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yellowocaballero · 11 months

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Miguel is Fine, Actually (Being Spider-Man's Just Toxic As Hell)

Before I watched ATSV I said that I would defend my man Miguel O'Hara's actions no matter what, because he's always valid and I support women's wrongs. I was joking, and I did not actually expect to start defending him on Tumblr.edu. But I'm seeing a lot of commentary that's super reductive, so I do want to bring up another perspective on his character.

Miguel wasn't acting against the spirit of Spider-Man, or what being Spider-Man means. Miguel isn't meant to represent the antithesis of Spider-Man. Miles is the antithesis of Spider-Man. Miguel represents Spider-Man taken to its extreme.

Think about Miguel's actions from his perspective. If you were a hero who genuinely, legitimately, 100%, no doubt about it, believed that somebody is going to make a selfish decision that will destroy an entire universe and put the entire multiverse at severe risk - if you had an over-burdened sense of responsibility and believed in doing the right thing no matter what - you would also chase down the kid and put him in baby jail to try and prevent it. He believed that he was saving the multiverse, and that Miles was putting it in danger for selfish reasons. Which is completely unforgivable to him, because selfishness is what he hates the most. And then he goes completely out of pocket and starts beefing with a 15yo lmfaooo he's such a dick.

But why did Miguel believe that? Why did he believe that Miles choosing himself and his own happiness over the well-being of others was the worst possible thing? Why did he believe that tragedy was inevitable in their lives, and that without tragedy Spider-Man can't exist?

Because he's Spider-Man.

Peter Parker was once a fifteen year old who chose his own happiness over protecting others. It was the greatest regret of his life and he never forgave himself. Peter's ethos means that he will put himself last every time, and that he will sacrifice anything and everything in his life - his relationships, his health, his future - to protecting and helping others. Peter dropped out of college because it interfered with Spider-Man. He destroyed his own future for Spider-Man. He ruins friendships and romantic relationships because Spider-Man was more important. If Peter ever tries to protect himself and his own happiness, then he's a bad person.

That is intrinsic to Peter. Peter would not be Peter without it. A story that is not defined by Peter's unhappiness is not a Spider-Man story. If Peter doesn't make himself miserable, then he's just not Peter.

That is a Spider-Man story: that not only is tragedy inevitable, that if you don't allow yourself to be defined by your tragedy then you're a bad person. If you don't suffer, then you're a bad person. If you ever put anything above Spider-Man, then you're killing Uncle Ben all over again. Miguel isn't the only one that believes this - as we saw, every Spider-Man buys into what he's saying. There's no Spider-Man without these beliefs.

Miguel attempted to find his own happiness, and he was punished in the most extreme way. He got Uncle Ben'd x10000. He tried to be happy, and it literally destroyed his entire universe. It's the Spider-narrative taken to the extreme. Of course Miguel believes all of this. Of course he believes this so firmly. He's Spider-Man. That's his story. And the one time Miguel tried to fight against that story, he was punished. And like any Spider-Man, he'll slavishly obey that narrative no matter the evil it creates and perpetuates. Because if he doesn't, the narrative will punish him. The narrative will always punish him. It's a Spider-Man story.

I don't think the universal constant between Spider-Mans, the thing that makes them Spider-Man, is tragedy. I think it's the fact that they never forgive themselves. And Miguel is what that viewpoint creates. He doesn't believe this things because he's an awful, mean person. He believes them because he's a hero. He's a good person who hates himself.

Across the Spider-verse isn't really a Spider-Man story. It's a story about Spider-Man stories. Miguel's right: if this was a Spider-Man story, then Miles acting selfishly really would destroy the universe. But Miles' story isn't interested in punishing him. It pushes back against Peter's narrative that unhappiness is inevitable and that you have to suffer to be a good person. It says that sometimes we do the right thing from love and not fear, and that Peter's way of thinking is ultimately super toxic and unhappy. ITSV was about Miles deciding that he didn't need to be Peter Parker, that all he needed to be was Miles, and ATSV is about how being Peter Parker isn't such a good thing. Miguel shows that. Whatever toxic and unhealthy beliefs he holds - they're the exact same beliefs that any Spider-Man holds. He's a dick, but I don't think he's any more awful a person than Peter is.

TL;DR: Miguel isn't a bad person, he just has Spider-Man brainrot.

#across the spider-verse #atsv #atsv spoilers #across the spider-verse spoilers #across the spiderverse #across the spider verse #miguel o'hara #atsv meta #source: i recognized an embarassing amount of those cameos #im also seeing a lot of ppl make a lot of assumptions about what miguel was injecting and why #we dunno guys! im not gonna suppose anything #I just think that Miguel and Miles are great foils #and that what makes them interesting as foils #is the fact that they're both good people who want to do the right thing #miguel shows how that gets twisted #to the point where you beef with a 15yo sometimes which is still so funny #im a big spidey 2099 fan #which I love bc it is NOTHING like spiderman and yet it's such a good spiderman story #but talking about comics migs is useless bc he has 0 in common with atsv migs #but there is a lot of VERY cool stuff to say about how #the sm2099 comic has nothing to do with spiderman at all whatsoever extremely pointedly #but its still a wonderful spiderman story that finds its own way #tbh it was kind of a breath of fresh air to read a spider-man story that wasn't about spider-man for once #and that was just about miguel #anyway stan women's wrongs #miguel o hara #miguel ohara #my writing

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 4 months

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Daisy & Mavis?

Or maybe Sir Handel & Peter Sam?

Ooooh, Sir Handel and Peter Sam have a fascinating dynamic. However, I don't really have much to say that others haven't already said, and probably said better. To the degree that I'm tempted to talk about their Trauma Responses, I have another ask about Sir Handel & Skarloey, so I think I'll fold these thoughts into that post.

So, Daisy and Mavis — love 'em — only wish they got more screen time!

("Screen" time. Do they ever have a significant interaction in the television series? I really want to be told if they do.)

Actually they only have one page in RWS where they exchange a word. But it's such a good page. Posting it here for the uninitiated:

Look at this mess. Look at this absolutely perfect bitchfest. There are a total of zero brain cells in this conversation. Venting to your work bestie and and letting loose your inner mean girl. A classic RWS dynamic! It's just the diesel (& the female) version of the Thomas and Percy relationship: They make each other worse.

But, they need each other.

But, they make each other worse...!

Despite their lack of screentime following this, you cannot convince me that these two don't remain peas in a pod, just like 1 and 6 after 6 is transferred to the branch line.

I do think it's rather sad that Mavis is holed up in the quarry. :( There's a real bummer of a line when she appears in a later Christopher story...

"Besides, she sometimes finds it dull up at the Quarry with no one to talk to but trucks." I know it's realistic, but I want better for her. LET 👏 HER 👏 OUT 👏

Once smartphones became a thing, I like to imagine that they videocalled from the quarry to the carriage shed every night. (Annie, Clarabel, and Henrietta are very understanding about this when the call lasts half an hour. If ever the workers try to indulge Daisy and Mavis with a longer call, however, the coaches start murmuring...)

One great thing about this convo is that it's the first time I feel like I'm really, genuinely looking at lasting steam/diesel coexistence on Sodor's 'big railway.' Coz this is a target Awdry has been trying to hit for at least a dozen books now, yeah? Due mostly to his publishers' pressures, he's been trying to have beloved diesel characters while keeping his 1920-cosplay steam railway too, and this is where I think he finally hits the target. Daisy's first appearance was hamstrung because the turning point where she changes her haughty new-engine attitude and where the others accept her despite all the shit she's already pulled is off-screen, we're just told "they're friends now" and have to be all "right. sure." Probably because he got negative feedback on his Daisy hash, Awdry played it suuuuper safe with BoCo and Bear — less so Bear, but that's another post; for now I will just say that in contrast to Daisy they are presented as very clean-as-a-whistle, and their acceptance by the railway is made so much of that it doesn't feel natural, they both feel like one-offs. But then, ahhh. Now we've got Mavis, and Awdry has the bright idea to let her talk to Daisy, and BANG. Now we're here. This doesn't feel Informed, or starch-and-stiff, or tokenistic. You read this and you're like oh, yeah. Even the sleepiest branch line on this railway is now part dieselised. They're acting like characters! Everybody is acting like squabbling coworkers! It's like sinking at last into a warm relaxing soak. Ahhhhh. Here's the good stuff.

Because they don't need to be Representatives of dieselkind? They can just kinda suck for a moment, without being villains? When TVS subs out Daisy for Diesel, it automatically gives this conversation a sinister air. He's the devil on Mavis's shoulder. But in the original, there's nothing sinister here; it's homey. They're just venting to each other. Their behavior is kinda crappy, but also very normal and recognisable. New work besties fr. They are both three drinks in.

Daisy: He said what to you? Omg babe. I cannot believe that old garden shed said that to youuu.

Mavis: Right?????

Daisy: raising a glass Anything steam engines do, we diesels can do BETTER!

Mavis: hauling herself a bit unsteadily to her feet so that her gesticulation can be its most dramatic and sweeping You are RIGHT and you should SAY IT!

(Narrator: mildly ... Daisy was not right and, being probably the most specialised and least versatile engine then on her railway, she definitely should not have been saying it.)

(Above: The quintessential moment. Mavis & Daisy are commiserating/carping, and Annie & Clarabel are trying so hard to not hear their shit.)

Now, I've always had a question here...

Did Toby really say that only steam engines can shunt trucks?

The text indicates only that he was annoyed that she kept re-arranging things, they had a tiff, she rejected his input and left.

Then again, the text doesn't reveal that Percy calls Mavis's shunting "a ---- ------ ------ mess!", so, y'know. We get the minimum detail necessary in these stories. ;)

We never see Toby express any such sentiment about diesel engines. I'm inclined to think he never said this — and I suspect we're not supposed to believe he said this, only that Mavis is in stroppy teen mode and exaggerating and embellishing her grievances to the point where she's straight-up making shit up.

Still, I'm not sure. Usually in the RWS if a character is lying they are slyly or explicitly called out for it in the nearby text and this time the claim is just... sitting here.

Ultimately, I don't think he ever said that to her, but (considering how salty everyone on the Ffarquhar line can get: some have quicker fuses than others but they're all so provoke-able) I don't think Mavis just made this up completely. If she were making up stories from whole cloth, that would be... well, that would be 'Devious' Diesel behavior! I suspect, however, that Toby and Percy (comparing notes on her shunting) are at least thinking it, or have said it to each other, and Mavis has picked up on these vibes. All of which would be incredibly realistic.

Anyway, I bring this up because the answer does color my read of this conversation a little. If Mavis is completely making up attitudes that Toby never dreamed of having, and Daisy just eats it up and eggs her on, that makes this conversation somehow even 10x messier (and somehow I'm still rooting for their friendship). If this is a sentiment that is real or implied when Mavis or Daisy annoy the other Ffarquhar engines (and they can both be annoying, no question) then the bond between these two characters, with their very different personalities, just becomes even more 'understandable.'

Anyway, about those differences. Mainly, Daisy is ultimately very conventional. (This reminds me I have a nearly-finished essay about Daisy lying around somewhere. For now...) Mavis is the original, creative one, the mover-and-shaker. All Daisy's initial behaviors, as Hazel observed recently, are things we've seen from proud new engines before! She wants lots of attention, she boasts, she tries her damnedest to get out of work that she thinks is beneath her. What Mavis wants is to improve things, to have more responsibility, to get to stretch her wheels. Furthermore, Daisy by nature is keen to avoid work that's too heavy (she's a railcar with limited pulling power, so, you know, understandable); Mavis doesn't mind work — she just doesn't like being told how to do it, and she doesn't like being bored!

A point where they can be contrasted is in how they accept Toby's help and friendship at the end of their initial... "arcs." (All right, Daisy's "arc" is ended so clumsily that you can barely call it that, but you get me.) I'm not saying Mavis is devious or calculating, but for her Toby's offer of friendship is just as important as a pathway to her getting out of the quarry sometimes as it is for his forgiveness. It is her ticket out. For Daisy, Toby's offer of friendship was important because she wants friends, now she's making a friend yay!! — and I think that was pretty much it. Daisy just wants positive attention; that's what all her 'modern and right-up-to-date' stuff was about, but that failed to get her the positive attention she wanted and it turned out that being a team player did, so she had little trouble re-orienting herself. She resisted the pressure of everyone on the platform for her first train because she clung to the memory of her friend the fitter, but I don't think she's one to resist peer pressure in general, and as time passed and the Ffarquhar line residents became her peers, it was completely inevitable that she start to conform to their ways.

So (although, again, annoyingly — we aren't shown) I reckon that Daisy panicked after Percy's accident when she realized that she would be in trouble too (all right, someone probably had to point it out to her). And so for the first time she pitches in and does some hard work. Toby can't help but own "you did well to get all your half cleared, Daisy" and Daisy's entire system lights up because compliment, baby!!! That's all she ever wanted. She's Toby's man now (so to speak).

I can also easily imagine that, in trying to get adjusted to Mavis, Toby remembered how thing went last time. He must have tried from the first to tell himself, through slightly gritted teeth, "Just find something to compliment the new engine on, just anything. Helps build trust." But he was stymied twice over. 1) She keeps re-arranging the trucks in some crazy-ass unapproved way and he can't find ANYTHING nice to say! 2) It wouldn't have worked, anyway. Mavis wouldn't have been satisfied with just some friendly attention. Mavis wants to do. shit.

Mavis is bright — possibly has little common sense, but she's bright. I do wonder sometimes if her shunting arrangements are actually bad, or if they're just different and Toby and Percy can't adjust. (The text does own that due to the siding arrangements it's inefficient to put the trucks where Toby expects them. She probably does optimize things — from her point of view, anyhow.) Either way, though, here is an active and creative mind at work. Plus, her ploy to slo-o-owly expand her pathway down the line in "Toby's Tightrope" shows long-term planning, which is hardly something we've ever seen any vehicle do! So yeah, she's well above-average bright for an engine.

Hilariously, in Their Own Scene she is easily impressed by Daisy's lofty confidence (another classic RWS dynamic — it's giving Duncan staring amazed at James's boasting), but she's also super young, hasn't been Toby-fied yet, and in short I expect that as the years go by Mavis is likely to see Daisy as less of a role model and more of a crony/partner-in-crime. Daisy might instigate things sometimes — but she needs Mavis and Mavis's bright ideas before she really makes much headway! And I expect Mavis is often the instigator anyway. In her literary-device role of Second Coming of Thomas (Dieselised Flavour), she probably continues to want all sorts of things that engines aren't supposed to pine for (silly stick-in-the-muds!) Daisy is quite content to grumble but put up. Mavis will find a way to make stuff happen.

(Which is the only explanation we're going to get for how Mavis is at large on every quarry and some not-remotely-a-quarry sets on the island, come TVS!)

That was a light rap on the TVS there, but not a very hard knock; at least TVS insisted (in spite of all logic) on using her character for stuff. Christopher lets me down, personally, by finding so little for Mavis to do — and never having her and Daisy interact! I want more of this shit so badly.

However, in the Author's Note of Thomas Comes Home, Daisy apparently has a bee in her bonnet about fans who think the series has no female engines and is like 'me and Mavis tho!!!!!!' Which... I like seeing Daisy mention Mavis. That's all. It assures me that they’re still a duo (although I prefer Wilbert's interpretation that they bond over being The Two Diesels On This Line vs. Christopher's implication that their bond is being The Two Girls On This Line).

#i want them to have more adventures in making things 'better' (worse)#like the lucy and ethel of the ffarquhar maybe?#(i haven't actually seen i love lucy... this is just osmosis)#i would also be all right seeing them kiss #highly acceptable #just give me more daisy & mavis content. please.#d1+fqc #great ask!#thank you #chatter #ttte daisy #ttte mavis #ttte toby #wilbert awdry really said 'someone on the ffarquhar needs to civilize these headstrong young half-feral engines'#' ... and it ain't gonna be thomas lmfao'#i think he's WRONG to discount thomas and percy but i think it's very funny that his attitude is just 'they're toby's problem coz no one #else is qualified'#'thomas and percy are out there causing wrecks and playing dress up and being chaos gremlins themselves'#ttte analysis #ttte headcanon #also 'no one to talk to but the trucks' IS big 'i was desolate. all alone in the empty manor. me and a staff of eighteen servants.' energy #the SOLITUDE mwahaha #... but yeah i get it #get 👏 her 👏 out 👏

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