Gwen Stacy: A Character Study
Spoilers ahead for Across the Spider-Verse
I started typing this in the tags of that last Gwen Stacy reblog and realized I had way too many thoughts on this to flood the tags with. Okay if you didn't read those tags, all I had said at first was that I had seen a lot of discourse about Gwen. Miles doesn't need to take her back, she's a bad friend, how dare she show up at the cookout knowing all she knew (lol that one made me laugh ngl), nothing too heinous but I didn't see a whole lot of forgiveness. Before I get in to this, I'm not excusing her behavior in the slightest. I just think there's a lot more to it than her being a bad friend to Miles. The whole movie, Miles is trying to make a point that he's not a kid. But...he is. The way the adults try to direct his life is juvenille and definitely make it seem like he's younger, but he is still only 15. He gets away with a lot cause he's still just a kid and he's still learning. Gwen doesn't get the same treatment and yet...she's only 15mos older. She's not years older like Hobie or even Peter B.. She's barely 16 herself. Now here's a girl who still blames herself for her best friend's death and who's dad blames her for her best friend's death (unknowingly). She befriends this kid who's just.like.her. Dad's a cop, he's new to being a spider, he's her age, and he too feels alone. But she can't get too close because she hurts the people she loves. She literally STARTS the movie explaining this.
When she finally reveals herself to her father, he turns his back on her. Now here's this group of other spiders who can travel to different dimensions freely and can provide her a fastrack ticket back to Miles. She asks Jessica to adopt her on sight. And that's before her dad even drops her, that's how alone she feels. She already feels like she doesn't have a home. So imagine her probable horror when she finds out that the new best friend she's trying to get back to, is the number 1 enemy of her new "family". He's the cause of a whole host of problems and she's forbidden to tell him. She can't go back home and she can't stay with Miles because she'll glitch without a watch. And she can't even use the watch because she's not supposed to see Miles at all. So what can she do, go back and have her dad arrest her? Or stay with the only people who understand her? They show us in multiple ways that she hangs out with Hobie the most. Now they want us to think there's something there and she probably has a small crush, but that's mostly just cause Hobie's kind of too cool not to have a slight infatuation with him. (And that's coming from someone who doesn't even like guys). But I like to think Hobie also is the only person who doesn't trust Miguel and doesn't really agree with "the plan". So she hangs with the one other person *besides Peter B, who doesn't hate on Miles. I can only imagine how insufferable Miguel probably is about it. So she finally gets an opportunity to be in Miles' dimension and the FIRST thing she does is go to him. Breaks all protocol, ditches her tracking device, and goes to hang out with her best friend.
Now this is the point in which I do believe she could've told him. Especially since the last time she lied, her best friend died. But we've seen Miguel can get unhinged. To a level even Peter B. didn't know he was capable of. She knows they don't like Miles. If she tells him and he goes to confront Miguel and he kills Miles, she's now caused the death of two best friends. If she tells Miles and Miguel finds out, and takes her watch, she's now lost any chance of EVER getting back to Miles not to mention she gets thrown back with her dad...who hates her. So she does what any 16yr old girl would do when faced with a lot of tough decisions....she lies (again), and she runs. First from the Spiderteam and then from Miles. She tries to do what Miles did and have two cakes, but she's bad at it. She's not designed to "break canon" so rule breaking isn't in her nature. I think there's actually a lot more to how much that drives who they all are as people. Which also explains why Miles simply doesn't get it. Even with Hobie, it's in.his.DESIGN to be an anarchist, ergo he's still following his own canon. But Miles doesn't have a canon. So none of his friend's actions are going to make sense to him.
I don't know. I think a lot of Gwen's decisions can be chalked up to "she's a 16yr old girl with her own baggage". She wants to see her best friend but it comes at a cost. A cost she pays for almost immediately when hanging with Miles is the reason the Spot gets even stronger and then escapes. She was supposed to be watching him but she impulsively went to go hang out with her best friend. Thus dragging Miles into the problem because he follows her. Her lying gets people hurt in so many ways. But if she had told Miles the truth, he still would've followed her. He has a thirst for knowledge and a need to help. He was always going to intervene when given the chance. Gwen's choices were between family or friends. Same as Miles. The only difference being, Miles considers them to be the SAME thing thus making the decision to choose, damn near impossible for him. He's close with his family but he can't tell them the truth, so he just needs friends who understand him. She needs both but she told her dad the truth and he turned his back, so if she tells Miles the truth....... She's been told explicitly that she can either have this new family who gets/wants her, or go back to her dad if she chooses Miles (who also gets her on a level that no one else does) but who she can't be with without risk of death by glitch....so she lies. And when she realizes she still has her dad, guess what her first act is? Going back to Miles. So should she have lied to him? No. But would telling him the truth have yielded different results? Honestly, I don't know. But I like to think no. Everything still would've happened, just differently. The Spot still would've gotten away and Miles would still go against Miguel to save his dad and stop the Spot. Unfortunately the only thing her lying did was put tension on their friendship, but she had no way of knowing if telling him would work in anyone's favor.
Now Peter B......I want to know if Miguel threatened him. Cause when Miles asks why he didn't come to see him he says the same thing as Gwen, "I couldn't". Miles doesn't really hear that. He hears "i had the opportunity to see you and I chose differently" but that's not what either of them said. I'm hoping they show us more of that cause there's a lot of power in the word "couldn't".
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God I wonder how the Elric's are gonna feel about Hughes being back and. Shit. Who's gonna tell his wife!? It's been two years! He has so many photos to catch up on...
roy “hughes retired to his farm up north” mustang did not, in fact, alert the elrics before the fake news story went public.
bonus doodles below:
also i’m trying not to get emotional over the fact that while missing 2-3 years of most relationships is negligible in the grand scheme of things, 2-3 years away from raising a toddler is huge. Fortunately (?) for Maes, he got back before Elicia could really understand the concept of death, but he still probably missed a lot of milestones. :,(
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I Think There's Been a Glitch
GUYS I just realized sth crazy while watching this tiktok….I think the reason Taylor has red hair in so many mvs is bc it’s a play on the term RED HERRING. Red HAIR(RING). TTPD itself was a red herring and ends w the manuscript which is basically just the all too well short film (from RED TV) which she has red hair in. The glitches. Error 321. Bad BLOOD mv where she has red hair. THE RED BLOOD MOON. CHAOS 🫚 ANON = GINGER = RED HEAD = GLITCH. Glitching back to the 1989 era??…..
IT'S A CLOCK, IT CAN HELP YOU TELL TIME. She literally told us her entire plan all the way back in 2022. If the midnights vinyls make a clock that counts down to midnight then we’ve officially reached the “blood moon glitch” stage. I'm assuming 1, 2, 3 error/TPD (if you reverse the website glitch) was the moonstone vinyl so now we're at 4, 5, 6 the blood moon vinyl. The Jan 4 🫚 message tells us that we should be counting from 1-10 and not backward. And this means the final act ends in October AKA Halloween AKA pumpkin anon. "Frivolous, tenfold, 3 desires And until the clock strikes midnight Light the ground with fires." Seeing how each vinyl is a quarter of the clock and TTPD (the glitch/red blood moon/red herring) was released in April, I think it's safe to assume each quarter represents 1/4 of a year or 3 months. Which means 2025 or New Year's Day would be Midnight. So perhaps a kaylor reunion in Oct and an official coming out around Dec-Jan. This aligns w another interesting anon message we received abt New Year's Day being when an atomic bomb would go off (volcano anon?). "The real drama, the heartbreaking beauty of it all, unfolds not in a grand finale, but in the quiet unraveling. The magician's greatest illusion is the one you choose not to see." Shits abt to get crazy
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I've been thinking about how white london probably has different kinds of physical affection to red and grey, I can't imagine hugging being common among people who are casual friends like it is in a lot of places here (I'm talking from the pov of someone from an area not too far away from real london so i get that this isnt the case everywhere lol) hugging requires a certain trust that the person you are hugging is doing anything nefarious with their hands - like stabbing you in the back for instance... so i like to think that in white london where trust is about as thin on the ground as magic, hugging is a massive declaration of trust in which you may as well tell the other you love them.
on an additional note it makes me wonder about what affections would be commonplace, would a kiss on the cheek be a more common greeting to someone you care for? would people give a short bow as a greeting towards an acquaintance? (both things very common in many places in this world too so not exactly strange?) or are people simply all-or-nothing with their affections, giving all their affection to one or two people who have their absolute trust and not showing any at all otherwise?
when it comes to greeting a stranger i was taught in my martial arts classes to introduce myself with both hands visible and to shake hands with both of my hands as a sign of respect within the culture so i wonder if that kind of action would be common in makt - dont hide your hands when trying to gain someones trust or they will think you are hiding something...
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i’m home !!
procedure went real well, everything was really smooth and almost as soon as they said, “you can count backwards if you want,” i don’t think i even said ten before i was suddenly in recovery and sipping some ginger ale.
honestly the worst part was the iv because they had to do it on the side of my wrist because apparently my veins are crooked ?? i just hate ivs anyway so that’s no surprise but other than that no complaints.
everyone was real nice and made sure i was well taken care of (my nurse even had me pee one more time before so she wouldn’t have to do a catheter which with my history…..thank you)
but yeah, i’ll have a follow up in about a month just to make sure everything’s good and the iud is doing its thing !!
i do have some cramping and bleeding but that’s normal, although a little funny because i literally just stopped my period yesterday but…oh well !! hopefully in a few months i won’t have hardly any so this we can handle and i hace some medicine (and my ~medicine) that’ll help so i’m all set.
mom had to go run some errands so my little recovery buddy is keeping me company. also, a moment of recognition for my new favorite shirt (thank you as always, Boss Dog Art; i’ve already got my eye on another one that says, “i think therefore i am against transphobia around the world” or something like that and it’s got a cool skeleton on it; this is my third shirt from them and they’re really comfy and good quality so not sponsored but check them out, they seem cool):
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imagine being suguru’s spoiled brat 🫶
RRRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH PLEAAASEEEE I'D KILL TO BE HIS SPOILED BRAT WHATTTTT HE'D LOVE MEEEE FRRR HE WOULD GET NO RESTT<3333333 jazz ur brain is so big and beautiful i want you💋💋💋
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