please.”

“Ok.” MJ gives him a quick smile, then looks at his screen as she adds herself as a contact. He’s grateful she’s the one putting the numbers in. He really can’t be trusted with that. Peter’s not nervous now, just excited as he thinks about using the money she gave him to buy her dinner.

Though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer, he says, “This isn’t the right house, is it?” as she hands his phone back. She laughs.

“No.”

“Yeah, I… kinda had a feeling.”

“Hey, whoever she was, her loss was my gain,” MJ says bluntly, then blushes hard. Peter chuckles to himself, looking down.

“Ummm…”

“Well, I should get in there. Baby shower.”

“Right, yeah, sure, you gotta.”

“But call me.”

“I will. I definitely will.”

“Maybe you can even show me what you look like without the mask,” she says.

Peter nods, body nothing but a cage for a butterfly swarm, then turns. Behind him, he hears Cindy’s voice as MJ steps back inside.

“Did you just give him a hundred bucks?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what you owe me for going in on the stroller!”

“I’ll go to the bank and take out another hundred right after the party if you want,” MJ offers, sounding unconcerned.

“But a hundred bucks? MJ, he was here for ten minutes!”

“Trust me, Peter earned it.”

“Peter?! That’s Spider-Man’s name?”

“Cindy, come on, he’s not actually Spider-Man.”

The door shuts. Of course he’s not. Peter could no more be Spider-Man than he could fall half in love with a woman simply because of the way she smelled and the fact that she wouldn’t let him off the hook for a lap dance. He starts down the sidewalk with a skip, smiling wide beneath his mask.

[curestardust]

if you want: a weak Monogatari copy I guess 

AoButa comes off as a cheap imitaion of the well known Monogatari series and well...that’s basically all it is. I’ve much to complain about.

AoButa stars the cookie cutter, self-insert, gary-stu Sakuta. He has no personality besides being a pervert and constantly commenting on girls’ legs and whatnot even if they’re comfortable with it or not. That’s basically it as the rest of his “personality” makes absolutely no sense. On one hand, he is supposed to be an awkward social outcast who doesn’t care about what other people say about him and doesn’t try to fit in at all. On the other hand, he has 2 best friends (one of whom is a star in the basketball club and we get no explanation as to how these 2 ended up becoming friends), is a lady killer as he somehow manages to make every girl he meets like him or tolerate him, has no problem standing up to someone much stronger than him in public and is also wiser than everyone when it comes to how to live your life.

You may notice something very obvious. The first one is what most male weebs are and the second part is what they’re like in their imagination...yeah, so I don’t think anything more needs to be said about him.

Now, the story is that Sakuta encounters multiple girls throughout the 13 episodes who’re all suffering from something called Puberty Syndrome. It’s something that only happens to teenagers and is the effect of their emotional imbalance...supposedly, as the anime doesn’t particularly care to explain how it works in further detail. 

These “cases” were interesting the first 2 times however a pattern quickly emerges which makes everything else quite predictable. See: Sakuta wakes up in the morning and goes on his normal bussiness -> he either encounters something strange during the day or after he wakes up the next day -> he goes to Futaba Rio, his “scientist” best friend and explains the mysterious happenings -> Futaba, who read about 2 pages of a physics book her whole life, comes up with a completely random explanation like Schrödinger’s Cat or Quantum Teleportation -> Sakuta applies this random formula in a random way to his random real life happenings and comes up with a random solution -> spend 1 or 2 episodes working towards the solution -> have one of the episodes end in a cliffhanger after a plot twist -> have the plot twist solved in 2 minutes in the next episode -> solve mystery -> discard girl whose mystery we were dealing with as they’re no longer interesting and have them show up just so Sakuta can make perverted remarks at them -> repeat 5 times.

The girls themselves also don’t offer much to think about. 

Worst is the lack of character development. The girls’ problems that evolve into Puberty Syndrome are all pretty serious topics. Fear of being an outcast, self-hatred, jealousy of others’ successes. These topics get explored a bit however the pay-off is basically non-existent. After the girls come to solve their problems (through their perverted saviour Sakuta) they basically disappear from the story and even when we see them again, it seems like the stuff they went through didn’t even happen. They don’t change! What the hell is the point then!

I was holding off on this part but I can’t finish this review without showing how bad this is compared to Monogatari. 

- Art: Monogatari has a shitton of talking which is why its animation is bonkers. It’s so people don’t zone out while listening to the characters sometimes talk for 20 minutes straight. AoButa looks like a plain piece of white bread. The colours are bleak, boring and washed out. There are no interesting locations, pops of colour or unique angles. It’d be boring to look at if it was a average SOL anime but with all the talking it’s even worse.

- The “Talking”: Is stupid. Lots of words with no meaning. I literally can’t remember anything the characters talked about and I finished this anime yesterday

- The Music: Bland, boring, average.

- The “Cases”: Had something interesting going on there but the lackluster outcomes suqandered all potential.

- The “Explanation”: Monogatari is taking place in a supernatural world with ghosts and vampires. AoButa takes place in a world with broken physics.

- The Girls: I won’t go listing every one of them but they’re almost all bargain bin copies of the girls in Monogatari. Most obvious comparison would be Mai and Senjougahara. Same voice, same personality, same relationship with the main character and very similiar looks.

Oh and to wrap up; despite “Bunny Girl” being in the title and Mai’s Bunny Girl outfit being on the cover, we see her like that for about 15 minutes in the entire series. Aka even the title is just thirsty weeb bait. 

[4/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[jrlallo]

Character Interview: Azriel

I realize I don’t do nearly as much here on Tumblr as I should, since I spend a fair amount of (read: entirely too much) time looking at it. So I figured I’d cross-post this interview here. It’s a little experiment, written in second person perspective, present tense. It also contains potential spoilers for The Book of Deacon series. Read at your own risk. And here’s an illustration by Bri Mercedes of the star of the interview.

Ahead lies a door, built from stout wood and aged to a pleasant gray color. Mounted in its center is a heavy brass knocker. You grasp it, feeling the cool metal in your grip and let it fall. The crisp, sharp knock prompts a muffled stirring from within.

As you wait, you take in your surroundings. It is a gorgeous glade, idyllic. The sun is warm, but lacks the harsh bite of the deep summer. The grass is a rolling carpet of feathery blades, extending to the mountains in the east and plunging down to a forest to the west. You stand barefoot upon a pathway of cobble stones, smoothed by the centuries. And before you, the cottage, wholesome and cozy, its thatched roof the playground of chirping birds and scampering squirrels.

The door opens to the dim, flame-lit interior of the cottage, and a woman steps forward to great you. She is at once matronly and grand. Her face is creased with the lines of many years, and yet strangely ageless. She looks upon you with a knowing, welcoming gaze and gestures for you to enter. In sweeping her arms to invite you inside, she spreads her billowing robe, jet black and embellished with white flame that shifted as though it truly burned.

“Welcome,” she says. “I have been expecting you.”

“You have?” you say, stepping forward and trying to take in the cottage’s interior.

Your mind is slow to place the strangely unsettling feeling the place gives you. There is nothing terrifying or foreboding about it. A small side table stands before the crackling fireplace. It is set for two, simple clay mugs waiting to be filled from a teapot, steam curling from its spout. Slices of brown bread and dishes of butter and jam lay upon a tray, waiting to be served for the forthcoming chat.

It isn’t until you turn about and take in the rest of the cottage that you realize the source of your unease. It is large. Larger by far than it would seem from the outside. Doors lead to rooms filled with book cases, and others offer glimpses to things that look like art galleries or trophy rooms. There is motion within one of the rooms, the half-heard turning of pages and thoughtful murmurs of someone deeply in study.

“Sit,” she says. “I have some time for a chat before I continue with my duties.”

“Yes… Yes, of course,” you say.

You take a seat on one of the chairs. She sits in the other. With a gesture, the pot rises of its own accord and pours out a delightfully aromatic herb tea into her own cup. When it shifts to fill your cup, you find the warm liquid has changed. It looks and smells precisely of the precise warm drink you’d been craving for ages.

After a sip confirms she’d somehow plucked a beverage from your memory, you glance down to find notes upon your lap. They are the notes you’d gathered from your own curiosity of her life and history and from others like you. Though you remember jotting the notes down, you don’t remember placing them on your lap.

“When you’re ready,” she says sweetly.

There is no threat in her words, but you feel oddly compelled to avoid further delay.

“I suppose a good place to begin would be your name.”

“Azriel,” she says. “Arch-Mage Azriel, if we are being formal.”

“Is that your full name? Do you have a family name?”

She sips her tea. “No. No family name. Not a permanent one, at any rate. It is difficult to say I truly have a home—I traveled quite a bit in my upbringing, but my parents spent much of their lives in a village in the Eastern end of the Daggergale Mountains. They had something of an odd tradition, one that I’ve grown quite fond of in the years. They felt that you do not belong to anyone or to any place at the time of your birth. Though you may have a family, and though you may love them, and though you may take great pride in the land of your birth, as a child you are not who you will become. Only time can uncover who you truly are, and where and to whom you truly belong. Thus, your proper name is earned, it is revealed by the choices you make and the things you achieve.”

She took another sip. “I am told it is a tradition that comes from the dwarfs of those mountains. It shows, I suppose. Half of them are Ironhammer this and Copperworker that.”

“Then what name did time uncover for you?”

“Ah, yes, of course. I’d wandered a bit there, didn’t I. The mind tends to travel a few extra garden paths when I think of the old days. It can be fairly said that Entwell is both my home and my greatest achievement. Azriel of Entwell then. Again, more formally, Arch-Mage Azriel Num Entwell Num Garastra.” She shook her head. “A terrible mouthful, that.”

You spread some jam on a piece of bread and take a bite. It is startlingly good, once again like the most delicious breakfast from your memories has been plucked free for you to relive.

“I seem to remember Deacon having a similar reply regarding his own name,” you say, doing your best not to spray crumbs as you speak.

“He has a good head on his shoulders, that one.”

“You… you aren’t his mother, are you?”

She chuckles. “No. I’ve not been terribly interested in dalliances of the sort that might result in children for some time. Well before his birth.”

“I see. I wonder, would you care to share what your upbringing was like? Your teenaged years?”

“My teenaged years? Odd to focus on those. Aren’t we all little more than animals at that point? Excepting, of course, fairies. By their teens most of them are as wise as they are likely to get. But, if you must know, those years were spent much as the rest of the first thirty years or so of my life were. My parents had seen in me an aptitude for magic, and so I was sent to apprentice to the best practitioners in the world.”

“So you were always as powerful as you are today?”

“I was born with the potential, certainly, but if I’d not been pushed to pursue it. I might have ended up sweeping alleys or cooking stews if the keen eye of our local conjurer hadn’t seen a strength in the spirits of my family. We had the means to develop it, for my sister and I, so off we went.  Kenvard, Vulcrest, Tressor. I was even lucky enough to spend a few years working my way up from the tip of South Crescent and back. By then I was in my twenties, mind you.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I was a court wizard for the King of Kenvard at the time. Situated as his kingdom was on the wrong side of the continent to have any contact with the Crescents, he decided I should represent the kingdom and financed my trip. Quite a forward-thinking man.”

“And you’d mentioned Tressor. Was that not problematic, with the war?”

Again she chuckles. “It is delightful to have one’s age so thoroughly underestimated. This was over four hundred years ago. Well before the Perpetual War.”

“Ah, that’s right. It is easy to forget that, since. Well… a word, if it isn’t to bold, about your appearance?”

She raises an eyebrow. “So long as it is diplomatic.”

“As a wizard, as ancient as you are powerful, surely you are able to choose how you appear.”

“One need not be particularly ancient or particularly powerful to achieve that. Manipulating one’s appearance can be learned quite early in one’s career if one is not so foolish as to turn one’s nose up at the treasure-trove of Gray Magic.”

“What I mean to say is, though I have seen you appear both young and old, why do you prefer to look as you do?”

“As you see me is as you see myself. When my feelings change, so too does my appearance.”

“But why not always appear young?”

“What, precisely, makes a youthful appearance preferable? And more to the point, if one is not limited by the whims of nature to one’s appearance, why limit oneself to a single appearance?”

“I hadn’t thought of that…”

“Few young people have.”

“I’d like to speak about when you first entered the cave of the beast. What were you seeking?”

She sighs. “Ah… I wish I could tell you it was something more complex or noble, but I came seeking the same foolish nonsense that most others did. I sought to earn the glory of defeating the Beast of the Cave. I felt it would establish to all, and perhaps most importantly to myself, that mine was the greatest power, the greatest knowledge. A waste of time, honestly. But again, the greatest trick our creators played upon their children was to curse us with so many, many years before we finally reach the age of reason.”

“And what age is that?”

She smiles. “I am not entirely certain I’ve reached it yet.”

“And the beast, it existed even then?”

“In so much as it ever existed. Dozens of the greatest warriors had sought to do as I had done. None had returned. If the cave’s treacherous nature can truly be considered the beast we all believed we were braving its depths to find, then I imagine I can rightly be called the one who finally bested the monster. When I dragged myself, barely alive, to the place we now call the belly of the beast, I could see that I was the first to discover it.”

As you listen, you enjoy another slice of bread, this one spread with the most delightfully creamy butter you’ve ever tasted. You almost hate to pause long enough to ask your next question.

“You have had an eventful life. Seen many sights, met many people, encountered many creatures. Some have been good, others evil.”

“Most assuredly.” She sipped her tea.

“If it isn’t too forward to ask, where do you stand on that spectrum?”

“On the spectrum of good to evil?” She sets down her cup. “That is a matter of perspective, don’t you think?”

“From your perspective, then.”

“From our own perspective, we are all on the side of good. I suspect I am a good deal nearer to the center than most would prefer.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My focus can be quite narrow. I seldom feel compelled to inflict my considerable will upon the world, in one direction or the other. For those who feel the weight of justice upon their shoulders, I am sure my inclinations can be frustratingly neutral.”

You take a breath. The hesitation must be showing on your face, she prompts you.

“Please. Despite what you may have heard of my temper in the past, you are not a student of mine.” She rolled her eyes. “I am between students at the moment, thanks to a minor disagreement with the Elder. Regardless, I know not to show my claws to the uninitiated.”

“Where, on the same scale of good and evil, do you feel your sister stands.”

“Ah… And so I understand your hesitation. Turiel is a rather sore subject at present, isn’t she? And where does she stand on the scale of good and evil. A good deal further from the center, I would say.”

“On which side?”

“Again, that depends upon from which side she is being viewed. But I believe she is good.”

You sit forward, disbelief evident on your face. “Good? You honestly believe your sister is good.”

Azriel’s face becomes stern. The world outside the windows dims, as though a dark cloud had rolled past the sun.

“I am always honest, and quite certain of my beliefs.”

Your next words are hasty, and drenched with nerves. “I meant no offense, but… Azriel, you claim you consider yourself to be largely neutral. If I understand you correctly, you consider Turiel to be more virtuous than you are.”

“I absolutely feel that way.”

“But… Turiel summoned the D’Karon. She battled the chosen!”

Azriel shuts her eyes. “She has made regrettable decisions. But good and evil are about intention. There is no denying she brought a blight upon the world. But it was all in the aim of learning, of bettering herself, and to my great shame, the aim of that improvement was to bring closure to the great unanswered question with which I had left her. She wanted, like me, to defeat the beast.”

“But why do you believe she is better than you? Why is she further from the center?”

“Because my own thoughts through most of my life have, as I have said, been largely focused quite narrowly upon myself. Turiel’s thoughts have always been focused upon others.  The darker results of her efforts were hidden from her for most of her life. Her more recent decisions were shortsighted, but even then she truly believed she was bringing about a great good, not a great evil.”

“Her behavior… Azriel, she had no regard for innocent life. Surely that is evil.”

Azriel shakes her head slowly. “Not so. Turiel is a necromancer. Not only does she know the precise value of life, in terms those less versed in her arts could never hope to understand, she comprehends how thin the line is that separates life from death. And she doesn’t view life to be superior to death. This view, I will admit, is a view that pushes her a bit further from pure righteousness than most would prefer.”

“Did you have any clue what she’d done with her misguided anger?”

“Her anger was directed at the creature she believed had killed her sister. In my opinion it was misguided only in that she was mistaken about my fate.”

“But… you say she didn’t see much difference in life and death. Why would your death affect her so?”

“Because she could not feel me. The mountains hit my spirit from her, and hers from me. She should have been able to commune with me, even in death. That she could not, in her mind, could only have meant the beast had imprisoned my soul in some way, or perhaps destroyed me utterly. This was a fate she could not abide for her sister, or a crime she could not allow to go unavenged.”

“Did you have any idea what she was doing on your behalf.”

“In the earliest days, the ones just following my own arrival here, I was barely alive. And in the years that followed, Turiel was barely alive. And as Entwell grew and its possibilities blossomed, it shames me to say my thoughts seldom drifted to her. Again, she is far further along the line of virtue than I, even if her dedication brought about terrible results.”

“That brings me to my final question, and it deals with those very deeds. The arrival of the D’Karon. Why, after they arrived, after you finally learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were present and what they intended to do, did you remain behind and do nothing to stop them?”

“Didn’t I? You’ll recall I helped deliver Deacon.”

“Certainly, but you didn’t take any direct action yourself.”

“Didn’t I?”

“… Did you?”

Azriel topped off her cup of tea. “It, I think, is a tale for another time. But for now I shall leave you with this. There are some questions of the Chosen and their victory that have yet to be answered. And for some of these questions, the answer is Azriel.”

“But what does that…”

Before you can finish your question, the world seems to shift around you. The cottage wafts away like colored smoke. The only thing that lingers, and only for a moment, are Azriel’s grinning eyes. For a few seconds you exist in a void of black, then slowly the world resolves again and you are precisely where you had been before you resolved to question the Arch-Mage. You shakily take a seat, and lick your lips, where the flavor of her refreshments remains.