#ISM2 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rappaccini · 5 months ago

Note

Why do you think that Silk and Gwen are going to be a couple in the game?

alright here's the thing. i don't think they will be. i'm hoping they will be.

hear me out:

insomniac has already confirmed that gwen stacy exists in the insomniacverse, is alive, and has never met peter.

gwen exists, and is still alive in the present timeline. which means they either intend to use her at some point in the future, or they want to leave the door open for that possibility.

gwen has no platonic history with peter parker. which means the door's open for her to be introduced as a part of another character's supporting cast.

gwen has no romantic history with peter parker. and since he and mj are pretty set in stone at this point, that means the door's open for her to be with someone else.

2. insomniac knows about spider-gwen and at one point had plans to put her in the games.

yes, the multiplayer spiderverse game concept with her as a lead character was scrapped.

but they know there's a gwen stacy with spider powers. they know she's a rock musician. they might know some other things about her too, like that ghost-spider is queer.

and depending on how developed that concept was before it's scrapped, they might have models of gwen already created. we definitely know they have concept art of her because we've seen it. maybe they could still put those to use.

but we almost certainly would not be getting spider-gwen. that would take the spotlight away from cindy. we'd be getting a civilian gwen (or a wild reinterpretation of her a la harry being venom or phin mason being the tinkerer, which can't be speculated on because we have no proof that it'd happen).

3. insomniac has created the perfect opportunity to introduce gwen in ism3.

this is the first and only time miles has been interested in music production. i guess it makes for more dynamic minigames, and his character's so early in his history that as they were developing him, certain aspects of his story were still being figured out (his stem path has always been math, but he's a writer in the comics, a producer in the games, and an artist in the movies). but the point is: he's about to go to college for music production.

you know who else is into music? spider-gwen.

you know who knows spider-gwen is a musician and at one point had plans to put a version of her in a game? insomniac.

gwen stacy already has a history of being introduced as spider-man's classmate. in the comics, as peter's empire state study partner. and in the spiderverse movies, as miles's visions classmate.

4. miles already has a girlfriend.

this girlfriend, hailey cooper, is an original creation of insomniac's. and the studio clearly loves her. they wouldn't have put so much care into her characterization and subplot if they were just going to throw her away, and she is being intentionally set up as miles's mj.

she's the girl who chooses a similar career path as he does (mj's a journalist to peter's photographer; hailey's the artist to miles's producer).

she knows his secret identity and is supporting him. (as early as mm, she's protecting him from being exposed, and she's someone he confides in in ism2.)

she's the love interest in his civilian friend trio (miles-hailey-ganke = peter-mj-harry)

she gets playable time in the game.

miles and hailey's relationship had two games' worth of buildup, and they only just got together at the very end of ism2. it would be a waste to suddenly break them up right after we saw them become a couple for a new girl who's never been in the story until now.

if gwen is in ism3, it's more likely that she won't be miles's love interest than that she will. it would be just as weird as gwen dating peter out of nowhere.

5. insomniac's been surprisingly great with representation

their depiction of characters of color has been solid-- both side characters and miles. they immediately acted on letting miles become spider-man, gave him a whole game all about his origin story where he doesn't play second fiddle to peter at all, and ism2 let miles be equal to peter in their relationship and the narrative itself in a way no other version of their relationship has matched.

their depiction of female characters is excellent. mj, aunt may, black cat, yuri, hailey, phin and rio are all written and animated with dignity and complexity. we've had girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, mother figures, friends, acquaintances, anti-heroes and villains. a female hero being revealed as the new co-protagonist of the third game was the logical next step... and they actually did it.

they even gave miles a black disabled girlfriend whose deafness isn't the most important thing about her, incorporated her disability into her side mission, and spent two games getting them together. who the hell saw that coming?!

they've also been good with their queer rep. we've had spider-man doing a side-mission where he helps a gay promposal. we've had black cat being explicitly confirmed as bi, and that she has a girlfriend. the logical next step is adding a queer person to the main ensemble.

6. insomniac likes reinterpreting canon to improve the narratives they want to tell

in spider-man, they made a doc ock storyline far more emotional than anyone expected. and they ended by revealing that miles is becoming a spider-man.

in miles morales, miles gets an origin story where peter isn't stealing his thunder at all, we're totally immersed in his supporting cast and community, and his antagonist is a genderbent racebent reinterpretation of the tinkerer whose relationship with miles is a mix of the liz allan, gwen stacy and felicia hardy dynamics-- and therefore they have a fresh original dynamic that's unique to miles-- who dies without being fridged and has a best-of-enemies redemption twist at the end.

they took the best bits of best of enemies, kraven's last hunt, and the black suit arc and made something genuinely fresh and exciting out of it for ism2.

when everyone assumed miles was going to date gwen, insomniac decided to create an original love interest for miles who's a black deaf girl, and double down on her by giving hailey a full subplot with a playable section that's all hers, and even incorporates her disability, in ism2.

when everyone assumed that if ism3 was going to introduce a female spider-hero, that it would be gwen, they made it cindy instead.

they're already reworking cindy's origin story to make her miles's stepsister. cindy moon's mother and brother are being reworked in ism into her stepmother and stepbrother.

what else might they change?

7. insomniac needs to protect cindy from being sexualized

people have a knee-jerk negative reaction to cindy because of just how hated her origin story is. we do not want to see peter and cindy go into a misogynistic, orientalist pheromone-induced sex frenzy.

remember all those 'keep her away from peter' comments when cindy was revealed? they were about that. it's been ten years and we're still grossed out.

insomniac doesn't seem likely to go that route because their track record with female characters and characters of color has been pretty good.

they're already making changes that look like they're to protect her from that plotline and reassure the audience that they won't do it: cindy seems like she's going to be about miles's age instead of peter's, she's attached to his cast instead of peter's, and her dad's dating miles's mom so she automatically has a stepsibling relationship with him (and since peter's like a brother figure to miles, that may transfer to cindy too). if peter tries anything with her, it'll be gross. if miles tries anything with her, even grosser. years before the game's even out, insomniac's telling you "these characters are siblings."

you know what the next brick in the wall keeping cindy from being shipped with miles and peter is? making her uninterested in dating men at all

and one thing about cindy from the comics is that she's always had far more chemistry with women than men

especially felicia hardy... who exists in this universe, is canonically bisexual... and has left new york to be with her french girlfriend. so she's unavailable.

you know what would seal the deal? giving her a relationship people will be so excited about that they won't care the game isn't shipping her with one of the guys.

peter has a long-lasting committed partner in mj. miles has a new girlfriend in hailey. it would be stranger for cindy to be single than for her to get a love interest too.

and you know who also keeps getting oversexualized and forced into relationships with spider-men, who has a sapphic variant who insomniac definitely knows about and has created the perfect opportunity to introduce in ism3? gwen stacy.

(you know the best way to make it absolutely clear that they're not shipping gwen and miles, should gwen appear in ism3? friendzone, gayzone and stepbrozone him all at once by making her his sister's girlfriend. i don't doubt the gwileses will find a way to ship it anyway, but they'll be making clowns of themselves.)

8. what's the plot of insomniac spider-man 3 even going to entail?

aside from peter starting to settle down with mj and inevitably coming out of his extended break from being spider-man and miles going to college, dating hailey and having to figure out how to be The Main Spider-Man with his own new hero to mentor...

the introduction of cindy moon as a new hero and the green goblin as a new villain are the biggest story points.

yes, doc ock is coming back too, and carnage might show up. they're probably getting a sinister six-type lineup together for this one. but norman's going to be the main antagonist.

as the new co-lead, cindy needs to be the character who has the decisive hero moment during the climax, the same way miles did in ism2 when peter was indisposed.

and cindy needs a personal stake in defeating the green goblin. how's she going to get one if they've never interacted before? how's it going to match the personal history norman has with peter and miles? what could possibly give us that emotional investment?

what green goblin stories are getting adapted, and how might they be reinterpreted?

one of the most famous spider-man stories involving the green goblin is the death of gwen stacy.

and insomniac has hinted that they have plans for gwen. they've shown that they know about the variant of gwen who's a queer musician. they've created the perfect situation to introduce that kind of gwen variant into the story. they have both miles and peter in happy, well-established relationships with other women. they've already demonstrated a commitment to including well-developed marginalized characters and they step it up with each game. they've already shown that they like to take classic spider-man stories and reinterpret them from the ground-up. they're about to tell a story where cindy has to have the big hero moment, with a villain whose most infamous storyline's biggest emotional impact usually comes from gwen.

do you see it now?

anyway my dream is that miles meets gwen in music class at empire state, they hit it off and become friends, we think we're about to get a gwiles plotline, miles is stressing about how to turn this girl down because she keeps fucking showing up at his place (and met his mom? why would his study partner want to meet his mom?), but then he walks in on her and cindy making out and it turns out she's been trying to get close to his sister the whole time, and literally everyone knew it except miles because he just had broken gaydar. cue miles never living that down. and then cindy beats the g-serum out of norman when he threatens her girlfriend. gwen stacy usually gets a boyfriend and dies, but in this timeline she has a girlfriend and lives. something like that.

i don't expect it to happen. i'm just saying it would be great.

#insomniac spider man #cindy moon #gwendy #asks

10 notes · View notes