Down came the rain

Broke: Acknowledging that a character who is an objectively terrible person is also a complex and intentionally well thought out individual with different levels of nuance you can empathize with in some ways while not in others is immediately “woobifying” or “poor little meow meowifying” them.

Woke: “This character is a bad person” and “this character is still a person” are two statements that can, should and do coexist and admitting that they exhibit nuance and depth and are more than just their bad actions doesn’t immediately excuse or condone their bad actions or mean that you’re ignoring or trying to soften the canonical version of the character.

Bespoke: That’s the whole point, that’s always been the point, to be made to empathize with horrible people so you can understand that they can be anyone, that bad people can be likeable, can be interesting, can be human, are human, and it’s scary to think about all the ways they’re just like you and all the ways they’re just like everything you hate, forcing the use of critical skills in media analysis, forcing a confrontation of the duality of man.

Whatever Level is Above Bespoke: But sometimes, yeah, sure, maybe they are a poor little meow meow, what are you gonna do, get a lawyer

Irondad fic ideas #148

You know those homework assignments where you have to interview someone in your family and then write an essay about their responses? Fic where Peter's class is told to interview their dad / a father figure in their life. 

Peter decides to interview Tony. But, he doesn't want his class to accuse him of lying, and he definitely doesn't want Tony to know what the assignment is about. 

So for Tony, Peter makes it seem like the assignment is just to interview anyone. Then, he carefully chooses questions to ask that are domestic and personal enough to avoid any mention of superheroes, celebrities, or so on. The few details that do slip through he just leaves out of his final essay.

For the class problem, Peter solves it by referring to Tony in the essay exclusively as "dad"

Unfortunately for Peter, the teacher then announces a part 2 to the assignment. Right after collecting the essays, the teacher says they will now need to bring the people they interviewed to school for their presentations

Peter has pretty much decided to not even mention it to Tony and just say his dad is busy. But then Flash has to open his big mouth. 

He accuses Peter of just making his assignment up, loudly reminding the class that he's an orphan. Peter clarifies that this father figure thing is a new development, but now the teacher looks suspicious

Peter is going to have to ask Tony to come to his school. And he's going to have to explain why the class will be full of kids and their fathers

2023 reads

The Spider And Her Demons

YA Australian urban fantasy/horror

about a Malaysian-Chinese girl who’s half spider-demon, just trying to keep her head down and survive high school

when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl at school, they strike up a strange friendship and she starts to learn more about herself and the supernatural world

aroacespec/sapphic ish

"You're here eating SOUP?! I just fought my way through the stinkiest, dirtiest, coldest giants to find you, and you are here eating soup. Behen, I am going to scream."

Marvel Voices Infinity Comic #77

There is no reading of a text that is so boring as the overtechnical sort that leads to completely serious conclusions like, "Morgoth created rot and decay and hobbits love mushrooms, so hobbits ought to be dedicated to Morgoth." Like I hated reading comprehension tests in school same as everyone but some people really needed more.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Based on the author and characters' attitude towards what he describes as "rot and decay" and the author and characters' attitude towards mushrooms, do you think they classify mushrooms under the broader category of "rot and decay?" Why or why not?

(Research question) Mycology (the study of mushrooms) was considered a branch of botany until 1969. When was the book published? When was the author in school? When did he die?

Based on your answers to the previous two questions, do you believe that, in the fictional universe the story is set in, Morgoth is responsible for the existence of mushrooms?

(Bonus question) Do you hate fun?

I think it’s be funny to have a Spider-Man that is genuinely just a kid, not like a teenager or a kid who understands the gravity of his abilities but a kid who does heroics simply because that’s cool to a kid.

The gimmick is that the villains think it’s a gimmick and Spider-Man(?) fucks with them by acting like a kid to make ‘em feel bad or embarrass them only for them to realize he’s a literal child due to a forced team up where they like offer him a brewski afterwards and he’s legitimately like “Mr I am 9 years old, I just do this cause my aunt can’t take me to the park every afternoon.” And they grill him on adult things and he sits there just blanking cause he’s fucking 9.

Female wolf spider, I believe genus Pardosa (the “thin-legged wolf spiders”)

Wolf spiders have a reputation for being huge, so for context most of the Pardosa spp. I run into around here are NOT a very intimidating size (though I suppose opinions may vary re: what qualifies as a “big” spider lol). Here’s a non-macro reference:

CW - mind-blowing lack of critical thinking skills, spider slander, etc.

what in the HOT HELL is this (blurring out the user cause I'm not here to start drama)

Bored??? the poor thing looks emotionally damaged.

he finally got rescued by the people who abandoned him for months, who he was willing to be tortured and die for, and he had to watch his brother die because of it. not only did he die, but he died in front of him, for him. spider and Lo'ak were the ones holding him up as he bled out (we can't see from the angle, but he also probably held pressure on the exit wound).

he saved his dad (which I won't be discussing why I don't blame him for that, cause I don't care enough) who cared for him more in a couple of months then the Sully's did for him in 16 years. he has no idea what he's supposed to do, what's expected of him. he feels out of place in what should be his family. he's never been included in family life with them and now he's at the funeral of his brother. the women who almost killed him literally 5 feet away.

he looks like he's dissociating, numb, cause I don't know, he's a kid who just want through a shit ton of traumatizing events back to back. he looks hesitant because he knows one wrong move, one ounce of perceived disrespect could get him killed.

he looks like a traumatized 16 years old reacting to his brothers death. cut him some slack. there is so much going through his head, he's just floating through the motions.

if you think he's being disrespectful, check yourself, cause that's genuinely terrifying.

I think Hobie is scarily smart but also not at all books-smart. He can understand really complicated stuff (see: him literally building a dimension watch from scratch) but also his education sucked majorly and he has no idea how everything works/is called "properly".

He knows pretty well what he can do, but he also consistently underestimates just how much that is, compared to most people.

Children of Time Rant

Tldr: Read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, it's very good. Also sentient spiders have five names apparently, and there are personalities associated with said names.

Just read through Children of Time (by Adrian Tchaikovsky), started reading Children of Memory, and promptly realised it was the third book and not the second. So now I'm waiting for Children of Ruin (book 2) to arrive on Amazon. Did I start CoT about three days ago? Yes. But I need more spider content. Gimme the spider-Human interactions.

I love how we get five names for those spiders, and one is only used once, but I still remember it because we get five names and they are: Portia (always our PoV), Bianca (always Portia's friend), Fabian (male), Viola (important side character), and Osric. Osric is mentioned once and it is to tell us that he died.

But like I love how we get around 2000 years worth of spiders and still we have four names in use. Going into the characters (traits associated with names) in more depth: (oh and when I refer to anything relating to gender, the Portiids basically have "reverse sexism:biology edition")

They're always powerful and always smart, the leaders of their society. Fabian is often very outspoken for a male, and he's smart, often a pioneer of technology, which is notable because---again---he's male. Bianca and Portia sometimes switch up, but they swap between scientist and warrior, and are close friends. Fabian is often one of their assistants. Viola is always a high-ranking spider, influential, but a side character. These are basically just their roles and not personalities because those do flip-flop.

Anyways, little rant over. Read the book(s). They're good. Or at least the first one, haven't read the second yet.

first sketch in my new sketchbook! i’ve been on a spidey kick recently so i had to draw my boy

Going into The Fight (trying to sleep without jumpscaring myself awake over nothing (in which 'nothing' is spiders, hornets, or most recently a creepy closet door that opens, I guess? that's what got me last night. twice)) wish me luck

Why are all of your links in pinned post broken I'm frothing at the mouth let me in let me see the secrets let me in let me in let me in let me in let me in

I have no idea, they work for me, but they don’t work for some people… you can try manually searching for the tags which title the arcs, and either scroll to the end and then read back up or tack on the chrono function yourself. It’s build into the links, which might be what doesn’t work for you. Recurring characters also have their own tags.

I’ll tag this post with all the arc tags, so you can click on them, as the search function is terrible.

Of course, a lot of the lore is actually on discord now!