The Life After Death Trilogy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A fanfiction trilogy cowritten by SilverGryphon8/Obi’s Second Cousin/LadyHolmes and Gamine Madcap and illustrated by Silver Gryphon 8.

The story is set in the Spiderman movieverse beginning roughly a year and a half after the events of the second film. Otto Octavius, having survived nearly drowning, is alive and well and in hiding with his intelligent actuators Flo, Mo, Larry, and Harry. He reluctantly befriends Mouse, a Cute Mute of a little girl when she tries to use the warehouse Otto has been living in as a hideout from the druggies she is forced to share her home with. When Mouse arrives at the warehouse one day showing signs of a recent beating, Otto sets out to permanently deal with the problem. He meets Robin Goodfellow, who helps him and the actuators eradicate the group of druggies and proceeds to more or less adopt Mouse. The series then follows Otto and Robin’s growing romance, Mouse’s adjustment to a ‘normal’ (relatively) home, and the pesky little problem of people who keep trying to kill all three of them, while it crosses over with a variety of series.

Much Better Than It Sounds. Really.

The series is currently being rewritten for the third time to include some of the authoresses' new ideas. The new edition should start going up in spring of 2011. In the meantime, the older version will remain available.


The trilogy is posted on Fanfiction.net under Gamine Madcap’s profile and on Deviant ART under Silver Gryphon 8’s profile. The illustrations for the series can also be found at that location.

Book I: If You Give An Octopus A Cookie
Illustrated Version
Unillustrated Verstion

Book II: Currently Unpublished

Book III: Currently Unpublished

Updates are fairly regular, being primarily based on how quickly Gryphon can get the illustrations up.

The fic (and several sibling fics) have now officially been moved to their own website! They can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20130502232540/http://talonandtail.webs.com/

Tropes used in The Life After Death Trilogy include:


  • Abusive Parents: Torbert Octavius to Otto. There’s a scene during which a momentary glimpse of Robin’s hobgoblin form triggers a flashback about Otto’s father coming to beat him after having his glasses broken by school bullies one too many times that leaves Otto whimpering. Mary Octavius’s manipulation of her son has flavors of this as well.
  • Action Mom: Robin
  • Adaptation Distillation: Otto’s past is based partly on the film and partly on the comics, particularly ‘’Doctor Octopus: Year One‘’. Also, the faeries can be argued to be distillations of various mythologies.
  • Adult Fear: Otto and Robin are terrified of things like losing Mouse to Child Services, being found by other supervillains, and being found by the government.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Originally, the actuators were part of what convinced Otto to turn evil and start rampaging through New York. They got better, though every now and then…
  • Alliterative Name: It’s based off a Stan Lee creation- what do you expect?
  • All Myths Are True: Faeries are just the beginning.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Otto’s not a Mad Scientist out to Take Over the World- he just wants to be left alone so he can conduct his research and spend time with his family. Robin Goodfellow is a changeling whose faerie ‘species’ is a hobgoblin. Also, she’s a girl.
  • Alternate Universe Fic: Though set more or less in the film universe, Otto didn’t die after destroying the second reactor (obviously) and things deviate from there.
  • Anti-Hero: Otto. Lands towards the III side between Type II and Type III on the Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes
  • Anything That Moves: Robin, though she’s relatively quiet about it in comparison to Jack the Pook, Phil, who is a son of the god Pan, and her friend Tam.
  • Arch Enemy: Canonically, Otto and Peter Parker are these to each other. Averted here, with Peter eventually becoming one of Otto’s interns after he earns a pardon and can legitimately set up a new, government-sponsored lab.
  • Badass Bookworm: Otto
  • Badass Longcoat: Otto and Robin
  • Badass Normal: The Leandros brothers. Later, Robin.
  • Battle Couple: Otto and Robin become this pretty quickly.
  • Beta Couple: Curt Connors and his wife Martha.
  • The Big Bad: On Robin’s side of things, Hob.
  • Bigger on the Inside: The boxes Robin brings to help Otto and Mouse pack; also, Robin’s pockets.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Larry is armed with a retractable spike.
  • The Chessmaster:
  • Combat Tentacles: Otto. He is, after all, Doctor Octopus.
  • Crossover: Primarily Spider-Man with A Midsummer Night's Dream, with dashes of various Marvel comics, the Cal Leandros books, Bones, a brief mention of Doctor Who, as well as others. Note: This Robin is not the Robin of the Cal Leandros books.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Numerous.

Mo: otto’s got a cru-ush otto’s got a cru-ush
Otto: Shut up Mo.

  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Quite a few moments between Otto and Mouse.
  • Cute Mute: Mouse. To a lesser extent, the actuators when they’re trying to be charming.
  • Cyberspace: Otto can access this through the actuators.
  • Cyborg: Otto.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Mostly Otto and the actuators, though Robin gets in more than her fair share and many other characters share this trait. It seems to be a favorite of both Gryphon and Madcap.
  • Development Hell: After publishing 17 chapters, the authors are yanking the entire thing for a (fourth) rewrite.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: A relatively mild version, when Otto punches Oberon, the King of the Faeries, in the face and forbids him from EVER coming near his family
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Robin gets a few, as well as some very Bad Dreams.
  • Everything Sensor: The actuators come equipped with these, though the four more or less each have specialties.
  • Everything Is Online: Otto takes great advantage of this when he does things like check criminal records and set up false identities.
  • Evil Genius: Otto, of the solitary variety.
  • Fair Folk: Robin Goodfellow and the rest of her faerie crew. As a whole, the faeries are alien, arrogant, and generally disapproving of humans and technology. There are some exceptions, such as Robin herself.
  • Flat What: Rather common from Otto when Robin does something that breaks the laws of physics or otherwise is very faerie-ish.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: The actuators, four large, homicidal, and generally deadly AI-controlled tentacles, are named Flo, Mo, Larry, and Harry. It’s stated that Otto’s deceased wife Rosie named them. In fairness, the actuators are only dangerous around someone they don’t like, or towards any who threaten their people.
  • Freak Lab Accident: The disaster of the first fusion reactor, which killed Rosie, allowed the actuators to develop sentience, and led Otto to become Doc Ock. Also, Curt Connors becoming The Lizard counts as this.
  • Green Eyes: Robin’s eyes are brilliant green, fitting her status as a faerie, except when they turn red.
  • The Glomp: Mouse delivers many of these to Otto.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Robin’s eyes glow red when she becomes the hobgoblin.
  • Good Parents: Otto and Robin to Mouse.
  • Good Shepherd: Father Everett
  • Gorn: As a hobgoblin, Robin revels in this. Other hobgoblins are worse. Otto gets in a moment or two of this, most notably when he has an actuator stab a pedophile in the groin and leaves the man to bleed out.
  • Happily Married: Otto and Rosie in the backstory, Otto and Robin, Curt and Martha Connors.
  • Hazel Eyes: Mouse. It’s implied she might develop some sort of minor psychic ability.
  • Healing Hands: Various faeries, including Robin, Jack Pook, and Titania.
  • Heartwarming Orphan: Mouse to Otto, though she’s really only functionally an orphan.
  • Heroic BSOD: Otto, after the becoming a hobgoblin incident.
  • Humanity Ensues: Robin. More like Humanity Re-ensues.
  • Imaginary Friend: Bob the Invisible Octopus, to Mouse.
  • Immortality Begins At Twenty: Robin appears to be in her twenties until she becomes a human. Then she looks to be in her thirties. She freaks out a little over this.
  • Intelligence Equals Isolation: Otto, before he got to college and met Curt and Rosie.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: When Otto briefly absorbs Robin’s hobgoblin magic and Doctor Curt Connors when he becomes the Lizard.
  • Kids Are Cruel: Otto was bullied often as a child. Also, Mouse gets into some fights later on in Book III because of this.
  • Large Ham: Otto has his moments. Others get into the act on occasion too.
  • Licking the Blade: Robin, though it’s more often Licking the Claw.
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: Used as a partial explanation for why the actuators are sentient. No one is sure where the snark came from.
  • Like a Son to Me: Mouse to Otto until he and Robin adopt her. Then she really is a daughter to him.
  • Little Girls Kick Shins: Mouse can be just as vindictive as her adopted parents, as Peter will attest.
  • Magical Girlfriend: Robin.
  • Mama Bear: Robin. Don’t touch her mortals. In one instance, she tore open a man’s ribcage with her bare talons and left him to suffocate. That’s not counting the others she ripped to pieces- while reciting poetry.
  • Morality Chain: Rosie, for Otto. She provided a very stabilizing force for Otto after his messed-up childhood. Her death was one of the primary factors in him becoming Doctor Octopus and is what makes her this instead of being the Morality Pet. Also, later on Mouse and Robin tend to act like this for Otto, helping to prevent him from reverting entirely to being Doctor Octopus.
  • Morality Pet: Mouse. Otto’s affection for her is really what cements him back on the ‘good’ side of things.
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Otto
  • Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: True to form, the fic does center primarily on the dymanics between Otto, Robin, and Mouse. There are plenty of action scenes to spice things up however.
  • Mayfly-December Romance: Robin (nearly 3,000) and Otto (46)
  • My Beloved Smother: Mary Octavius to Otto. She’s obsessed with her son and is convinced that no mere female is worth him taking any attention from his groundbreaking researches. She obliterated Otto’s sole high school attempt at romance and very nearly crushed his relationship with Rosie.
  • Naughty Tentacles: Implied during an interview with FBI Agent Seeley Booth and Robin:

Robin: Have you ever made love to a man with six hands?

  • Nice Hat: The fedora Otto wears during the bank heist in the film becomes a staple part of his outfit in the fic.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Curt Connors’ arm, which grows back when he becomes the Lizard and disappears when it reverts. Allegedly, this drives Gryphon nuts.
  • No Periods, Period: Very much averted when Robin becomes entirely human and experiences her first period, much to Otto’s discomfort.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Averted in the case of the fusion reactor and in the actuators- physically, at least. The actuators’ AI, on the other hand, is a straight example.
  • Not a Morning Person: Otto. He can plot before coffee, but he cannot engage in meaningful social interaction.
  • Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Robin speculates that Mouse’s imaginary friend, the invisible octopus Bob, could become this.
  • Not That Kind of Doctor: Otto knows first aid and has some diagnostic help in the form of the actuators’ sensors, but he makes it clear that he is definitely a physicist.
  • Older Than They Look: Robin, who at nearly three thousand looks to be in her early twenties or so, and the other faeries.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Mostly averted- Otto’s stated specialties are nuclear fusion and mechanical engineering, though it is partially justified in that he’s a genius workaholic who has four sentient AI programs linked into his brain that like surfing the internet…
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Subverted with Hob.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: The Faeries, in particular the way changelings like Robin are handled. Also, the fact that Robin is, in this version, female and very ticked off that Shakespeare got her gender wrong.
  • Papa Wolf: Don’t threaten Mouse or Robin anywhere near Otto. Or the actuators. They’re worse than Otto himself is.
  • Parental Abandonment: Mouse’s mother pretty much lost any interest in Mouse after turning to drugs.
  • Parental Substitute: Otto and Robin, to Mouse. She’s more attached to Otto though.
  • Petting Zoo People: Robin’s friend Tamora ‘Tam’ Griffin, a shapeshifter who can change between griffin and humanoid forms. Her default form is human, with catlike eyes and ears, talons, and a lion-like tail.
  • Phlebotinum Handling Equipment: The original use for the actuators.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: Doctor Curt Connors/The Lizard. Otto forbids Curt from ever playing this role again.
  • Punny Name: Otto’s alias on his falsified ID is Dr. Reese Ercher. His companions get some chuckles out of this. No one else really seems to notice.
  • Puppy Dog Eyes: Otto laments his susceptibility to this- first Rosie, then Mouse and Robin.
  • Puppy Love: Mouse and Billy Connors. Word of God indicates the authors haven’t yet decided if they’ll eventually become a couple or the Platonic Life Partners.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Averted in Otto’s case and in Curt’s.
  • Engineer Exploited For Evil: Otto becomes this after earning a pardon and a position working for the government
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Lizard. He’s not too fond of mammals either. Curt Connors, on the other hand, is a very kind man.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Almost guaranteed if someone tries to kidnap Mouse.
  • Running Gag: Otto and his fondness for Oreos.
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: Otto built one of these into the actuators as a way to keep their dangerous technology out of other people’s hands, as an insurance policy to prevent the government from messing with him too much, and just because he’s that paranoid. It’s a particularly nasty version- in the event of Otto’s death, they will go on a homicidal rampage for eight minutes, before the four plutonium batteries powering them go critical and explode.
  • "Shut Up" Kiss: A couple of times.
  • Sinister Shades: Otto’s sunglasses and his goggles. Justified in the first part of Book One due to him being left photosensitive after his lab accident, and later used as part of disguises, to keep others from realizing Otto had his eyes healed by Robin, and in the few instances that Otto had to ‘play’ at being Doc Ock, for the sinister factor.
  • Spirit Advisor: Rosie makes a few appearances as this.
  • Split Personality: Otto Octavius and Doctor Octopus are treated as two not entirely separate personalities, with Ock only showing up when Otto is really, really pissed off. Less separate people than polar opposites of the same individual, with a bit of a sliding scale between the two. Otto is afraid of Ock’s lack of inhibiting morals.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Otto and Robin nearly became these- he is a mortal, she is a faerie. Then Robin decided to Take a Third Option
  • Sunglasses at Night: Otto- at night, during the day, inside, outside, basically any time he doesn’t have the lights off and is using the actuators’ cameras to see by. Justified by the fact that he’s very photosensitive.
  • Take a Third Option: Robin gives up being a faerie to be with Otto. Normally, a changeling wanting to become human again would have their memories wiped to reduce the risk of madness; the third option comes in the form of a pendant that stores Robin’s ‘faerie-ness’ and gives her the opportunity to regain that state later on if mortality becomes too much for her
  • Tampon Run: Poor, poor Otto. And Peter, whom he runs into on said run.
  • Techno Babble: Otto’s second language, specifically the physics and computer dialects. Both Curt and Martha Connors are fluent in the biology variant. This made get-togethers very interesting for first Rosie, and English Lit major, then Robin, who is, well, a faerie and as such not very familiar (or interested) with scientific jargon.
  • Technopath: Otto is a low-grade one of these, rather like a low-level Spark. He’s brilliant enough on his own to develop his inventions; his technopathy primarily manifests itself by making him unconsciously smooth out the little kinks in his design so that they actually work.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Otto and the Oreos.
  • Transformation Trinket: Robin’s pendent that contains her faerie powers after she reverts to being human
  • Tricksters: Robin, primarily. Many other faeries are indicated to be examples of this. Also, Peter Parker/Spiderman, to a lesser extent.
  • Trope Overdosed:

Silver Gryphon 8: Either we really, really like tropes, or I’m just stupidly good at picking them out.

    • As Gryphon is a troper, this is more likely the case.
  • Unobtanium: The Adamantium used in the construction of the actuators. The ‘precious tritium’ used in the reactor is an example of Elements Do Not Work That Way.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Robin and Otto, anytime something bad happens to one of their family members.
  • Unusual User Interface: The actuators can hook up to a computer and surf the web, with or without Otto’s supervision.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Robin, between her human and hobgoblin forms, Hob, and Tam. Also, sort of, in the case of Curt Connors/Lizard
  • Winged Humanoid: The Peris
  • Xanatos Pile Up: The various people trying to kill Otto and Robin are part of a couple of these.
  • You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever: The four plutonium batteries Otto uses to power the tentacles. At one point he mentions that he's rigged a failsafe in them that will deliberately overload the batteries in the event of his death as a way to keep the tentacles from falling into anyone else's hands, essentially making a quartet of small nuclear bombs. Vindictive as he might be, this trope does get averted in that Otto knows full well that nuclear reactor =/= nuclear bomb and the damage his little batteries would inflict is nowhere near the annihilation of half of Washington DC he threatens.
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