#this is an asm au obviously

[butchbetty]

spider-verse edits (2/?): earth-307021

after the death of their best friend, gwen stacy, soon followed by spider-man, all mary-jane and harry have left is each other. mary-jane fulfills peter's dying wish by continuing to protect the city as spider-woman, and now faces a new enemy, black cat, who has taken a particular interest in her. but the hero might have more to fear, as an unspoken illness starts to threaten harry's life.

[srslysierraa]

if i could have a they/you wake you/them up at 3 in the morning to do *insert activity* with kamaboko boys!

(ex for activity. monoploy baking cookies, makeup, strange things yet cute this to do with s/o at 3 am)

03:01 AM

prompt ;; waking up in itself is a pain, especially waking up early. But when you see those gorgeous eyes of your lover, obviously bored to death, and silently begging for your attention. Suddenly the thought of baking a cake at 3AM doesn't sound too bad.

type ;; fluff. [headcanons]

chars. involved ;; tanjiro | zenitsu | inosuke

a/n ;; THIS IS SO CUTE, I'm a heavy sleeper, and being waken up for whatever reason IRKS ME to death. But the thought of Zenitsu asking me to spend time with him in the middle of the night??? Yes please. Also, I'd imagine this is modern AU? Please enjoy!

T.ANJIRO KAMADO

He couldn't really sleep, for whatever reason.

And he wanted to do something to actually help him sleep instead of just laying down and tossing around.

He DID thought of waking you up but-

Do you really think he'll have the heart to wake you, his darling, up just because he couldn't sleep?

ESPECIALLY AT 3AM?? Nah, my man's a gentleman he's not gonna do that.

So instead he decided to just go watch a movie on his phone, next to you, with no earphones in.

The opening loud ass music startled both you- and him. In which he didn't know that his volume was full.

He apologize profusely when you woke up, realizing that he's not asleep yet.

"(Y/N)-! I'm so sorry- i didn't know that it was going to be this loud! Please, go back to sleep."

"..why are you still awake? What happened?"

He'll explain that he couldn't sleep and is trying to make himself fall asleep with a movie, or at least to tire him out, while also constantly trying to get you back to dreamland. Purely because he'll feel bad if you had to wake up because of him.

Well sucks for him because that's exactly what you're going to do.

You slowly sit up, telling him that you also want to watch the movie with him.

After a few back and forth of trying to tell him that, yes it is okay for you to stay awake for him, he'll let you.

But what's movie night without popcorn and soda, right?

You'll ask him to accompany you to the kitchen because it's 3AM and for some reason he chose to watch a horror movie, just to get a few snacks and drinks.

Putting on music while waiting for the microwave to finish cooking up your popcorn, all the while talking about what you just dreamed about. Or what to do when the sun comes up.

And when you're done, you'll go back to your room with him. Turning on the movie on the TV instead as you two cuddled close, leaning against eachother and hands perhaps touching once or twice when you two tried to reach the popcorn bowl in unison.

If you're scared of jumpscares, he'll purposely pull you closer, as if to shield you. If not, you two would just talk about what you would've done in the movie's situation.

If you can't stand horror, he'll change the movie. What do you want to watch? Action? Thriller? Fantasy? Anime? The same movie or series you've been rewatching 34 times? He'll happily put it on.

And when morning comes? He'll be the one yawning, since he didn't actually get any sleep. He'll try to stay awake, but fall asleep on your shoulder instead. And you can't help but admire his peacefulness as you slowly put his head on a pillow, cleaning the room of all the empty bottles, wrappings, and bowls.

But if you prefer to just stay and sleep in his arms, that's fine too! He'll hold you close, and snuggle closer.

Eitherway it ends up with him kissing you on your forehead as soon as he wakes up, so i say this is a win.

Z.ENITSU AGATSUMA

I feel like he's the type of person that'll say something like 'one more video' when on YouTube and then stay up till morning. LMAO.

He'll be watching random cat videos, or like those "which one is actually cake?!" videos and would try to guess along but guesses wrong on almost each one.

How he went from analog horror to gameplays to asmr to cosplays to "how to survive" to cake videos? No one knows.

All he knew was this is entertaining and he keeps trying to stop but fails miserably thanks to YouTube's goddamn recommendation page.

But then of course, right as the clock strikes 3AM, he just had to see that one video.

"Hyper-Realistic Shoe Cake Tutorial!"

He needs to make it, okay? For scientific purposes.

But he still wants to stay beside you.. and he's not that good at baking as he is cooking-

And all that leads to this one moment.

"Wha- Zenitsu..? It's 3 AM.. what is it?"

"(Y/n)-chan!! Can- can we bake a cake together? Unlessyou'dprefertosleepthenthat'sokaytoo-"

"Bake a cake? What cake? Is it someone's birthday tomorrow?"

"Well, no, but— i found this cool tutorial on how to bake a cake and make it look like an actual shoe!"

You stayed silent, trying to comprehend what he had to say. You'd be lying if you say you don't find him adorable, but like.. really?

"Wh- babe, you woke me up at 3AM because you wanna bake a cake that looks like a shoe?"

"...sorry."

...And now you can't even get mad.

"Goddammit, we're baking that shoe cake right now." "I know, I'm so- wait, huh?"

You spent the rest few hours getting confused because like- you don't have a few of the CRUCIAL ingredients in order to make it look realistic. So you kinda just made your own version of it based on the limited baking knowledge you know, trying to get it as close as the tutorial as possible.

The process was.. cute, to say the least. There was a time where the flour accidentally spilled out, which resulted in you becoming a sneezing mess due to the powdery bits in the air.

Zenitsu insisting he'll clean for you, and you telling him to not bother.

Not to mention when he tried to split the egg white from the yolk, failed miserably.

You two purposely putting on socks so you can slide across the kitchen floor thanks to the flour that fell, while waiting for the cake to be done baking.

Him accidentally messing up his own cake by cutting certain parts too small or thin, and you boasting about how good yours turned out.

Putting on sappy love songs as the sun rises, taking photos of the cake while trying to hide the mess you two made in the kitchen, and uploading it online.

His smile was arguably brighter than the shade of his hair, even the rising dawn couldn't match Zenitsu's grin as he looks at the results.

Not to mention the cleaning montage of you two trying to fix the kitchen after the absolute mess.

Of course, you'll be spending the rest of the day napping in his arms till evening, but you've been productive enough to make up for it, right?

I.NOSUKE HASHIBIRA

Now, this man..

He will wake you up, unapologetically.

You'll be dreaming of your perfect life, feeling all nice and cozy as the night changes.

And then he'll just scream next to your ear.

"(Y/NNNNNNNN)!"

You almost had a heart attack with how he woke you up, looking up to see a pair of emerald eyes staring down at you.

"WHAT? WHAT IS IT?"

"I'M HUNGRY!"

An exaggerated sigh left your lips, and you almost told him to go make food himself.

But then you remember that time he almost burned down the house, so.

With no other choice, you got up, an excited Inosuke running out to go sit on the couch.

But you're not gonna cook anything, not when it's 3AM, so guess who's getting a McDonald's delivery soon?

And while waiting, you two decided to play a few rounds of video games. Making him promise that this'll go on until the food arrived and then he'll go back to sleep.

Spoiler. That didn't happen.

You two had too much fun roasting eachother at how bad you guys are at games, and Inosuke is particularly funny when raging while playing Fall Guys.

He also scared you on purpose a few times when you were taking turns playing Phasmophobia, laughing hysterically everytime you screamed in fear.

Or even something like FNAF, or games like Valorant, Overwatch or even Call of Duty. He loves competitive games so.

Seeing him happily jump whenever he wins something warms your heart, and though he wouldn't admit it, but the way he also jumps in victory whenever you kill someone in game is enough proof for you to know that he feels the same.

And when someone makes fun of you for sucking at the game?? He'll honestly would just ask you for the controller, ready to destroy the mf as he suddenly dominates the whole round. Before giving it back to you when he feels satisfied.

He'd randomly open his mouth while playing, asking to be fed a french fry as he focuses on the game. You being as invested as he is, just does it because you kinda also want him to win-

Also the way he'll put his arm around your shoulders, guiding you on what to do to win, well more like screaming at you- but only because he's too excited and loud for his own good. He loves you though, which is why he wants people to know that his (s/o) doesn't suck 💪🏻.

And when morning comes? That's when it hit you that gODDAMMIT YOU DIDN'T GET TO SLEEP.

But you know, maybe it's fine, you two did have an awesome night?

Especially with the amount of compliments he gives you whenever you win a game, all those "HELL YEAH, DESTROY THEM" "LET'S GO THAT'S MY (Y/N)!" "DIE ASSHOLE! WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO MY (S/O)!"

You're sure your neighbors would complain sooner or later, but you don't really mind.

In fact, you'd happily do this with him again.

[ruewrites]

Hi, i hope you are doing good. So i had a request, i really like angst and i was reading We're Blooming Togheter (its very good btw) And i was wondering if maybe you could write like an one-shot about Asmo and more about his last partners? Or maybe more about Lucifer taking care of the brothers at such a young age after being abandoned...i just really like angst.

Revisiting Past Ghosts

AO3

WBT

Ship: Solomon/Asmo, Lucifer/Diavolo (more near the end?)

Word Count: 3113

Warnings: Some violence (skip the third snippit)

A/N: Hi Anon! I’m happy that you enjoyed WBT! I really loved writing it! I’m also always willing to write more about it (I want to write more about it too). This ask actually inspired two one-shots? I’m not going to post the second one yet (I want to finish some other requests first) but I hope you like this first one. I was actually playing with some ideas about writing some more for the au and your comment pushed me to do it, so thank you! I hope you enjoy this!

Asmo remembered his first girlfriend finding out about him. Part of him had always known about his own affections,  but it still made him nervous to tell her. She’d seemed so accepting, so supportive. But Asmo quickly regretted the decision. She’d already had a jealous streak. He knew this, and this just seemed to make her lash out at anyone that even dared to look at Asmo in the halls, including his best friend.  It started out as little things that could be excused as accidents, but then Solomon’s number had been blocked on his phone.  

The only reason that they’d started dating in the first place was because they were in similar social circles. She was cute, Asmo was cute, it made sense. He’d been interested at first, but the more he learned about her personality, the less interested he became. Despite how perfect they may have looked to their peers, they clashed on more subjects than they agreed on. 

Their breakup had been ugly, Asmo wouldn’t deny that.They’d gone back and forth fighting about little things that didn’t matter in the long run. 

He’d thought it was over, until he’d seen Solomon’s vandalized locker.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, a sickness stirring in his stomach. The two of them stayed after school to try to fix whatever damage they could.  There had been horrible notes, drinks thrown onto his text books, lipstick smeared over his notes. Asmo would have thought he would’ve been the target of her anger, but unfortunately this didn’t surprise him. 

“You aren’t responsible for her actions.”

“But she’s obviously still hostile because of me.”

“Stop blaming yourself, you didn’t ruin my locker.” Solomon let out a huff and pushed more sludge into a trash can, “You can’t fix her attitude.”

True but Asmo still felt bad. Things were quiet for a moment as Asmo tried to escape his guilt as he slipped paper towels in between the pages of Solomon’s notes. She’d been flooding his comments, but he didn’t think she’d ever do something like this once they broke up…

He felt Solomon nudge him with his foot, bringing his attention back up. “If you still really feel bad, you could invite me for dinner. You said Lucifer was cooking right?” he smiled. 

Was it simple? Yes. Did it make Asmo feel a little better and maybe even steal a laugh from him? Also yes.

His ex had gotten a new boyfriend eventually. Not that Asmo cared.

Every now and again they would still hiss at each other in the hallway. They’d gotten into a few more fights, mainly over Solomon, and each time Solomon had been the one to pull Asmo away. He hadn’t handled it the best he could have, but it was in the past now. It happened. He didn’t really remember when it all stopped. Eventually they had just sizzled out, going from a raging fire to nothing but smoke and ash.

********

Solomon had just gone home from dropping his assignments off. He promised he’d come back tomorrow, but only if Asmo wanted him too. Asmo had nodded, eyes still red and pillow stained with tears. He genuinely didn’t know what he’d do without Solomon. 

As soon as he was gone, Asmo was left alone with his thoughts again. He knew Solomon had to go home, but he wished he didn’t have to. He didn’t want to be alone. He should go back to school, he really should, but he wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to see his ex. He sobbed into his pillow, gripping it tightly, feeling the fabric become cold beneath his cheeks. It didn’t make sense. He didn’t understand. There wasn’t a reason. 

He did everything he could. He made himself pretty, he got him  the sweetest gifts he could think of, listened to him, cleared his schedule for him… Maybe it still hadn’t been enough. Maybe he could have done more, tried harder. He could have made himself prettier in the mornings or been a little more adoring. Now that it was over, Asmo was making a list of things he could have done better, but it was too late.

He could still remember the last conversation they had and how the bile rose in his throat.

“We need to break up.”

The words had caught Asmo off guard. Everything had seemed to be going fine. They’d never talked about any problems. As far as Asmo had known, they’d been a perfectly happy couple. They did everything happy couples were supposed to do. Asmo did everything a perfect boyfriend was supposed to do.

“But why?” he’d asked, voice already catching in his throat.

“Just ‘cuz Asmo.”

“But-”

“Just. ‘Cuz. Don’t make me spell it out for you.”

Asmo had been snapped at. Asmo hated being yelled at. It made his throat tighten and his body freeze. This wasn’t how this was supposed to be.

“You’re not dumb. You know why.”

But Asmo didn’t know why!

“Wait-”

“I need to go.”

Asmo could feel the mascara running down his face and taste it on his tongue, “Please don’t.”

“Lose my number Asmo.

Then Asmo had been alone. No reason. No explanation. He was just alone sobbing on the sidewalk, looking for an answer he would never get.

He’d been humiliated and broken and he wasn’t sure how to feel. Honestly, he probably would have stayed crying on the sidewalk if Solomon hadn’t found him.

He didn’t want to be alone. He wished Solomon didn’t have to head home.

His door cracked open ever so slightly, and footsteps crossed his room.

“There was ice cream left over in the freezer,” Lucifer seemed a bit awkward, as if he wasn’t sure what to say. He knew Asmo had been broken up with, but he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. It seemed like calling his ex some… choice words had been the wrong decision as Asmo had only cried even harder, defended his ex, and started to blubber about it being all his fault. From there Solomon had taken over and ushered Asmo upstairs.

He’d caught bits and pieces.

I wasn’t good enough. 

I wasn’t pretty enough.

I didn’t love enough.

I wasn’t perfect enough.

Lucifer heard a few other things, but all of these little untruths did nothing but make him angry. He knew his brother, and he knew none of those things were true. He’d seen Asmo interact with his partners, and he did nothing but love them. Perhaps he was a little biased, but he didn’t care.

Asmo sniffled and lifted his head. Ice cream didn’t sound too bad… He wasn’t sure how much of it he could eat, but it was a good breakup food. He sat up a bit and moved closer to his brother. The container was partially full and had brownie chunks mixed in. He leaned against Lucifer’s shoulder and sniffled.  

They sat there in silence,  Asmo wondering why he wasn’t good enough and Lucifer knowing he deserved better.

********

Lucifer was already tense. He could hear the rising voices from the living room. The couple clearly thought they were home alone. Voices rising in the heat of the moment, growing until they reached their inevitable crescendo.

Lucifer saw the slap before he heard it.

A hand brought down onto Asmo’s face. Eyes wide and full of hurt, shock, and embarrassment as tears welled and slowly overflowed onto the floor. He didn’t see Lucifer. It didn’t matter if Lucifer had met the man in his house before this moment. Now he was a stranger, and intruder. He was violating their space, and would be treated as such. 

Before he could disgrace Asmo furthur, Lucifer’s hands were dug into his collar and slamming him harshly against the wall. His vision was clouded with red, lips pulled back in a snarl. Bloodlust clouded his mind.

“How dare you lay a hand on him,” he snarled, grip tightening around his collar, “You have no right to hurt him in any way.”

“Wh-” 

“None.” 

Lucifer vaguely felt the tugging on the back of his clothes, Asmo’s voice no more than a bug flying in his ear. He dropped the man, making sure he stayed between him and his brother.  The fear that Lucifer saw would have been satisfying if not for the situation.

“Leave. If I ever catch you in my home again I will be the last thing you see.”

The man bolted out of the house, Cerberus barking as the door slammed behind him. Lucifer couldn’t relax even with his brother’s soon to be ex gone. His blood was boiling, and Asmo was squirming under his gaze. 

Asmo didn’t think Lucifer was home, he hadn’t thought anyone was home. It was the only reason his boyfriend had wanted to come over in the first place, he wasn’t a big fan of Lucifer or any of Asmo’s brothers really. It was a red flag, one Asmo had seen in the distance. He thought that would resolve over time. Apparently he was wrong.

“He’s not welcome in this family,” Lucifer growled, “No one is to treat you like that.”

Understood?

Lucifer’s tone made Asmo’s skin crawl. He was still trying to process what had happened. His cheek stung, and his eyes were watering. What had they been fighting over? He couldn’t remember. Were they even fighting or had they just started yelling?

Asmo couldn’t help but shrink into himself.

 “Yes.”

His words were soft and barely audible. His mind couldn’t even think about texting Solomon. Where would he even begin?

Lucifer paced around the living room for a moment, muttering to himself. He sounded almost animalistic, so unlike Lucifer. It scared him, the entire situation sent Asmo into a spiral and he wasn’t sure where to go from here. He flinched when Lucifer touched him, and seeing that seemed to make his anger flare again.

Lucifer stared at the mark that started to mar Asmo’s skin before shaking his head and heading off into the kitchen. He returned shortly after and pressed a cold ice pack to Asmo’s face. Hours of silence ticked by. 

Lucifer wanted to press charges.

Lucifer wanted to go after him himself.

Lucifer wanted to bury him deep in the ground with the rest of the spineless worms. 

Asmo told him not to. 

They’d fought about it for a few days, and the relationship had continued for a little longer after that. But eventually, both the argument and the relationship ended.

*********

Lucifer had been looking over one of his cases when Barbatos paged him down. Something about someone wanting to talk with him. While he’d never admit it, his mind hadn’t been focused on his work lately. Something was going on with his brothers, specifically Asmodeus. He’d seemed unusually twitchy and eager up until recently. Now he wouldn’t come out of his room, and he could hear him sniffling. 

 Diavolo’s booming laugh bounced off the walls and was the first thing Lucifer heard before he saw anyone.  Perhaps Diavolo wanted to take the three of them out to lunch again, where Lucifer would then continuously have to check the time and remind Diavolo about PDA as well as Barbatos’ presence.

However, when Lucifer came to Barbato’s desk, he saw a third person that he wasn’t expecting. 

Solomon looked a little frazzled underneath his normally cool composure. He stood stiffly next to Barbatos as Diavolo chattered away. Luciferer spied something pink clasped between fidgeting fingers. 

Barbatos was the first to notice Lucifer’s presence. He made his way over to his side and glanced over towards Solomon and Diavolo. 

“He seems nervous.”

“I noticed.”

“What do you think it’s about?”

 Lucifer hesitated, thinking over his options. Well, he had one idea. If he was correct, it would certainly make everything else fall into place much easier.

“I guess we’ll have to find out won’t we?”

Solomon smiled as he saw Lucifer approaching, causing Diavolo to turn around with a wide grin on his face. 

“Lucifer!” Diavolo chirped, moving closer. He went in for a kiss, but Lucifer stopped him. 

“Later. We have company,” he smiled, patting his boyfriend’s pouting cheek before turning to Solomon. “It’s good to see you Solomon, it’s been a while since we’ve had you at our dinner table.”

“Ah, well, Asmodeus and I have both been busy. We’ve been spending a lot of study time over at my apartment,” he said. Then a small silence stretched on. Solomon looked down at the pink envelope in his hands for a moment and sucked in his breath, “I was actually wondering if you could give something to him.”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. He could feel Diavolo and Barbatos behind him, their intrigue was palpable. Lucifer would be lying if he said he also wasn’t curious about what Solomon had to say. “And why can’t you just give it to him yourself?” he asked.

Solomon stopped for a moment, eyes glancing down at the envelope before smiling.

“Well, I’ve been hiding them in secret and leaving them anonymous, so what fun would it be to just give it to him?”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow and Solomon’s face fell. 

“He also hasn’t been answering my texts,” he admitted, “I just need him to meet me in the park tonight. I-”

Diavolo’s eyes lit up, “Oh Lucifer! I didn’t realize your brother had a boyfriend, and one with such romantic ideas at that.”

Solomon’s face lit up red and his eyes shifted to the side. So, there was something going on between his brother and his brother’s childhood best friend. His memories flashed to Asmo’s exes, the things they’d put him through, the pain they’d caused him. He didn’t want Asmo to live through any of that again, he didn’t want things to go wrong and he certainly didn’t want his brother to go through more heartbreak.

“What if I just told him? You’ve been sending him letters for a while, why not just get it over with?” Lucifer asked. 

Diavolo cut in before Solomon could even give his argument. “Lucifer, why don’t you indulge him?” he asked, “You mentioned that Asmodeus loved romantic things like this. Plus it’s adorable. He’s made this elaborate little plan just for Asmodeus.”

Lucifer hesitated for a moment, thinking his decision over, eyes glued to the envelope. It did seem very… Asmodeus, but could he trust this little romance to not leave Asmodeus crushed? It was a gamble with his brother’s happiness, and the stakes were high.

“It does seem like something Asmodeus would enjoy,” Barbatos cut in, nodding towards the letter, “Plus, you can trust him with his own heart.”

But could he really?

A few more minutes ticked by, Lucifer played with his thoughts. Perhaps he had still been soured by his brother’s last boyfriend. The man hadn’t really left a good impression, and Lucifer didn’t want to see Asmo in that situation again. Asmodeus deserved to thrive and to be loved and cherished. He just wanted what was best for him.

“Alright, I’ll give it to him,” he decided. Solomon’s grin returned as he handed the envelope over. “But,” Lucifer continued, “You’d better treat him well, regardless of what happens. I won’t tolerate anyone disrespecting him.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Solomon smiled, “I promise I’ll take care of him.”

***********

It was late, but Lucifer couldn’t fall back asleep. He  picked up his phone to look at the time.

Three am. 

How was Asmodeus doing? Surely he and Solomon had gotten to their suite a while ago. Maybe he should give him a call. 

Turning onto his side, Lucifer propped himself up and stared at his husband for a moment. Diavolo was curled up on his side, softly snoring away. He wasn’t the most graceful sleeper, but it was still endearing in a way. It was still wonderfully Diavolo.

Kissing Diavolo’s cheek, Lucifer grabbed his phone before heading downstairs. It rang once. Then twice. He wondered for a moment if his brother would even pick up when a tired voice answered.

“Lucifer?”

“Hello Asmodeus,” Lucifer smiled, “Did you arrive alright?”

“Mmm, give me a second, we just… got to sleep.”

There was shifting on the other side of the line, followed by a second voice. It was slightly muddled, but Lucifer knew who it was.

“I’ll be right back Darling… It’s my brother… No no, not Mammon…. Yes Lucifer.... Go back to sleep, I’ll be back soon.”

There were a few other noises. Kisses perhaps? Then more shuffling and a door shutting.

“Sorry brother dearest, Solomon’s rather clingy when it comes to curling up,  I’m lucky I was able to escape to the porch.”

He sounded happy. It made Lucifer’s body relax and a soft smile spread across his face. Asmodeus was in good hands, he was safe, he was going to be cared for. He still remembered how happy Asmo had been showing off his ring, and how much happier he looked at his wedding. It made him feel at peace, knowing he was loved. 

“I assume you’re having a good time then?”

“Oh yes, all the unpacking is done, and we’re planning  on going out and exploring tomorrow,” he chirped.

“You mean you haven’t explored yet?”

“We were unpacking!”

“Unpacking doesn’t take that long Asmodeus.”

“Buuuuuuusssssyyyyyy,” Asmo sang, “Anyways, I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures tomorrow!”

“Good.”

I’m happy you found him.

Silence stretched between them for a moment. Lucifer could hear the ocean in the background.

“I should be getting back to bed, I have a wonderful husband waiting for me and a long day tomorrow.”

“Mmh, now that you mention it, I suppose I should be getting back to someone as well.”

I’m happy he makes you happy.

“Goodnight Lucifer, I love you!”

“Goodnight Asmodeus.”

Lucifer stared at the phone for a few moments more before going back to his bedroom where a warm bed and an adoring husband awaited him. Kissing Diavolo’s cheek once more, Lucifer settled back into bed, feeling his partner shift behind him.

Asmo looked up at the stars and took in the night air before wandering back inside. He barely had time to plug in his phone before Solomon was sucking him back into the bed and covering his skin with kisses. Honestly sometimes Asmo wasn’t sure what to do with all the love Solomon gave him, he doubted that he even deserved it at times. But as they laid together, Asmo knew that this was where he truly belonged. He’d finally found the one. Asmo had had good and bad partners come and go, but Solomon was the one who stayed.

[eurydicees]

i can’t stop thinking about an ohshc theatre club au, please enjoy some hcs (this got way too long and is Not organized, sorry): 

tamaki is that asshole who gets the lead in everything without trying, but you can’t even be mad because dammit he can act 

hikaru and kaoru are actors, but also double as costume crew

kyoya as the sm, haruhi tries to asm for him once but he has no idea how to “fucking delegate tasks to me, kyoya, you can’t run a show by yourself goddammit” 

renge is also an sm, but has a ridiculous form of organization that is Not Standardized and it makes kyoya want to burn down the theatre 

honey is typecast as the token child character, he plays les in newsies one year and had the time of his life 

mori is an electrician and is also the lead td and supervises while they build their sets

tamaki is incredibly superstitious, like. say the m-word within ten feet of him and you’ll be running in circles singing the alphabet backwards before you can say “shakespeare” 

speaking of, kyoya loves shakespeare, but he’s like. a shakespeare purist. haruhi likes to send him videos of modern adaptations with batshit crazy directing just to piss him off. like they send him a bootleg of an emma rice production and he almost has an aneurysm 

kaoru proposes “shakespeare’s long lost first play” for their fall show and kyoya threatened murder. shakespeare is SERIOUS business, kaoru. 

hikaru can also choreograph when they’re doing a musical, his choreo always ends up being great, but it takes ages to learn (he keeps getting distracted and going on tangents when trying to teach the steps and no one can follow the speed he’s going at)

in a shocking reversal of typical high school theatre, renge is the only girl so she gets all the female leads without much hassle (all the hosts play female roles at some point and you know what? they fucking love it just the same as playing male roles) 

when he’s not acting, tamaki is a director, but people have a uh hard time executing his vision

tamaki and kyoya are the director/sm team that everyone wants to be but never will be (everyone can point to instances where they’re just reading each other’s minds about blocking)

haruhi teaches them the opening night tradition of leaving the theatre and storming the nearest commoner’s fast food place and staying there until 3am 

god ok i’m sorry i can’t stop thinking about kyoya as sm it’s so perfect for him-- he’s the most organized sm you will ever meet, his blocking notes are pristine, his rehearsal reports have more detail than anyone will ever need to have, kyoya does your back hurt from carrying the entire show 

that being said, his line notes are HARSH. like. everything counts with him. especially when it’s shakespeare. did you say “thou has?” sorry actually it’s “thou hast” and you can go fuck yourself 

they have a ridiculous budget for a high school theatre club (obviously) and when they do “almost, maine,” they blow half the budget on making it snow on stage

haruhi joins because they accidentally wander onto set one day and stumble over a birdie (*one of the lights that gets hidden on set or on the floor) and fuck up the entire lighting rig the group had spent all day working on perfecting 

they then blackmail them into being the female lead (renge hasn’t joined yet) and they’re like :/ ok fine if it helps me pay off this stupid debt (they have to play a certain number of roles before they’ve paid it off) 

they start to actually enjoy being a part of the club when they first run lines with honey, who is just so enthusiastic about his role that they can’t help but fall in love with theatre 

but look. tech week is just. hell. kyoya loses it a little bit bc of the stress (tamaki gives him many shoulder massages because he’s so damn tense but alas it does not relieve the pressure of calling a show). mori (when he’s acting, which is rare) gets the worst stage fright during tech week and honey or haruhi has to talk him out of quitting two days before opening. kaoru is going to kill the next actor who eats in their costume. tamaki is panicking because it’s ALL WRONG. renge doesn’t know her lines. it’s a mess. 

but... also... they’re having so much fun. and ~theatre magic~ (read: working really fucking hard) makes it all go on smoothly 

oh also renge is a director too! this is an obvious hc that i completely missed until this moment, but she’s a great director, she has a really clear vision from the very start and she’s incredibly decisive, but she’s also shitty to her tech crew (mori and honey almost stage a revolt when she dismisses sound design as unimportant)

ranka is their #1 fan-- she goes to every show no matter how many nights it runs, just to support the club; she also gets all (and i mean ALL) of her friends to come and watch as well

lobelia is still their #1 rival-- during festivals, tamaki and benibara’s goal is to destroy each other through the art of glaring at each other from the wings on opposite sides of the stage (why are they even there at the same time? who knows)

lobelia likes to do all female adaptations of all shows, something that confuses tamaki, but also something that he won’t dare complain about lest he risk haruhi’s wrath (the fool is still unlearning sexism, especially sexism as it relates to classic plays-- but he’s getting there!) 

oh they do alice in wonderland once and the audition process basically goes as that arc runs in the manga: a whole mess

so a lot of techies have one (1) show that they would like to act in rather than do tech for, and mori’s one show is “the addams family,” which they do in the fall of his senior year-- and he fuckin kills it as gomez 

kyoya’s one show is “othello” because (a) he’s a pretentious bitch and (b) everyone else called it pretentious and depressing so he’ll never have to actually go through with it and act 

ok it’s 2am i’m done for now but PLEASE add on i’m so hyped about this au many thoughts head full of theatre kid energy 

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Were I to have an insane and unrealistic amount of power over at Marvel I’d re-organize the Spider-Man relevant trades. I share the belief that the hurdle to new readers isn’t so much that there is a long history so much as a history spread all over the place. Wanting to read Spider-Man isn’t simple even if you do have the time and patience to read 50 years worth of comics. You need to know WHICH comics and WHAT ORDER to read them in. And the latter has a multiple choice answer!

This is part of why USM was so strong in it’s early days. 1 title, no satellites, no spin-offs. All you needed to do was pick up issue #1 or trade volume 1 and read sequentially from there. Not just easy to follow but easy to catch up and thus allow readership to grow.

Thus I propose that we simply organize the Spider-Man brand into a series of sequential trades. Functionally these will be like the Deadpool Classic trades, but with multiple trades following the various characters of the Spider-Verse. Want to read just about Peter Parker, you pick up his trades. But want to read just about Miles or Venom? The trades will have you covered going across their respective histories in the in-universe reading order.

In other words you need not worry about whether story arc A in ASM happens before story arc B in Spec and where Guest appearance C fits in. The trades would sort it all out for you. You’d just pick up any volume and read cover to cover, with tiny subplot pages and text inserted where relevant to clarify things. E.g. if there were 2 three part stories happening at the same time, you don’t want to interrupt that, so you’d just print one then have some text saying ‘the following three issues take place during the events of the ASM #X-Z’.

Additionally, in order to not make things unnecessarily confusing I’d omit retroactive stories like Untold Tales of Spider-Man, Symbiote Spider-Man, etc from these trades. My rationale is that not only would these spoil certain things but more significantly as time goes by people will inevitably write more retroactive stories meaning the trades would need to be constantly amended.

Instead I’d simply make a ‘Companion’ trade series reprinting such stories in publication order with a few notes explaining where they take place relative to the original issues. E.g. you’d pick up ‘Peter Parker: Spider-Man Classic Companion Volume 1’ and before you read Untold Tales of Spider-Man #1 a note would inform you it happens after ASM #3 or whatever.

So what would these trade series be exactly?

Something like this:

1.       Peter Parker: Spider-Man Classic: Simply every Peter Parker appearance or relevant comic book. ASM, Spec, New Avengers, Secret Wars, guest appearances, everything!

2.       Mary Jane Classic: Same thing for Mary Jane, albeit to save some time we could simply reprint the MJ relevant pages from various comics as there would be little need to reprint a whole Spidey adventure she just cameos in. The info text could simply give you context for each appearance before we got to meatier stories. I’d employ this method for all of the following whenever relevant.

3.       Black Cat Classic: Obviously this would include her solo minis but also and team appearances like in Heroes for Hire.

4.       Daily Bugle Classic: It occurred to me there were several stories focussing upon a lot of the supporting cast that didn’t feature Spider-Man himself. That aside people love the supporting cast so I figured some trades chronicling their exploits would make sense. For this trade series it’d focus upon J. Jonah Jameson first and foremost but also Betty Brant, Joe Robertson, Ben Urich, etc

5.       The Many Loves of Spider-Man Classic: Same idea but with the Spidey girlfriends who don’t have that many appearances to their name. The main focus would be Gwen Stacy because for good or ill she’s a character who people are interested in. But you could also throw in appearances from Deb Whitman, Carlie, etc.

6.       Spider-Man’s Tangled Web: TBH I couldn’t figure out a good name for this one, but essentially this would be about Peter’s friends who aren’t superheroes, Bugle employees or girlfriends of his. This would include Flash Thompson (pre-Venom), Liz Allan, Randy Robertson, possibly Glory Grant although she’d also fit in with the Bugle trades I guess. Throw in the Tangled web issues and your good to go!

7. ��     Clone Classic: As you might expect this would chronicles Ben Reilly and Kaine’s exploits, but also for good measure ALL the clearly clone related stories. So we’re talking appearances involving Miles Warren and Gwen’s clone too. Although I guess the latter could fit in ‘the Many Loves of Spider-Man’ trades.

8.       Spider-Man’s Amazing Friends Classic: All of the superhero friends Spider-Man has who are closely associated with him and have had off and on titles over the years. Prowler, Silver Sable, Rocket Racer, Sandman (when he reformed), Jackpot, Alpha, Will O’ Wisp, etc

9.       Goblins Classic: I thought of doing a trade purely about the Osborns but this seemed more logical. It’d cover every appearance of the Goblin related characters. We’re talking Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn, Bart Hamilton, Roderick Kingsley, Ned Leeds, Jason Macendale, Phil Urich, Green Goblin V, Hobgoblin from Bendis’ Secret War, Gabriel+Sarah Stacy, Lily Hollister and whoever else will become a Goblin

10.   Doctor Octopus Classic: Speaks for itself, and yeah it’d include his clones from Superior onwards too.

11.   Symbiotes Classic: I thought of having this be about all the symbiotes OTHER than Venom and Carnage but having 3 sets of trades for symbiotes seemed ridiculous. This would cover every symbiote (Venom, Carnage, Hybrid, Scream, Toxin, Mania, Sleeper, etc) along with major hosts of theirs. Eddie Brock, Cletus Kasady, Mac Gargan, Flash Thompson, Andi Benton, etc

12.   Sinister Six Classic. Maybe you couldn’t call these guys A-listers strictly speaking but these would be the real famous Spider-Man villains who haen’t already been mentioned. We’re talking the Vultures, Electros, Kravens, Mysterios, Chameleon, all the really classic costumed Spidey bad guys you could think of with the exception of some of the folks I’m gonna name below

13.   The Many Foes of Spider-Man Classic: This would chiefly chronicle the stories about the characters from Deadly/Lethal/Superior Foes of Spider-Man, most importantly Boomerang, Beetle and Shocker

14.   Spider Women Classic: All the 616 centric Spider Ladies. Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, Cindy Moon, Anya Corazon, maybe even throw Madame Web in there for good measure. I think it makes sense to consolidate them together into a trade series as their publication histories meant they were usually passing the baton onto one another.

15.   Miles Morales: Spider-Man Classic: Guess who this is about. Obviously this would include his appearances in Champions, Avengers, etc

16.   Gwen Stacy: Ghost Spider Classic: Every Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider/Earh-65 Gwen appearanceD

17.   Spider-Ham Classic: You get the picture. Although I’d also add in versions of Spider-Ham that are from different Earths as well

18.   Spider-Man 2099 Classic: We’re actually already doing these in real life, but I’d want them to include every version of Miguel too and brief appearances across other titles

19.   Ultimate Spider-Man Classic: Obviously the same deal for Ultimate Peter Parker, but I’d also include Ultimate Jessica Drew as well

20.   Web of Spider-Verse: A trade series that reprints in publication order every other AU Spider-People out there. All the What Ifs, the Earth X stuff, House of M, X-Men: Forever, 1602, Noir, India, Peni Parker, Fairy Tales and of course Web Warriors

21.   Spider-Girl Classic: We’re already doing this one too. Just wish it’d come out faster!

22.   Spider-Man: Japan Classic: ALL the Japanese Spider-Man stories. Every appearance of Supaidaman from Spider-Verse and beyond. Every appearance of Spider-Man J, Mangaverse Spider-Man, Spidey Fake Red and most controversially Spider-Man: The Manga (deffo gonna have to put a mature readers disclaimer on those ones.

[reinvent-and-believe]

For the 5+ headcanons: geraskier (OR geraskefer, if you'd prefer) + Broadway/theatre AU! 😊

Okay, first of all, how dare you know me so well??? This is RIGHT up my alley and I am THRIVING, thank you so much omg. Second, I am SO SO SORRY, you did not ask for three pages of setup and YET HERE WE ARE

So, modern AU, obviously. Magic and monsters still exist, peripherally, on the outskirts of society; you occasionally hear of a murder that’s just a little too weird to be human that gets chalked up to various monsters, and there’s rumors of humanoid or humanoid-appearing creatures (dopplers, elves, certain classes of vampires) existing surreptitiously alongside humans, hiding their true nature. How much of that is true and how much is just paranoia is anyone’s guess.

Witchers, in theory, also still exist, but they have even less of a place in this world than they do in the canon setting. You’ll occasionally run into people who will swear up and down that a witcher fixed their aunt’s haunted attic or a witcher showed up and the random bizarre murders in their small town stopped or they once saw a witcher tracking blood footprints down an alley by the St. Louis arch, but witcher sightings are given about as much credence as UFO or Bigfoot sightings.

And so our young hero Jaskier is making his Broadway debut in a revival of Next to Normal, playing Gabe. It’s the chance of a lifetime; they wanted to go with young unknowns for the teenager roles, and he was discovered at a BFA showcase in New York and invited to audition. After half a dozen callbacks and a little over a month of rehearsal, here he is, just weeks away from previews.

And it’s kind of a big deal. Not only is this the first time Next to Normal has been revived, but he’s also playing opposite Tony Award winner Laura Benanti as Diana, for god’s sake (because it’s my headcanon and I can mix in real actors I really want to see play these roles dammit! 😂). It’s a huge deal.

Which is why it’s just completely unacceptable that Jaskier is being haunted.

He didn’t think he was being haunted, not at first. He glanced at some eerie green lights coming from the wings during their first tech rehearsal, and he assumed the crew was just experimenting with some new lighting angles, no big deal, and kept going with his song. When the number was over, the lights were gone.

But then little things keep going wrong. His white tuxedo jacket isn’t stage left for his quick change when he distinctly remembers putting it there. He can’t find his prop and the ASM is scolding him for moving things when he really, really didn’t. He misses a cue because the monitor in his dressing room is, apparently, lagging five minutes behind.

He’s freaking out. He knows how bad this makes him look to everyone he’s working with, and while he’s a little scattered sometimes, he is a professional when it comes to his craft and he would never be this careless.

It must be sabotage. And there’s only one person it could possibly be…

His archnemesis. His understudy. Valdo fucking Marx.

Valdo Marx has hated him since day one, it only makes sense he’s trying to get Jaskier out of the way so he can be the one with the triumphant Broadway debut at 22 instead of Jaskier. So Jaskier calmly, politely, non-aggressively (he’s a professional, dammit) corners Valdo and makes it very clear that he will stop sabotaging him ASAP unless Valdo wants his boyfriend to know he sucked Jaskier off in the bathroom after their second callback.

(He’s not a saint. It’s not like he’d resort to blackmail if Valdo weren’t trying to get him fired. Fair’s fair.)

Except, turns out, it’s probably not Valdo. Valdo couldn’t make the batteries in his mic pack die five minutes into every rehearsal even when Jaskier watches the sound engineering change them right before they start. Valdo couldn’t make the fly system break right as Jaskier crossed under it and make a piece of the house set hit Jaskier in the head. And Valdo Marx definitely couldn’t black out all the lights in Jaskier’s dressing room and make that unsettling green light appear behind him, a shadowy figure barely visible, hissing in a rattling voice out, out or perish.

And listen, Jaskier would normally welcome this fascinating turn of events; he loves an adventure. But this is his big break and he will be DAMNED if he lets this creepy green-light apparition ruins this opportunity.

So he talks to the stage manager, the director, then, for good measure, the Equity monitor. All of them tell him the same thing: surely someone else would have seen it if there was a ghost. It’s probably the stress. He should take a few days off, get some rest, and then come back when he’s feeling better. But he probably shouldn’t mention it to the other actors. Wouldn’t want to get everyone worked up.

But like HELL is Jaskier going to do that. He’s not stressed, except about the fact that he personally seems to be undergoing a haunting.

So he stays. And things are getting...pretty scary, all things considered.

Seeing his not-so-friendly ghost friend has become a pretty regular occurrence. It appears next to him when he’s standing in the wings waiting for an entrance. It’s sitting in the house when he’s onstage. It locks him in his dressing room. It’s just really not going great.

And then it puts its hands on him. He didn’t even know it HAD hands, much less a truly corporeal form, but there they are, really, really cold pale hands choking him in his dressing room after the run of the show. He stomps on its (also apparently corporeal) foot and books it out of the theatre and to the nearest bar.

He downs a shot then opens his phone camera. There on his neck, clear as day, are bruises in the shape of fingers.

He’s at the end of his rope. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s read about ghosts online, he’s tried to take protective measures but they all seem to be shit because they’ve done fuck all to protect him from his undead stalker.

He takes another shot, laughs at the absurdity of his situation, and tweets “if anybody happens to be besties with a witcher, hmu” before ordering another drink.

Three texts appear from an unknown number in quick succession.

what’s happening. is this why you can’t pull your shit together to get through a single scene?

or are you just tweeting bullshit as usual?

this is yennefer. i can help.

And. Well. Jaskier doesn’t have a problem with his costar Yennefer, who’s playing Natalie in the show, but she is more than a little terrifying, so they’re not particularly chummy.

But if she can help…

And that’s how Yennefer’s hunky cryptid not-boyfriend (“we fuck around but it’s casual”) witcher ends up helping Jaskier get rid of the wraith trying to steal his role.

(But there’s lots more)

(Lots more fun mystery stuff but also lots more cute threeway flirtations with theatre happening in the background)

(The three of them hook up and it’s unexpected and delightful)

(Geralt stands backstage on opening night with two bouquets, staring at them hopefully)

(And he doesn’t know shit about theatre but he sat in that audience transfixed and he’s pretty sure he’s in love with them both)

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

Hi, If you don't mind, I'd like your opinion on a particular scenario: In a continuity COMPLETELY removed from Earth 616 & with some good writing and character development... Do you think Eddie Brock/Venom/The Symbiote could ever make peace with Peter Parker and friends? It wouldn't even have to be 100% friendly, just so that Peter no longer fears/hates Venom anymore. I ask for scientific purposes. Definitely not for AU musings at all. Thanks in advance ~

if it’s COMPLETELY removed from 616 then you can do whatever you want. you can make peter and eddie childhood friends and the symbiote a lab-synthesised super serum. you can never let them become enemies in the first place.

i’m guessing what you mean is you do want to keep the 616 basics, alien costume arc, villain venom, and go from there? of course you can make it work.

it’s not like canon doesn’t keep flirting with the concept. reluctant team-ups have been a thing from the very beginning. peter has shown signs of giving a shit.

maximum carnage is good for that. and the ps1 spider-man game.

the symbiote and eddie have also separately had their #moments with him, anti-venom, space knight, asm 800... though eddie and peter, especially, still greatly dislike each other, and there’ll probably never be a reason for that to change. what’s really standing in the way of it...

spider-man is, uh. not the most accepting of redeemed villains, in general? and venom really did go to ridiculous lengths to terrorise him, for no reasons peter would be the slightest bit sympathetic to. symbiote-wise, it’s impossible to reconcile with someone who isn’t ready to recognise your personhood... and eddie just doesn’t give a shit what peter thinks, honestly. except on said anti-venom kick where he was big on having everyone recognise that he’s a HERO and a HEALER now but lmao, what a confused mess.

in an au, you can develop or adjust any of those factors as needed.

self-sacrifice always impresses peter, like at the end of lethal protector, as far as getting him to see eddie as a genuine do-gooder goes. eddie’s motivation for wanting peter to see him as such... i dunno, but he'd need one if you want them to make proper peace, not just have peter back off with nothing but the occasional recurring nightmare to remember him by.

the symbiote might, obviously enough, be more interested in approaching him. peter would probably need to have some kind of genuine heart-to-heart with it wherein it apologises for trying to forcibly bond with (and murder the hell out of) him, and he gets to have the realisation that it’s not some inherently evil force of nature, take symbiotes off his Okay To Kill list and such. i don’t think they should keep extended contact, that’s just gonna dig stuff up.

i always like venom and spider-man on friendly terms best when it’s super silly and peter’s sheer exasperation with their slobbery antics just outweighs all else.

but i’m honestly babbling. all the answer you need is: it’s your au, go wild.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

...

“I was really enraged over “One More Day”. Having been on the Ditko side of the argument for so long, I finally saw that Marvel was totally against letting Peter Parker age and develop new stories. I had planned on protesting the books. But, then they hooked me with the creative teams. Then, they brought back Norman Osborn.”

 Er no they didn’t they brought HARRY Osborn back...pointlessly....

 “Plus, they were trying new stuff and it wasn’t terrible.”

 By new stuff I wonder if they mean ‘Guess who this Goblin themed character is’ and ‘Oh no Spider-Man is framed’ or ‘Yuk yuk Peter just can’t get a date lulz!’

 And by not terrible I wonder if they mean ‘Hey look it’s the Chameleon and his whole history with Peter Parker is being ignored so we can imply he’s raping a woman’ and ‘Here watch this woman take advantage of Peter when he’s drunk before turning on a dime into a racist and sexist sterotype of Latin American woman’ or ‘Let’s ruin the Lizard and Kraven’s Last Hunt for everybody’.

  “What was going on here? Constant creative rotation to keep things fresh and lively?”

 Fresh as in a fresh way to suck shit as inconsistent story and artistic beats pile up to insanity.

  “Villains being reintroduced as the classic threats we know them to be?!?”

 Because we didn’t have that before OMD and needed the marriage gone for that to be the case.

  “Then, we got to see Marcos Martin and Dan Slott on the book. Spider-Man had entered into a new Golden Age. ”

 John Romita Senior’s run was a Golden Age.

 Roger Stern’s run was a Golden Age.

 2004 was a Golden Age.

 Mary Jane dates a loser cleberity because she’s out of character whilst Peter Parker invades people’s privacy which is even MORE out of character and here comes Mysterio alive and well ignoring everything we knew about him for the past 10 years isn’t a Golden Age. Its just hot trash.

  “But, what of Mary Jane? She was Peter’s wife and the mother of their disappeared baby. Would we ever get some sort of closure? Hell no. What was more surprising was how little it mattered.”

  WTF does ‘it didn’t matter’ even mean in this context?

  It mattered to most of the readers hence they kept teasing us with reconciliation to spike sales over and over again before just giving us an AU book...then bringing them back for real!

  “ Does that say a lot for Mary Jane and her defined role in the Spider-Man universe. I venture to say that it did. But, why are now realizing the futile nature of Peter being married and its importance to Mary Jane?”

 Yeah. It’s so futile to have character development for the lead and second biggest character that was the bedrock of 20 years of stories that by and large were better than the objective trash that followed int heir wake and fundamentally damaged both characters going forward.

 “Mary Jane has always never made sense for Peter Parker or Spider-Man. It was wish fulfillment for a guy that went from puny nerd to crushing multiple samples of poon in a three year period.”

  This sexist bullshit again.

  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and even if that wasn’t true Peter is himself attractive and even if he was ‘average looking’ someone as attractive like MJ would marry someone like Peter all the time in the real world.

 It was their personalities and shared histories that made the relationship make sense.

 To dismiss MJ’s backstory and the inter-personal emotions between them that made the relationship happen is ignorant and a clear sign of either not having read or not having paid attention to the material.

 The hard truth is MJ pretty much ALWAYS made sense for Spider-Man. She wasn’t wish fulfilment she was her own well rounded character who organically developed in tandem with Peter, as Nick Spencer himself has corroborated.

  “Gwen was his equal,”

 How?

 Gwen was more financially affluent than Peter, had a higher social standing afforded by her father’s job and their comparative wealth to Peter.

  If we are talking her brains, Gwen wasn’t anywhere close to Peter’s league. Peter was the kid whipping up web-fluid in his bedroom as a teenager. Gwen was...someone who was in his science class. A statement that could apply to Harry.

  “ Betty was the older woman and Mary Jane was the neighbor’s niece thrown upon him. ”

 Betty was younger than him canonically Stan lee said so in a letters page but even if she wasn’t in the context of the times she wouldn’t been a few years removed from high school and Peter would’ve been a senior. Big whoop.

 Betty’s place has little to do with her age but more to do with just being his first romantic experience.

  As for MJ putting aside how she was retconning to not be his neighbour, that assessment for her character applies to the Silver Age and literally no other period of time beyond it. That was NOT her role in the Bronze age in the 1970s, the DeFalco run of the 80s and obviously not the time during the 1990s or 2000s when they were married.

  WTF is with his toxic notion that a character is not allowed to develop FFS!

  MJ hasn’t been the nieghbour’s blind date for him for the majority of her existence.

   “Mary Jane doesn’t even show up until the classic final page of her debut issue. Sure, it’s one of the best entrances in comic history. However, Mary Jane already feels like a put on intruder into a world that she doesn’t understand.”

  Correct and Norman Osborn wasn’t revealed as the Goblin until 4 issues before that, Gwen Stacy didn’t die until 7 years after that and Venom never showed up until 22 years after that.

  I guess all that shit is irrelevant to the character and mythology of Spider-Man and is just totally optional and superfluous.

  I’m sorry I never realized only the first 4 years and few months of Spider-Man mattered.

  I never realized Venom, Hobgoblin, Carnage, KINGPIN and all the OTHER shit from after ASM #41 were ‘intruders’ in Spider-Man’s world.

  Give me a fucking break.

   “She spends the next year dancing through the comic and pushing off the boys. ”

  And again, the early years of a character don’t = the inherent nature of the character that is never allowed to develop beyond that ever. If it did the X-Men would’t ever need Wolverine or Storm and Dick Grayson being Nightwing wouldn’t matter at all.

  “Peter grows closer to Gwen until she eventually dies, then he’s forced back onto Mary Jane. ”

  No, he and MJ over the course of 2 years of masterful stories by Conway gradually grow closer organically.

  Can you spell ‘Gwen Stan’?

  “Mary Jane rejects him, then he starts associating with related ESU students, Marvel Team-Up guest stars and the Black Cat.”

 That’s YEARS later. Gwen dies in 1973. Peter and MJ hook up in 1974. They break up in like 1978!

  “When all of those go into the crapper, Mary Jane shows up and he proposes. ”

 Oh dear god this is a quintessential example of buying into Marvel propaganda.

 That isn’t the sequence of events.

  First of all MJ showd up DURING his relationship with Felicia.

 THEN she revealed she knew he was Spider-Man and became his confidant.

  THEN peter and Felicia broke up.

  THEN he and MJ began growing closer and closer.

  THEN he had one last fling with Felicia following a seeming rejection by MJ.

 THEN he proposed to MJ.

  All that shit played out between approximately 1983-1987. That’s about FOUR YEARS of publication with THREE titles running simultaneously!

 “Parker gets rejected, then MJ accepts due to a pending marriage in the Spider-Man comic strip.”

 Again no. Yeah the wedding we got occurred due to synching with the newspaper strip but the build up to it was in the works for years by DeFalco and Frenz who were in charge of the book and embellished by Peter David and other people on the satellites. It wasn’t intended as actually leading to them crossing the threshold as man and wife but the build up to make that happen and for it to hypothetically happen anyway still existed.

 “That’s right, kids. Peter and Mary Jane only got married because Marvel wanted to tie it into an unrelated storyline in the national newspaper comic strip.”

 Again that’s true but the build up for to nevertheless make sense in story was still there and still paid off 4 years of character development.

  “The key point of Peter and MJ’s relationship was based on editorial interference. ”

  Peter and MJ’s relationship began in 1973 nearly 15 years before they got married and it occurred out of a sincere desire by the writer to tell a story about grief.

 “Tom DeFalco had actually spent a storyline early explaining how MJ figured out Peter’s identity, but kept it to herself. ”

 Er...no he didn’t. He explained she knew his identity but never explained how.

 And...this kind of egregiously undermines the central argument right here.

  “Then, made a very reasonable argument for why she could like Peter as a friend. ”

 And then along with Frenz his collaborator and Peter David spent the next 3 or so years developing their relationship as clearly much more than friendship so why is this fuckwit taking one line from ASM #259 totally out of context and ignoring all the stuff it led to.

 Oh right....in order to support the argument via lying.

  “Cut to two years later....”

 It was more than 2 years.

  “forced attacks and a second rejected marriage”

 Forced attacked? Alastair Smythe made the natural presumption that MJ was affiliated with Spider-Man based upon his encounter with her in ASM Annual #19.

  “then MJ is cool about dealing with Peter.”

 No. MJ has a change of heart after resolving her commitment issues directly connected to her estrangement from her sister and her bad blood with her father which Peter helped her to resolve in the course of the story where she accepts his proposal.

   Learn to read the damn stories!

  “Why was it such a big deal? Why did we loft MJ up to this status that doesn’t seem deserved?”

  Because it was wholly deserved based upon the actual stories that were written and not the propaganda assessment this article is pushing.

 “The marriage issue is so confusing. It happened in the first Amazing Spider-Man issue I ever read and most of the imagery has come to dominate my opinion of Spidey through the years. Whether it’s the marriage nightmare with the villains attacking the guests or the robbery with Electro; these images are what I see in my head when I see Spidey. Everything after that point was an excuse to force MJ into action, whether it was Venom attacking for the first time or the creepy landlord stalking her. ”

 Putting aside how ‘everything’would have to mean literally 100% of each Spider-Man story ever when there were many issues MJ either didn’t appear or had a small role...why would this be a bad thing?

  You have a supporting character...they are important...they are used within the narrative...this is bad because why again?

  The sexism and hypocrisy is strong with this point because half the time MJ gets shit because she didn’t do ENOUGH in the marriage. But when she is involved within the super side of things in some capacity it’s forced and bad.

  How?

  A super villain knows Peter’s identity and invades his home, targeting someone clone to him who he maybe lives with. That’d been happening since the silver age with Aunt May, Betty Brant and Gwen Stacy.

  As for her getting kidnapped by a stalker, this happens in real life especially to women and famous people and famous women. Spider-Man is a reflection of real life so WTF is the problem with this? HOW is this forced.

  “For next decade, everything became about MJ’s pregnancy, habits and constant fears for Peter.”

  Again, ‘everything’ would need to mean 100% of stories.

 MJ was pregnant for under 2 and a half years, not a decade.

 Not every story revolved around her fears for Peter.

 Her smoking habit lasted for less than 2 years too.

 And there was after all a period of time when Peter wasn’t even the main character of the damn series.

 And of course the notion of ‘everything’ or even ‘most things’ REVOLVING around MJ is bullshit because hate to break it to you but MJ was never the main character, Peter was.

 Everything revolved around him and since she was his wife a lot of stuff revolved around her which is called ‘Godd Wrting’.

 Notice how a shitton of screen time and subplots revolve around the wives of the main characters of drug dealer and mafia boss Walter White and Tony Soprano in the 2 most critically acclaimed TV shows of all time, Breaking Bad and the Sopranos.

  USING supporting characters and giving them screen time is IMPORTANT!

  It’s also the reason people hated Aunt May for decades until JMS started doing this in 2001! That’s near damn 40 years of Aunt May being mostly underutilized and useless to the point where people hated her and wanted her to die. THEN a lot of stories or story moments began involving or revolving around her and opinions changed.

  “The comic was quickly becoming a relationship drama, when we weren’t dealing with fake robot parents, clones, the Superhuman Registration Act or Aunt May getting shot. ”

 a)     The dumbass who wrote this referred to events across the decade following the marriage and then included 2 things AFTER that point in time

b)     This is again a lie it wasn’t a relationship drama

c)     God forbid there be relationship drama in a book that heavily involved soap opera elements and also the real life of the hero who could be you, i.e. someone who has to deal with relationship drama a lot because most people in real life do

 “Enough was enough, as the time came to re-evaluate what MJ brought to the team. ”

 A grounding for Peter. Character development for him. Strong female representation. A human hero who didn’t need to fight villains to be heroic. A realistic flawed and complex human character in a series all about that? A confidant for the main character? An exposition device?

  “The answer was that she is a party girl who worked better as an X Factor.”

  Get fucked and read some comics beyond the Silver Age hack.

MJ STOPPED being a party girl or an X-Factor in 1973!

  “The mystery created by Romita and Lee was long dead and that revealed something didn’t work. ”

 It’s so interesting this author will quote one line from ASM #259 and then totally ignore the rest of the entire issues which developed MJ into a supporting character and confidant who mirrored Peter.

 Because she just didn’t work.

  Get fucked.

  “MJ isn’t meant to be understood by Peter, she’s out of his league.”

 There is no such things as leagues. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and any two people with enough time, compassion and empathy can come to understand one another. Peter came to understand MJ via her tragic backstory which echoed his own.

  “Ultimately, what matters is that Mary Jane stays a viable character in the Spider-Man universe”

 Which she was for over 2 decades and even longer before that when she stopped being a party girl.

  “While she is a personality mis-match, she’s a life-long friend that knows a lot about the man behind the mask. ”

  How are their personalities mis-matched.

  “That kind of grounding is absent outside of a direct family tie to Peter. When MJ makes Mephisto end their marriage during “One More Day”, ”

  GET FUCKED!

  Mj doesn’t MAKE Mephisto do shit. This is yet more of the author swallowing and regurgitating Marvel’s sexist lies. Peter put MJ on the spot with an untenable position then she sweetens Mephisto’s deal. Mephisto made the offer though. MJ didn’t make anyone do shit, especially Mephisto. She just complied with his wishes.

  “she whispers something that we don’t find out until “One Moment in Time”. Unfortunately, this twist is negated by the fact that Peter forces MJ to remember their life together as it was, but the duo chooses to split and move on.”

 Fuck this article even fails to accurately represent the events of the bullshit storyt hat supports their claim.

 MJ’s whisper to Mephisto takes places before he changes time and Peter forcing MJ to remember (more like he forces her to not forget) occurres for unrelated reasons after time has been altered. The two things aren’t directly connected.

  Moreover the duo don’t CHOOSE to split, MJ leaves him.

 At least represent the bs you are defending accurately.

  “It’s a tricky setup, but it’s one that has led Spider-Man back to the promise of the early 1980s”

 It’s not tricky it’s hacky.

 It didn’t lead Spider-Man back to the promise of the 1980s because things weren’t written as well.

 Moreover the early 1980s were when O’Neil was writing Spider-Man and the series sucked shit, why would you want to go back to that?

 In fact even if it didn’t suck why would you want to go BACK to something antiquated as being 25-30 years old FFS!

  “There are multiple people in his life demanding certain things, but they all want to push him forward. Even Mary Jane has setup her own business and works as an outside factor in Peter’s life.”

All of which didn’t require ending the marriage or a deal with Satan to facilitate.

 “The book is “The Amazing Spider-Man” for reason and not “Mary Jane Knows Best” for a reason.”

 Get fucked the book was never that during the marriage either.

 “ Supporting characters work when they have a defined role for our central figure.”

You mean like a life partner, best friend, confidant and life line to normalacy.

 “After a quarter century in the main book, MJ lost that focus and the story suffered.”

 After what feels like a quarter century reading this article I feel like my brain has suffered from the lies and misinformation contained within it.

 “While we have turned back the clock on that matter, something harsh remains. Why can’t a woman be on par with Spider-Man?”

She can be but when she is sexist jackasses like this knock her down and just plain lie, misrepresent or twist things to pretend things are untenably bad when they aren’t.

 “ Much has been made out of his MC2 counterpart Spider-Girl. Sure, it’s his daughter as a legacy character keeping the identity alive, but she manages to find time for her retired father in her book. But, her book keeps getting cancelled and the readership of that title is a tenth of what Amazing Spider-Man pulls down. Point rested.”

 Point no rested.

 Spider-Girl suffered in sales because it was a female led book at a time when that wasn’t something the market was kind to. It suffered because it was a mass market book sold on the direct market. It suffered because it underined Marvel’s desired narrative and was spearheaded by a former EIC, people who traditionally generate a lot of bad blood courtesy of consequent editorial regimes who throw them to the wolves. It suffered because they wanted to promote another character with the name. It suffered because it was an out of continuity title.

 It has shit to do with anything related in this dumpster fire of an article.

  In summary:

  This article is hot trash peddling sexist propaganda in line with a false narrative Marvel wants.

 Kill it with fire.

But what can I expect from a writer who doesn’t even know Eddie Brock wasn’t a photojournalist or thinks Ned Leeds was ‘tricked’ into becoming the Hobgoblin.

[prodigalfollowing]

Okay so before i figure out a show I just want to know this is how i would write the theatre au if it was going to just be a production based story and not an actual like, full blown musical

Gil: the director (obviously) JT: assistant director  Martin: the producer Jessia: stage manager Ainsley: asm Scenic Designer: Mr. David Edrisa: props master/costume designer Malcolm: male lead Dani: female lead

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The thing I love about Otto, he is the guy who...Peter Parker is supposed to be the everyman, and in a lot of ways he is, but he is always dating the most beautiful women in the world...supermodels, Gwen Stacy...And Otto was the guy, I am not a big fan of the late-90s as an era of Spider-Man. There was a character called Stunner who came along and was this big Amazonian woman with super-strength, who was Otto's partner and love-interest and the big reveal was that she was a virtual reality simulation and the real person was an overweight woman in a virtual reality machine. But when Otto finds out he says, I didn't love you for what you looked like, I loved you for your mind...I can’t remember if she [Aunt May]  saw Betty [Brant] as a bit of a Jezebel because she was older

We er...we really need to unpack this. I already did a post where I cited the above as part of why Christos Gage should never have been allowed to write Spider-Man.

But lets dive deeper into the idiocy of this. 

First of all if nothing else the above quote and panels really do prove beyond doubt that Marvel knew what they were doing when they paired Slott and Gage...well sorta. Gage and Slott’s approaches to Spider-Man fundamentally come from the same place of fundamental misunderstanding and regressive beliefs thus they were perfect to work together. It’s just that Gage is a comparatively more competent writer than Slott and therefore Slott should’ve been HIS understudy and fill-in guy not the other way around.

So let’s dive into the less awful bits first. Like Slott Gage doesn’t know his continuity and is too lazy to even google it.

Let’s put aside how Stan Lee himself  stated Betty Brant is younger  than Peter NOT older, the age difference would’ve been insignificant enough (Peter was a senior in high school when he was dating Betty, that’s stated in the issues) so what is this ‘Jezebel’ crap? The fact his mind would go to that rather than just Aunt May thinking MJ would be a better match is at best eyebrow raising.

Moving on, the crux of his assessment of Otto and Stunner’s relationship is way off the mark. Ignoring the fact that Stunner and the reveals made about her occurred in 1994-1995 (so literally not the LATE 1990s at all), he’s totally distorted the story as it unfolded. As such let me show you some of the relevant pages.

Gage’s assessment of Otto and Stunner’s relationship hinges upon two interconnected ideas.

a) Otto was unaware that her stunning appearance was a facade and

b) That he didn’t care upon finding out

As you can see that is a distortion of what the actual stories conveyed.

Otto was always  aware Stunner’s appearance was a facade because he invented the technology that made it possible in the first place!

Otto also began dating her BEFORE she became Stunner. This does indeed support the idea that for him outer beauty is not that relevant. 

For myself I find this idea debatable for a few reasons. Not only in the above images does he directly refer to Stunner as beautiful and the love of such a beautiful woman makes him happy but in the classic Spec #75 Bill Mantlo implies Otto took a fancy to Felicia due to her being attractive.

I grant you it’s far from impossible to interpret that Otto in fact was referring to Stunner’s personality as beautiful and took a shining to Felicia for reasons beyond her looks. In fact I find that interpretation interesting. But both examples hurt the narrative of Otto being a man who doesn’t care about outer beauty, even before you get to the fact that in Superior he was oggling and actively trying to fucking rape Mary Jane! What exactly about her  ‘inner beauty’ led to him doing this?

Then of course you have his relationship with Aunt May which has been treated as genuinely romantic when it’s very unlikely to be that.

The truth is Doc Ock has been inconsistently written over the decades so pinning down that he’s a man who doesn’t care about a woman’s outer beauty in regards to his feelings for them is extremely iffy.

His dynamic with Stunner and Gage’s assessment is even iffier as the pages detailing his ‘courting’ of her prior to her becoming empowered can definitely be interpreted as him actively manipulating her for his own ends. He needed a test subject for his technology, a technology he was hoping could essentially ensure he’d live beyond the demise of his mortal body and mind (which obviously happened in Superior). Angela was that test subject, he either came across or scouted her out with the explicit intention of having her use his machine. 

Because we only get brief flashes of their relationship it’s unclear if he was 100% decieving and manipulating her (as he was to Anna Maria and Mary Jane) or if he was sincere in his affections, at least on some level. Maybe he even started out manipulating her but grew to genuinely care for her before or after her transformation into Stunner.

My point is it’s not this grand moral victory for Otto that he cared for Angela even though she was overweight.

Which brings me to the most damning thing about Gage’s comments.

According to him Otto is better than Peter because Otto didn’t date supermodels or sexy cat burglars.

Much like all his work with Otto before and during his Superior run, Gage practically wanks off the character.

You see Otto is ‘different. He’s not like ‘those other guys’, or more specifically ‘that Peter Parker guy’. HE doesn’t date supermodels or sexy cat burglars. 

He just keeps the sexy cat burglars as his ‘guests’ that he won’t let leave his lair, will date by deception and attempt to rape the supermodels and will probably manipulate vulnerable overweight women for his own selfish scientific pursuits and date them sincerely once they’ve transformed into wrestling divas.

Of course in reality, romantic and sexual attraction is something none of us can help and we are going to feel about whoever however we’re going to feel, and the harsh truth is a lot (but not all) of the time outer appearences do matter, or at least they do when it comes to initial attractions. Often in healthy relationships they matter less as time goes by, but are rarely totally irrelevant. Nobody, of any sex, gender or sexuality, is shallow for on some level taking looks into account for how they feel about a romantic or sexual partner, at least on some level.

In Peter’s case Gage’s assessment (which synchs up with Slott’s) of him as shallow is so asinine because he clearly doesn’t just care about looks. In fact semi-famously in the classic Romita stories his initial attraction for Mary Jane fades after he (incorrectly, and unfairly) starts to view her as shallow and little more than her looks.

No doubt about it that chicks’s as pretty as a pumpkin seed...and just about as shallow.

ASM #45*

Peter late of course dumps  Black Cat in part because she doesn’t love him for who he is, and only cares about him as Spider-Man. He wants someone who will share a life with him, whom he can connect with. If he was only interested in her because she was sexy why would he do that?

And of course this is to say nothing of the absolute denigration Gage’s comments pay to both MJ and her relationship with Peter.

I’ve felt this way for awhile now but to be blunt, if a writer ever just sums up MJ as a ‘supermodel’ I’m going to presume they either don’t understand her character and/or hold some messed up opinions. Putting aside how MJ hasn’t a model (super or otherwise) for most of her history it’s just messed up that everything else about her is dismissed in favour of pushing that profession and treating it as a summation of who she is as a character.** 

Because whenever creators or characters sum up MJ as a supermodel what they really mean is ‘she’s just a shallow, pretty face’.  Which is so facepalm worthy ironic because the crux of Mary Jane’s entire character since The Death of Gwen Stacy in 1973  has been that people THINK she is just a shallow pretty face but she in fact absolutely isn’t!

And aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the stuff that is relevant to why she isn’t is literally the reason Spider-Man fell in love with her in the first place. All the guilt, regret, insecurities, bravery, sense of responsibility and inner strength that subverted what we thought we knew about her, that’s the shit that her and Spider-Man’s romance is built upon. 

How the fuck does anyone miss that! It’s not even like you need to read deeply to see it, just read a Wikipedia entry!

It isn’t the crux of Felicia’s character, but the same applies to her. What jackass in this day and age (or indeed since the 1980s) honestly thinks Black Cat is nothing but sex appeal? There is an entire goddam Black Cat ongoing series demonstrating she is more than that! Gage is a goddam relic at this point!

On the flipside of course is poor Anna Maria.

Once upon a time Anna Maria was the best character in Spider-Man. Back in the dark days of 2013 and 2014 when Superior was going strong, MJ was out of the picture and the best Spider-Man books on the stand were about a kid replacing a dead AU Peter Parker and Peter Parker’s clone, Anna Maria was a stand out.

A new character with a personality, likable, a new love interest for ‘Spider-Man’ that on paper made a certain amount of sense even though the circumstances were disgusting. And on top of that she provided a dash of representation that was handled in an appropriate way.

As time went by she gradually devolved as a character and went way off the rails to the point where now she’s being a misogynistic asshole to other women by judging them for their looks. It’s so fucked up because she herself has been judged for her looks, just in a very different way whilst the likes of those ‘shallow’ women she cites have never said a bad word to her or to my knowledge anyone else on the basis of how they were born. 

Good job Gage, this is probably the last time we’re going to see Anna Maria and you’ve fully transitioned me from a guy who kind of wanted her to stick around in some capacity as a regular supporting player for Peter into a guy who would be delighted for her to forgotten and never appear again. 

Fuck Gage.

Fuck Superior

Fuck the entire asinine, mishandled, clusterfuck of an era that outstayed it’s welcome circa December 2012!

*In fairness he does bring up he might just be thinking ill of MJ because he’s upset about other things. See, THAT is a more even handed and on point depiction of Peter Parker being flawed. But Stan Lee being a better writer than Gage or Slott shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

**Not to mention ‘supermodel’ shouldn’t even be used as shorthand for ‘shallow person’ in the first place. Are supermodels not people too? Are they incapable of being intelligent or having worth outside of their looks? I mean FFS we live in a world where this (starting at 3:37) really happened:

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I respect that there is a need and desire for greater diversity within superherodom and that includes the Spider-Man franchise.

 However my attitude to this is that we should try to avoid creating yet more derivative spider characters to dilute the brand since we’ve already got so many already.

 BUT utilizing the ones we have is a different matter.

 Say we want to have a queer spider themed character. And say we don’t want that character to be female because there are a lot less queer male characters than queer female character knocking about.

 So here’s my suggestion.

 Reintroduce Ollie Osnick and establish that he’s gay.

For those who don’t know Ollie Osnick is a minor character from Spider-Man’s history. He began life as an overweight teenage Doc Ock fanboy even inventing his own homemade versions of Doc Ock’s tentacles. When he got in trouble for trying to rob a toy store Spidey caught up to him and lectured him.

Inspired by Spidey he then abandoned his love for Doc Ock and became Spider-Kid instead, altering his home made Doc Ock tentacles into spider legs. He was understandably played for laughs, exemplified when he joined Toad of the Brotherhood and the obscure Daredevil villain Leapfrog in a team called the Misfits.

Before his high school graduation he’d lost a lot of weight and gone grim and gritty, making a tech suit to go along with his legs and adopting the name Steel Spider.

He was last seen during Civil War 2006 where Venom literally bit off his arm.

Here’s why I think Ollie as a character could work.

 As we know there is a certain amount of...contention shall we say that arises when an established character believed to be straight is written as queer. See Iceman for a recent example.

 The advantage of going in this direction with Ollie is that he’s not that well known, he hasn’t had many appearances and his love life isn’t something that many people are particularly emotionally invested in.

 Yes he did have a girlfriend he was in a pretty serious relationship with. Her name was Jane Lane and before she graduated high school she was disabled by a stray gunshot. This actually inspired Ollie to change his identity and become Steel Spider. He then helped her recover trying to raise funds to send her to a spinal specialist. She only appeared in like three stories ever (two of which were back ups) and whilst their relationship was kind of cute it’s not something so vital to this very obscure minor character that it’d be that big of a deal to take Ollie in a direction where they would no longer be in a relationship. It especially makes sense when you consider they were just high school sweethearts.

 Jane Lane though as both a disabled character and someone who inspired Ollie into heroism could still be an important person in Ollie’s life even if they aren’t romantically involved anymore. I’d see her as his best friend if nothing else, and being disabled she could provide a little bit more representation.

Ollie as a character unto himself offers something a little bit different from the other spider heroes. Firstly he has no powers at all, being purely tech based and not even to Stark levels of technology. He’s something of a homemade superhero which touches upon the down to earth normalacy inherent to Spider-Man’s world.

 He was also someone inspired into heroism by Spidey like other characters (Miles Morales, Toxin, etc) but as a fun quirk he began as an admirer of a villain. He actually shares some traits of both characters beginning as overweight and somewhat arrogant but also at heart a good natured nerdy kid like Peter Parker. In fact ASM #263 outright tries to draw parallels between him and teenage Peter Parker, though there are important differences. He’s actually a lot more like a real person trying to be a superhero might be like, right down to a crappy store purchased superhero costume.

 In regards to his arm you could go one of two ways. Either give him a robotic arm to showcase his tech genius, or if you want to be really ambitious commit to him living as an amputee but being a superhero inspite of that. And not a hero the way Flash Thompson was as Venom wherein he was an amputee but his powers made it so that he basically wasn’t. Ollie’s robotic tentacles mean he can compensate for just having one arm but they don’t just solve the problem outright.

 Off the top of my head I have this idea of him relating more to Jane now that they are both disabled in their own ways and the male medical professional helping him cope with and adjust to his new life is someone he starts to develop unexpected feelings for. This causes friction between him and Jane and they break up but eventually decide to remain friends and support one another as friends nevertheless. Coping with his disability and recognizing Jane’s own struggles with being disabled it inspires Ollie to not give up his heroic endeavours and he tweaks his tech (maybe Jane helps him do that) and continues to fight crime as Steel Spider.

 Which if you also decide to make him overweight (because, like Doc Ock, his powers don’t really require him to be all that athletic) would make him an overweight, disabled, queer superhero.

 Which I admit...might be overdoing it.

 Other ideas I have off the top of my head include somehow working the Iron Spider outfit into Ollie’s story. It’s too obvious of an idea NOT to do. Obviously he’d have to confront Doc Ock at some point, or maybe Carolyn Trainer, someone else inspired by Doc Ock. Maybe have him fight the spider slayers as he’s the tech based Spider-Man and Spider Slayers are all about tech.

 Now could he support a series on his own? I doubt that because honestly as unique as he is he still doesn’t have that much of a hook as a hero the way ‘Spider-Man of the future’ does in 2099’s case or ‘Spider-Man’s dead girlfriend but as a spider super hero herself’ does in Spider-Gwen’s case.

 BUT here is my suggestion. Form a team of characters comprised of these lesser known Spider-Man characters. Rocket Racer, Prowler, Phil Urich as Goblin Knight, the Puma, maybe even Black Cat and Pat Mulligan/Toxin. As an idea why not have them be under the employ of Silver Sable herself, sort of a US based division of her Wild Pack. Whilst individually these characters might flounder as a team there are character dynamics you could explore and they stand a better chance of surviving the market place.

  Regardless my point is as a character Ollie is an established Spider-Man derivative character, who already is fairly unique among other spider derivatives and as a character unto himself has some potential. So why not bring him back, give him a push and whilst you are at it yeah, reveal that he’s queer at the same time.

 By doing this you don’t further dilute the Spider-Man brand by creating an AU Peter Parker or another person with Spider-Man’s powers but both happen to be queer. Ollie if nothing else could be the queer spider hero but with so much more to him beyond that.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I’ve been thinking recently about how if I had absolute autonomy I’d reorganize the various Spider-Man titles and to a lesser extent the Marvel Universe titles as a whole. Thought I might as well share.

 Putting aside stuff like price point, distribution and accessibility, the main things I’d do is try and make things better structured and easy to follow.

 Part of that would be creating a fairly meaty recap page on the interior of every comic so that ANYONE can pick up a comic book cold and read it no matter the title or issue number. I’d advertise that feature on the front of every cover.

 I’d create 4 distinct categories for every Marvel title, each denoted by a different colour banner and label atop every cover. These would be:

 Prime Marvel Universe: Red with white text literally saying ‘Prime Marvel Universe’. Obviously this is the ongoing progressing adventures of the Marvel universe characters.

Marvel Legends: White with red text. This universe would contain classical and iconic versions of Marvel’s most famous characters. Each individual title would be not only out of continuity but also self contained. That is to say the Peter Parker of ‘Marvel Legends Spider-Man’ would be unrelated to the one who might guest star in ‘Marvel Legends Avengers’. You just follow that particular Marvel legends title and nothing else.

Cinematic Marvel Universe: Silver with black text. This universe would function identically to the Marvel Legends universe with each title being self-contained but instead of classical versions of each character it would be based upon the MCU versions. These would not be in continuity with the MCU but rather be akin to those 90s Disney shows that spun off from their movies. You could pick up this brand’s version of Iron Man and I’d feel like the MCU version but it would be telling is own stories and have only loose continuity allowing it to arbitrarily change as necessary when the next instalment of his films come out.

Alternate Marvel Universes: Blue with white text. Literally any comic or title which takes place outside of the regular Marvel Universe. This would cover ongoings like Spider-Gwen but also one shots like What If.

 As for what I’d put in each of these 4 corresponding catagories...

 Cinematic Marvel Universe

Literally every movie and Netflix show would have their own comic.

 Marvel Legends

Spider-Man: Basically Spider-Man in High School

Peter Parker: Spider-Man: Spider-Man in college

X-Men: First Class: the Original Five X-Men

X-Men: Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine maybe Kitty Pryde. Basically the classic Claremont/Byrne X-Men

Hulk: Bruce Banner as the lonely man wandering America

Captain America

Iron Man

Thor

Avengers

Fantastic Four: Obviously based more on the Lee/Kirby era

Heroes for Hire: 1970s goodness with Luke Cage and Iron Fist

Defenders: Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer and Doctor Strange

Ghost Rider: Johnny Blaze

Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD: Obviously based upon Steranko’s stuff

Any other really, really classic or iconic Marvel character and series you could think of

  Now for the big ones

 Prime Marvel Universe

Amazing Spider-Man: I’d have this come out 3-4 times a month but with the caveat that there would be 2 writers working on it simultaneously. Essentially it’d be like having 2 ongoings publishing twice a month but they would just be ASM. I was considering having a title exclusively for Peter’s supporting cast or Untold Tales but I figured that with 3-4 issues per month you could cover all that stuff pretty easily, even if its just back up stories. Meanwhile you get the benefit of not relying upon just ONE writer’s talents for ASM to ride or fall. Plus it’s less confusing. All you need to do is pick up ASM and you got everything you need to follow Spider-Man

 Spider Women: I’ve spoken about this before but it’d basically be the Birds of Prey of the Marvel Universe starring Madam Web/Cassandra Web, Spider Woman/Jessica Drew, Arachne/Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, Arana/Anya Corazon and Silk/Cindy Moon

 Superior Foes of Spider-Man: Comedic adventures starring Boomerang, Beetle, Speed Demon, Overdrive, but given how iconic he is I’d drop Shocker but replace him with Grizzly and Gibbon

 Silver Sable and the Outlaws: Silver Sable assembles a team of Spider-Man characters who have either been reforming villains or else been morally ambigious and they’d go on mercenary missions alongside her in and out of the USA. These characters would be Black Cat, Prowler, Rocket Racer, Cardiac, Sandman, the Puma and Phil Urich/Goblin Knight

 Scarlet Spiders: Ben Reilly and Kaine’s buddy cop adventures featuring a back up strip about Ben’s lost years.

  Marvel Alternate Universes

Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimate Spider Woman: Miles adventures continue back in the Ultimate Universe with Ultimate Jessica Drew starring in some back up strips

Spider-Gwen: More of the same

Spider-Girl: pick up where the series left off in Spider-Girl the End and explain away Spider-Verse later

Spider-Man 2099: Miguel back in the future

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane: More of the same from Sean mcKeever

Venom: This would be it’s own universe similar to 616 but with an emphasis upon the symbiote characters. Agent Venom/Flash would headline and a back up strip would rotate adventures starring Eddie Brock as Anti-Venom, Carnage, Toxin, flashback stories with other people as Venom, any other symbiote related characters

Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows: More of the same

Superior Spider-Man and the Spider-Verse:  I’ve spoken before about how I’d handle Superior Spider-Man going forward. But to reiterate I’d make it clear that Doc Ock and the lead character of Superior Spider-Man are different entities. The entity which was once Superior Spider-Man would get his own body and be exiled to another universe where he supplants that world’s version of Spider-Man and picks up from Goblin Nation onwards. He’d be the headliner but it’d be an anthology with other stories rotating adventures starring Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man India, Spider characters from the Mangaverse, Spider-Ham and other such characters

 What If: You get it

  I’d also invest in a trade program designed to make the history of the Spider Verse easy to access

 Spider-Man Classics: This series would take EVERY Spider-Man story barring flashback tales like Untold Tales of Spider-Man and organize them into a reading order of linear volumes. So you could pick up volume 1 and it’d start with Amazing Fantasy #15 but as you keep going issues of Spectacular, Web, guest appearances, mini-series, one shots and so on would show up. But rather than you tracking these stories down yourself and figuring out what order to read them in the trades would have you covered, including exposition text where necessary. The aim of these volumes would be to be comprehensive and make things easy to follow.

  Amazing Spider-Man: This could go one of two ways. Basically if you began ASM over with a new volume then the trades would start there and just keep going indefinitely. Alternately if you didn’t do yet another new #1 you would just make an issue of Volume 4 a new jumping on point and start these trades from the start of Volume 4. Either way the idea is that you read the Classics trades to catch up to these trades which are the modern adventures.

 Spider-Man Flashbacks: A trade series collecting untold tales and other flashback stories with text informing you when exactly they take place in Spider-Man’s history. I’d make this a separate collection because the problem with placing them chronologically with the rest of Spider-Man’s stories is that you spoil stuff for the future and also get distruptive on account of drastically different storytelling styles between different eras

  Venom and the Symbiotes: A trade collection collecting EVERY symbiote related story ever. It’d start with Secret Wars and then keep going including the 90s Venom minis, the Flash Venom stuff, Carnage, Toxin, etc. Once they are caught up I’d launch a separate trade series for the AU Venom series I mentioned above.

 Goblins: The same thing but for Goblin related characters like Norman Osborn, Hobgoblin, Phil Urich, etc

Doctor Ocotpus: the Superior Spider-Man: A trade series chronicling every Doctor Octopus appearances from Slott’s run leading into the AU stuff I spoke about above.

2099/Spider-Man 2099: A trade series chronicling everything that happened in the 2099 universe leading into the stuff from Superior onwards and into the series I listed above.

Spider-Gwen: Every Spider-Gwen appearance including Spider-Verse, Web Warriors, etc

Ultimate Spider-Man: Peter Parker: Every USM Peter Parker story

Ultimate Spider-Man: Miles Morales: Every Miles story leading off from Death of Spider-Man up through to the present day

Possibly Ultimate Spider Woman trades

Spider Women: Literally every appearance in chronological order of the characters starring in Spider Women

Black Cat: Every BC appearance leading into Silver Sable and the Outlaws

Silver Sable: See above

Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends: A anthology trade collecting appearances from the other characters to star in Silver Sable and the Outlaws plus other spin-off characters like Alpha

And of course every individual series would have it’s own trade set too.

 I’d also invest in creating what would amount to ‘playlists’ on Marvel Unlimited. People could click on any individual character and get either a publication reading list or a reading list which follows their personal chronology.

 By doing this a reader could if they so chose just read every appearance of Spider-Man with flashback stories placed in their correct places in his history too if they so chose.