#I don't know if university/college was ever a crucible as it was for me but this movie resonated so hard it dredged up feelings I thought

[eorzeashan]

man wtf, wtf. Goodwill Hunting. I didn't expect to get slapped in the face with all the glaring issues I'd ever experienced in college but. wow. I fucking cried. the emotional gaps between people from different economic backgrounds, different chances at economic and academic success....when you're a student who also faced that daunting bracket of having your college path be literal life and death for what comes after and always having to be adjacent to people where this is what they've lived in their whole lives, and then how different that is next to those who can't have that chance ever and the sheer uncertainty and fear of it. the trauma that comes from a background of abuse and how it confuses others from the outside who can't understand why you'd pass up the chance for something better from their view economically, academically, emotionally. it hurt so much.

[thelastharbinger]

Tidbits of ATSV That I Enjoyed (Or Alternatively: Just Miles Being The Most Endearing Spidey Ever)

Miles patting The Spot's head after successfully webbing him (I don't see this as condescending, but rather him still engaging with the humanity of a villain like Spot) and ~very assertively~ telling/asking him not to escape.

"I'm like Robin Hood-if he gave to himself."

Miles' spidey senses going off when he arrives late to his dad's party because there's nothing more frightening than Brown parents when they're mad at you. Beware the chancla or correa!

O.k. So we all know there are different versions of the movie out there. You may already know that one of the slight differences is when Miles goes to save Inspector Singh. There's a version where you can hear Gwen's voice in the distant background yelling no! when she thinks Miles gets crushed under the rubble, and there's another where she's silent as she webs to him. Now, I have found ANOTHER version (online) where her shouting is even more at the forefront. She's practically screaming and sounds more desperate, (prolly because it's close to the same way her Peter Parker died so she's reliving trauma) and the fear in her voice is palpable. That one haunts me.

Jefferson trying to equate studying for his police exams to childbirth, which Rio quickly nips in the bud.

Ganke having a soccer poster of Son Heung Min, a famous Korean footballer who currently plays for the Premier League Tottenham Hotspur and is captain of the South Korean national team.

Miles having a Sashimi (his universe's version of Supreme, but I just like the idea that Miles loves eating sashimi. Like I know that kid has good taste in food) poster in his bedroom.

The fact that Miles kept in touch with Aunt May for long enough after the events of ITSV that he helps her move.

The Spot saying he was one of the more handsome scientists at Alchemax according to his colleagues.

Miles and Gwen having the same collectible toys, the only difference being that he keeps his in the box and she doesn't.

"Hey, don't try to wow me with big words, man," *in deep manly voice* "I do crosswords every day"- Miles after Spot points out Alchemax as "the crucible of our connection!"

Miles going, "This job is so dumb sometimes" after he tries to web Spot at the deli, but it goes through a hole and lands on his face.

"Nahhh, he seems more Dominican to me." Kinda want Miles to meet a native Dominican Spidey because that dynamic would highkey fuck hard *pun not intended*. They would repair relations between our two islands-PR&DR.

"Almost there Mami *smiley face* *cowboy* prayer hands*"

The college admissions coach at Visions Academy straight up saying, "That's your story! Now, just stick to the script..." Ma'am what???

"Calmate Mami, eso no es my fault."

"I've hit a lot of different villains with a lot of different food...I'm just trying to lighten the mood."

Miles in his angsty teen era and smart-mouthing everyone around him. Love that for him.

"He almost killed his mom as a baby, I mean, look at those shoulders." No but for real tho. Those shoulders are as wide as a truck. Kim Seokjin who??? (if you understood that reference, ily).

Miles writing a love letter to his dad in 2 cakes.

Gwen at the water tower chowing and saying how feelings make her hungry after her and Miles talked about how they can't be together cause it would end in tragedy. Like Gwen, come again?!

Also, Miles' and Gwen's talk at the Williamsburg Bank Building being lowkey the catalyst for the 2nd/3rd acts of the film. Without them both kind of silently admitting their feelings for each other, Miles probably wouldn't have chased after her the way he did. Pretty sure you know the rest.

"I bet she doesn't even speak Spanish," and Jeff going "Que barbaridad" in his very broken Spanish. Queue Rio's bombastic side eye.

Both Gwen and Miles referring to Spot as a Villain Of The Week, even though neither of them have spoken about Spot to each other.

"I was bitten by a-wouldnt you like to know? Know what I mean?" SIR. Chill. This movie is for children.

The Spot inverting himself, going from a white mass with black spots to a gaping black hole with smaller white spirals. It's giving Junji Ito.

The irony of Pavitr exclaiming, "Well that was another easy adventure for Spider-Man!" right before an incoming canon event. HIS. He was about to experience his first big loss, and his happy-go-lucky nature would've been challenged.

Miguel saying conyo! when all the Spideys start pointing at each other.

"!Cállate!" "Nosy!" Sidebar: we don't talk about Gwen's banter with bad guys enough. She's so funny!

A lot of the Peters saying hi to Gwen as she passes HQ because she is canonically the one lost love--the love interest they all would've ended up with had she not died, so they all have an affection for her.

Web-Slinger going "Giddy up!" Cause he's swinging up.

Miles offering his fresh new takes on how to deal with the Spot upon meeting Miguel, saying "He just wants to be taken seriously. Like we all do." MILES YOU BEAUTIFUL, COMPASSIONATE GOLDEN SUNFLOWER BOY I LOVE YOUUUUU.

Hobie referring to Peter B. as Humbling Reality Spider-Man, which considering how steeped in tragedy the Spidey lore is, is really saying something.

Miguel's nonono no puedo más no puedo más. His misery is very funny and delightful to me. Little bitch ass.

"You know you're the only Spider-Man who isn't funny." Yes! More Miguel slander in the next one, please! Little bitch ass.

"Snitch!"

Miles shouting out Peter's name for help whilst Miguel pins and lays into him the fact that he's an anomaly. This after he momentarily glitches back to his ITSV store-bought suit. Mimicking the way-in also the first movie-Miles shouting out Peter's name for his own rescue as Doc Ock attacks him at the research facility. Because even though he feels hurt by Peter at this point, that's still his dad mentor and he still instinctively looks to him for protection. Rip my heart out why don't you!

Gwen sneaking back into her and her dad's place just to get that printed polaroid of her and Miles, a pic she already has on her phone.

Earth-42 Miles wearing Nike while our Miles wears Jordans.

[shysweetthing]

A bit late and possibly more than you want to deal with, but I suppose I just want to get it out of my head: Barring my therapist, no. I don't have anyone telling me I deserve love, and even if I did, I wouldn't believe them. I'm still struggling with the concept that I deserve *life.* Love's a bit much.

Hey anon, first, I don’t know where your head is right now, but if you’re anywhere near that point, please call a suicide prevention line (here: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/) or if you need it, an LGBT centered one (here: https://www.ostem.org/crisis-hotlines).

It is okay to take baby steps with your mental health. It’s okay to start by convincing yourself that you deserve to live, and then moving on to bigger things. I don’t know where you are, but I can promise you that staying alive helps, a lot.

I don’t know who you are or anything about you, but as a statistical matter, I am almost certain to be older than you are–I see people calling themselves “tumblr olds” who are dozens of years younger than I am–and while that certainly doesn’t make me any smarter, it does mean that I have a little more perspective.

I have always had cyclical, deep depression–starting from the time I was about ten–which left me so dark that it scared me sometimes. When I was younger, I didn’t know why I was such a bad person, and why I had those thoughts. (It didn’t help that my parents raised me in a very conservative religion and I was absolutely queer.) I was utterly miserable, and for the most part, I never told anyone how bad it was–I didn’t start talking about this thing I didn’t understand until I was 19 or 20.

I remember telling a friend that I felt like I was in an elliptical orbit around hell, that every time I thought I was getting farther away, I got pulled back in. I didn’t think it was possible to get away. And my friend–who was, like me, an incredible dork–responded that I needed to remember that if you want to achieve escape velocity from an elliptical orbit, I needed to accelerate when I was going down.

For years, that was the thing I pushed for: escape velocity. I was going to reach escape velocity. One day, I was going to push hard enough, and do the right thing, and I would escape this thing that kept coming back to me and clouding my mind. When times were bad, I worried about the opposite: that this time, I would come crashing down. It would be irretrievable. I wouldn’t make it.

(At the time, I didn’t have a name for this thing; nobody I was around talked about mental health, and it never occurred to me that I had a real issue.)

So I pushed. I tried hard. I tried everything I could. And there were times when all I could try was to just keep living another day, so I did that. I had about fifteen years of my life where all I could think was that maybe next time I wouldn’t get out.

But here’s the thing. Every time I went down, I learned something new. I didn’t know I was learning it, but I was. I learned coping skills. I learned how to least fuck over other people when I dropped the basket containing all the eggs. I learned how to take care of myself. I learned how to exist as myself, and not anyone else.

It got better. It got familiar. I discovered that the thing I had had a name, and that I wasn’t just an incredibly bad, stupid, lazy person. I tried every last thing I could find on a list that had been clinically proven to alleviate the symptoms of depression, and my list of coping skills got even longer. I learned to be nice to myself (a little), to give myself a wide margin, and to trust that even though I would never achieve escape velocity from my depression, the cyclical nature of my orbit meant that it would ebb and flow. The patterns became familiar, and I learned to trust myself to navigate through them.

My depression has never gotten better, but I have. I am not stronger than my depression, but I know how to work with it, how to carve out a space that is me and recognize my right to exist and be happy in a framework that is hostile to my existence.

Sometime in the last five years or so, I’ve came to another realization. I have friends who are neurotypical, ones that I went to college or grad school or whatever with. They’ve all been working stable jobs doing adult things for their entire life, and I… uh, I have not been able to hold down a so-called adult job for more than three years at a time. 

(It’s okay, it’s still possible to make money and not be an adult.)

I spent the last weekend at a reunion for one of the groups I was with–highly intelligent, highly successful people who have pretty much universally reached the pinnacle of acclaim. And then there is me.

I sat with friends I knew twelve years ago when I was starting over after another devastating bout of failure, and they were fresh-faced and new. They’re all hitting their midlife crisis. The one where they realize they’ve been working at this thing forever and they’re making money and they have a big home and a garden and blah blah blah and what the hell is all of this for, anyway?

I try to talk them, gently, through my coping skills. Have you considered switching jobs? Have you considered working just part time? What about learning something new just for the hell of it? What if you took two weeks off and just slept? What if you binge-watched a brand new show? I highly recommend Yuri on Ice, you should watch it, do!

To a person, my friends look at me in bafflement and say, “I can’t do that, how could I do that? I think I just have to shrug and keep going.”

I’ve spent most of my life learning how to exist, how to be happy, in crises mode. They have never, ever had to figure that out. I have had to be flexible my entire life; they’ve become brittle to the point of being unable to bend. I used to ask myself, “What could I be if I wasn’t depressed?”

I pretty much know now. If I wasn’t depressed, I wouldn’t be happy. Not the way I am. My happiness is my most important coping skill. Before I do anything, I have to ask, “Is this going to make me miserable?” I’ve learned through experience that I cannot handle any degree of misery, not for any length of time. 

I have been forced through the crucible of my depression to seek delight. When I was younger, I thought I would never, ever be happy. I kept going, and I kept believing it was possible, and even though right now, I am on the gentle upswing of one of the worst depressions I have experienced in a decade, I am, deep down, happy.

And I was surrounded by people this last weekend who were subtly jealous of me.

I wouldn’t wish my depression on anyone. I wouldn’t. Depression is terrible and impossible.

But I promise you, that if you keep going, you will learn coping skills. You will gradually discover things that help. You will build up an arsenal of self-protection. 

And thirty years from now, you’ll be talking to the friends you envy now for their ability to function in a normal way, and they’ll all tell you that they wish they could do what you do, but it’s just not possible, it’s just not possible.

And you? You’ll have been living with the impossible all your life. To you, the impossible will be easy.

I don’t know if this will be helpful at all. I’m not a counselor. I don’t know how to help someone in crises.

All I can say is that I have lived in crises all my life and it gets better. I wouldn’t wish my depression on anyone, but I’ve reached the point in my life where I am delighted to be myself. Every decade of my life is better than the last.

You deserve love. You deserve happiness. You deserve life. Even though I don’t know you, I know these things are true. I’m here from the other end to tell you to please stick it out, because even if you don’t believe these things now, one day, you will.