Cosmo's Moonstruck (Strike)

Cosmo's Moonstruck (Strike)

I simply cannot picture AI ever coming up with the delightful original screenplay (written by John Patrick Shanley) for the film Moonstruck (1987). Perhaps those in the AMPTP can heed Loretta Castorini's words and change the way they do things. What the WGA and the SAG-AFTRA are asking is not unreasonable. But then again, Loretta inherited her wisdom from her mother and Rose Castorini was a smart cookie...

Cosmo Castorini: I have no money.

Rose Castorini: You're as rich as Roosevelt. You're just cheap, Cosmo.

Hear that studio executives?

I hope the AMPTP won't wait until the moon is full and bright to make up. Even in darkness, the path forward is quite clear: compensation and safe treatment assist creativity and productivity and everyone benefits.

To those that say well, the studios could use AI and then have a writer polish it up:

You're welcome. Tasm!spider/peter is my fave, but writing a lead with the 'tacklebox' and helper mindset, etc was what intrigued me to see where it was leading and it went somewhere rather nice. Also, thanks for responding to the ask, I look forward to reading more whenever you post it.

You're just trying to work, but Spider-Man always has to drop by and keep you company.

or, reader is a sort-of-hero doing small, meaningful work to keep the city safe. Spider-Man can't turn down the opportunity to keep them company (i.e. tease them relentlessly).

A/N: maintenance-type heroics are something i love, so this 'verse is very dear to me. no i don't know how they transition from reader knowing spidey to reader knowing peter to reader knowing spidey is peter, but that's a problem for another fic

WC: ~1.2k

(warnings: is this the first one with no warnings? i think it is. lots of pining and teasing)

Spider-Man drops down so close to you that you can smell him – cheap laundry detergent and hot asphalt, like he’s been hanging out on a sunny rooftop. You flinch and drop your tackle box of spell components, but Spider-Man leans easily into your space to catch it. Worst of all, he takes one of your hands in his and wraps your fingers around the handle again. 

Any chance of you maintaining a cool, relaxed exterior is lost when he squeezes your wrist – gently, so gently, achingly gently considering you’ve watched him juggle cars with those hands – before letting you go.

“Whoa, sorry,” he says, so good-humored it gives the impression he’s laughing even though he’s not. “Didn’t mean to drop in on you unannounced.”

“Terrible,” you announce automatically, shaken out of your love-struck stupor by his horrible pun. “Zero out of ten.”

Shoulders drooping dramatically, Spider-Man groans and lets himself fall backwards just to catch himself in a one-handed back handspring and pop back up in front of you with a flourish. You get the impression he might be grinning and raising his eyebrows at you behind the inscrutable mask. Biting down a smile, you try to focus on your spellwork again. 

You don’t have a real-hero job like his, but you like to think what you do matters. Almost every community has a little bit of magic, natural or otherwise, woven into it, and New York is no exception. Tens of thousands of people like you have been dripping little dollops of magic into sidewalks, trees, buildings, even the subway, for so long it makes your head spin if you look at the overlapping lines of spellwork too closely. After all this time, it’s a framework that keeps a lot of the really scary magical stuff to a minimum, but it takes some maintenance. 

Unfortunately for you, sometimes following the trail of decaying magic that needs some bolstering leads you to rooftops, construction sites, and other variously dangerous places for someone without superhuman agility. Even more unfortunate, Spider-Man swept you off a ledge exactly one time and decided he would be bugging – the first of his many horrible jokes – you every chance he got, which is insanely frequent considering how busy you know he is. 

It was nice, at first, having someone who could keep you company in some of the scarier maintenance locations or help you safely reach dangerous areas. The problem with Spider-Man is that he gets more likable with every second he spends in your general area, and the problem with that is you’re much too busy to be tongue-tied in front of a local superhero when you’re supposed to be working. 

Puffing out a put-upon sigh, Spider-Man jumps up to sit on the ledge next to you. “Yeah, okay, that one was pretty weak. Still made you smile, so I count it as a win.”

“It didn’t make me smile,” you say, smiling. You swallow your next words before you can add something stupid like, you’re what made me smile. 

“Sure, whatever you say, Gandalf.” He swings his legs a little and tucks his chin into his neck to, you’re guessing by the angle of his lenses, scrutinize you. “Hey, you got the stain out of those!”

You glance down at your favorite jeans. After a mishap while straightening out some tangled arcane webs in an abandoned subway tunnel, you ended up with splotches of nasty gray-green oil staining the denim. He had been almost as distraught as you were, immediately hooking an arm around you to escort you to what was apparently his most trusted laundromat. And now here you were, stains impossibly lifted by a stern-voiced and kind-faced woman behind the counter. 

Yet another thing that Spider-Man effortlessly saved.

“I didn’t do anything. Mrs. Marcus got the stain out.” Risking a glance up at him, you add a quiet, “Thank you for introducing us.”

“The way I see it, people who take care of the city should be taken care of by the city, you know what I mean? And you and Mrs. M are vital cornerstones of the city, so. Iconic team-up.”

You can hear the smile in Spider-Man’s voice. You wish you could see the smile, but that’s not really in the cards for you, is it?

“You’re so,” you start, shaking your head and finding that you don’t know how to finish the sentence. He’s leaning in awfully close, big blank lenses zeroed in on you. You settle on, “Silly.”

“I’m silly?” Spider-Man asks, delighted. 

“You are!” 

“Tell me about it, toots,” he says, affecting a really terrible old-timey accent.

Dipping the fingers of one hand out of mundane reality and into the whirring whimsicality of arcana, you hook around the frayed line you’ve been following all day and then pause awkwardly. Like he’s reading your mind, Spider-Man hops down and takes your component box from you. He flips the latch and then opens it, holding it out at just the right height for you to use your free hand to pick out the little bits of magical paraphernalia that you need. 

Despite his propensity for whip-fast conversation and endless teasing, Spider-Man is actually really good company when you’re working. It’s like he knows exactly when you need a few seconds of quiet to really focus on something, and he also has a preternatural gift for guessing what you need and providing it before you even really know what would help. It more than makes up for the way he makes you feel fluttery and flushed just by existing in your general vicinity. 

The world narrows in focus while you finish up your mending, but Spider-Man is still right next to you when you slip back into reality. His mask twitches a little near the cheeks when you blink up at him. 

“Hey there,” Spider-Man says, steadying you with a warm hand under your elbow. “All done?”

“All done,” you confirm, trying not to think about how he must give really incredible hugs. 

“Am I gonna get to buy you dinner, or are you cooking tonight?”

Just like that, he has you flustered and smiling again. Taking the component box from him and shaking your head, you resist the urge to shove at his chest like some high schooler just learning how to flirt. You’re trying not to flirt with him at all, but you’ll settle for not flirting badly. 

“You’re not buying me dinner, Spider-Man.”

He slaps a hand over his heart like he’s affronted. “Back to full-naming me? I thought I was officially your Spidey? Just for that offense, I should be able to buy you dinner.”

You had caved and started calling him Spidey, but you’ll die of mortification before ever calling him my Spidey. 

“That’s really not how this works,” you inform him, and then, sensing you’re not going to win, propose, “How about I buy you dinner, then? For helping and keeping me company.”

“Please, I should be paying for the pleasure of your company.” He holds out a hand and meets you in the middle. “Final offer, you can buy your own dinner, but I’m buying dessert.”

Even without dessert, you would be walking away with a rare treat – it’s not every day that you get to see Spider-Man roll up the mask and reveal his pretty mouth and lovely chin. 

You shake his hand and manage not to swoon at the way his fingers close around yours. “Deal.”

Chuck Dickens Has His Day In The Sun

It was the best of times...

It was the worst of times...

And somewhere on a sun-scorched L.A. sidewalk, I really hope there is a card carrying guild writer who is not suffering from heat stroke and manages to consider a modern day tale of two cities movies set amidst the strife and sorrow of modern day life and the class struggles and the gender struggles, and the race struggles that continue to exist. Wherein Chuck Dickens, producer, stepping outside in the scorching sun; runs across his old pal Carton. Carton, (whose nickname derives from his current state of homelessness), can barely recall what life was like before and during the year of the strike when the answers seemed so obvious and yet "it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness." While Dickens buys him lunch and they chat, and Carton thinks of one on his own: it was the age of conspicuous cruelty.

Is the tale I just constructed obscenely obvious (as to its origin) and didactic in its manner? Yep. But that's because I'm not the talent; the writers are. The artists are. Not the machines, but the humans. The ones who come up with the stories that make us laugh and cry and rage and wonder and most importantly: think, consider, imagine the possibilities.

I cannot imagine life without the tapestry of human experiences that continue to be woven as we speak. Pay the humans who help us discover perspectives, who help provide services and goods that improve our lives, and whose labor and efforts have value beyond numbers and machines. The choice to have done the better thing is sometimes made too late and the Age of Regret begins.

This is an excellent beginning. Puns are the honey on my biscuit, let me tell you. Can't wait to read more!

Golden Hour

Pairing: Professor!Peter Parker x F!Reader

Summary: You are a graduate student working on your master's in journalism to get your dream job. Your adviser convinces you to take a beginner photography class to boost your resume, even though you swear you don't have an artistic bone in your body. Turns out, your professor, Peter Parker, is charming, patient, and handsome. Will something else develop in class besides film?

Warnings: Eventual highly inappropriate professor-student relationship, but no significant age gap, reader is already an established journalist looking to get her master's degree. Each chapter will have individual warnings. This chapter is pretty tame aside from some curse words and mention of wine consumption.

Author's Note: I have crawled out of my depression pit and I bring you this! Many thanks to @loveroftoomanyfandoms for beta reading! Divider by @firefly-graphics

Chapter One: Syllabus Day

“I have got to start using that gym membership,” you panted as you continued hauling yourself and your backpack up the second of four flights of stairs to your class. You weren’t sure what possessed you to sign up for an 8am class on the fourth floor of a building with only a freight elevator, but here you were regretting it. You finally reached your floor and took a moment at the top of the stairs to catch your breath before going to find your classroom. 

“At least today is syllabus day,” you thought as you took a seat towards the back of the classroom. 

Continue Reading on AO3

Putting up "WELCOME TO OHOWDYO" billboards in western Ohio to add a different perspective to the dialogue.

@prometheusascendant

putting up “HELL IS FAKE” billboards in ohio to start a dialogue

Being bad at dishonesty (with someone you admire or are friends with) is actually a rather charming quality and I love this exchange. I mean, honesty is best, but I also understand the nature of NDAs and other realities of the world. I'm also not including the little harmless embellishments we tell those we love.

Lin Manuel Miranda and (impressions about) Andrew Garfield for Variety.

"Shut up! Whaaat! Shut up!"