#it's so obvious miles isn't canon just based on his relationships with people not fitting the reality for 'spiderman'

[green-cinnamon-stick]

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".