The fact that all Gwen knows about her variants in other universes is that they're dead is so sad. Like imagine you want to know what happens to you in other dimensions and it turns out that wherever you look you mean nothing, you're so unimportant that there's no bigger role for you other than dying.
And I've seen you guys pointing this out, where she's looking at what looks like her own death and even if it's not this is not just a "love interest" Gwen, this is a superhero who is supposed to mean something, but she doesn't. She's only here to die. And so far this (our) Gwen doesn't have any reason to believe that she won't die very soon just like other Gwens.
I think that one of the main reasons why she's rejecting Miles is not just her trauma and all shit she's been through and the fear of dying like other Gwens when they're involved with Spider-Man, but also because if they start something and she dies this will hurt him too.
It's easy to say "canon events aren't true she shouldn't believe in that" but this isn't just a regular risk, this is her life we're talking about.
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thinking about how tommy is uniquely positioned to help eddie in s8
under the watchful eye of catholicism, eddie would have been raised to believe in the nuclear family. this is the schema of family eddie has been trying to impose on himself and chris, at least in part because he feels like it's his fault that chris doesn't have a mother. he feels like their family is incomplete without a mother
whether eddie is actually straight or not, it's clear that he's chafing within the confines of this unexamined, prescribed, idealistic kind of heterosexuality. ryan guzman has said as much: eddie is trying to force the kinds of relationships with women that he feels like he's supposed to have, rather than ones that would actually make him happy
tommy spent decades in the closet; hiding both from himself and from the outside world. he had to come to terms with the reality of his desires and with the fact that he was not sexually or romantically attracted to women, no matter how hard he tried to force himself to be
tommy had to accept that the life that he grew up believing he would have—the one that he was told over and over again was the only acceptable way for him to live—was not a life that could ever make him happy. he is not what he thought he was supposed to be, but there's nothing wrong with that
now it's eddie's turn to learn this. he is trying with increasingly disastrous results to recreate 1:1 what he and chris had with shannon without remembering that it fell apart the first time—without allowing himself to remember how miserable he and shannon both were. eddie thinks he can force these relationships to work because he's done it before and he was happy. but he didn't, and he wasn't
maybe eddie is gay. maybe he's bi, maybe he's ace. maybe he really is straight and he just has a lot more work to do to disentangle his ideas of romantic partner and mother of my child from each other—to see a relationship as a partnership for himself rather than as payment for a debt he feels he owes to his son
eddie needs to stop getting into relationships based on guilt—based on obligation and what he thinks is the right or even the only thing to do—and start figuring out what he actually wants out of a relationship for himself
regardless of what, exactly, the writers decide eddie's core denial is going to be, tommy is the most qualified person to help him through it right now. tommy has been there. tommy knows how hard it is to date a woman who is perfectly lovely on paper and to just not be able to love her the way she deserves—because of him
tommy knows what it's like to feel broken because of this. and tommy knows what it's like to fight his way to the understanding that he is not
there was nothing wrong with tommy: he was just trying to force himself to be someone he is not because that's what was expected of him
there is nothing wrong with eddie: he is just trying to force himself to be someone he is not because he thinks that's what is expected of him
tommy can help eddie get there
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i think i can say this now without incurring the wrath of his stans, but i have to say i deeply, deeply resent how neil gaiman, for years, has insinuated himself into like every corner of the fantasy genre so that any newish edition of any mildly influential work of fantasy fiction written since like 1920 will most likely have a blurb or a forward or some evidence of his greasy fingerprints all over it
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