#in one case anyway

[littlebigmouse]

The utter tragedy that is Gwen Stacy.

Like all spider people, she has to figure it out by herself. An endless slew of villains and only one teenage girl against them. An endless slew of villains and one of them turns out to be her best friend.

Peter Parker was bullied until he couldn't take it any more, and decided to fight back. She must not have noticed him cracking, breaking. He knew her secret the entire time, was there for her the entire time, and she didn't even realize his true identity until he was already burried under scaffolding and rubble.

"I just wanted to be special, like you." She's a wanted criminal now. She's always alone. She's hiding increasingly bigger and bigger parts of herself from her father, who loves and supports her and tells her he's going to lock her up as a means to comfort her.

And then he tries to. And she takes the mask off and he keeps trying. Gwen Stacy held at gun point by the last and only loved one she has in the world.

A freak accident happens and she winds up in a place where a Spiderperson has it all figured out and is a well respected member of their community. A place where her best friend is alive and well and special right up until she sees his corpse plastered on news reports all over a foreign city. And there are other Spider people. Other Peter Parkers, all haunting her with never-ending "What could have beens". Gwen isn't alone any more until she is, two days later and with no means to ever see the one tentative friend she may have made, ever again.

A year passed and he might have just moved on from her, anyway.

Gwen Stacy meets a Spiderwoman who is cool and capable and doesn't let love drag her down, but she still gained happiness, somewhere out there. Jessica Drew is a flicker of hope for Gwen that there might be happiness waiting for her, for a Spiderperson that isn't Peter Parker.

Except of course, Jess seems to barely tolerate her. The rescue, safety, is conditional. If Gwen falters, if Gwen isn't good enough, if Gwen slips up even once, she will prove herself a liability, will be send back into isolation, a hopeless situation, home. Will disappoint a person she's trying so hard to impress and connect with.

Spider society is still haunted by the countless ghosts of her best friend. Because every Peter Parker became a hero except hers. Every Peter Parker is fundamentally a good person who wants to save people, every Spiderperson is a good person who wants to save people, except her Peter and this Gwen, who has his blood on her hands. Notice how Gwen and Peter B barely talk, never have a real emotional conversation with each other. They treat each other as equals, and they do care about each other, but they can't shake off the ghosts haunting each other's faces.

Gwen tells Miles "in every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spiderman." People don't soften their blows for Gwen. How did she find out about all the dead Gwen Stacys? She spend several months dimension hopping on missions, did she witness a Peter Parker fail to save his best friend? Is that a "canon event" for Peter Parker? For Spiderman?

Maybe Gwen and Peter can't coexist in the same universe without one of them dying tragically young. Maybe Gwen was never supposed to be Spiderwoman, stole the spot from Peter Parker, robbed him of his life, and her universe hates her for it now. One more anomaly for Miguel to catch later, once he finds out.

Maybe Gwen is the one who got away, she one Gwen who's supposed to have got it good, who made it, will live to see 30. The one Gwen to survive and she's alone, unloved, teetering on the edge. The Gwen that is special and thus shares her fate with all the spider people - will either watch her father die or watch him lock her up or even shoot her on sight. Which is worse? Miles asks Gwen whether that's it, and she just says "Yeah". She gets to chose between the rock and the hard place. Maybe she doesn't have a choice. Gwen Stacy either dies or watches everyone else die. Does it matter, which is written into the fabric of the universe and which is a fluke?

Gwen tries to play by the rules, can't risk messing up again for Jess, can't risk losing Miles, can't risk losing one more friend. One more friend because she can't help but get attached to people, can't help but fall in love with a Spiderman, like all the other doomed Gwens in other universes. But Miles is so fundamentally good he's burried under scaffolding and rubble, curled around a little kid he's saved. Gwen almost watches her best friend die a second time, willing to watch a few civilians die instead. She's been on the other side of that equation and the regret is tearing her apart, the other way around must be better, right?

Would Gwen do it again, knowing who was hidden beneath the scales? Would she sacrifice his bully, her classmates? A little kid and a police captain? Her police captain?

The tragedy of the classic trolley problem is that someone always dies anyway, no matter whether you pull the lever.

Gwen has alltogehter pulled way too many levers.

[emberglowfox]

birds of a feather

[caruliaa]

staff still hasn't given me polls, what should i do?

🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪 their moms 69%

🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪 their dads 31%

grace image os i get to look at her

[katabay]

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A KNIGHT...

the visual inspiration for this was a combination of Frederic William Burton's Meeting on the Turret Stairs and also Bernardo Cavallino's The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin

this was supposed to be just a one off illustration to get the thoughts out of my system, but then I started thinking about medieval politics and warfare and plagues and a castle and home as both a place of refuge, a prison, and a tomb, so perhaps they will end up as ex voto characters as well.

you may say, hey! that rosary looks like it has too many beads! it's a fifteen decade rosary, probably. dominicans are really into marian devotions. it works out.

also. spiral style stair cases. oh boy. it was that unexpectedly more difficult than I originally thought it would be to draw. the more I think about it, the less I understand them, even though I had a million photos of the stairs in front of me while I was drawing it.

⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!

⭐ and other places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[cordycepspog]

There’s something horrifyingly beautiful about Tess’s final moments. In the midst of the most dire chaos, as she waits for her death to come rushing past so she can blow it sky high and give cordyceps a big fuck you one last time, one of the infected stops. It looks at her, really looks. Her own mortality is personified in this infected. It’s death that’s looking at her, and it sees her. She looks her own death in the eye, and the suspense is so high as it approaches. But then, it doesn’t bite her throat out like we all expect it to.

It kisses her. What’s more, it kisses her gently. And I think it was a brilliant choice on the writers part, because it reminded me that the infected aren’t supposed to be evil. Sure, they’re scary as hell, but really, they’re just trying to survive. They’re connected to one another, they can feel each other from miles away. They seek out and want to be close to their own kind, just like the human survivors do. And when they do find each other, they kiss hello.

And after so long apart from a loved one, someone you know and trust with every instinct in your body, wouldn’t you want to kiss them too?

[bigfatbreak]

fun fact, when mlp first came out in 2010, I had an entire comic I'd been drawing by hand with markers about my pony ocs which were guards in the royal castle. I still have the original 62 pages. fucking insane. anyway here's redraws of two of them lmao

Garden ("En") the "painted pegasus", who's mother was a zebra and who's pa was a pegasus. he was protag of the comic and YES I shipped him with princess luna WOOO LETS GOOOO

this guy was actually a background character more than anything. he was used here and there but he wasn't one of the central characters at all, he was friends with two other captains who WERE central characters. but I popped off with him so-

BEHOLD!! OLD ASS ART... FROM MY BEGINNER DAYS....

[starflungwaddledee]

happy birthday. you are so, so loved

[cozylittleartblog]

lethal company is a workplace comedy

this prank got us All killed. btw.

[nelkcats]

Haunted City

Danny could admit that pretending to be a "regular ghost" was pretty fun. He could hide in one place and scare people who were waiting for an open door and a creepy laugh.

Honestly, Danny could do a lot more than that, the ghosts people believed in were nothing like the ones he knew. He wondered if there were simply different types of ghosts, or supernatural creatures; it was quite likely, considering that the ghosts of the Realms weren't even of the same dimension so it wasn't a fair comparison.

Anyway, the halfa had spent a couple of days "haunting" Gotham. The place was too leggy and they needed a little excitement in their lives. Of course, this led to some rumors about a spirit suffering or something similar, he didn't really care.

The "heroes" of Gotham didn't seem to share his opinion, going through all the places that had been "attacked" (they were just jokes) and looking for some explanation before calling Justice League Dark, Danny had fun scaring them a little in the process.

But he wasn't too interested in being exorcised, banished or whatever they did with rebel ghosts, so he settled on a mansion that was too big for its few inhabitants. Scaring billionaires was almost therapeutic, although the butler didn't seem too impressed by his (minimal) efforts.

[claraoswalds]

The Girl Who Died // Hell Bent

[moeblob]

So does he, Gallagher.

[ruporas]

can’t talk about it

[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The comic starts with the sounds "thud, thud, click". Vash, mid-action of peeling an apple, turns to the sound, noticing who it was that entered, and says, "Oh, Wolfwood, you're back." He resumes back to his apple in the next panel as he speaks, "Where'd you go? You snuck out of bed quickly this morning..." Wolfwood's hand then enters the panel, hovering over Vash's cheek and Vash looks up as Wolfwood asks, "Can I?" Vash responds, "Not going to talk about it?" while using a hand to gently hold Wolfwood's hovering hand and presses a kiss to his inner palm.

Vash then gets up fully, setting down the knife down on the table and the apple onto a plate, He leans into Wolfwood as Wolfwood explains, "Had to meet someone. Nothing interesting to talk about." Vash kisses Wolfwood's left cheek and a hand moves to cup his other cheek while muttering, "You're being vague." Wolfwood says neutrally, "If yer really that curious, keep askin'. We  can talk about that instead of doing this." Vash leans back and responds, "Let's talk after, since... You look so tired."

The panel pans to a close up of Wolfwood's downcast eyes, bags heavy underneath his eyes. He doesn't allow Vash to sit in that moment for long though, then saying, "Yer not helping, Spikey. Being all slow with it... I could fall asleep right now." He moves his hand to start unclasping Vash's coat, starting from his collar. Vash with red cheeks, responds briskly, "Oh, shut up. I'm worried about you. I can't be worried?"

The final shot shows Wolfwood's back to the viewer while Vash's softened expression can be seen as he holds gently onto the side of Wolfwood's face and a hand firm on his waist. Wolfwood responds, "I'm fine, seriously," pausing for a moment before continuing, "Is it okay to still..?" Vash responds, "Yeah, it's okay."

The next image is a shot from later that night after the previous comic. Vash and Wolfwood are now in bed, half naked. Wolfwood's buries his face into Vash's chest, his arms wrapped around him, while Vash is petting at his hair. Vash reminds him, "Hey. You said we'd talk about it." Wolfwood pauses for a moment before piping up, "In the morning? I'm sleepy." Vash says, "Okay..."

The next two pages start from the morning after. Wolfwood is already fully awake, pulling on his outer jacket as he says to Vash, whos' still bundled in his blankets, "Breakfast is on the table. Make sure to eat it. I'm going to grab some things in town and then we're leavin'. Got it?" Vash says, "Mh." Wolfwood responds, "Good. See ya in a bit." The dialogue starts to shift into Vash's inner thoughts now, as he gets up and eats toast, thinking, "Wait. Weren't we supposed to... talk about it?" The next shot then shows him fully up, meeting Wolfwood in town. He carries a half worried expression with him while Wolfwood slides on his glasses for him. A quick panel shows Wolfwood's tired expression from the night before and quickly juxtaposes with Wolfwood in front of him who's smiling gently, the shades covering his eye bags. Wolfwood asks him, "Still not awake yet?" Vash pauses, his thoughts stirring, thinking, "Oh. I guess I was getting ahead of myself... thinking you owe me that kind of honesty." He smiles at Wolfwood and responds, "I'm awake!" His thoughts continue, "Maybe one day, you'd trust me enough to share your burdens."

The final image shows Wolfwood pulling at Vash's cheek and Vash complains, "Owwwww why..." Wolfwood quickly says, "You were thinking something stupid, right? It's all over yer face." Vash mutters, "Nooo, I wasn't..." END ID]

[incredubious]

another ole collection of one piece doodles...enjoy

[jezyan]

something so funny about being able to pick up your miniature friend-rival on the go

[knifekey]

and thereby providing relief from,

[ladykeyleth]