the way Normal and Scary parallel each other and contrast each other and share traits with each other and don't share traits with each other
the way Normal has never really had a choice but to be part of this story. it's literally in his blood and DNA and his heart is simply too big to look away. there's no other place for Normal to end up than here, there's no other path for him to go down than this one. Normal knows by now that there's no other direction for him to go than the one he decided in that church, and wherever that leads him will depend entirely on the cooperation of the people around him.
the way Scary could leave whenever she wants. can't even blame her, she didn't sign up for this, she didn't marry into this family. but she chose to participate anyway, despite it going against everything she says about not caring. they way Scary gets option after option to decide who she is and what kind of person she wants to be and still her choices don't add up. does she want to help, then why can't she work with others? does she want power, then why does she still care about what others think of her? for all the voices in her ears, she's the one who gets to pick where she's going.
the way so much of Normal's family has been based on performative cooperation, but when he found out that cooperation is his authentic performance, it gets rejected. the way Scary's family (and step-family) is blatant and honest (often to a fault) and has nothing to hide, but she's turning into a compulsive liar when it comes to herself.
the way Normal has been bombarded with rejection and doubt but he accepts everyone around him and tries to get them to accept themselves. the way Scary's surrounded by hands reaching out to her and offers of acceptance but she throws denial and pushes away like it's instinct.
the way Normal behaves selflessly but deep in there is a root of selfish desire for acceptance for himself. the way Scary behaves selfishly but, again, she put herself on a mission to save the world.
the way these paths they're going down keeps sticking them together like opposite magnets
the way Scary is (per Beth:) looking for the trauma that will justify her feelings while Normal is looking for the feelings that will justify his trauma
the first chapter of Moby Dick rewritten in tiresome modern idiom
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - it's none of your business how many - being mostly broke, and bored with the land part of the world, I thought I would sail around a little and look at the watery part of the world. I'm probably the most mentally healthy person you know. Whenever I feel my face getting grim; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself accidentally reading the ads in the window of funeral homes, and following funeral processions through traffic; and especially when I'm hangry, and only my extremely strong moral principles stop me from deliberately going out in public and methodically slapping people's earbuds out - then I know it's high time to get to sea, ASAP. This is my substitute for getting in fights. I'm too mentally healthy to kill myself; I quietly and considerately put myself on a ship and sail myself away instead. There is nothing surprising in this. Everyone feels exactly the same way, and if they don't, they're lying.
You think I'm lying? Exhibit A: a city. Go to your local coastal city. Everyone is looking at the water. They drive over from other neighborhoods just to come to the water. They make a day of it. They're not doing anything, they're just staring at the ocean. Why? Is it because they all work office jobs? No! Here come more of them! They cram themselves up to the edge of the water and stare at it. WHAT DO THEY WANT? WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT. Perhaps the ships themselves all packed together, each one with several compasses on it, creates some kind of critical mass - all of the small compass-magnets on all the ships in the harbor combining into one really big magnetic field - and the people get sucked into the field and trapped there. That's science.
Exhibit 2: the countryside with lakes in it. Every path you follow in the countryside brings you to some water, such as a stream. There is magic in it. If you take your standard fool with ADHD dissociating in the middle of a supermarket and put them outside and give them a shove, they'll automatically lead you to water (if there is any nearby) (try it). Another good experiment to try is to get lost in the great American desert in a caravan supplied with a metaphysical professor! Try it in the great American desert at home!
Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are a match made in heaven. Married forever. That's science.
Here's an artist who wants to paint you the dreamiest, most enchanting landscape. What does he put in it? Trees, meadow, cows, a cottage with smoke coming from the chimney, obviously. He will probably put a path in it and make lots of triangular mountains in rows and have them be different shades of blue (naturally.) But there's gotta be a stream in it. Go visit the prairies in June, and wade for forty miles through knee-deep through tiger lilies. What's missing from this picture? Water!
If Niagara Falls was made of sand instead of water, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why would a guy given a handful of cash have trouble deciding whether to buy a coat (which he needed) or go to the beach? Why are all the best, healthiest, sexiest and most mentally healthy people obsessed with the sea? (You get me.) When you were first on a boat, did you not succumb to VIBES? Consider ancient Persia. Consider ancient Greece. They understood about vibes, and also gods.
SURELY ALL OF THIS IS NOT WITHOUT MEANING.
And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all! You get me! You understand it now.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I get weird, don't you dare imply that I buy a ticket and get on a boat. I have never had money in my life. How dare you. Anyway I don't go as a passenger - that's bougie, and something boring people do. Passengers never have a good time. And although my C.V. is incredible - I go to sea SO MUCH, you guys, I have lots of experience - I don't go as a boss, or a cook. That sounds like far too much work. Hard work. Disgusting, respectable, bougie, and far too responsible. I can literally only look after myself. Do not ask me to look after ships or shit. In fact, I have only a vague idea of what a ship is. There's so many different kinds of ships - don't get me started and DO NOT GET INVOLVED. Also, I'm allergic to glory.
It's kind of attractive to go as a cook. I mean, I'm allergic to glory and there's some glory attached to the position of the ship's cook, but, like, you're not management-track and so it's still credible. But I don't really want to cook (say) roast chicken. I really fucking love to eat roast chicken. I'm one of the best at doing it actually. I really appreciate when people go out of their way to butter, season, baste and roast a chicken for me. Picture a roast chicken and I am Looking Respectfully at it. Maybe something more, maybe I'm worshipping it. Don't make this weird. If you want to get weird about my relationship with roasted chicken, why aren't you getting weird about the ancient Egyptians? They ate roasted hippos (look it up) and the pyramids were basically pizza ovens. So it's pretty hypocritical to think that I'm being weird about roasted chicken when I've never made mummies out of chickens or built a religious pizza oven dedicated to honoring them: check and mate, haters.
Anyway - I like to go to sea as a manual laborer. A simple sailor. Salt of the earth… er… sea. Yeah, true: as a job it sucks. They make you jump around, order you around, treat you like shit. They expect you to jump around the boat like a grasshopper. And yes, at first, this sucks. It's degrading, especially if you come from a middle-class family. Worse, it's awful if you've already had some kind of professional job before signing on to be the dirt on the boss's boots - like, if you went to college and worked as a teacher and actually got kids to pay attention to you, really feeling this connection to work/teaching/identity or some shit, and now you are just literally the scum on this captain's boots, in the lowest possible job in the world. It hurts! It hurts your dignity. But the hurt, and also the dignity, both wear off in time.
So what if some old bastard sea captain orders me - ME! - to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, compared to the shit in the Bible, compared to the shit in the news, compared to the shit everyone else has to take. Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. We're all just serfs under capitalism, right, so why not just be honest about it: I prefer the honesty. Anyway, however the old sea captains may order me about - slapping and punching of course - I have the satisfaction of knowing that it's the same experience everyone else on Earth has, but more honest. Everyone else in the world is being served the exact same way. Either in a physical or a metaphysical way - sometimes people get the shit beaten out of them in person, sometimes online, sometimes emotionally, it happens to you in EVERY JOB, you sign on to get pushed around and slapped in the teeth: so the point is that when you're a sailor, it's a clean and honest slap. All the workers of the world share the same universal slap to the face that gets passed round, one slap passed all 'round the chain, like paying it forward, but it's a slap; and we should all accept this Universal Slap as the price of living, and then offer each other healing back massages, brother to brother, and slap each other and then kissed the places we slapped, and be happy.
I could examine that but I'm not going to.
Anyway: I always go to sea as a sailor. I've said that already. You're welcome. BUT THE POINT IS, they pay you. If you're a passenger, they don't pay you, at least, not that I've ever heard of [citation needed] (do they pay passengers?? Is there a job I can get where I can be a passenger and get paid?? Look this up.) Yeah so passengers have to pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. (That's Adam and Eve. You get it.) But BEING PAID. GETTING PAID IS THE BEST. NOTHING COMPARES TO GETTING PAID. EVERYONE LOVES THAT SHIT. Which is surprising, since we also apparently believe that money is the root of all evil, and isn't there something in the bible about "no rich people can get into heaven," right? And yet it's universal, literally everyone loves payday. Ah! How cheerfully we send ourselves to hell.
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor (I've said this already) because it's FRESH AIR AND EXERCISE. Okay so think about ships. Normally, bosses stand on the "bridge" thing, and because we're sailing a boat, the nose is going into the wind and the butt part of the boat is at the back. That's how wind works. But if you think about it, winds usually go in one direction more than other directions (unless the men have been eating beans and farting: it's Pythagoras, look it up) SO if you're a boss standing on the boss-deck, the wind is blowing FROM the sailors TOWARDS you, and YOU ARE ACTUALLY BREATHING THE AIR THAT SAILORS ALREADY BREATHED. The boss THINKS he breathes it first, but he doesn't. He gets the air at the BACK of the boat and sailors get the air at the FRONT. So it's better to be at the front of the boat (sailor) for health reasons. This is a metaphor for life and work, etc.
But I have smelled the sea lots of times as a paid sailor and WHY I should decide to go on a whaling expedition - ok so you know how there's an invisible police officer of the Fates who has me under constant surveillance, who secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way? YOU get me. You know him. "The poor FBI agent tasked with reading my search engine history" YOU GET ME. Anyway, "Ishmael, why, after having a perfectly well-reasoned, and very smart of you, part-time job as a spontaneous random sailor, did you decide to escalate that to joining a WHALING EXPEDITION, which is worse in every way?" Well, ask my fucking secret FBI agent, he can answer better than anyone else. Including me. You get me. Also, obviously, this was predestined, part of the Universe's Grand Programme for its talent show, which was all scheduled way before our time. The concept of sending me on the whaling voyage comes in as a kind of interlude or solo between the main performances of the Universe's great talent show. I bet it was advertised llike,
"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THE UNITED STATES EMBROILED IN ONGOING LEGAL DISPUTE.
Whaling voyage by some guy called Ishmael.
BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."
Like a commercial break in between the big acts. A filler episode. Lightens the load for everyone else. Though I can't explain why the stage managers - the Fates - chose such a shitty role for me, a WHALING VOYAGE of all things, when it feels like others were given magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces - it seems a little unreasonable at first. Why doth Ishmael get shat upon, etc. But then I think about all the circumstances, the plot points and motivations that were cunningly presented to me under various disguises - FBI agents, bouts of random hanger, gay awakenings, you get me - and you can see that actually, I was set up. And worse, between them all, these Fates and Circumstances conspired to make me believe it was all my own choice and good judgment. Is Free Will an illusion? Are my decisions bad? We will NEVER know because I, Ishmael, am just a little guy that the Universe plays head games with.
One of the ways the Universe tricked me into starring in this performance and then mocking me for it was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself (whaling expeditions usually contain whales.) Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then of course, if you have a whale, you have the wild and distant seas where the whale rolls around with his body-the-size-of-an-island; the dangers and nameless perils of the whale; whales are also found in interesting places I haven't seen; this all tipped me over the edge. Maybe normal people could've resisted, but I am tormented with an everlasting itch for obscurity. I hate everyone else's oceans. I want the forbidden seas.
You know The Horrors? Of course you do. You might be surprised that I, the most mentally healthy person you've ever met, a person who is self-aware enough to go to sea when they're at their fucking limits, a guy who likes fresh air and manual labor and normal things, is familiar with The Horrors. Well, you'd be surprised. I know what's good, I'm an extrovert. But I'm still quick to perceive The Horrors. And how I deal with the horrors is a very extroverted thing: I'm social with them, if they'll let me. It's smart to be on good terms with The Horrors. You should always be on good terms with your permanent neighbors. That's how extroverts deal with The Horrors, and I recommend it.
I think that's enough explanation for why I welcomed the whaling voyage. The great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild figments of imagination that pushed me into doing it, the whales came marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah. They marched into my innermost soul in endless processions and occupied it, you see, I was quite helpless under this occupation - I consented to the haunting and the whales marched in to haunt me - and amidst them all was one grand shrouded white phantom, like a snowy mountain in the air.
You get it.
You know how it is, with whales.
(read the actual first chapter of Moby Dick here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm)
How is this movie not trending? It’s the hottest shit happening in 12 genres simultaneously. It’s everything we wish movies could be all the time, ground-breaking, out of the box, POC-led, tearjerking, queer, well-handled, mind-blowing, fucking fun, and a clear labor of love by every member of the cast and crew, a small company knockout in an era of big-studio blockbusters.
It’s Turning Red, it’s the Matrix, it’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, it’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it’s The Farewell, it’s Community, and so much more, and somehow, impossibly, it kicks ass on every front at once.
It’s a love letter to Michelle Yeoh that finally lets her be everything she can be, it’s Jonathan Ke Quan finally getting a chance to explode back to the screen in one of my favorite characters of all time (and the only successful now-they’re-sexy glasses removal in cinema history). Stephanie Tsu kicks ass, represents despair, wears every bitching outfit you ever wanted to, becomes a being of ultimate omniversal power, cries, would maybe rather be a rock, and is gay, representing an entire generation of millennials who feel like they’ve seen too much to ever go back.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you should. It’s everything everywhere all at once.
I know with Dracula daily, wwdits, and the resurgence of twilight that vampires are a big deal on this website. I understand. Its been all about vampires for forever on here, but were-monsters will always be number one to me.
The fact that they are uncontrollable. The curse you can't fight that stays with you forever. The desire to be away from people while desperately wanting them close. The monstrous hidden until it can't be hidden any longer. The ugly nature of you forced out every month or with strong emotions. The feelings of shame in your body while also loving it and feeling power when you are at your worst. It hits a niche that vampires dont quite hit in the same way.
guillermo is such a memorable character, and I think that's because in the first episode - and by all conventions of the story - Guillermo is set up to be the everyman. hes the human living amongst vampires, he gets to correct them when they're not acting "human" and does the menial tasks that we all watching, unfortunately, have to do. hes Normal. he doesnt fly or become a bat, so he has to take the bus. he used to work at panera bread. he goes out to meet people at events, like LARPing. but then theres also this dissonant layer - at vampires only events guillermo is literally kept in the dingiest rooms with the other familiars because hes not allowed in; guillermo now willingly works as a slave for vampires and has done so for 10+ years (even the term "familiar" is usually associated with animal companions); guillermo goes to those events to source humans for his boss and his boss' roommates to eat, which means guillermo has spent over a decade complicit in murdering people because he also wants to be a vampire. guillermo is first shown to us (by the somewhat biased/limited documentarians) to be a naive, optimistic man, and once hes able to assert himself and his own feelings he quickly reveals that hes just as batshit as the rest of them, he just hides it better.
As a Latine and someone diagnosed with OCD, I want to talk about Bruno and how he is presented in the film.
A lot of Latinos, specifically Colombians, have argued that Bruno can’t have OCD because he performs standard superstitious rituals like knocking on wood, crossing his fingers, etc.
It is important to note that superstition is incredibly common in Latino communities. I have family and friends who partake in superstitious rituals in overt ways without being diagnosed with OCD. I believe the heightened spirituality and expression in Latino communities compared to gringo communities in the US is why so many Latinos are defending his rituals and are pushing back against Bruno being seen as OCD since he is performing standard rituals within the community. This post is not to argue that these rituals aren’t common superstitions, nor that it’s wrong to interpret him as not having OCD. This is more to discuss why people interpret him as having OCD and to clarify some misconceptions about the relationship of OCD and superstitious rituals.
Let’s discuss how OCD works and then why it might apply to Bruno Madrigal.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a subset of other anxiety disorders. People with said disorder frequently have intrusive thoughts or urges that force them to perform a certain action to ease this anxiety (compulsions). These compulsions can literally be anything. It can be repeating a certain phrase, walking a certain way, or even self destructive. These actions are designed as a preventative measure to ease anxiety, but ironically they have the opposite effect by producing more anxiety if the action is performed and only produce temporary relief.
These actions might be things that lots of neurotypical people do (ex. sorting books by color). What matters for the diagnosis is that the person in question feels like they have to perform the action and feel immense distress when they don’t.
So, how does that compare to superstitions? Superstitions are rituals that people perform also to prevent bad things from happening. The difference here is context. When people perform superstitious rituals, they do not experience immense distress at not performing the action correctly or at all. For example: “I’m hoping it doesn’t rain on my wedding day. Knock on wood.” The person in question is specifically performing this action to prevent rain from occurring on their wedding day. They do not feel like they have to perform the ritual and do not experience extreme distress as a consequence for not performing the action.
For someone with OCD, the ritual is far more specific, repetitive, and includes a deep sense of dread when not performed. For example: “I just thought that I might have rain on my wedding day, so I must knock exactly three times and if I don’t do the pattern exactly right, I will have to re-perform this action until it is. I will also have to do this ritual every single time I think of rain on my wedding day because then I jinxed it by thinking about it.” The repetition, sense of dread, and how long the ritual is present all indicate that this is a compulsion rather than just warding off bad luck.
OCD and superstitious rituals are often extremely difficult to distinguish from one another which is why it is difficult to divorce them when interpreting text. In fact, the two are often tied together because they follow the same, “If I don’t do X, then Y will happen, so I must do X,” logic.
Let’s look at Bruno now. He has a few ritualized activities. He knocks on wood while saying, “Knock, knock, knock on wood,” ending with knocking on his head.
[GIf Description: Bruno Madrigal is walking down a hallway. He begins by holding his breath and crossing his fingers. He releases his breath and begins knocking on wooden planks as he passes them ending with him knocking himself on the head.There is text at the bottom of the gif that says, “knock knock knock knock knock! knock on wood!” /end ID]
He avoids stepping on cracks while singing, “Sana, sana, colita de rana. Si no sana hoy sanara mañana.”
[Image Description: A screenshot of page 62 of the official Encanto script. The script says, “Tio Bruno: ‘Sugar.’ (he tosses sugar on her)/ And keeps walking past rows of Hanging Aloe Plants, then does a hop skip and a jump over a series of cracks on the ground. / Tio Bruno (continued): ‘Sana sana, colita de rana.’ “/end ID]
He throws salt and sugar over his shoulders.
[Gif Description: Bruno Madrigal is sitting in a rainforest clearing. He is closing his eyes and holding a pile of salt in his right hand. He flings the salt over his left shoulder and lights a match. There is text that says, “swoosh,” as he performs the ritual. /end ID]
He holds his breath and crosses his fingers when walking through entrances/exits or sometimes down hallways.
[Gif Description: Bruno Madrigal is crossing his fingers and holding his breath as he walks down a hallway. /end ID]
All of these are pretty standard rituals for superstition and bringing on good luck. I’ve certainly known people who openly knock on wood and throw sugar over their left shoulder, particularly in Latino communities. However, what matters is how it is presented and whether it is compulsory. So, let’s look at how it is presented in the film.
He performs these rituals at very specific times in the story. His knocking on wood and holding his breath are the most common so we’ll look at those first. He knocks on wood in three separate instances. The first and second instance is when he first meets Mirabel just before and after he enters the area of the house with the cracks he has patched. The third time is when he is entering the secret entrance into the walls of the house. As for holding his breath and crossing his fingers, he first performs it when entering the hallway with all of the cracks. The second time is when he is entering the portrait into the walls.
In the first instance of both rituals, he stops the conversation he is having with Mirabel to perform these rituals and then resumes acting as if nothing happened. The final instance is at the end of a conversation with Mirabel. Superstitious behaviors don’t tend to be disruptive or distracting. Usually people knock on wood after ending a sentence whereas Bruno performs this ritual while Mirabel is speaking to him, disrupting the flow of conversation. It is also important to note that Bruno is unique for performing them, further othering his character.
OCD, is usually single-minded. Individuals can avoid performing the ritual, but doing so causes immense distress. The obtrusiveness of the action indicates that it is more likely OCD than superstition.
Looking at how it is presented in the text, it appears that these rituals are supposed to be strange and unique to Bruno. Nobody else performs them and Mirabel is confused by them.
Let’s look at what this might mean thematically.
In the film, Bruno is clearly presented as awkward and socially anxious. We can easily interpret this as a consequence of him living in the walls for a decade with Mirabel asking, “How long have you been down here?” when Bruno introduces her to Hernando and Jorge. While she doesn’t necessarily react the same way to his various rituals, these superstitious actions can be seen as a consequence of his isolation. He is clearly supposed to be considered the weird uncle, so incorporating heightened superstition plays into that role and adds to his stigmatization as being “Bad Luck Bruno.” Having OCD would make sense as an interpretation merely to add to his othering in the film and clear instability after being isolated for so long. What’s more, Bruno can be interpreted as the “Identified Patient” in the family with how he was treated like there was something wrong with him. This constant blame and othering from his family would likely push him to want to prevent further isolation because of his bad luck. Furthermore, it feeds into a common experience in Latino households to diminish the neurodivergence/ other disabilities of members in the household. It is not that uncommon for Latino households to ignore neurodivergence because “everyone is like that.”
Personally as someone with OCD and a Latine, I read Bruno as having OCD because he performs rituals to, what appears to be, a compulsory level. He may have reasons for these compulsions and common superstition might be part of it, but this is true for my own compulsions as well. I also have to avoid stepping on cracks. I learned about the superstition of stepping on a crack and thus had to perform precise rituals in order to avoid stepping on them. I experienced and continue to experience major distress because of this superstitious ritual. Yes, it is a common superstition, but it became a compulsion for me because the bad luck became an anxiety trigger.
Looking at how Bruno is presented, it’s entirely possible that this is what happened to him based on what we know. He is related to Bad Luck and ostracized for it. He performs common rituals to ward off bad luck. He is further ostracized for said strange behavior.
Now, there is evidence online for him being OCD outside of the text by the writers.
[Image Description: A screenshot of page 61 of the Encanto script. The script says, “Tio Bruno: (tapping a wall, OCD) Knock, knock, knock. Knock on wood.” /end ID]
Clearly, he was intended to have OCD by the writers. Now, most people are not going to pull up the script to see that he is intended to have OCD explicitly by the text, but there is still evidence in the film to support it as I laid out above.
A lot of Latinos don’t want to acknowledge the possibility of him having OCD because it feels like normal aspects of our culture are being erased. The fact Bruno has OCD does not negate his latin culture, nor does it negate how superstition is tied to Latinos. Just because I relate to Bruno and his OCD doesn’t mean he’s no longer Latino and it doesn’t suddenly mean you and/or your family have OCD. We’re all part of the same community and we’re all going to relate to certain characters in different ways. This is more just to state that superstitious rituals can be OCD rituals as well.
TL;DR: Bruno Madrigal was intended to be OCD by the text, but many Latinos are hesitant to agree because they feel it erases common Latino superstition. It is not uncommon for superstitions to become OCD compulsions and it is often difficult to distinguish the two in general which is why people interpret Bruno in different ways.
I’ve been working on a Christmas fic (i know) recently. I planned on something short, but it’s gotten way bigger than I expected. I’m only about a third of the way through! So, I’ve decided to post a little preview under the cut for the time being.
Toni had spent countless hours working on the damn things trying to get them to not burn her at the end of every flight when Pepper walked into Toni’s workshop immediately silencing the loud music blaring from the speakers.
“Hey! What did I say about my music?” Toni continued focusing on the boots, occasionally correcting some of her calculations on a nearby screen.
Pepper ignored her as she said, “My mom’s flight will be landing soon. You said you’d join me when I pick her up, so when can I expect you to be ready to go?”
Toni’s head whipped around to her girlfriend. “Mom? Since when did you have a mom? I mean I assumed you came from somewhere and weren’t a robot, partially because a robot as sophisticated as you could’ve only been invented by me, but mom?!” Pepper rolled her eyes at that. “Why is she coming in? What do you mean mom?”
“Toni, we talked about this last week.” Toni searched her memory for this exchange. She remembered something about a flight, but she was a little preoccupied at the time with Rhodey’s magnificent arms as he helped her calculate the energy capacity of his suit’s thrusters. Pepper had been talking while she was on the couch in the workshop. Her heels were off and her hair had been delicately hanging around her long neck. She immediately stopped that train of thought before she missed what Pepper was saying twice.
“My mom is coming in for holidays since my brother is going to be out of the country. She won’t have anybody to celebrate with this year. We decided that she and Jim’s family could stay until after New Years.”
Toni began to sweat. Rhodey’s family was great. She was used to them by now, but this would be the first time she’d be seeing them while dating him. She wasn’t sure how they would react to their relationship, particularly since it wasn’t exactly monogamous.
Pepper’s mom was another beast entirely. She’d never met her and Pepper wasn’t exactly on perfect terms with her mother.
She looked around, desperately trying to find an out from having to face either parent. Instead, Toni looked up to see Pepper’s pitying face looking down at her.
“I would say it’s cute that you’re nervous about meeting our parents, but I’m nervous too and I need you both there to support me.” Pepper looked tired then. Instead of looking perfectly put together, she looked out of place. Like she was a kid in a rumpled costume.
if you need me i am going to be binge-reading the archives of my favorite blog on the entire internet which is written by this sweet old man who lives on a farm in the pacific northwest with his husband and a bunch of animals. there are nice pictures of flowers and ducks and the tone is so gentle and soothing:
like… fuck…. i love everything about this blog…. it’s the one good thing left online
I've never been involved in nano, but I've been getting more into writing. I might do some Avengers fic this year. I just need to actually finish it lol
Last year I was working on a Bruce Banner and Jennifer Walters fic since they both felt a little easier to write, but I gave up on it when I was halfway through. I want to try and finish it this time, especially since I have more time.
This past weekend I participated in “24 Hour Comics Day”, a very real event in which participants have 24 hours to write and draw a 24-page comic book. No planning ahead is allowed, which hopefully explains why some of the panels look the way that they do.
Hulk Want Pumpkin Spice is the sequel to my 24 hour comic from last year, Hulk Want Fast Food. This series stems from my deep desire to see a sad indie comic version of the Incredible Hulk. This installment is inspired by my interest in new COVID-19 themed fictional media (so this might age very poorly, since I made it in October 2020). Will the 2021 issue also be COVID themed? I hope not.
If you enjoyed this comic and are frustrated the world right now and also are a US citizen, like, obviously please vote for Biden if you are able (🙄) but more importantly, consider donating to your local mutual aid network to directly help communities in need.
(Also, I do not own Hulk or Iron Man and this comic is obviously in no way associated with Disney or Marvel.)
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