Dear Joe Quesada...

I gotta say, I've been pretty bored with Spider-Man lately. The character just doesn't seem to be as vibrant and alive as he did in the past. He seemed so young then, and now something about him is just... tired. I thought about it over a weekend and there's no other way to say it... it's Carlie Cooper.

All he does these days is have relationship drama with Carlie. What is he, in his thirties? I thought Peter Parker was a young, hip twenty-something. He should be too busy having casual sex and drinking from red cups to be thinking about moving in with a girl.

I just miss the days when Peter was having crazy sexcapades with fun, well-rounded characters like Michelle Gonzalez or Felicia Hardy, not lumbering around with ol' ball-and-chain Cooper. I realize it's always hard to write a relationship ending, but perhaps with time travel, you could make it so they never got together in the first place, or reveal that the Peter who's dating Carlie is a clone and the real Peter is still single, or perhaps kill Carlie so we could see how Peter deals with his grief. We've never seen Peter lose anyone close to him, so that would make for a very new, intriguing story. Perhaps he could even blame himself for her death? I wouldn't put it past him.

Either way, this dreary, life-sucking adult relationship of his must end. And I think Peter should join a frat.

Sincerely,
seriousfic.

(I'm going to mail this in and see if I can perform inception, 90s style.)

LotS fic: We're a long way from home and home is a long way from us (13/15)

Title: We're a long way from home and home is a long way from us
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,259
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Triana, Cara/Dahlia, Richard/Kahlan, Berdine/Raina
Author’s notes: Betaed by the lovely and talented susurrusnight
Previous: Part 12
Next: Part 14
Summary: Cara has a habit of falling in love with the wrong person. It's an odd flaw for a Mord'Sith to have.

( The kiss really wasn't like Cara at all. Dahlia wondered if Kahlan had taught it to her. )

The good idea jeans were not put on.

So apparently there's talk of Naomie Harris as Moneypenny in the next James Bond movie. Now, Naomie Harris is a fine actress and Moneypenny isn't a bad character, so this is bad for one reason only: They're going to take the entire dynamic of James Bond, the biggest cocksmith in genre fiction, and the one woman he won't have sex with, and it's a white man and a black woman? I mean, c'mon. Even in Britain, there's gotta be unfortunate implications there. If they're the same race, at least you can argue that as big a sex pest as Bond is, he won't go in for an office romance, or that one of them is gay and they're just camping it up. Actually, that last one sounds kind of interesting, but I'll stop before we get to the scene where MI-6 is attacked, so Moneypenny strips down to a tanktop and starts shooting terrorists with a shotgun she keeps in her desk.

Maybe Q could be black instead? That seems like a much more positive PoC character, and if there's one thing Doctor Who has taught me, it's that there's got to be a cool black guy just waiting to say "Grow up, 007!" (Richard Ayoade? Dude. Dude.)



ETA: Speaking of Doctor Who, Catherine Tate as Moneypenny. I'd be able to have head-canon that after being mind-wiped, Donna Noble changed her name and started temping for MI-6, because Captain Jack got her security clearance for the really high pay-grade stuff. Now she saves the world with office work.