#news editor Gwen

[fiepige]

Saw some old vines and got inspired:

So here y'all go, Spiderverse as Vines!

[harrisonarchive]

In New York City, Spring of 1970. Photo by Tim Boxer.

“There was a point in my life where I realized anybody can be Lennon/McCartney, you know. ‘Cos being part of Lennon/McCartney really I could see, you know, I could appreciate them — how good they actually are. And at the same time I could see the infatuation that the public had, or the praise that was put on them. And I could see everybody’s a Lennon/McCartney, if that’s what you wanna be. But the point is nobody’s special. There’s not many special people around. And somebody else... If Lennon/McCartney are special, then Harrison and Starkey are special, too. That’s really — what I’m saying is that I can be Lennon/McCartney too, but I’d rather be Harrison, you know.” - George Harrison, interviewed by Howard Smith for WABC, 1970 George was also interviewed by reporter, columnist and editor of The Yonkers Herald Statesman, Gwen Hall. Her son, Mitchell, recalled: “Interviewing a Beatle was cool although she didn’t let me go with her.” (activerain.com) “Meditation — chanting gives me peace and rest, it’s a process to get away from the chaos of the world. New York needs it badly. I walk down the streets — I see so many, so hostile, shouting at each other, causing arguments. It’s all such a waste of time. Inner satisfaction transcends all outer chaos.” - George Harrison, The Yonkers Herald Statesman, May 1, 1970 George stopped by The Beatles Fan Club office, unannounced. “Sandi asked why he wouldn’t smile for pictures and he said, ‘You don’t have to smile outwardly to be smiling inwardly. I’m always smiling.’” (Harrison Herald, July 1970) And lastly, during this NYC visit, George recorded totgehet with Bob Dylan at Columbia Studios (reported by Rolling Stone on May 23rd of that year). (x)

[certainlynotasimp]

Hii, i think a good idea for a one shot could be that there's a canon event where the spiderperson!reader have to do the iconic Spiderman kiss in their universe, like Spiderman 3 (toby's one) with Gwen stacy or whoever you want, but they are in a relationship with Miguel LMAOOO btw im sorry if there's something wrong with the grammar, english is not my first language <3

Rewrite the Stars

((Miguel O’Hara x Female! Reader))

A/N: A non Sunny x Miggy post? How odd for me lol. I’m so sorry this is super late and to everyone whose requested, I’m working slowly but surely on y’all’s stuff. If you wanna read some stuff in the meantime, here’s the Masterlist and feel free to join my discord.

A/N: I tried doing the you/yours pronoun thing because this isn’t a Sunny fanfic but I really don’t like it lol.

Warnings: Jealous Miguel?, Unrequited/Forbidden? Love, Female Reader/Female Pronouns, Barely use of Y/N, and no Spanish this time ((I’m trying to find a new translator and hopefully an editor))

The universe.

One of life’s greatest mysteries. A mass of stars and galaxies that housed so many lives within its many pockets. The lives of so many people whose lives were already written within its cloudy arms and their ends cemented in its pools of nothingness.

A beautiful cycle of cruelty and destiny.

A cycle that was the reason for your utter misery as you sat at a bar listening to your dimension’s Ben Riley blabber on about some football game you cared nothing about.

His oblivious brown eyes sparkled at the fascination with the game as his dimpled smile accentuates his sharp jawline. The warm lights from above caused a healthy glow to bounce off of his shaggy blonde hair, almost making him look like an angel. You can see why Spiderverse assigned him as your love interest.

In your earth’s canon, you were a typical woman who had gotten bit by a radioactive spider during a high school field trip and you spent your entire high school experience thrashing goons instead of chasing boys. Even helped take down some aliens with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers at times before college finals. Spiderwoman was New York’s beloved hero and the cockiness of being its one and only SpiderWoman quickly got into her head.

That was until six months ago.

Six months ago, you were fighting the Vulture over the Empire State Building when another, more mutated version of the same villain appeared. They both decided in your state of delirium over the doubles that you would be a good plaything.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, I didn’t ask for a combo with my chicken!” A feminine spider’s voice screeches as she avoids the hooked talons of the erratic variant.

The two villains took turns flying menacingly around the scope of buildings to throw the hero off of their location while the other swooped in and tries to rip her throat out.

As she attempts to escape the feathered monster, its companion would come and slice away the web of salvation, continuing the vicious cycle.

Blood blinded her vision as the loud ringing at the base of her skull grew louder. The causes of that annoying alarm grasp their razor claws into her shoulders before sweeping her exhausted body into the air with a victorious snarl.

‘I guess this is the end…’

As the heavens draw closer to her doom, her life hanging up by the slicing of her muscles and bones, a glimmer of fate happens. The warmth of a flash barely registers as the first ache disappears with a startled squeak and a burly force. The sudden change in feeling takes her breath away as she suddenly begins to plummet below.

Her eyes quickly adjusting to the suffocating drop, she can see that one of the Vultures was now fighting an even more prominent blue figure, his howls of pain and unintelligible cursing heard from the stumbling brawl.

As the flash from her familiar foe reaches around the building, she shoots her web at him and used him as a glider.

“Time to ground you, birdie!” She yells as she throws the villain through a window. Catching her grip on the building, she looks at her new foe in the sky and the wind is knocked out of her from the sight.

The man who saved her was in a futuristic spider suit with his mask now off. His dark hair flutters in the wind as the setting sun makes his tanned skin glow. His red eyes glare at the wiggling mutant as his full lips pull back into a snarl. His jaws open revealing a set of large fans before he plunged them into the mutant.

Who the hell is that?

~~~~~~~~~

“(Y/N)?…” Ben frowns as he realizes his date was lost in her thoughts.

You snapped out of your head and fake an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I was remembering something….”

That wasn’t a complete lie. You remembered the day you met Miguel O’Hara. The Spiderman of the year 2099 and the leader of the inter-dimensional Spider Society. The anomaly that had come into your world had brought the two together and you were recruited due to your stubbornness, much to Miguel’s annoyance.

~~~~~~~~~

“No.” His annoyance dripped from these words as he glares down at you. You were caught in wonder at the idea of there being other Spidermen and that they worked together to stop the collapse of the entire universe. The thought seemed too good to be true that you just had to ask if you could join until those red eyes shot your dream through the heart.

“What do you mean ‘No’?” You ask in disbelief. Your own eyes glared deep into his soul as your hands balled into fists. “I’m a Spiderman just like you! How could you-!”

“You are not like me.” He coldly snaps at you, your ranting briefly interrupted as the man towers over you. His clawed hand grasps your face as his glare sets a spark of fury down in your chest.

“You will never be like me and you will never-!” “Is that our new recruit?” A smooth British accent appears behind Miguel as a spiked-headed Spiderman peeks around his bulking figure.

“No, she’s-” The tall punk pulls you away from Miguel with a mischievous laugh as he introduces himself. “Ello, love, my name is Hobie. Hobie Brown.” He leans down with a sly smirk as his mischievous attitude infests your being like a plague. “Just play along, mate. Let’s riffle this wanker’s undies.” He whispers as you giggle.

“Nice to meet you, Hobie.” I allow a sly smirk to slide onto my face as I look back at the now very annoyed Miguel. “My name is (Y/N) and I’m happy to join.”

~~~~~~~~

The distant sound of screams filters through the bar as the distinct sound of a car being tossed into another building.

Looking at my gizmo disguised as a watch, you realized that the canon event was starting.

~~~~~~~~

“You did well today,” Miguel admits under his breath. Looking at him in shock, you realize that he wasn’t scowling like he normally was. He had a softer expression, his eyes shining with approval as his lips quirked into a mimic of a smile.

The mission had almost gone rouge with the escape of a prowler and him hiding low in a crowded dimension. Despite the obvious danger, Miguel opted to go alone like usual, but his lack of spider sense caused him to get caught up in a trap. Talons and Fangs don’t really help if you can’t exactly move around to use them, so he ended up taking serious blows.

Luckily, you managed to get there and tumble with the villain long enough for the others to rescue Miguel, and the team managed to recapture the prowler. Of course all of them looked pretty bad injuries wise, but the look Miguel had as you sat there bandaging up his wounds made it worth it for some odd reason.

“Thanks Boss.”

~~~~~~~~

June 27th : SpiderWoman of Earth 648 will rescue love interest, Ben Riley, from an attack against The Rhino….

The roaring of the mechanical beast fills the panicked screams of the patrons as the sinking feeling falls in your chest. Ben is quick to play the hero like any guy would as he grabs your arm and drags you out towards the emergency exit. Just like the timeline said it would.

You use the chaos to your advantage as you pretend to trip and get lost in the crowd of people struggling to escape from the emergency exit.

~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean by that?!” I snapped at an irritated Miguel.

Lyla was surprisingly quiet as she watched the duo argue. Miguel whips around at you as his ruby eyes scorched into yours. His talons point at you accusingly as he reiterates your next canon event.

“On June 27th, you are going to be out on a date with Ben Riley. The Rhino is gonna attack that street and you’re gonna save everyone, and afterwards you’re gonna have to kiss him.” His frustration evident as his permanent frown creases.

You stare into his eyes in defiance as you coldly utter, “No. I’m not gonna kiss Ben Riley.”

“And why not? He’s your love interest!” Miguel exclaims, obviously more furious than before. “You’re the Peter to his MJ. You gotta kiss him because you’re destined to be.”

“I don’t love him! I don’t even like his whiny ass!” You snap as you felt your frustrated tears roll down your face.

It’s true. Before you joined this team, you would have been thrilled that you were destined to be with Campus Hunk Ben Riley. He was everything you could ever want from a guy. He was good looking, sensitive, athletic, and social able. The all around good guy you would be proud to bring home to your folks.

But…

Sharp grasp on your shoulder alerts your attention back to Miguel as he slams you back against the desk. His eyes burning embers as he glares down at you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Changing into your spidersuit, you began to fight The Rhino with a distracted daze in your movements.

The memory from a week prior burning in your mind as you sloppily avoided cars and harsh blows. After a few well timed flips and back kicks, the brute decides to throw a large street cleaning truck towards the alleyway. Just like Lyla predicted when she handed you the file.

The Rhino is gonna throw a street cleaner towards the alleyway where Ben is. SpiderWoman will stop the truck before impact and sling it back towards The Rhino ending the fight.

~~~~~~~

“And why is it that you are being so difficult?!” He snaps as his fangs glimmer from his scowl. A cute trait you used to love about him until it was pointed at you. “You are no better than a spoiled child with how you are acting so you better have a good fucking reason!”

You growl back at him with a tear rolling down your enraged face.

He had no right to argue with you about your life, not when he’s the one making it difficult.

~~~~~~~

Shooting a web out towards the buildings, you catapulted yourself into the air and landed in front of the truck. Quickly reusing the web with some enforcements, the truck was bounced back to the The Rhino. The enormous foe gets trampled by the machinery as the crowd cheers for SpiderWoman’s dreaded victory.

“Way to go SpiderWoman!!” A familiar voice joins the crowd as I see Ben on the ground, obviously he either tripped or fell back to avoid the truck. You offer a hand towards him as you thank him softly.

“Thank you.” I faked the smile in my voice as the crowd disappears, leaving the two of you in the alley way.

~~~~~

Finally snapping at him, you yell out in fury,

“BECAUSE HE’S NOT YOU!”

With a frustrated slap to Miguel’s face, you run past him and escaped back to your dimension, heartbroken over how the events to come and what just happened that despite everything you couldn’t change fate.

No matter how many times you fell asleep during long nights talking on his observation deck. No matter how many playful sparring matches turn into flirty comments. Not even the little gestures of bringing the grumpy spider his coffee and him bringing you some sweets during meetings could change that the star already written your path.

You fell in love with a man who isn’t meant to be yours.

~~~~~

It’s been a week since that fight and you still haven’t seen or heard from him. It hurt to know that your confession was brushed aside while you had to continue the continuity. You half at least expected him to be here to make sure you at least followed through with the canon event.

“Would you like a swing home?” I offer just like I’m supposed to. The moment that was meant to be a nervous beginning to a love story felt like the beginning of heartache as I watched a blush form on his face.

“Sure,” he answered before a flash of realization that his date was suddenly not with him. Another trait you wouldn’t have noticed if you were as in love with him as you were suppose to be.

“Hey my date isn’t here…I think she got hurt or lost during the panic.” His concern caused a pang of guilt to stab her in the chest.

Recovering quickly, you shoot out some webbing and playfully hang upside down infront of him. “Well I guess that swinging date will have to be postponed.”

“Wait it was gonna be a-!”

Quickly, you pulled down the mask enough to deliver a quick peck to his rambling mouth. You force out a giggle as he stood looking at you flabbergasted.

“See ya, Riley.” You swing off as the man bumbled to even ask how you knew his name.

Lyla just said it was a kiss, not a what kind of kiss.

With a heavy heart, you swing back home as you tried to remember that this was all for the sake of the canon. That Miguel didn’t care for you the way you did for him. You tried your hardest to tell your aching heart that those past few months were you just making too much out of nothing.

You mournfully entered your apartment through the bathroom window you normally kept unlocked . You stripped away the skin tight fabric before wrapping yourself in the familiar comfort of your robe as you exited the room into a dim lit living room.

You heart stick in your chest as you see Miguel standing there in your living room in his bright blue spider suit and a beautiful spring lily in his hand.

“Miguel? What are you doing here?…” You ask as yoy warily approach him, scared he’s gonna do something to you.

He shakes his head, refusing to answer as he hands you the flower. It’s soft white petals shining in the pale moonlight as you smile fondly at it. They were your favorite flower. Something you told Miguel a million times before.

Before you could thank him for the kind gesture, a soft thump above you alrets you to look up. A spindle of glowing webbing cascaded down the ceiling with the large spiderman now suspended upside down from it. His free hand caresses the side of your face as his eyes stared softly into yours.

“I can’t change the canon, mi amor…” he whispers sadly before mischief lights up his molten gaze. “But we certainly can try to rewrite the stars for us.”

An excited nod from you causes his chest to rumble as he pulls you into a slow passionate kiss.

You were glad this is a canon event for spider men despite it not going as planned.

[m0chisenpai]

Back In Black

Spiderman Across the Spiderverse

Miguel O'Hara x black!venom!reader

Warning(s): threats of violence

Hobie was communicating with somebody. Gwen could tell from the way his fingers danced across his watch. He was good at diverging from what his point was. Countless times he’d stolen bags of chips out of her hands without her noticing, snuck the tv remote to turn on his own show of choice. But Gwen could tell as his eyes looked down at his watch, he was sending something to someone. 

The question was who was he calling. But when he caught her eye out of the corner of his eye, his lips moved. “Trust me.” and so she did. As she stood, half defeated behind a raging O’hara who tore through the crowd, eyes ablaze, he came to halt at the portal that opened in front of Mile’s body.

Something large, and inky with bulging white veins landed in front of Miles. It was twice his and Miguel’s size and its milky white eyes looked back into Miles’. His head began to ache and a flurry of white and black surrounded the beast as he squinted. But something in his bones told him to trust this terror that stood between Miles and the rabid leader of the spider society.

“Miguel” her voice purred, silencing the chaos around them.

Whatever, whoever this was had power because not one spider person attempted to step forward and take her down. 

It slowly inched closer to the leader, hands sitting on her hips. “Attacking a child? New low for you, and our expectations were already low as it is.” 

The leader clicks his teeth, fangs just barely revealing themselves past the scowl on his face. “Says the par-'' the growl that left her was enough to make Miles step back and Miguel to shut up. It’s eyes narrow and fangs, large and jagged make Miguel’s look like cat fangs. Those teeth could tear through a whole being, could even consume bones and all if it wanted to. 

“Careful with your words. Y/N might have the tiniest of a soft spot for you, but I will not hesitate to tear you limb from limb and eat your heart out. And from her thoughts, she is not opposed.”

“I’d like to hear that from her.”

A silence falls between them. And the creature huffs and peels backward, sinking into the flesh of whatever it was encasing. Whoever was in it began to reveal themselves to be a woman who stood at half of Miguel’s height. She wears a spider suit, similar in style to Gwen’s, but it’s black and white, and it’s nothing like anything Miles saw. 

It's similar to the creature's texture, slick and clings to her body more like a second skin than a spider suit. 

Her mask covers half her face from her nose down and her braids end just a bit past her hips. Her eyes are sharp and if any one were lucky to get just close enough to see, they'd be able to make out the dusting of freckles across her cheek bones.

She looks back to him and she nods, “your going home kid.” The leader's eyes flash red as he points a finger to the boy hidden behind her body. “That kid is a threat! An anomaly! He shouldn’t even be here.”

“O’hara, your canon blah blah whatever theory is no more than an empty theory with no proof. Had it been true I should be dead, no?” her head tilted and eyes slanted as she looked up at him. 

“You’re different.” His eyes soften. Because truth be told, you should not be here. You should be somewhere on your earth, in your perfectly normal little bubble writing the next big piece for the paper. You should be putting that big private university degree to use and getting you rmoneys worth. 

 But instead you stuck your nose somewhere you shouldn’t have been, on the brink of death. Till your little…friend came along. Now you spend your nights tearing out the throats of crimimals and the day you’re Y/N L/N. Editor of the city paper. 

Anything but normal.

“No, I’m right. And you know you are wrong. Let the boy go home and if I find out anything or one lays a hand on him or his family.”

Her eyes cut to the crowd behind Miguel. And from her neck that inky creature reveals itself. Curling around to hover beside her head. Two voices harmonized to release a single threat.

“Your pancreas will become our dessert.”

[vintagestagehotties]

Hot Vintage Stage Actress Round 1

Carol Lawrence: Maria in West Side Story (1957 Broadway); Clio in Saratoga (1959 Broadway); Angela McKay in Subways Are for Sleeping (1961 Broadway)

Gwen Verdon: Lola in Damn Yankees (1956 Broadway); Anna in New Girl in Town (1958 Broadway); Essie Whimple in Redhead (1959 Broadway); Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity (1966 Broadway)

Propaganda under the cut

Carol Lawrence:

(Editor’s note: could not get the gif submitted to save and upload cause of computer issues so I just added the same gif through tumblr)

Gwen Verdon:

She had like a bajillion cats and these were some of their names - Feets Fosse, Tidbits Tumbler Fosse, Junie Moon

[tdfanficawards]

This list is insane.

Info:

Alenoah: If you haven't been sleeping under a rock, you have seen the effect of Alenoah on the total drama fandom. Most of the fanfics are about them, so much fan art, etc. It's winning.

Gwourtney: The most popular wlw ship of the fandom, Gwen and her frenemy Courtney. They had a rocky time during world tour and all-stars, but FUCK DUNCAN GET BITCHES.

Aleheather: The only lasting canon ship of the first five seasons, surprisingly. They are both toxic, manipulative, and perfect for each other. Ugh, true love.

Milripper?: I didn't know this existed till it was nominated a lot, which is surprising, but Ripper and the new ripper have chemistry!

Ripaxel: *SPOILERS* A new ship, girl boss queer icon decides that she likes the boy fail fart machine that wrote a poem for her, and they kiss the entire next episode.

Justzeke: Homeschool freakazoid x the hot shot model? I've seen the cutest fan art for this, it lowkey goes hard.

EDITORS CHOICE: MKULIA!!: Okay, I'm a slut for Duncney, but 2023 was NOT their year, but Mkulia has been DOMINATING this last month with fan art, cute oneshots, and predictions for when they will kiss in the newest season (please please please).

NO VOTES FOR DUNCNEY OR NOCO! Are we progressing as a society?

[batfammeetsspidergang]

Spider-Gang Headcanons

I was bored, so I decided to create headcanon character sheets for the Spider-Folks! Basically, this is how I personally envision the characters when doing incorrect quotes. Like I've said before, these origins are mish-mashes of the comics, TV shows, movies, games, and so on, plus some minor, original ideas. (And yes, I was lazy so I copy-pasted much of the info and stats from the Marvel Wiki. Shout-out to the editors and their amazing work!)

If your favorite Spider-People aren't here, that DOES NOT MEAN I don't like them! Lmao I adore Pavitr, Cindy, Jess, etc. These are just my personal favorites. Also, I'm still tryna figure out Ham's cartoon powers, and movie-verse Miguel can go sit on a barbed wire brush XD

P.S. No ai art was used. These are all borrowed from official Marvel media.

🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️

Spider-Man

Peter Benjamin Parker

New York City, New York; present-day

16-18 years old

5′10″ (1.78 m)

160 lbs (72.57 kg)

Eyes: brown

Hair: brown

Gender: Cis male

Orientation: Bisexual

Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained a suite of powers reminiscent of a spider, including agility, wall-crawling, and the ability to sense danger. When Peter learned that his beloved Uncle Ben had been murdered by a thief that Peter himself had selfishly allowed to escape, he realized that with his new powers also came a responsibility to use them for good. Since that day, Spider-Man has fought criminals while enduring a constant barrage of negative press, a stream of personal losses, and the occasional crisis of confidence. Somehow he manages to maintain a positive attitude and rarely lacks for a humorous quip when battling bad guys.

PERSONALITY:

-Peter is a geeky, shy, socially awkward, high-spirited, caring, and friendly teenage boy who is loyal to his family and friends. While his heroics as Spider-Man have given him a reputation for being a flake, Peter will always be there for anyone that needs help. 

-Since the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, Peter's vow of responsibility has led him on a path of heroism and humanitarianism. He regularly sacrifices (or sabotages) his personal well-being for the greater good. It has also meant that Peter often takes on more burdens than he can bear and blames himself unnecessarily when the city is hurt.

-He possesses an innate scientific curiosity and loves to figure out how things work. He has been known to immerse himself in personal projects for hours on end, forgetting to eat and sleep as a result.

-Though it can be difficult for him to open up with new people, he becomes enthusiastic and talkative when asked about his favorite subjects (i.e. science, photography, TTRPGs, the New York Mets).

-Peter has a tendency to use humor and sarcasm as a defense mechanism, a trait that is amplified when he fights criminals as Spider-Man. He is proud of his humor, deploying it to break tensions and lift the mood, something that has at times irritated his friends and allies.

-Peter also has a bit of a vengeful side—he once secretly used his powers to humiliate his bullies and was single-minded in his pursuit of revenge for his uncle’s death. If Peter's trust is betrayed, it can be difficult to get back in his good graces.

-His humility often teeters on the edge of self-loathing, to the point of considering himself lamer than his counterparts. These feelings also extend to his romantic relationships—Peter is often blind to his crush’s reciprocated feelings simply because he doesn’t believe they could ever be reciprocated. According to Peter, he always falls for people who are "way out of his league."

-Behind his naturally upbeat demeanor, Peter possesses a tragic and depressed side. This is brought on by the immense guilt he feels about the deaths of people he held close: Ben Parker and Gwen Stacy, his first girlfriend.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Spider Physiology: Peter Parker possesses the proportionate powers of a spider, granted to him by the bite of an irradiated spider.

Superhuman Strength: Peter can lift up to 10 tons. His physical strength also extends into his legs, enabling him to jump to a height of several stories in a single bound.

Superhuman Speed: Peter possesses the proportionate speed of a spider; therefore, he can run and move at speeds that are beyond the physical limits of the finest human athlete.

Superhuman Stamina: Spider-Man's advanced musculature produces fewer fatigue toxins during physical activity than an ordinary human. This allows him to exert himself physically for much longer periods of time before fatigue begins to impair him.

Superhuman Durability: Peter’s body is physically tougher and more resistant to some types of injury than the body of a normal human. He has shown little to no discomfort when sustaining great impact forces.

Superhuman Agility: Spider-Man's superhuman agility, balance, and bodily coordination are all enhanced to levels that are far beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete. Spider-Man is extraordinarily limber, and his tendons and connective tissues are twice as elastic as the average human being's. He has the combined agility and acrobatic prowess of the most accomplished circus aerialists and acrobats. He can also perform any complicated sequence of gymnastic stunts, such as flips, rolls, and springs.

Superhuman Equilibrium: Peter possesses the ability to achieve a state of perfect equilibrium in any position imaginable. He seems able to adjust his position by instinct, which enables him to balance himself on virtually any object, no matter how small or narrow.

Superhuman Reflexes: Spider-Man's reflexes are similarly enhanced and are currently about 20 times greater than those of an ordinary human. In combination with his spider-sense, the speed of his reflexes allows him to dodge almost any attack.

Wallcrawling: Peter can cling to any surface using just his fingertips and feet.

Spider-Sense: Spider-Man possesses a precognitive danger sense that warns him of potential or immediate danger through the manifestation of a tingling sensation in the back of his skull, and links with his superhuman kinesthetics, enabling him to evade most attacks unless he cognitively overrides his automatic reflexes.

Regeneration: Spider-Man is able to rapidly heal and regenerate from harm faster and more extensively than normal humans are capable of.

Web-Shooters: Spider-Man's trademark equipment. With his brilliance in physical science, Peter created these devices to fire thin strands of a special web fluid at high pressure and speeds. These enable him to web-swing between buildings and entrap enemies.

Web fluid: Created by Peter Parker. A shear-thinning liquid (virtually solid until a shearing force is applied to it, rendering it fluid) whose exact formula is unknown but is related to nylon. On contact with air, the long-chain polymer knits and forms an extremely tough, flexible fiber with extraordinary adhesive properties.

Specialized Web Cartridges

-Acid Webbing: Webbing laced with hydrochloric acid. -Taser Webbing  -Impact Webbing: Web-pellets that, upon impact, release tendrils that ensnare the target.

Spider-Tracers: Small, electronic tracers that allow Spider-Man to track objects or individuals. Typically, he plants or throws one on a departing enemy, but he can also use a launching device in his web-shooters for better range and accuracy. Spider-Man can follow the signal within a 100-yard radius by using his spider-sense.

Genius-Level Intellect: Peter Parker possesses a natural talent for science, standing out as a top student in his high school. His favorite subjects are biology, physics, and chemistry. A prodigy biochemist, Peter could understand his father's, Dr. Richard Parker’s, research notes at age 15.

Expert Inventor/Engineer: As a teenager, he developed his signature web formula, Web-Shooters, and the Spider-Tracers.

Budding Photographer: Peter is a talented photographer and has worked part-time for the Daily Bugle.

Skilled Acrobat: Due to his superhuman physical abilities, Peter easily surpasses normal acrobats and is able to perform somersaults, flips, spins, cartwheels, etc.

Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Spider-Man's fighting style incorporates and takes full advantage of his proper use of physical forces, momentum, and leverage, with the hero staying low and mobile while utilizing the momentum of frequent spins to come crashing down on his opponents. Peter has stated that he is self-taught, having learned many of his fighting techniques from movies and lucha libre.

🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️

Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

Miles Gonzalo Morales

New York City, New York; present-day

16-18 years old

5′8″ (1.73 m)

160 lbs (72.57 kg)

Eyes: brown

Hair: black

Gender: Cis male

Orientation: Heterosexual

Miles Morales, a fellow student of Peter Parker, was bitten by a genetically altered spider that his uncle had stolen from Osborn Industries. The next day at school, he found that he had grown taller overnight and gained incredible, arachnid-like powers. Donning a similar costume, Miles became a budding superhero with the original Spider-Man as his mentor. Miles was the first person Spider-Man revealed his identity to, and they have become the closest of friends. Miles considers Peter a great hero, but can he live up to the legacy set before him?

PERSONALITY:

-Miles is a passionate, bright, confident, selfless, and extremely eager young man. 

-Miles' dedication to helping others stems from his deep respect for his father, Officer Jefferson Morales, and his admiration of Peter Parker as Spider-Man. He draws his passion for science from his mother, Rio, who is highly regarded for her boundless dedication to being a nurse. Moreover, being a long-time fan of Spider-Man, Miles aspires to uphold his mentor and friend’s legacy while also forging his own path.

-Like average Spider-Men, he has an irreverent attitude towards villains, although when enemies indicate psychological instability, Miles addresses them respectfully to prevent further danger.

-He has a strong love for science, having started inventing at an early age, as well as a passion for music, mixing hip-hop beats with his uncle during his early years.

-He is much more sociable than Peter Parker, and often initiates conversations with strangers in his neighborhood.

-Miles instantly fell for Gwen Stacy upon their first meeting. They’ve since become the best of friends, though a part of Miles still pines for her romantically. 

-His relationship with his Uncle Aaron is complex; while Miles acknowledges Aaron's inherent goodness, he also grapples with his uncle's shadowy past as the Prowler and their differing views on heroism.

-Miles' eagerness to be a hero is both a strength and weakness; it propels his desire to grow and assist others, but it also makes him prone to danger and reluctant to accept help. Additionally, he has been known to act impulsively on occasion. Miles also dislikes being a victim or receiving pity. 

-He initially displayed panic and insecurity due to struggling to handle even basic spider powers, and he felt unworthy of the Spider-Man mantle. When it is up to him to save the city on his own, Miles occasionally has doubts about his capabilities, often comparing himself to Peter. 

-Miles' intellect and love for others can cloud his judgment. At times, he can be too arrogant to listen to those who might know better

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Spider Physiology: Miles Morales gained the proportionate abilities of a spider after being bitten by a genetically-modified spider.

Superhuman Strength: Miles can lift roughly 10 tons.

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Stamina

Superhuman Durability

Superhuman Agility: Miles' agility, balance, flexibility, and bodily coordination are all enhanced to levels that are far beyond the natural physical limits of an Olympic-level gymnast.

Superhuman Equilibrium

Superhuman Reflexes

Wallcrawling

Spider-Sense: When danger is present, Miles feels a buzzing sensation in his head as a sort of early warning system, allowing him to react accordingly. His spider-sense offers him near-complete awareness of his surroundings and, in conjunction with his reflexes, allows him to instinctively dodge or counter nearly all attacks. 

Bio-Electrokinesis: Miles is able to generate and manipulate a form of bio-electricity that his body produces and can utilize the energy for multiple purposes. Miles has learned to discharge the energy from his hands in controlled bursts of what he calls "Venom Blasts".

-Mega Venom Blast: Arguably Miles' deadliest ability. Miles is able to emit a larger scale burst of bio-electricity from his entire body. It is powerful enough to repel a large group of opponents and destroy sturdy restraints. This ability leaves Miles exhausted after using it, and can be triggered with focus or by extreme stress. -Venom Beam: Miles has shown that he can channel his bio-electricity outward as a direct burst of electrostatic energy to knock away enemies in a stunning/concussive manner. -Venom Punch: Miles can enhance the power of his punches by infusing his fists with bio-electricity. -Lateral Repulsion: By projecting a controlled Venom Blast, Miles is able to launch himself in the air with greater force than when jumping or web-swinging.

Camouflage: Miles, including his clothing, can blend into his surroundings, allowing him to sneak up on his enemies or, in some cases, flee from them. The resulting effect closely resembles that of invisibility.

Regeneration

Web-Shooters

Bilingualism: Miles speaks English and Spanish.

Gifted Intellect: A fast learner from a young age, Miles is a highly gifted individual with an aptitude for science. He attends the Robotics Club at school and has experience in programming applications. Upon discovering his bio-electric powers, he demonstrated an impressive understanding of biophysics, throwing out possible explanations for this new power, such as electrolytes. At the start of his superhero career, he was able to mimic the original Spider-Man's fighting style by watching online videos to improve his own abilities.

Photographic memory

Skilled Acrobat

Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Despite his lack of formal training prior to his spider-bite, Miles' enhanced agility, reflexes, and coordination made him an extraordinary melee fighter. He has developed his own unique combat style which incorporates a rudimentary form of boxing, Capoiera, and breakdancing.

🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️

Spider-Woman

Gwendolyn "Gwen" Maxine Stacy

Alternate New York City, New York; present-day

16-18 years old

5′5″ (1.65 m)

125 lbs (56.7 kg)

Eyes: blue

Hair: blond

Gender: Trans female

Orientation: Heterosexual

Leaping from an alternate reality in which she was bitten by a radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker, Gwen Stacy learned the painful lesson that with great power must come great responsibility. At first, Gwen used her new powers for selfish reasons, reveling in the attention it brought her. Meanwhile, her friend, the bullied Peter Parker, turned himself into a lizard monster because he was desperate to be special like her. Gwen inadvertently killed Peter during the ensuing fight, and the police blamed her for his death. Seeking redemption, she now fights crime as the amazing Spider-Woman.

PERSONALITY:

-Gwen Stacy is a spunky, sarcastic, awkward, and emotionally vulnerable teenage girl. She has a history of rejecting friendship since she can't bear to go through the pain of losing another loved one. After getting to know Miles Morales and Hobie Brown, however, she tentatively decided to give companionship a chance.

-Gwen initially put on a tough, antisocial front when she met the other Spider-People, but she has come to view the Spider-Gang as family and is fiercely protective of them.

-It can be difficult for her to look at the other Peters when they are unmasked, hence why it was initially easier for her to interact with Miles and Hobie. 

-Currently, Gwen's interest in Miles is platonic, bordering on sibling affection.

-Gwen has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, especially where her friends are concerned. On impulse, she will intervene on their behalf. With this in mind, Gwen and Peter (Spider-Man) have sworn to always watch each other's backs.

-There used to be unresolved tension between Gwen and her police officer father, George Stacy, regarding the morality of Spider-Woman’s vigilantism. Upon realizing that the vigilante he had been pursuing for years was his very own daughter, George reached out to Gwen about her problems and insecurities. Father and daughter have reconciled, and George Stacy has become Spider-Woman’s staunchest supporter.

-She is absolutely fearless in battle, but not to the point of recklessness.

-Gwen’s relationship with her bandmates has become somewhat strained since her superhero lifestyle often interferes with their gigs. That said, Gwen’s band members have made attempts at getting her to open up about her feelings and trauma.

-Gwen tends to bottle up her emotions and release them when she's playing drums, leading to her being particularly angry and distant. When dealing with people she is unsure of, she puts up fronts and walls to appear more confident and put together than she actually is.

-She hates when Noir calls her "doll."

-Her favorite band is The Smashing Pumpkins.

-Outside of music, her hobbies include skateboarding, gymnastics, and ballet.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Spider Physiology: Gwen gained the proportionate abilities of a spider after being bitten by a radioactive spider—genetically engineered based upon the genetic template of alien spider parasites.

Superhuman Strength: Gwen can lift roughly 10 tons.

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Stamina

Superhuman Durability

Superhuman Agility

Superhuman Equilibrium

Superhuman Reflexes

Spider-Sense

Wallcrawling

Regeneration

Web-Shooters: Twin devices, which she wears on her wrists, that trap moisture from the air to create a "web-fluid" that allows her to eject web ropes, nets, and globs. The Web-Shooters also enable her to web-swing between buildings. Given to Gwen by her universe’s Janet Van Dyne. 

Amateur Detective: Gwen has a proclivity for analytical thinking and detective work. She is also the daughter of a police captain, thus she knows some police protocols and methods.

Skilled Fighter: Gwen is a skilled freestyle fighter. That said, she is untrained and learned most of her moves from Kung Fu movies.

Trained ballerina: Gwen trained in ballet since she was young. Her ballet training has allowed her to be incredibly precise when moving, often walking on the tips of her toes. Evidently, her ballet experience is incorporated into her fighting style.

Trained gymnast: Gwen was a member of the gymnastics team at her school; even before her radioactive spider bite, Gwen was able to hold her own body weight and possessed an athletic build similar to that of an acrobat. She incorporated her gymnastics training into her fighting style.

Trained musician: Gwen plays the drums with her band, The Mary Janes.

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Spider-Man Noir

Peter Benjamin Parker

Alternate New York City, New York; 1933 AD

Approximately 19 years old

6′1″ (1.85 m)

150 lbs (68.04 kg)

Eyes: brown

Hair: brown

Gender: Cis male

Orientation: Bisexual or Demisexual (still figuring it out)

In another New York, in the year 1933, Norman Osborn murdered Ben Parker for encouraging a strike on the local sweatshops. Seeking justice for his uncle, Peter Parker became an investigative journalist in an attempt to expose the corruption in New York. One evening, Peter was investigating a warehouse where Osborn's henchmen were housing stolen artifacts. An ancient spider statue broke open and released a swarm of spiders, one of which bit Peter. He passed out and dreamed of a spider god who told him it would bestow the curse of power on him. When Peter came to, he discovered that he had been gifted with arachnid-like superpowers. Thus, Peter became the Spider-Man: a dark avenger fighting for the rights of the downtrodden and waging a one-man war on crime.

PERSONALITY:

-Noir Peter Parker is an unwavering, righteous, sympathetic, brooding, solitary young man of few words.

-Peter grew up witnessing injustice in the harsh environment of the Great Depression. This, combined with his Uncle Ben’s horror stories about the First World War, made Peter distrustful of would-be leaders and political figures. He’s leery of police officers; in his world and time period, especially, police corruption is rampant.

-Unlike most Spider-Men, Noir Peter was never taught the motto "With great power, there must also come great responsibility." Instead, his Uncle Ben told him, "If those in power can’t be trusted, it’s the responsibility of the people to remove them."

-Peter’s jaded demeanor and bleak realism belie his indomitable will and inherent idealism. He will never stop fighting for truth and progress, no matter the personal cost.

-Peter is a devout socialist and liberal activist, often participating in protests for workers’ rights, racial equality, and standing against the rising tide of Nazism.

-Peter is an empiricist—he believes his eyes, no matter how implausible something may be. Ever since his encounter with the Spider-God, he has gradually come to accept that some things are never going to have an explanation.

-Unlike the other Spider-People, Peter is willing to kill his enemies if absolutely necessary.

-Peter struggles with trauma and depression, perhaps more than his counterparts. To cope and better do his job, he closes off his emotions and ignores his bodily needs.

-Peter smokes cigarettes, even though he has been warned that they cause cancer. The nicotine helps calm his nerves, and he doubts that he’s capable of contracting cancer due to his powers.

-Peter puts on a convincing, deeper voice to make himself seem older. The rest of the Spider-Gang was dumbstruck when they learned he wasn’t much older than them.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Superhuman Abilities: Peter possesses enhanced physical abilities granted to him by the Spider-God.

Superhuman Strength: Slightly inferior to that of his mainstream counterpart.

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Stamina

Superhuman Durability: Although he is incredibly durable, his body does have its limits—unlike his modern counterparts, he cannot sustain multiple injuries and continue to function.

Superhuman Agility

Superhuman Equilibrium

Spider-Sense

Wall-Crawling: He can stick to walls using just his fingertips and feet; however, Peter prefers a type of parkour over clinging to the walls themselves.

Organic Webbing: Spider-Man is able to shoot organic black webbing out of his wrists. However, he cannot generate webbing in a constant stream (like his more modern counterparts) and is therefore unable to travel via swinging on webs.

Night Vision

Regeneration: Slightly superior to that of his mainstream counterpart.

Pain Resistance: Ever since he was bitten, Peter no longer feels physical pain as potently as an average human.

Gifted Intellect: Peter is of above-average intelligence and possesses a natural talent for science.

Experienced Reporter: Peter is a gifted investigative reporter and very skilled photographer.

Investigator: Honing his talents as an investigative reporter, Peter has become experienced in detective work and research.

Hand-to-Hand Combatant: He is formidable in hand-to-hand combat, having received boxing training from the Daredevil of his universe.

Skilled Marksman: Peter is adept in the use of and has impeccable aim with firearms; more often than not, he is able to hit his targets accurately.

Weapons: Peter has been known to carry revolvers and incendiary grenades.

Glasses: Unlike other Spider-People, after receiving his powers, Peter still requires corrective lenses to see properly. 

🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️

Spider-Punk

Hobart "Hobie" Brown

Alternate London, United Kingdom; c. 1977-early 80s

Approximately 19 years old

5′11″ (1.8 m)

150 lbs (68.04 kg)

Eyes: brown

Hair: black

Gender: Cis male

Orientation: Pansexual

In an alternate London, foul-mouthed teenager Hobart Brown was living as a squatter in a United Kingdom ruled by the fascist regime of Prime Minister "Ozzy" Osborn. He was bitten by a spider irradiated by illegal waste dumping, which gave him spider superpowers. With his newfound powers, Hobie became a punk-rock-inspired Spider-Man and led the oppressed people of London in a revolt against Osborn and his storm troopers. Spider-Punk is defined by his rebellious attitude towards absolutely everything, and will take any opportunity to turn on an establishment, regardless of the consequences.

PERSONALITY:

-Hobie is a zealous, headstrong, brazen, uncompromising, and altruistic young man.

-Although he pretends to be an apathetic badass, Hobie clearly has a deep connection to his team and a surprising amount of respect for Spider-Man Noir.

-He is surprisingly good with children.

-Hobie is an extremely devout anarchist who chafes at all forms of authority. Whenever he is given orders, Hobie makes it clear that he’s only going along with them because he wants to. Put simply, Hobie fights evil on his own terms.

-Hobie lives by two rules: No Gods. No Masters. He hates the rich, authorities, and politicians.

-Hobie takes the Spider-Man staple of flippancy to a whole new level—oftentimes, he doesn’t even attempt to be clever with his quips, instead throwing out the harshest insults he can come up with. 

-As a musician and activist, he integrates anti-authority messages into his performances. He frequently encourages (and joins) mosh pits among the audience. Such acts are deemed illegal in his home universe… not that he cares. 

-Hobie is a terrible singer, but he argues that’s what punk rock is all about.

-With the plethora of questionable decisions he’s made just to survive, Hobie does not consider himself a role model, let alone a hero. Despite this, he still has high praise for himself and tries to project an aura of "cool."

-Hobie's boots are ladder laced. In punk culture, ladder lacing with colored laces is a way to discreetly express your beliefs. Hobie's laces are blue, which means the wearer has killed a police officer. Though Hobie remains unwilling to divulge many aspects of his life, he has mentioned that he was once betrayed by a police officer…

-Hobie enjoys playing with people’s gender expectations and dresses as androgynously as possible. He believes that it is impossible to separate punk history from queer history.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Spider Physiology: After being bitten by a spider irradiated by illegal waste dumping, Hobart obtained the proportionate powers of a spider.

Superhuman Strength: Hobie can lift at least one ton.

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Stamina

Superhuman Durability

Superhuman Agility

Superhuman Equilibrium

Superhuman Reflexes

Spider-Sense

Wallcrawling

Regeneration

Web-Shooters

Modified guitar: An instrument that can emit a large shockwave attack similar to Miles Morales’ "venom power". In addition, the guitar can play frequencies strong enough to cause electronic equipment to malfunction.

Cricket bat: A simple yet effective wooden bat inscribed with "Beat on the Brat," a Ramones lyric.

Engineer: Hobart is a tech genius, able to create his Web-Shooters and a functional dimension-hopping watch after studying the properties of Peni Parker’s teleportation device. He was also able to engineer his guitar into a weapon.

Skilled Acrobat: Spider-Punk is able to perform acrobatic and gymnastic moves, such as high jumps, somersaults, flips, etc. at a level far beyond the ability of normal humans.

Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Hobie has years of street fighting experience. He utilizes techniques that enable him to make full use of his speed, agility, and strength. However, he lacks any formal training.

Musician: Hobie is a talented musician and plays both guitar and drums.

🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️

SP//dr

Peni Parker

Futuristic New York City, New York; 3145 AD

9-13 years old

4′11″ (1.5 m), 9′ (2.74 m) (in armor)

105 lbs (47.63 kg), 900 lbs (408.23 kg) (in armor)

Eyes: brown

Hair: black

Gender: Cis female

Orientation: Asexual

In an alternate Japan, in the year 3145, Peni Parker was born the only daughter of Dr. Richard Parker. When she was 9 years old, her father passed away piloting the SP//dr suit. She would be adopted by her Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York, and they informed her that she was the last person able to bond with the radioactive spider that controlled Richard’s bionic armor. Peni accepted this responsibility, allowed the radioactive spider to bite her, and repaired the mech suit. Now known as SP//dr, Peni protects her futuristic neighborhood with her new best spider-friend and a powerful robotic suit!

PERSONALITY:

-Peni is a peppy, energetic, optimistic, intelligent, tough, and somewhat smug girl. 

-Peni’s bubbly nature is infectious, and she loves making new friends. She quite literally views the Spider-Gang as her family, even addressing them as onii-chan (big brother) and onee-chan (big sister) respectively. Likewise, she cherishes her bond with the SP//dr spider more than anything—in many ways, it’s her last connection to her father.

-A generally happy-go-lucky person, it is rare to see her sad or discouraged. That said, if grief or anxiety do strike, her productivity takes a sharp decline. She is a very emotional person, and her friends’ struggles affect her profoundly.

-Peni is a responsible and dedicated individual; she has devoted countless hours to her studies and working on her father's suit. That said, she can be a tad arrogant where her work is concerned, and bristles at outside input or assistance. It can be difficult to get Peni to accept technological help or admit when she’s made a mistake.

-Peni is proud of her intellect to an almost vain degree. She unconsciously comes off as condescending when explaining her technology to others, especially Spider-Man Noir (even though he can easily pick up how modern tech works).

-In battle, she is ruthless, aggressive, and devastatingly analytical.

-She has a habit of striking magical girl or idol singer poses.

-Peni is a vegetarian but isn’t preachy about it.

-Peni has an ultra-secret candy stash hidden… somewhere.

-Her hobbies include J-pop and manga (she’s recently gotten into Boys’ and Girls’ Love).

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Genius-Level Intellect: Peni Parker is extremely intelligent, mostly regarding her exceptional scientific, engineering, and hacking skills. 

Scientist: A wunderkind prodigy, she is remarkably skilled and knowledgeable in a wide range of scientific fields.

Engineer: Peni takes great pride in her engineering intelligence, which has enabled her to create upgrades for her SP//dr armor and even invent an inter-dimensional teleportation device.

Expert Hacker

SP//dr Suit Mk III: A psychically-powered mech suit created by Peni’s father. The SP//dr suit is genetically linked to her, so only Peni may use it. The suit uses magnetically manipulated appendages for versatility, wall-crawling, and enhanced strength, and it can shoot lasers from its fingers and weld various metals. Additionally, wrist-mounted web shooters built into the SP//dr suit allow it to web-swing between buildings and entrap enemies. The suit is shielded against radiation, biological, chemical, corrosive, and electrical attacks. In the cockpit, there is an on-board computer operating system that aids Peni in accessing the internet, providing background information, and connecting with (or hacking into) other devices. The inside also has a snack compartment.

Bilingualism: Peni speaks Japanese and English.

Expert pilot: Peni’s piloting abilities have advanced to the point where the SP//dr suit feels like an extension of her body.

Psychic link: Peni allowed herself to be bitten by the SP//dr spider—a radioactive, sentient spider (whom she refers to as her best friend) acting as one half of the CPU that makes the SP//dr suit work. Beyond piloting the suit, the spider shares thoughts and emotions with Peni.

Spider-Sense: Through her psychic connection, Peni possesses a precognitive "spider" sense that warns her of potential immediate danger.

🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️

[flowerpotmage]

Tight Grip, Broken Dam (4)

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You don’t question it anymore, when Miguel appears in your bed at night. He’s not there for sex, no, you’ve never even kissed—though you would be lying if you said you weren’t open to the idea of kissing him. He’s there for comfort. For rest. If only it could stay so simple.

Pair: Miguel O'Hara & GN!Reader

Notes: for series: slow burn, ambiguous relationship, found family dynamics, reader is in their late 20s. for chapter: action scene, nongraphic injury

Word Count: roughly 3k

Read this chapter on Ao3 here. If you like my work, please consider leaving kudos there as well! You do not need an account to do so.

The first time you had held Miguel was in his lab. It was the earlier days, the grief still raw, the man still shell-shocked. You were brand new to the multiverse, to Earth-928.

You had found him watching videos of his daughter.

“Miguel?”

You’d never seen him close windows on his platform display so fast, before or since then. You waited for him to say something, anything, but all you saw was the tension in his shoulders.

“I’ll leave these here, we just thought you'd like to have some food…” you said, glancing up at him while you placed the takeout box on a level surface.

“Thank you.”

The ghost of a wobble in his voice made you pause, look closer at him. A thwip and a swing, and you were suddenly on the platform with him. He turned to look at you, the vague surprise on his face doing little to hide the shine of his eyes.

And then you hugged him, your arms around his waist and your head against his chest as you squeezed him tight. He clearly didn't know what to do, his own arms floated awkwardly in the air.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m returning the favor,” you mumbled. “From when we met.”

His body seemed to relax at that, just slightly, and his hands came to rest lightly on your back.

“...Thank you.”

You wake twenty minutes before your alarm feeling ill-rested and ill at ease, your dream fading rapidly from your mind. Turning your head to look at where your phone is charging on the edge of the mattress (“You really shouldn’t sleep with that thing in your bed,” you hear Miguel say in the back of your mind), you stare at it as if it will miraculously fix your previous night’s sleep, or suddenly announce that you actually have hours left to return to dreamland.

No such luck.

So you drag yourself out of bed, feeling much like a cursed skeleton climbing from a blackened pit, and reluctantly start your day.

When you head out you leave a sleeping Gwen in the apartment, your dimension-hopping watch in your inner coat pocket beside your mask in case she needs to contact you. You don’t have time to get a burner phone for her this morning, but you put it on your mental to-do list.

Like many Spider-People, your day job is in journalism. You’ve lost track of how many Peter Parkers work in photo -journalism, and how many at the Daily Bugle specifically. You’re no stranger to J. Jonah Jameson and his anti-Spider-Person vendetta, being the target of it here in your own dimension, but you couldn't imagine working for him too. No, your main job is writing for the features section of an entirely different paper, often assigned to human interest pieces, community events, and independent art exhibits. This only pays about half the bills, freelance barely covering the rest, but the hours are flexible and your journalism pass has come in handy enough times during Spider-sleuthing that you wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, besides more pay. Obviously. So… yeah, actually, maybe one thing.

But your heart’s barely in it today. While your body sits in the paper’s office floor, waiting to talk with the editor in chief about your latest piece, your head is–

“You okay today? You look about a million miles away,” one of your colleagues seems to materialize before you, her long pin-straight blonde hair tucked behind one ear.

You give an apologetic smile. Even under the terrible fluorescence of the office lights she manages to look like an ethereal elven being.

So not fair.

“Sorry, late night,” you chuckle weakly. “Didn’t sleep well.”

“I’m guessing from the way you say that, it wasn’t for any fun reason,” she attempts to joke, and you chuckle.

“Yeah,” you confirm. “Just uh, one of those nights.”

She glances at the door behind you. “Good luck with Ellison. Ben’s got him in a real mood today, I hear.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

She smiles, turning to head to the door. “See ya later then.”

You return the smile. “Bye, Karen.”

She’s passing through the office door when the editor’s office opens and a balding, bearded man pokes his head out, fixing you under his bespectacled stare.

“ Please tell me you have good things to tell me today.”

“Mitchell,” you greet, rising from the plastic chair to follow him into his office. “Have I ever let you down?”

“Only about five times in recent memory,” he says, motioning for you to close the door as he turns the corner around to the back of his desk, sitting down.

“Fair,” you acknowledge. “But then did I not totally make up for those?”

He rolls his eyes begrudgingly. “Okay, fine.” He gestures at you. “Out with it.”

“I need an extension.”

He sighs, going to take off his glasses–

“I’m kidding,” you quickly say. And then, “Sorry,” when he glares at you from under his crunched together eyebrows. “I actually finished early, it should be in your inbox, and,” you fish out a thin stack of paper collected in a binder clip, holding them towards him in offering. “I brought you a hard copy for your notes. I know the printer here is on the fritz.”

He raises his eyebrows, reaching across the table to accept the papers. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” you say. “Because I'm going to assume you can't pay me for it yet, so I won't even ask. Can I have my next story?”

“I wasn’t expecting you to finish so soon,” he says, plopping the papers down on his desk. “I won’t have more for you for at least a week, since you refuse to cover the Spider.”

“Conflict of interest,” you immediately recite, punching your hands into your coat pockets.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves you off. “Take the week, use it to catch up on your freelance work, see if there’s anything you wanna pitch to me.”

You nod, the two of you say your farewells, and you exit the office.

Back on the street, a light wind nips at your nose and ears. There’s no aggression behind it, the nips as harmless as a teething puppy, but the chill is there nonetheless. Once again you punch your hands into your pockets to spare your fingers the gummy mouthing of the wind, letting it chase you down the sidewalk and dance around your heels.

With nothing but time to kill, you scan through your mental list of tasks and errands—

Ah. A phone for Gwen.

The simple errand was going very, very wrong.

First, on the way there, you had gotten swept into a car chase as The Spider, at one point narrowly dodging a bullet with your name on it. The unnamed woman from the last night Miguel had stayed over flashed through your mind when it blew past you, throwing you off and earning you a road rash on your hands, knee, and one forearm that you’d be feeling for the next few days, at least. God, you wish you had a better healing factor.

Second, the first phone-related store you happened upon was one of those places with windows pasted with advertisements, the glass behind bars, and the entire storefront covered in bright glittery and flashing signage. Most prominent was the ‘ WE BUY GOLD!!!’ sign dancing with all the enthusiasm of a Las Vegas showgirl.

It was also being robbed. Which wasn’t a problem for you of course, it was just that you were starting to feel pretty damn drained already and it wasn’t even noon.

After some acrobatics that would impress even Gwen, you succeeded in webbing up the four men involved with the overzealous attempted robbery, leaving them hanging from the lampost outside to be picked up before buying a prepaid flip phone with cash.

But no, that wasn’t all that went wrong. You believed yourself to be in the clear, stopping to get a sandwich once back in your civilian clothes, and now you sat on a bench in the square watching manicured bushes rustle in the midday breeze.

“Mm,” you hum, swallowing your first bite of your sandwich, and going for another.

And then, the third thing goes wrong. A portal opens up and spits out a rather tall man, covered head to toe in glowing and moving circuit-board patterns under his hat and trenchcoat. The air buzzes with static even from where you sit nearly twenty feet away, your internal alarm blaring like a bad horror movie.

His head turns with a sudden, jerking motion, looking you directly in the eyes.

“Oh, shit.”

His body turns to face you, moving as jerky as his head had. You barely have time to jump up and run, abandoning your sandwich, before his arm lifts and he fires a goddamn laser ball at you.

“Shit, shit!”

You scatter with the other handful of people who had been in the square, searching frantically for somewhere to pull on your mask and safely ditch your things. It takes a moment, but you manage it, and when you emerge from the tiny alley to slingshot yourself back to the square, the anomaly is walking straight for you, movements jerky and mechanical.

“Ohhh, this isn’t good,” you lift your watch to your masked face as you land on a grassy patch. “I need backup! Anomaly on Earth-”

You don’t manage to get your dimension number out as you speak into your watch, because a second laser blast is heading straight for you. Your internal alarm bell screeches at you just in time for you to dodge and for it to fly through empty air where your rib cage had been moments before.

You land in a roll, scraping your road-rash all over again, standing as the park tree behind where you had stood moments shatters and topples, branches bouncing and rustling against themselves in a way that sounds quite a lot like the blood rushing through your ears.

You shoot a web at the electric man, but his cannon arm— Holy shit, his whole arm? —tears through it like, well, a cobweb.

“Electro!” You shout, taking a wild guess as to his identity. You don’t have an Electro on your earth, but you’ve heard enough and seen enough waiting to be sent home, so you connect the dots. “We don’t need to do this! I can hel-”

“Not. Elec. Tro.” He speaks, voice choppy like his movements, distorted and filtered. “Ven. Ture.”

Dots un- connected.

“Wha-? Who?”

He raises his cannon arm at you once more. You start to run, looking for something with height.

No such luck.

Then across the square a familiar golden portal opens, pulling your attention.

It pulls Venture’s too.

A figure steps out, Venture swinging his cannon arm in the new direction. You call out in warning, shooting your webs to grab his arm. The sudden pull on his arm throws his aim off and the cannon fires into a bench, leaving a charred hole the size of a man’s torso where the laser hits.

You see a piece of charred sandwich wrapper comically flutter away from the blast as a familiar voice calls out to you, using your alias of Spider.

Your head whips to see Miguel. Miguel, who you’ve just saved.

Miguel who could be vaporized right now.

“Wrap him up!” He shouts, and you nod, Miguel charging Venture while you have his arm webbed and unable to aim at him.

You seem to realize at the same time that Venture does that just because he cannot pull against your web to shoot Miguel, doesn’t mean he can’t just turn towards you.

You don't register the words, but you recognize Miguel’s shout as you backflip and narrowly dodge yet another blast from Venture’s laser cannon arm. When you’ve righted yourself you see Venture firing wildly, Miguel’s talons digging into and cracking the cannon as he shoves it aside.

You’re sprinting towards them, shooting webs to pin the cannon arm to the ground before Venture can raise it and shoot Miguel, who’s baring his teeth to bite down on the man’s other arm.

Alarm bells.

“Wait, don’t–!” You cry, shooting webs to pin down Venture’s other arm, grabbing Miguel’s shoulder to pull him back.

“Why not?!” He snarls, whipping his head and shoulders to face you, all adrenaline and teeth and talons as he crouches over Venture.

“He’s not– He’s all– he’s all juiced up with electricity–” you scramble to explain, waving your hands around.

His eyes dart over your face, your body, catching on your scraped hands, knee, and elbow. He stiffens further, breathing heavily from the short fight. In the blink of an eye he whips back around, punches Venture in the face, knocking him out cold.

“Jesus,” you whisper, eyes wide.

Miguel rises and begins to tie Venture up with his own webs, tearing yours off the now unconscious figure’s arms so that they’re no longer stuck to the ground. You’ve seen his talons before, of course, but you can’t help but stare at the quick work they make of your webs.

His mask is back on when he straightens to his full height, turning to look at you.

“Are you alright?” He asks, nodding his head at your scrapes.

You blink under your mask, looking down. Only now do you see that the scrapes on one of your hands and on your knee are bleeding again. As the fog of adrenaline begins to recede the sting of pain comes in to replace it.

“Oh, yeah. This wasn’t him, this was… earlier.” You flex your hands slightly at the growing sting in your palms, glad he can’t see your slight grimace under your mask. “It’s been an… eventful day.”

Miguel stares at you for a moment, before looking down to tap his watch. “Come to HQ.”

You nod.

Miguel insists you get your scrapes cleaned up by one of the medically trained Spider-Men at HQ when you get back. He lurks in the corner, his elbow resting on his other arm crossed over his ribs as he taps at his chin, his bottom lip. He takes brief breaks from glaring at the floor to take the occasional quick glance up at you, his fingers pausing in their tapping when he does.

“No significant debris,” Doctor Spidey says, pushing away on his stool to retrieve bandages where they sit waiting on the counter nearby after cleaning your scrapes. “They’ll heal up fast, just keep it clean for the next while until they do.”

You nod, keeping your palm out for him to wrap. Both of you try to pretend that Miguel isn’t hovering in the corner while bandages are wrapped around your palms, your outer forearm, and your knee.

“Alright!” Doctor Spidey says. “You’re good to go.”

After expressing your thanks you exit the doctor’s office, Miguel’s towering form following behind you.

“How’d you get those anyway?”

You turn to look at him, a brief jolt going through you when you find his eyes already on you. His brow is furrowed, and the muscle in his jaw twitches when he turns his gaze forward to focus on the path of the hall you both journey down.

“Oh, um, car chase earlier,” you say, wishing you had pockets to put your hands into. You finally look away, watching the ground in front of your feet.

Miguel’s form by your side eats up your awareness, even as you pass other Spider-People and exchange passing hellos. Something restless and hot rolls off his body, and it swallows you up like water.

“You need to be more careful,” he says, and his voice is sharp with agitation, frustration.

You bristle at his tone.

“I am careful. I was careful.” You frown, turning to look at him.

The muscle in his jaw twitches again.

“Yeah. Clearly.” He says, glancing at your injuries and looking away just as you frown and start to open your mouth.

“Miguel, hey! Oh-ho, and our little Garden Spider?”

It’s Peter who interrupts whatever it is you're about to say to Miguel. As usual he has May with him in the baby carrier, and her pudgy little hands hold onto his fingers as he absentmindedly bounces them in the air.

You do your best to school your features, your mask clenched in your hand as you try to take your attention back from Miguel and his now crossed arms in the corner of your vision.

“Hey Peter,” you give a close lipped smile, hoping it doesn't look as tense and forced as it feels.

He glances between the two of you, Miguel’s tense body and crossed arms, then your own stiff posture and your bandages.

“Damn,” he raises his eyebrows. “What happened to you ?”

Miguel’s crossed arms tense in the corner of your eye.

“Car chase,” you manage to say. “Slipped.” You shrug, mustering up every ounce of nonchalance in your body.

“Oh,” he laughs. “I’ve been there. Road rash is no fun. Y’know, one time–”

“Peter, as fascinating as I’m sure this story is, I have things to get to,” Miguel interrupts.

“Right,” Peter shrugs it off like it's no big deal, stepping out of the way. “You’re missing out though, it’s a pretty good story.”

“Uh-huh.” Miguel lets his arms uncross as he starts to walk again, and he gets a few large strides past Peter before he falters to a stop, turning to look back over his shoulder.

You want to continue on walking with him, you really do. That new feeling you’re getting all too familiar with, the one that squeezes your ribs, returns when his eyes meet yours. He hesitates, something unsure in his eyes.

“We still need to debrief,” Miguel says.

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Miguel hesitates still, turning away at last and then walking away, shoulders tense.

Once Miguel turns the corner, Peter turns to you. “I feel like I interrupted something.”

You slump slightly, rubbing your now furrowed brow. “Today sucks, Peter.”

“Aw, hey,” Peter says, stepping closer to put a fatherly arm over your shoulders, May reaching out to pat you. “Wanna talk about it?”

You shake your head. “No, I should…” you trail off and gesture in the direction Miguel had left.

“Right. Baaad idea to keep boss-man waiting.”

You nod. Peter pats your back.

“Listen,” he says, pulling back but keeping a hand on your shoulder as you lift a hand to let May grab your finger. “Whatever it is, it’s just because he cares. You know that right?”

You nod. “Yeah, I know.” Letting go of May’s hand, you give Peter a tired, thankful smile. “I’ll see you around.”

You’re almost out of earshot when you hear Peter mumble to May:

“Those two are killing me, kid.”

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[stonecrusherdrawsthearts]

World of Heroes R - Spider Squad

Who are the Spiders of New York? MENACES, that's who! Vigilantes with no official backing, who have taken it upon themselves to act as the 'protectors' of this city, but lack the real means to handle the crimes here. They focus on some maniacs with animal costumes tackier then even their own, and don't do anything to mitigate the damage left behind from their fights. I thought it was bad when there was just one of these freaks of nature here, but now there are three of them! Who knows when they'll strike next?! Whenever that is, you can bet the Daily Bugle will be the first to call them out on it!

MEMBERS

Spider-Man - the most infamous vigilante menace in this here fine city. Sure, his rabid fans will say he's "their favorite hero" who "never gives up" and "will always stand up for the right thing, even when its hard." And he sometime pays lip service to the idea of "Great Power coming with Great Responsibility." But if he wanted accountability, he'd register with the Avengers or Justice League or, hell, even the X-Men. But NO! He's a rogue, and that makes him just as dangerous as the 'villains' he fights!

Venom - For a month, Spider-Man tried out an edgier color palate maybe to avoid some real consequences for a shuttle incident, only to change back later. Then this guy showed up with the exact style, calling himself New York's new Lethal Protector! And wouldn't you know it, he's taking the Spider-Man motif and applying the Batman method of striking fear into the common man. Hell, some people claim he's actually a host to an alien symbiote, but I personally think that mouth is just... I dunno, makeup effects.

Web Ghost - The third webslinger to show up randomly in New York, and she's surprisingly even more active then Spider-Man herself. I don't know if she's just that dedicated to being a menace, or if she's trying to prove something. Hell, some people theorizes she's the reanimated corpse of the one person Spider-Man's confirmed to have killed "on accident," Gwen Stacy. I don't think this is true, but I can't help but wonder what it says to the world if it was. Like, the girl died at Spider-Man's hands and now she's swinging around the city like he does. Would he feel even a hint of regret? ...Ah, who am I kidding, she's just another girl with spider-powers, none of that death stuff.

NOT MEMBERS

J. Jonah Jameson - Former Top Reporter and Now Editor of the Daily Bugle, the best damn newspaper in the city of New York. People come to me for the truth, and I give it to them. You want my opinion on rich billionaires like Lex Luthor going into politics? They should have to give up literally every cent over 5 million as taxes, that way they actually contribute to society. You want my opinion on the Avengers? Reliable defenses against unwanted alien invasions, and so humble about it, too. Metahuman rights? That's something I support, and I hope Professor Xavier helps everyone. And Spider-Man... a goddamn menace playing hero in my city. This guy wants to help the greater good? Then show who you really are behind that stupid mask. Secret Identities are just a coward's way of avoiding accountability... unless we're talking the internet.

Mary Jane Watson - Some theater kid who works near the Bugle, I don't know. She's better behind the scenes then out front... look, what do you want me to tell you? I know nothing about her! Do you... look, just get out of here already.

[zxrtql-x]

ABOUT ZXTRQL-X!?!?

• Anns / Anzle

•ADD ✅ + ADHD??

•Pansexual or Bi?

•She/They/Any

•Editor + Artist (I'm horrible at drawing but I think I'm pretty good at editing. I edit on my YouTube: @Yᴏᴜʀʟᴏᴄᴀʟ_ᴇᴅɪᴛᴏʀʀ ★

•Fav colors: Sage green + black + pastel purple + navy blue

•Cartoons and Shows I LOVE: Ed Edd n Eddy, Billy and Mandy, Rockos Modern Life, Amazing World of Gumball, Garfield, Smiling friends, Rick and Morty, YOLO, Friends, The Office, The 90's Show, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Jujitsu Kaisen, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Scream 1996, The Extremely Goofy Movie, Yu-Gi-Su, The Rugrats Movie, Fairy Odd Parents, Dexters Laboratory, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Kids Next Door, Spooky Month, Chowder, Sam and Colby, Total Drama Island, Invasion Zim, South Park, Etc.

•Fav ships: Eddeddy (eene) Kevrolf (eene) Mayed (eene) Eddmarie (eene) Maxley (tegm) Maxroxanne (tgm) Billymandy (b&m) Creek (sp) Stanley (sp) Zosan (op) Charpim (sf) and etc that I can't remember :333333

•Fav characters:

EENE: Rolf, Kevin, Eddy, Double d, Plank

TDI: Alejandro, Duncan, Cody, Noah, Gwen

B&M: Grim, Billy, Nergal jr.

Smilling Friends: Charlie, Pim, Glep, Fillmore, Mr. Frog

SF: Sal, Larry

SM: Streber, Kevin, Bob, Roy, Ross, Robert

OP: Zoro, Sanji, Luffy, Buggy, Ace

TEGM: Max, Bradley, Bobby, Roxanne

R&M: Morty, Rick, Mortys sis?

SCREAM: Stu, Billy, Randy

•Im jst on here to find new friends & talk to told ones! (not looking for anything weird, if u try to talk weird to me, you will be blocked/reported. I AM UNDER 18.)

[rappaccini]

okay spidergwen 4d chess is evolving to spidergwen 8d chess for this one.

if synergy with the spiderverse movies got comics-gwen into this crisis of character consistency where gwen can't go home to earth 65, can't come out of the closet, and can't even refer to herself as an adult, the long game for neutralizing gwiles and restoring gwen's character is using synergy to pull her out of it.

but even then it's gonna be a fucking rollercoaster ride that could derail at any time and the realistic best-case scenario will still lead to gwiles happening again, just makorrafied.

here's the short version:

now walk with me:

first, gwen's always been and always will be subject to synergy. all comics characters are, but gwen is especially vulnerable to it.

her creation in 2014 right after the general audience learned gwen died barely a year ago in amazing spider-man 2, ship teasing her with peter immediately and and being kept on a pedestal away from all spider-men but him? absolutely meant to capture emma stone/andrew garfield nostalgia. to the point where the original voice in people's heads when they read gwen's comics was absolutely emma's.

ten years ago, petergwen was the original gwiles. it was a ship between gwen and a far more popular spider-man that reduced her to the role of supportive girlfriend, took her away from her world, her stories and the people who love her, prevented her from being her own person-- and wouldn't let her explore her sexuality. and it felt like a given that it would happen.

like i remember reading those original spiderverse comics in 2014, being afraid gwen was just going to be a plot device to make peter parker sad. that she'd get killed by morlun at the end of the arc, and he'd have even more gwen angst. and then, after she lived, that he'd throw away decades of development for a terrible fling with a barely-legal variant of his dead girlfriend.

instead, that didn't happen. because a lot of writers and editors worked like fuck for years to keep it from happening. they kept them apart, or kept their interactions on a tight leash. now, ten years later, peter and gwen's interactions have a big brother/little sister vibe. they're out of the danger zone. the consensus is "peter and gwen sometimes have tension early in their dynamic, but they get past it and stay friends" and that's rippled out into other media's spider-peter and spider-gwen dynamics (the marvel's spider-man cartoon? does exactly that. gwen and peter have a shiptease, but ultimately stay friends).

the arrival of the spiderverse movies did half the heavy lifting, because gwen's character started taking cues from those movies instead. the pressure to pair peter/gwen shifted to miles/gwen.

it went nowhere for a bit. they aren't friends. they just team up occasionally in group settings. miles is with tiana toomes and gwen's solo, while it lasted, gave her a few dates with harry and she's one conversation away from getting together with em jay. it felt like they were leaving the danger zone too.

but atsv pushed them back in the red. now years of the same anti-petergwen care must be applied to salvage that dynamic and protect gwen's character in the comics and any other media where she appears (movies? games? cartoons? same principle. keep them the fuck apart and give them other love interests to kill that vibe before it can poison anything else).

there's still a clear road out and a few different ways to get there. one of the simplest ones is the same way we got into this mess: use the synergy.

it takes time, careful writing, an alternate ship, and a new property for editorial to leech off of to change the flow of synergy and stop a bad plotline from taking root.

so... where do we seem to be going, and how can we escape?

the spiderverse era:

we know the drill: spiderverse synergy yields an ongoing where editorial wants gwen away from earth 65, in the multiverse, hanging around peter and miles, ambiguously a teenager, and the writer has no choice but to follow those edicts if they want the gig. we've done this already with the mcguire run. we're doing it again right now with the phillips run. we'll probably do it at least one more time when btsv hits.

itsv synergy led to gwen exploring the multiverse when not on 65 (and a character beat where miles crushes on her and she's totally indifferent), the book flopping and getting canned 10 issues in, a relaunch about commuting from 65 to 616 with her eventually moving to 616 for good, that one getting canned after 10 issues too, gwen hanging around 616 and helping out in a few events, and then several multiverse-themed miniseries that put gwen back in 65 without much explanation, eventually ending in her back home for the whole story... and getting extremely close to coming out of the closet and starting a romance with em jay.

atsv synergy is trying to plant gwen in 616 For Good this time, and putting her in a few movie-tie-in events to seal the deal... and nobody wants it. the announcement of gwen's new status quo was met with annoyance and indifference from non-gwen fans, and disappointment from gwen fans. nobody wants this thing except for a minority of hardcore gwiles shippers who don't even buy her comics.

we're probably looking at a similar pattern as last time's attempt: a flop that's canned after a few arcs (maybe even 10 issues), a possible stab at gwiles during the book, a possible relaunch and likely second flop if the 616 status quo is kept, then back to miniseries that gradually return her to her own world. (it would be great if gwen keeps her ongoing and is quietly sent back to 65, possibly even with the same writer, but we can't bet on that.)

btsv comes out in 3-5 years. whatever progress gwen does make towards making it home will likely be yanked back because we'll probably rinse and repeat the sv synergy shit again: another gwen-in-616/multiverse-themed ongoing relaunch that flops, followed by miniseries, probably with gwiles round 3 cranked up even harder somewhere along the way.

-> but maybe 🤞 with gwen confirmed as bisexual by that point. they might not let gwen get a girlfriend in under 5 years, but letting her say "i'm bi" feels possible. she's one conversation away from coming out, and her writers keep putting her in queercoded storylines with women she has chemistry with. at some point, all that momentum's going to break through.

for the immediate future, it's not looking good.

what's that? it's cindy moon with a steel chair!

by then the moonissance should be underway thanks to the insomniac spider-man 3 game dropping around btsv. cindy moon/silk is insomniac's spider-woman instead of ghost-spider.

yes, there was that scrapped multiplayer concept where spider-gwen's a prominent character. but it was scrapped.

if gwen's in the games, she'll have a supporting role, most likely as a civilian, hopefully not as peter or miles' love interest. maybe as cindy's.

-> if gwen is miles's interest, fuck. (unlikely: insomniac's pretty committed to hailey, and tiana toomes is semi-canon thanks to a tie-in novel. it's more likely for them to favor those love interests than cram gwen in out of nowhere.)

-> if she's peter's, it's annoying but salvageable. (also unlikely: it'd be pretty dumb to build up peter/mj as a committed relationship just to replace her with gwen right as they're about to settle down)

-> ... but if she's cindy's? this might be the ace in the hole.

if ism3 comes out before btsv, btsv instantly becomes outdated for putting gwen back in the closet for a straight ship. that poisons the gwiles synergy well ("are you really sure you want to get them together if it means turning miles into the kind of homophobic douchebag who'd shove gwen back in the closet so he can kiss her whenever he wants?").

if ism3 comes out after, then gwiles's chokehold on the post-btsv fandom gets an immediate rebuttal, and if comics-gwen was forced into a romance with miles during the btsv synergy era, cindy gives her a clear path out: coming out, possibly leaving miles for cindy (... and, since miles's reputation is the one they'll want to protect, giving him a way to step aside that makes him look good by framing him as an ally who graciously gives up his romance so gwen can be happy). no matter what, gwiles takes a serious hit and is forever associated with gwen being in the closet.

if gwen's not openly bi in the comics yet, they might go there to ride insomniac's coattails, and tease a gwen/cindy ship for synergy's sake. we keep insisting on em jay being gwen's first girlfriend, but cindy might be the dark horse who takes it.

(even if it's just queerbait, fine. it's another female love interest dangled in front of gwen, and it makes both characters' queerness harder to deny.)

then we have the spiderverse spin-off spider-women to contend with. first, it may not happen at all; all three female superhero team movies we've gotten so far haven't done well financially or been fondly received, and we've gotten basically no info about sw other than a vague suggestion that they still want to do it.

if it happens, it'll be 3-5 years after btsv.

and if spider-women releases... first of all, gwen might be single after the events of btsv, or she'll get a birds-of-prey-2020 plot about finding herself after breaking up with miles, which are the better scenarios but the most unlikely. in the event that sv gwen is still Miles's Girlfriend, the plot is supposedly intended to be a multiversal adventure centering gwen, jess drew and cindy moon so hopefully he won't be in it much or at all.

regardless, there's going to be a comic tie-in. synergy will send gwen on an interdimensional team-up event with whoever the cast are. and since cindy's going to be riding high off ism3... even if she isn't in sw, she'll still probably appear in some capacity, and this'll likely be the second round of synergy that pairs her and gwen.

no matter the context of the relationship or whether sw releases, gwen and cindy's bond is likely to get a big focus in a few years. it's just a question of what kind of relationship it'll be. are gwen and cindy going to be friends, harley-and-ivy-circa-2013-'friends' or a canon couple?

and even if gwen doesn't appear at all in the games or they're not shipped at all, cindy is on track to become the new Default Spider-Woman: she's a lead in one of the biggest games in the world, which will definitely be released, there's a slim chance the tv series might be revived, and cindy will almost certainly be in spider-women and is likely to be the breakout character of that lineup. even if only the game happens, cindy will still be the newest, hottest toy to play with.

which means in 5-10 years, we're either looking at a spider-quad, with peter, miles, gwen and cindy... or, since trios are easier to adapt and market, cindy could get the push from editorial to replace gwen as the One Girl in the trio and become the default female spider for a new generation of kids to relate to (... and more importantly, for their parents to buy merchandise of).

therefore, gwen could finally go home for good, assuming she hasn't already.

if gwen doesn't have an ongoing at the time spider-women happens, she'll probably get one again. or at the bare minimum, she'll get a mini.

possibly even as an openly bisexual character because even if gwen doesn't come out in the comics until then/isn't queer in the games, the resistance to her coming-out will be a lot smaller because:

-> a) the unspoken concern keeping gwen in the closet-- that making ghost-spider queer will lead homophobic parents to refuse to buy their kids her merch anymore-- will no longer be that big of a loss if it does happen, because if silk takes ghost-spider's place as the new Flagship Female Spider, it'll be expected that parents will be buying silk stuff for their kids instead. marvel's still getting their money, just from a different girl.

-> b) which means there's room to tap into a new market. and since the spider-gwen fandom that remain with her will be teens and young adults who would buy her shit even if she's queer (maybe even especially if she's queer)... well, there's your money.

-> c) the 'think of the children' excuse doesn't work if the children in question aren't kids anymore or aren't even into gwen in the first place because they're all about cindy, and if those kids' parents can't get mad at marvel for trying to market gwen to an audience of children when they aren't even doing that. remember, harley quinn didn't get to be canonically bi until she was repackaged as a more mature character for a primarily teen-to-adult audience.

-> d) just saying. the spiderverse is supposedly about showing how anyone can be a spider-hero... yet we still don't have a major canonically queer spider. that's the one part of the spiderverse that marvel's stayed quiet on. which means there's a gap to be filled in the story-- and (here's what marvel cares about:) an audience that has yet to be reached out to, who will give them money and good press when they do it.

gwen is the ideal character to be that first queer main spider-hero because it's a core part of her story, there's already a demand for it, and if the right choices are made about which characters and relationships to promote, the backlash to her coming out will fade away with time and become smaller than the potential gain.

we don't know what the climate for queer characters in kids' media will be in 6-10 years. maybe it'll be so good that gwen's queerness won't affect her presence in spider-man stories. maybe she'll be allowed to come out... and then quietly shuffled out of the main lineup. but even if marvel sidelines gwen away from the Straight Spiders, that benefits her character because it means there's a lot less pressure on her to be on earth-616. which means she can go home and stay there.

gwen's stories are already queer as hell, even with all the synergy and the pressure of being every little girl's spider-hero keeping her in the closet. when that weight is off her back, maybe that'll be all we need to go for it.

it took five years to get gwen away from amazing spider-man nostalgia and the threat of being Peter's Designated Girlfriend, and they did it with a combo of controlling their interactions to keep them from getting together and shifting to the spiderverse and making gwen Miles's Designated Girlfriend. it'll take ten more years to get her away from spiderverse synergy and the threat of gwiles. and the way to do that is to avoid miles wherever possible, keep building towards gwen's coming-out and shift to riding insomniac's coattails to get us there.

(hell, the five-year overlap opening will probably repeat too. in the five years between asm2 and itsv, peter/gwen started to fade away as she was pushed towards miles without being consistently shipped yet... which created an opportunity for gwen to develop romantic interests in harry, em jay and possibly hobie. there'll probably be one between btsv and spider-women, and insomniac spider-man 3 will be out by then. good time to get some distance from gwiles and give her a gf.)

the most efficient way to do this is by confirming gwen's bisexuality as fast as possible in the comics and games, but because of cindy taking gwen's place, the path's still there even if they don't move on it until after spider-women comes out.

... but then we'll have live-action miles probably in development for sony or the mcu, assuming it doesn't happen even sooner. there's no mention of a live-action spider-gwen solo movie or show in consideration (or even an animated show), so at this point, if gwen shows up in other media, it'll be as a supporting character in miles or peter's story.

and that could make or break things for good.

the live-action era:

we'll see how old she is compared to miles and peter, and who their love interests will be. that determines everything.

1) if it's a sony movie about miles, it's more likely than not that gwen's going to be his age/his love interest. sony made the spiderverse movies, lord and miller and pascal (who love the ship) would still probably have creative influence, everyone expects it, you know it's coming.

even if gwen isn't spider-gwen, editorial's gonna force another round of gwiles synergy all over again and the clock's reset to zero. insert another gwen-in-616 attempt, another forced gwiles attempt, another refusal to let her come out and another ten years of unraveling her from that mess.

-> and because it's live-action, everybody will have seen it. unlike video games and animated movies, which have broader appeal than comics, but are still somewhat limited.

-> but if it's a sony movie, it's probably gonna be a mess that'll leave a bad taste in people's mouths and not have much longevity. hopefully there'd be an opening to wiggle out of there.

-> if gwen isn't his love interest / isn't in the sony film at all, well there you go. whoever that girlfriend is will get a boost, and gwen will have that gwiles pressure off her back. it's possible. just don't be optimistic.

2) if it's a spiderverse teamup... pack it up. they'll shoehorn spider-gwen in since she's the most popular female spider-hero, she'll be a bland girlboss who'll probably be shipped with miles or peter. earth 65 takes another hit. the damage may be irreparable because spider-gwen will be seen by everyone as their love interest.

3) but in terms of the mcu, they'll definitely do miles someday, but they're gonna put peter first.

if i had to guess, peter's getting a college trilogy. maybe not after he has his 'neglect peter in favor of spider-man' arc, but he's gotta have his college movies at some point. when peter graduates at the end of sm6, and we no longer have a teen/young adult spider-man for kids to relate to, that's the ideal time to introduce miles. and THEN miles gets his high school trilogy with peter as a mentor figure.

and since gwen was peter's love interest before she was miles's, and peter's iconic college relationships haven't been adapted yet, there's a 50/50 chance that she'll be introduced there, along with harry and a more comics-accurate version of mj.

(if gwen's introduced as a member of miles's cast, we're fucked. plain and simple. the transfer from being a part of peter's cast to being part of miles's will be complete in the eyes of the audience. that shit's gonna follow her everywhere forever, especially since the mcu lasts for fucking ever.)

if gwen is peter's age, ESPECIALLY if peter and gwen are a couple in his college years, we might get out of the gwiles pit for good:

a) gwen might die before ever meeting miles. and even if she doesn't...

b) there's no bigger bro code violation than dating your friend's ex. let alone your mentor's ex

c) the ick of live action college-aged-or-older gwen and high-school aged miles is impossible to reconcile. sitting in a tree on steroids. everyone who sees them together in any other medium (comics, games, cartoons, you name it) is just going to picture those actors, and no one will be able to brush the age gap aside for as long as these movies and the versions of their characters last. and it's the mcu, so it'll last a damn while. even a possible reboot/sony version will have that baggage attached.

so if gwen dates peter first, she'll never date miles in live-action without it being hated by everyone. and the comics will never want to revisit a romantic connection between them as a result. even though spider-gwen =/= peter's-gf-gwen, nobody's gonna see it that way. we can work with that!

petergwen synergy might make its way back... but we all know there's zero chance he won't end up with mj, in the movies, in the comics, in anything, so there's less danger there. the most that'll happen is spider-gwen having to pat peter while he cries on his shoulder about his dead gwen. annoying, but not derailing.

if gwiles happens in live-action, it's game over for fully moving past gwiles and being queer for good. gwen might survive the animated movies on their own, but not the one-two punch of animated movies and live-action. that would guarantee that she'll always be seen as miles's love interest, that they can never be friends without that threat looming over them, and that any progress she makes away from miles will likely be temporary before she's inevitably dragged back to him by editorial. we'll have to rely on comics contrivances like one more daying it or dropping continuity to get her out of there, and those will never last for good.

but if petergwen happens in the mcu, that makes the likelihood of a comics gwiles revisit slim for a solid decade. which creates a decade's worth of opportunity for gwen to seek other love interests that'll make gwiles's status lessen in importance even more.

add the ten year window where gwiles can't stop gwen from being bi to whatever happens in the comics in between sv movies and after insomniac's spider-man series wraps up. the bi gwen momentum is already chugging away. that window could be filled with female love interests who actually get to stick around. (giving gwen male love interests will just signal to straight fans that she's available for a straight romance because straight people don't understand what bisexuality is. she has to date women for that label to stick and for people to get the message that she doesn't belong to miles or peter.)

i know i keep circling back to 'make gwen bi', but it's the truth. the way to escape spiderverse synergy, gwen being stuck as Miles's Girlfriend forever, and gwen getting away from being Spider-Man's Girlfriend for good has been the same since 2018.

make gwen bisexual.

(yes, bi. the spiderverse movies introducing spider-gwen to a generation of kids as a girl who's attracted to men guaranteed that she'll never be a lesbian or asexual in canon. have your headcanons, but it's too late for that to ever happen in reality. if you're gonna campaign for a canonically-queer spider-gwen, you have to ask for her to be bi because that's the only type of queer that stands a chance at being canon someday. get mad at lord and miller, not me.)

(it'd be awesome if spiderverse-gwen's trans coding catches on... but it's just not likely enough to realistically hope for. marvel's far more likely to standardize making gwen bi than trans, and it wouldn't occur to them that she could be both. which she'd have to be, because ignoring ten years of buildup to gwen coming out as sapphic and saying 'hey! she's this other kind of queer but is still only into men!' isn't satisfying. gwen can be trans, but must be bi.)

it's been built up so strongly in the comics that it's not really a question of if she's bi anymore. it's when will they say it out loud? and will it stick or be shoved under the rug so gwiles can happen?

that's the issue. gwen's never been closer to coming out. it could happen as early as the very next issue of her ongoing. it could be next month, next year, a few years, in a decade... or it could literally never happen at all, because she'll get crammed into a romance with miles and her queerness will be stifled to keep her with him. and we have no idea which it'll be. that's what's so frustrating: we have no idea if we're about to get everything we've been waiting an entire decade for, or if it's getting taken away forever and gwen'll end up being the girl chappell roan's singing about in good luck babe!.

(and that's the thing with gwiles. no matter how much chemistry they have, or how well-executed the romance is in the spiderverse movies or anywhere else, this ship can only happens if gwen stifles her queerness, her need to go home to the world full of people who love and need her and her story... and the longer it goes on, the more miles becomes responsible for doing that to her. it's a homophobic, misogynistic gut-punch to both characters disguised as a happy ending. the movies haven't fixed this. if anything, by introducing this romance to the general public, they've guaranteed it'll spread to other canon and delay or permanently cut off her coming-out arc.)

other media is the factor that can speed up gwen's coming-out and make it definitive, or slow it down and reduce gwen to momentary bursts of queerness in between nonstop gwiles slog.

but even if gwiles happens and sticks, it's not the end of the world.

the obvious narrative way out has already been stated earlier: gwen comes out of the closet and leaves miles to explore her sexuality, and miles supports her in doing it.

look, every time they've been shipped together so far, gwen has always rejected him and he just keeps pushing, but the writers and fandom keep ignoring gwen's feelings because this ship isn't about gwen, or miles-and-gwen. it's about miles getting what he wants, which is a pretty white girl with a famous name and superpowers who can't stand up to him. therefore, the only way out that'll stick is for miles to be the one to end things.

the best way to redeem him for the homophobic undertones of encouraging her to stay in a romance she isn't capable of wanting, is for him to voluntarily end the relationship, wish her well, and support her in exploring her queerness.

it's the best way to end the relationship with miles looking as good as possible. and since the fandom and marvel are very defensive about miles and his ego, they're gonna want it to end in a way that makes him the good guy.

and it's also how we make this ship too radioactive to return to. once you show miles realizing the girl he likes is queer, and putting his feelings aside to support her, he can never go on and try to date that queer girl again without it being a hideous character assassination.

that's the best way to do it. but there are others. comics are meant to last forever, so the story will never have an ending. even marriage and kids, the typical ending, can be retconned or walked back. like, peter and mj were married for years, and then they weren't and still haven't gotten back together even though literally everyone in the fandom keeps demanding it. if that can happen to one of the most famous couples in comics, gwen can sure as hell make a deal with mephisto to retcon her comphet brats out of existence, especially since gwen-8 already technically attempted it in the latour run. hopefully it doesn't get to that point though.

if it does, here are some comics-specific ways out that don't revolve around gwen coming out and leaving miles to be openly queer. i am very aware that they suck, so let's just not gwiles at all please.

it was all a mysterio-induced illusion.

gwilesified gwen was a clone the whole time, and real spider-gwen's trapped or hiding somewhere.

amnesia plot. they forget they were ever together.

pull a batcat wedding. huge event that aggressively advertises a wedding that ends in the bride getting cold feet, realizing how wrong the relationship is and leaving the groom at the altar. good for her. make the fandom so angry about being blueballed that they won't want to see her in close proximity with miles again.

have gwen cheat on miles with someone; even better if it's his friend. for maximum chaos make it his clone or his best friend's dad. (if miles cheats, he'll be forgiven. if gwen cheats, she'll be witchhunted for decades by his fans... which means they'll never get back together!🥳).

have gwen go out for cigarettes and a carton of milk one night and simply not come back. 1) she would. especially if earth-8 happens. 2) it would make the miles fans hate her.

... kill gwen off. (it'll never be miles.) have miles move on. and then when she's eventually resurrected she just never gets back together with him. if you're gonna force her to be Spider-Man's Girlfriend again, you may as well fridge her too. just go ahead and do own that miles is just as bad for her as peter was. make the taste in our mouths about this ship so bad that we can never return to it.

drop the plot. just drop it. end one book and start another with them randomly not together and just never mention it again. you do a shit job with the rest of gwen's continuity. why not this?

one more day. nuclear option. the devil himself can break that marriage up and get rid of those kids.

wait a few decades for editorial to switch out and pray that the powers that be give a shit about gwen and will let this ship die. (they won't.)

speaking of.

.... post-first live action miles morales (so... twenty years from now):

alright i've come this far let me throw out a controversial expectation: they're gonna do gwiles again. they are. they just are.

much like the petergwen vibe, gwiles is going to be an unavoidable part of spider-gwen's character moving forward. sitting in a tree was rightly hated and aggressively ignored, but then the spiderverse movies dug up that storyline and pumped life back into it.

and now it's too late. the spiderverse movies are too beloved, popular and well-reviewed for gwiles not to happen again. marvel has hard proof that this couple will make them money, win them praise and avoid controversy. (... and they also know that making gwen miles's girlfriend is an effective way to stop her from being queer and cut off her coming-out arc from ever culminating into anything, while looking progressive). an entire generation of people-- especially children-- now expect gwiles whenever they see gwen or miles (even when they aren't even in the same place or are dating different people), perceive their romance as a good thing, and expect spider-gwen to be attracted to men.

when those kids grow up, some of them will become writers for marvel. and they'll do what the current writers do and resurrect the ghosts of their favorite childhood spider-man stories (which is why Gwen Stacy Death Nostalgia keeps happening even today; that's what the powers that be grew up with, and they're writing for the kids they used to be, not the kids that exist now). which means spiderverse nostalgia. which means gwiles. even if gwiles don't get together in the spiderverse movies, they'll still do it because they'll want to 'fix' that. and all it takes is one dumbass writer to make it happen. so it'll happen.

if the worst-case scenario of gwiles in btsv, gwiles in the games, gwiles in live-action, comic-gwen never goes home, marries miles and has the comphet spawn happens, well no shit the next generation of writers are gonna keep gwilesing. it's functionally over for her and she'll never meaningfully escape.

but even if the best-case scenario pipe dream of gwen never canonically dating him in any media post-btsv, going home to earth-65, coming out and only having romantic relationships with women happens (95% sure it won't)... gwiles is going to resurface in the comics in some capacity, and will probably reappear in other spider-gwen adaptations: games, movies, tv shows, you name it. the horse is out of the barn. it is too late to stop it. we will always have to deal with this ship.

what can be changed is the context in which the ship exists. the name of the game is now putting an end to the "endgame star-crossed soulmates destined to marry and start a nuclear family" dogshit sitting in a tree and spiderverse insist on by... doing what i keep repeating:

1) let gwen come out. either say "i'm bi / into women" or show her kissing a girl. 2) have miles acknowledge gwen's queerness and support it. 3) give gwen female love interests that last in multiple mediums and adaptations to solidify her sexuality so everyone knows (especially those kids who were introduced to her through the spiderverse movies and have no idea that she's a closeted queer girl or that their romance storyline's about gwen being pressured into pretending to be straight and miles letting it happen so he can have her to himself) and marvel can't pull a kitty pryde and pretend like it never happened. 4) build up both gwen and miles' romances with other characters, so people who want to ship them have better canon options. (for gwen, these can be female or male after she's had at least one major girlfriend)

and since a significant section of the trilogy's young fandom acknowledge spiderverse gwen's trans-coding-- or even want gwen to be bi or a lesbian, despite the heavy gwiles preference of the films and lack of any positive dynamic between gwen and any female characters-- there's a good chance that once the spiderverse kids see that gwen's canonically bi, they'll run with it. we just have to get them there.

the best case scenario that can be realistically hoped for is a petergwen scenario (or a peter-and-any-girl-who-isn't-mj scenario): accepting as a given that a staple of spider-gwen's character in any future adaptations will be a probable romance with miles morales, but instead of it being a given, it's merely an option that doesn't necessarily need to exist. and if it does exist, instead of it being an endgame romance, reframe it into a temporary flirtation before they move on to other people.

to make a comparison: we need the collective mindset about gwiles to shift from kataang to makorra-- from "childhood sweethearts who never break up" to "hormonal teens who have a rocky first romance that quickly implodes, but they come out of it as friends and he supports her when she goes on to date a girl". or from 1990s joker-and-harley to 2020s joker-and-harley-- from "the female character only appears in proximity to her boyfriend and is totally defined by her romance with him" to "everyone sees the female character as an individual, knows she's queer, and understands that if she and this guy have a romance, it'll only be temporary, and sometimes he doesn't factor into her story at all."

so, a compromise. give the gwileses what they want, and then give queer gwen what she needs. the makorrafication of gwiles means everyone wins.

we can work with that. gwen and miles's respective stories are at their best when they're about embracing their marginalized identities after rejecting assimilating into the dominant culture they're being marginalized from (straightness and whiteness respectively). they need to start the story by trying to do that so their arcs are more pronounced, and their romantic arcs should reflect their overall arcs. it does actually make the most sense if miles's first major love interest is a white girl he feels pressured to tone down his blackness for, and gwen's is a straight boy she's comphetting with, because the point is they have to grow out of that.

like, as a certified decade-long Gwiles Hater, there is actually a case for gwiles as a romantic plotline, and it's that. the issue with gwiles is the way the ship's been framed. once we change the framing, and that framing is widespread and accepted, we're good. and it is going to take a long time to do. (remember, it took twenty-five years to break up harley and the joker for good. optimistically, it's gonna take that long to get gwen out of gwiles.)

gwen and miles don't necessarily need to be each other's first relationship (that role can be filled by plenty of other white girls and straight boys, and they're best as friends in entirely separate worlds), but it can work as long as it's within that context: fine, they can get together. but they must break up.

that's the way out.

but again, we just don't know what we're dealing with yet. the rollercoaster car might have derailed already and it just hasn't flown away yet. or maybe we'll make it after a couple dicey turns and a fucking agonizing loop or two. man i hate not knowing.

[abel-brannigan]

" Spider-Man is a superhero in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He has been featured in comic books, television shows, films, video games, novels, and plays. Spider-Man's secret identity is Peter Benjamin Parker. Initially, Peter was depicted as a teenage high-school student and an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents, Richard and Mary Parker, died in a plane crash. Lee, Ditko, and later creators had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and young adulthood and gave him many supporting characters, such as Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, and Harry Osborn; romantic interests Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat; and enemies such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, and Venom. In his origin story, Spider-Man gets his superhuman spider powers and abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider. These powers include superhuman strength, agility, reflexes, stamina, durability, coordination, and balance; clinging to surfaces and ceilings like a spider; and detecting danger with his precognition ability called "spider-sense". He builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webs of his own design, which he uses both for fighting and web-swinging across the city. Peter Parker Initially used his powers for his personal gain, but after his Uncle Ben was killed by a thief that Peter could not stop, he began to use his powers to fight crime by becoming Spider-Man. "

- guess who

“pipe down billy. i’m working..”

[jeremywhitley]

Which characters are canon ace and why?

Let me take some of the mystery away.

Currently, it’s Gwen. Period.

Both Nadia and Yelena have been discussed as being both intended to be ace and exhibiting thoughts and/or behaviors that ace people relate to. In neither case was that confirmed explicitly in the text (I should know, I’m the only person who has written a solo Nadia comic).

So then the question is “Why Gwen and not Nadia”?

Well, what has often been expressed is that higher ups (perhaps editorial, perhaps higher) is not comfortable dropping certain information like that without it being a pertinent part of the story. They worry that throw away confirmations of things like this will get them backlash and not the accompanying support they desire from queer fans.

They’re not wrong in this. Certainly some fans would support it but there is ultimately a question of whether the company has any idea of what it means and if they’re just cashing in for cheap media attention.

That then means that you have to write a story ABOUT the person being ace to confirm their asexuality and that is a real tricky thing for ongoing series that are habitually being cancelled at 8-12 issues. Being acespec myself, I will admit that it’s a little harder to tell a quick story about that than it is to have two same sex characters go on an adventure where they kiss at the climax.

Ace narratives, as we’ve explored in Love Unlimited, don’t often fit into the established paths and tropes of allosexual stories. So you gotta forge a new path.

I can say that higher-ups approved the conclusion of this story before we started making it, but the biggest trick is just that Love Unlimited exists and I had an editor that was passionate about getting to tell a story about an ace character. Gwen fits the mold of telling a story like this pretty uniquely because she has a history of trying to force herself into the tropes of traditional stories and trying to understand her own life through the narratives of comic books. So she was an especially good choice to tell Marvel’s first Asexual exploration/coming out story and Love Unlimited was an unusually great platform for telling it that didn’t even exist during Unstoppable Wasp.

So, as I’ve said before, in my head Nadia is ace, but it’s not on paper and that is ultimately where the story lives. There are also a lot of folks in and out of comics that feel strongly about this too. Hopefully, someone will have the chance to make it text someday, but I don’t believe in growling at and fighting with who rightly state that that has not been established yet.

I will say that Nadia has said explicitly that she is not interested in kissing boys. So that is canon.

[cloudzzcore]

Howdy folks I’m Cloud and I’m just a simple writer who’s trying to find a new hobby!

INTRODUCING MYSELF / Masterlist

——

╰─ - ̗̀✎ About me:

୨୧┇Name: Cloud

୨୧┇Age: Not saying it, But I am a Minor

୨୧┇Pronouns: All (Preferably He/They)

୨୧┇Timezone: EST

⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣ ‧₊˚✧

╰─ - ̗̀✎ My Boundaries...

୨୧┇DMs: ✅ (ask)

୨୧┇Pings: ✅

୨୧┇Friend: ✅

୨୧┇Nicknames: ✅

୨୧┇Tonetags: ✅

⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣ ‧₊˚✧

╰─ - ̗̀✎ Interests & More!

୨୧┇Likes: The Little mermaid live action, ITSV, ATSV, Bad Guys, Law and order, Lackadaisy, TADC, Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel.

୨୧┇Favorite Characters: Zooble, Kinger, Gangle, Jax, Caine (TADC). Mr. Wolf and Ms. Tarantula, Diane. (Bad Guys). Ariel, Sebastian (TLM). HOBIE, Miles, Pavitr, Gwen, Jessica Drew, Peni Parker, Spidernoir. (ITSV, ATSV). Freckle, Rocky, Nicodeme and Serafine (LACKADAISY), Fantoccio, BARNABY, Billie. (Billie Bust Up) Queen Bee, Fizzarolli, Millie, Loona, STOLAS. (Helluva Boss), Angel Dust, Alastor, Charlie, ADAM. (Hazbin hotel)

୨୧┇Dislikes: Pushing Boundaries, misuse of tonetags.

୨୧┇Extra: I'm a avid helluva boss and Hazbin Hotel editor.

⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣ ‧₊˚

Fandoms I write for

Hazbin Hotel Masterlist

Characters that I write for:

Charlie

Vaggie

Angel Dust

Alastor

Husk

Niffty

Lucifer

Adam

Lute

Possibly Sera

Emily

Vox

Velvette

Rosie

Carmilla

Sir Pentious

Helluva Boss Masterlist

Characters that I write for:

Blitzo

Millie

Moxxie

Loona

Stolas

Queen Bee

Octavia

Asmodeus

Fizzarolli

Crimson

Striker

Verosika

Glitz and Glam

Barbie Wire

Possibly Andrealphus

Trolls (All three movies)

Characters that I write for:

All of the Royal Troll Leaders

All of BroZone

Poppy

Viva

Hickory

(JUST ASK FOR A CHARACTER BC I CANT THINK OF ANY-)

The Bad Guys

Characters that I write for:

Mr. Wolf

Mr. Snake

Mr. Pirahna

Mr. Shark

Ms. Tarantula

Diane Foxington

The Amazing Digital Circus

Characters that I write for:

Pomni

Jax

Gangle

Kinger

Caine

Ragatha

Zooble

Possibly more to come!!

Rules for requests

——

I can’t do smut to save my life and don’t want so no smut, Sorry!

No P*dophillia

No nasty stuff

No Oc x Canon characters

[vivilove-jonsa]

I know you and Amymel are both publishing your OG stuff now. How is that going for you both? And do you have any tips for someone who might want to do that sort of thing?

Thanks so much for the ask, Anon. I mentioned it to @amymel86 and, while we're keeping our pen names relatively private, we truly appreciate you checking in with us :)

How's it going? It's going great! We're both thrilled to making money off writing smutty romance 🤣. To quote Amy, 'Sex sells, girlies.' But I'll add that the swoony, romantic, buttery goodness is what keeps readers coming back for more.

Tips? You got it! I'm going to put them under the cut for those who are interested but I'll preface this with the following - we are writing romance novels (primarily as eBooks) that we're self-publishing on Amazon. If you want to be the next Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, that's awesome but our route might not be your route...

Tips for self-publishing romance on the Zon and making BANK:

First off, research. Read, read, read a genre that interests you. What's killing it in the rankings? What's not? What are readers looking for?

Drill it down to a specific niche and find the tropes that work best with it. Unlike with fanfic, you will not make a killing as a newbie writer switching widely between genres and niches. Your Sweet and Clean Christian Western Romance might be fantastic but your fans won't be delighted if you follow it up with an Erotic Dark Mafia Romance. There is so much out there! Sports Romance, Regency, Paranormal, Small-Town, Billionaire, Bikers, Mountain Man... go find yourself a new book boyfriend. Choose the heat level you're comfortable with. There are readers for all levels.

But, find something that appeals to you and stick with it for the time being, learn the ins and outs but make sure it's something you can see yourself writing. Don't choose Reverse Harem or Shifter Romance simply because they're popular if you can't stand reading them. You're setting yourself up for failure that way.

Second, do a little light craft book reading. For romance, I highly recommend Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes and 7 Figure Fiction by T. Taylor as a starting point.

Join an indie author's discord group for important tips and stuff that you might wind up paying to learn from others. It's free and you can choose what's worth retaining and what's not. The one Amy lured me to last year is AMAZING and I've picked up so much information/resources that I never would've known about stumbling around on my own.

Pick a pen name. Do not write under your actual name. You do not want your grandma reading your book. Or maybe you do but you might not want your boss or ex or neighbor reading it. Make sure it's not a claimed pen name. Google it, check Amazon, etc.

Next one is the hard part... write a book. Dream up your story, write down those 'moments' that come to mind (you won't remember them all otherwise) and outline that sucker. Then, WRITE IT. Which sounds impossible but it's not. Most full-length romance novels fall between 60 to 85k words. There are soooooo many fanfics that are longer than that. Take a deep breath. It's doable.

The must-dos for your first book:

Think it up, write down what tropes you're looking at using, outline (at least a little) and write it. I made that sound so easy, didn't I?

2. Edit, edit, edit. You don't have to pay an editor or copywriter - I have not so far - but, for the love of God, don't release something riddled with typos or full of purple prose. Streamline it, make it page-turning goodness readers have a hard time putting down. Throw it in grammarly and spellcheck the bejesus out of it.

3. Format it using a free site like Reedsy or Kindle Create from Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). All that lovely spacing we enjoy doing on Ao3? That will not fly here. It's going to look like an actual book... because it is!

4. Make a cover or get one made. Look at what sells in your niche and copy it. You want to be an outlier? Wait until you're bringing in 50k a month to set the trends. Otherwise, you'll just be passed up. How much work it is can be niche dependent. Fantasy or Sci-Fi Romance might require a lot of talent to get the right look. Contemporary? Easy by comparison. GIMP or Photo Shop work great but there's a learning curve. Also, I recommend Deposit Photos or similar sites for photos/model shots. Don't steal photos off the internet for something you're selling. That will get you in hot water. Remember your cover is the first thing readers see and it needs to sell what you're offering.

5. Write the blurb. Some writers do this first but I am not one of them. It's HARD. However, I cannot stress how important this is to get someone to give your book a look, second only to the cover. It's 100 to 200 words to tell people why they absolutely have to read it! Don't do a summary of the book either. Feed them tropes, give it a hooky intro, draw them in like flies with honey.

6. Get ARCs (Advanced Reader Copy reviews) through a site like Booksprout or SM like Author Facebook groups. It'll get your book in front of eyes and it's lovely having a bit of feedback and some shiny 4 and 5 star reviews queued and ready when you publish.

7. PUBLISH IT. Flip that pancake as we say in the discord group I'm in. Serve it up, see who's biting and keep that griddle hot to make the next one. It will be even better.

And remember, this book will probably not be THE BOOK. And your first pen name will probably not be the one you retire on. It's okay. Every book will teach you something new about who you are as a writer. You'll grow, you'll get better. I'd rather publish a dozen books that are okay if I'm improving than talk about the ONE I'm going to write someday. It's totally worth giving it a whirl.

For more direct tips, feel free to send specific asks. I'm happy to help anytime :)

[tealtreesthriving-ttt457]

A retrospect on We Happy Few's main characters: The terrible people fleeing a terrible world, Part 2.

Sally Boyle: Complicit, Insecure, Break Free.

Return to Part 1 Here: https://www.tumblr.com/tealtreesthriving-ttt457/762012485329010688/a-retrospect-on-we-happy-fews-main-characters?source=share

Part 3 Here: https://www.tumblr.com/tealtreesthriving-ttt457/762192381164552193/a-retrospect-on-we-happy-fews-main-characters?source=share

Sally is another of our main characters, with varying involvement in society. Compared to Arthur, a former editor and perpetuator of no bad memories to plague the town, she is deeply complicit in society and part of her character is rooted in that.

Sally Boyle when she was young was near a tomboy, an outsider to stereotypical feminine interests, invested in chemistry and being one of the Two Musketeers with Arthur Hastings, before it all crashed down. Luckily, her talents landed her a job, formerly, at Haworth Labs, and something of a fashion icon, making her very middle-class near rich in this situation.

When we find her now in the game, she's managing her own drug business, in favor of the police, quit Haworth's because of a spat or two with the oligarch and current owner, Anton Verloc, and with child.

To set up the situation, sending children en masse to Germany was very traumatic. So traumatic, the establishment of the conservative Wellington Wells forbade reproduction, the use of cars, news of the war, and trains, and mandated the use of the drug Joy, a mood-brightening substance that fuzzies up the memory with continuous use.

Lack of consumption in drugs results in being forced to take them, by Doctors, who have all but been enforcers of drug taking and occasional human experimental, some characters bet they're medical practice is down the chute.

Breaking laws means getting beat up by the citizens, and the cops, and maybe murdered. The same goes for the ghetto should they be run out.

People who can't take Joy anymore and are cast away are known as Wastrels. People who don't take joy for any reason and participate in society still are Downers. Sally, by definition, is a Downer, and facilitates that type of Behavior, by selling and using Sunshine, an illegal Joy substitute without the bad effects.

And in terms of children, the child is Verloc's, but he does not know, nor should he, because he participates in the society that wants them outlawed.

The story of Sally, even deep into society and playing a bit of a fiddle on it, is how her most important responsibility cannot be held alongside the responsibility in giving the police special drugs, making those drugs, being threatened by Verloc as a competitor and to her life, and how life wants to keep her inside her cage.

This responsibility is to Gwen, her child, and as her story continues, it becomes harder to maintain standing still and being complacent while Gwen is being threatened, and decides to escape.

A poor gameplay elements that reflects this, "totems of neglect", fill her carry weight requirements to overburdened should she not attend to her child daily. It's poor because Gwen needs to be managed like a daily thing, but she literally is a child in a video game, what did we expect.

Sally often self-degrades herself for being a terrible mother. Any frankly, despite the self-pity, she kinda is. What's worse is that she's servicing an old man, General Byng, a war general and oligarch complicit in making Wellington Wells the way it is, as well as deluding his soldiers about the return of the Germans.

While he's her customer, it's needed to know the pattern of how men treat Sally:

Like I mentioned in Part 1, Arthur demeans Sally and blames her, a minor at the time, for shagging his father. He is not aware or internalized the shit power dynamics, and acts harshly to Sally when she probably doesn't need it. He does help her, but him acting like a rash idiot, though Sally keeps secrets, makes him hard to sympathize with.

Anton Verloc hates Sally and sees her as a threat to his batch of drugs, as Joy in flavors Vanilla and Chocolate aren't effective anymore, and Strawberry is left. The bastard is planning a Permanent Solution to permanently brainwash all of Wellington Wells with coconut, so he's the worst. He even tries to sic the police on her, but she feeds them blackberry. Who knows if she hadn't or has been?

General Byng is the worst and most vile offender. He takes advantage of her situation with the child, proposes strongly she would be safe with him, and forces her to comply, his last attempt trying to lock her in his bunker with a stockpile of resources to sit idly by. He's willing to hurt her and beat someone less his own size.

Sally is frail, relies on talents to subdue enemies, is belittled for her perceived malicious promiscuity, and is always to blame when the relationship goes south. She writes lowercase all the time and is a liar like Arthur, but more harshly viewed due to her gender and her interests. She can kill, but she hurts worse inside than outside. In fact, she's an underdog who struggles to make her way to do good and be good, because she doesn't like herself very much, and one factor to make it worse is that;

She wasn't there when her mother did a murder-suicide on her whole family so that the children wouldn't have to take the train to Germany. She's left the survivor, and feels confused about why she is alive, and what should she do.

And maybe, she can do it for someone else. Gwen.

Sally works to realize that she needs to get out, go on crazy missions to help get a boat out of here, subdue the controlling bastard Byng, and finally, get out with Gwen.

In the end, Sally embraces the lack of having any more secrets and gets to fully embrace her child, realizing that all that effort makes her a better mother, for all the sacrifice she did. They'll be the Two Musketeers together.

Sally is one of the better characters in morality and resolution. She asserts her denial of her inferiority and seeks to make it right for someone else. She embraces her talents more and reassess her priorites to get out than participate in a society that demeans her talents, her gender, and her motherhood.

She realizes that she's stronger than she knows, and while she's a terrible person, she uses her crimes to service a greater good for someone else than her own survival in a shitty society.

Next time, we talk about the comic relief with worse crimes under their hefty belt.

Note: "I really like her saying, 'f*ck in a bucket'."