#mirrored roof

[dlyarchitecture]

[spider-man-2o99]

so, then, what IS up with miguel o’hara’s moral backbone?

lol sorry if y’all’re sick of my 2099 soapboxing. anyways.

while i understand where the reading of “miguel is a morally bankrupt evil scientist and his spider-man is just a violent shitheel” comes from, i just... really can’t ever get behind it, based on what we see in the text of SM2099 v1 (1992-1996) itself.

like, don’t get me wrong-- from our first introduction to the guy, we very quickly learn that he has been a cog in the machine for one of the 2099 imprint’s Big Bads, the ruthless megacorporation in charge of the United States’ East coast: Alchemax.

..but. like.

the whole point of his origin story is changing that. the initial catalyst for his Spidering--getting roofied by Tyler when he tries to quit his job--would not have happened if he had no moral compass to speak of.

narratively, it’s less that miguel himself is changed, after he gets his powers, but that his perception of the world has changed.

just-- just bear with me, yeah?

see, for a lot of his life, miguel was a perfect cog in a shitty machine, and he did everything he was expected to without even thinking to stray from the path set down for him by his biological father and by alchemax overall.

and, then, suddenly, that’s all ripped from him in an instant. and miguel’s left floundering in the water.

he’s no longer on the winning team-- more than that, he realizes that he probably never even was on the right side of things, to begin with.

miguel o’hara’s most-quoted line is his response to the infamous “great power,” bit: Great responsibility? No. With great power comes great guilt.

he’s repressed, and he’s a hypocrite, but a guy can only turn a blind eye so far when something he knows is wrong is happening right in front of his face.

as soon as it’s even suggested to him, he immediately steps out of line and tries to put his foot down on absolutely not using a human test subject for his personal spider-man project. when stone brushes him off and makes them go through with human testing anyways, and then the subject dies, miguel doesn’t hesitate to turn up his nose and walk out right then and there on the spot.

his reward for it, of course, is an ice-cold dose of Reality.

from there, his blinders get pulled harshly off his face, and mig realizes that he really doesn’t want to keep being the person that he has been. his life has been wasted sitting idly by and letting bad things happen because all he knows is helpless compliance, right up until he goes and gets himself The Fly’ed into spider-man.

and once that happens, and he Realizes it, he starts to fight back.

that’s how the run is kick-started, in the very first three issues!

the first ten issues of spider-man 2099 (1992) follow miguel stumbling from a very sheltered life, having been thrust head-first into navigating a world that is not only deeply, deeply unjust, but also wants him very, very dead.

he don’t got a dead uncle to motivate him! all he’s got it his own fear and an inner desire to use his new abilities to try and make the world a better place.

hell, the first time he put on the costume, ol’ miggy boy wasn’t even doing so for the purpose of becoming a superhero in his off-time-- it was just an old spare in his closet that he threw on in a desperate attempt to Not Fucking Die as a bounty hunter tracked him to his home.

it’s only later on, after he’s had time for it all to sink in, that miguel realizes that he can actually meaningfully help the people who had been cast aside by the same society that had previously lifted him up above them.

as much as he whines and bitches and moans about it, he never seriously considers throwing in the towel and hanging up the costume for good. he may hate what has happened to him, but he never once seems to hate what he can now do with his powers, vis-à-vis challenging injustice.

mig’s often stuck between a rock and a hard place, what with the kind of world he lives in. it’s why he don’t work well when he’s stranded away from his dimension. peter can get his villains locked up just fine and dandy, but miguel’s world isn’t like ours like that. it’s brutal and it’s very very much established across the imprint that earth-928 (marvel 2099) is a kill-or-be-killed place to live.

despite how people harp on him not having a no-kill rule, miguel honestly hasn’t even killed enough people to count on one hand; the first was completely by accident, even, and the second told him to his face that if spider-man let him live he’d just keep being a cannibal gang-boss because no one else ever has or would try to oppose him.

is killing people the answer? not if you have any other option. but. mig ain’t a friendly neighborhood superhero. he’s just doing what he thinks is right in the moment while scared absolutely shitless for his life most of the time.

now, i don’t mean to defend his every action--miguel o’hara isn’t a saint, and, good god, but he’s made some questionable choices--but. at the end of the day, he’s still shown throughout the run to be trying to be better.

and, i dunno. maybe i’m just a sentimental little sap, but a story about somebody who finally “wakes up” and struggles to build a life worth being proud of after years of having shut down from heavy early-life trauma? that hits, man.

hits real close to home, to be honest. learning to Live after so long simply Surviving is fuckin’ hard, man.

[arohuacheng]

hua cheng body dysmorphia truther. that man does not have a realistic concept of what he looks like and he is not reasonable or healthy about the way that he looks either

[scribefindegil]

One of the things I have the most fun with while writing Brassica Heresy is the way that the Mob and Tsubomi relationship is a mirror of their canon dynamic. It's a fic where Tsubomi is the protagonist, and so she's the one who gets to have her life be complicated and fleshed-out and central to the narrative, while Mob is the one who exists primarily in years-old memories. It's really cool to play with what that relationship looks like from the other side, to centralize Tsubomi's experience--what her memories look like, the tiny things she's noticed about present-day Mob even though she doesn't know him very well, the ongoing underlying fondness based on their shared childhood despite the fact that they drifted apart. And then it's also fun to make that dynamic real fucked up by throwing an evil mind-altering broccoli into the mix.

[beautifulfrenchhouses]

10,000,000 €

1400 m² / 15 069 ft²

Ecully, Rhône, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France.

[craftandco]

Une petite avancée...en attendant la mise en peinture.... à suivre ...

[kidrunaway]

I don't want to praise David cage for the shit I'm about to say and I'm not sure whether it's intentional or not but I forgot to mention something about Markus. a lot of people don't pay any attention to music in this game and it drives me insane. Music is so important in video games I learned this from little nightmares. When playing the piano as a machine you're given the option to play different things. He plays it for quite some time until Carl comes around and disturbs him. On the roof top scene however, you don't have that option, and the melody just sounds really dark, desperately trying to look for hope, until he stops playing it. You wouldn't just play a tune like that on a chill roof top. Anyone would probably play something nice and relaxing but Markus just let's his frustration out and the music shows it.

That's already sort of a sign that he's just. Not doing well. Even when being with things he enjoys doing.

I noticed that when he's a machine he plays it for a longer amount of time and on the roof top he doesn't. I was surprised as to how quick the player was to stop. Sure maybe the developers wanted to just speed up the process, but then why add the piano in the first place? I mean he could just be on the roof top reading a book until north comes around. So the piano does have a purpose. It shows his emotions clearly. Theres also the option to pick up a mirror to stare at himself and what hes become. So that scene is truly all about emotions.

[oscill4te]

damn it lowkey sucks that i didnt inherit the female facial hair gene that my dad's side has going on. i have like. A bit of stubble and somewhat of a faint femstache. but i dont think its very noticeable unless your very close to me, or zoom hella close on a selfie. i would look very good with more... just saying.

[dogfreakfairy]

wow I’m so gorgeous 😌

[raposarealm]

Decided Rena would be a good model for the new event background, and was reminded of back over two years ago when some people thought she might have been the Mirrors Witch, and now here she is, in front of the background from the event about the actual Mirrors Witch’s meguca form, who’s nothing like Rena at all...

Also reminded in turn that Rena has now, alongside many others, directly fought against the true Mirrors Witch herself, but given that she never fought Mikoto, I couldn’t write that in the above :(

[alternis]

the provlem is I think logistically it makes the most sense for third eye tim to rebel and leave Shiva if she'd placed him in a scenario where he had to kill somebody to save his own life and

(because he wasn't trained by batman and had less knowledge of subduing foes safely, and he's used to sparring shiva who can redirect or block lethal attacks, and the guy was genuinely stronger than him and trying to kill him)

he's cocky and overconfident about his skills, assumes he can find a third way out of the situation, but the other guy ended up dead.

7however I do not want to jack cass's exceptional backstory swag nor do I want to undermine Tim's own commitment to nonlethal violence, and desire to help even those who seem irredeemable. much to think about

[letmerain]

remember when benedict said “at least just shave, will you?”

let’s keep in mind that lord anthony bridgerton stopped shaving altogether because kate sharma had touched his face.

[sirompp]

did you know lego has a "pick a brick" thing on their site whee you can pick individual bricks to buy. unrelated but did you know ive never shopped online for anything before.

[geometricalien]

thinking about horrific akafuri >>> putting words together to describe horrific akafuri

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

[seveneyesoup]

google search considerate ways to work on a handstand as an upstairs neighbor