#Love hate relationship with spider woman and Miguel tbh...

[dixidin]

I nearly forgot to post this, but two words can sum up my whole experience with the new spider verse movie. I cried

[rappaccini]

hi im just a rando that somehow arrived at your blog, but i just wanted to say that i am FROTHING at the mouth for your spider-gwen takes (also just read your fic rachnophobia!! it was super good and so frifgin cathartic). your analyses are just so so ridiculously good. they put into words every thing i felt when i first read the spider-gwen comics when i was much younger and couldn't read between the lines (sitting in a tree was so icky and i didn't know why, even murderdock has more chemistry with gwen).

i don't really know how asks work on your blog so sorry if im intruding/being a bother, but if it's not too much i want to hear more on your take for gwen and murderdock's relationship (you know that one scene where gwen almost kills murderdock and they have a talk before gwen dimension hops), it left such an imprint on my mind, but their dynamic isn't talked about nearly enough for my taste.

(also totally unrelated but gwen-65 and the Mary Janes reminds me of dazey and the scouts + mommy long legs 🧍)

hello! no problem re: the asks, you're not intruding at all.

and like. fuck yeah let's talk about murdock. let's unpack the insane psychosexual obsession matt murdock 65 has with gwen.

putting aside the tiny things like him earnestly loving the mary janes' singles, or matt and gwen having the same catholic guilt haunting their subconsciouses, or him having a situationship with the woman who would've become spider-woman if gwen hadn't gotten bitten instead, and discarding that woman for gwen...

it makes me insane that he's a reluctant villain who was pressganged into joining the hand as a kid, who despite excelling at it, hates his job so much that he's preparing to kill himself and the only thing that stops him from going through with it is seeing (... 'seeing') spider-woman.

just knowing that she exists makes him want to live. the only reason why he's still getting up and going through the day is because he wants to see her, and be close to her. he wants to get to know her, and teach her. he wants her at his side. he straight-up admits at the tail end of the life of gwen stacy that the only reason why he hasn't ditched dimensions with his stolen portal watch is that he's staying for her and that matters more to him than his work, his reputation or his life.

like he looooves her. but in an extremely fucked-up, possessive way. that on a personal level, is a deadringer for the way an abuser loves their victim. on a thematic level, is symbolic of the patriarchy gwen's up against, and on a meta level, of all the men, real and symbolic, who keep the character of gwen stacy trapped in an awful narrative.

on the surface, his actions towards her do read like he's protecting her. he orders a hit on captain stacy to demand the cops leave spider-woman alone. he turns up at george's house when he deduces gwen's identity to tell him to his face that he knows their secret, that he isn't a worthy mentor or protector figure for gwen, and offer his legal services. he makes an offer of mentorship to gwen because he wants her to be a better fighter, and actually attempts to train her. he has a pack of ninjas dispatched to follow her around and protect her. he makes enemies of other villains to protect her secret identity. he refuses to kill her (... because tbh if she's dead he'd probably just kill himself). he's like a creepy villainous suitor.

(... @ the spiderverse migwen stans, read her comics. matt murderdock and gwen are literally everything you think miguel and gwen are doing, but it's actually canon.) matt doesn't want to be her dad. he wants to be her daddy.

but to be clear his intentions for her were never good. he's not misunderstood, or seeking redemption. before he's committed to goading her into killing him, his dynamic with gwen is still fundamentally abusive. he inserts himself into her life and turns up at her house uninvited. he isolates her from her friends and family. he has her jumped, beaten to a pulp and humiliated when he 'mentors' her. he lets the cops continue to chase after her to make her feel anxious and disillusioned even though he has the power to shut down her case at any time. that ninja bodyguard outfit is really there to report on her to him, and are not-so-subtly out to kill harry, her kind-of-love interest (... and therefore matt's rival). he sics hitmen on them when they run away together.

yeah, he doesn't want anyone to hurt her... unless he has allowed it. he doesn't see her as an equal, he wants her to serve him. he doesn't see her as the heir to his criminal empire, he sees her as a tool to keep it going. he doesn't want her dead, but that's only because if she dies, then he doesn't get to screw with her anymore. he wants to possess and control her.

the entire power-up pill arc reads like he's her wealthy, older abusive boyfriend who keeps her coming back to him with his resources (she desperately needs his legal counsel when her father's in jail)... and with drugs. he even describes their relationship like he's a drug she can't quit. he loves that she's dependent on him for her power-ups and gives them to her as rewards for obedience and associating with him.

which is all but confirmed when sitting in a tree juxtaposes matt with miles. both of these guys are attracted to gwen in a shallow way she fundamentally does not return, both see her as a symbol instead of a person. (look at how he talks about her:)

and both are offering her a relationship with them that'll lead to her having an easy fix to being persecuted on her homeworld, and power on the surface but little agency in reality. they don't love gwen, they love spider-woman; they want a powerful trophy girlfriend who can reassure them that selling their souls was worth it.

and she rebuffs them both. she sidesteps miles and runs away from murdock at the same time, even, in the predators arc. (... and does so by running off with harry, the only straight guy who's into gwen who actually gives a shit about her feelings and respects her boundaries.)

and murdock loses it. he goes full if-i-can't-have-you-no-one-can and has the venom symbiote created specifically to drive her out of control for good. he's preparing to dose her with the hard stuff, to keep her totally dependent on him and break her will.

not by killing her; by psychologically breaking her down. he wants a symbolic murder-suicide. the way he saw it, if he convinced gwen to go villain, then he has a little companion to be evil with, and she can reassure him that his terrible actions are unavoidable and natural.

... and if she kills him, then he's still corrupted her and he doesn't have to live with himself anymore. he can die knowing he's permanently changed her for the worse, that she'll never outrun the effect he had on her, and that he doesn't have to deal with the consequences.

and to top it all off, at the end of the run (aka when the writer knew he was getting canned and could just fucking go for it), matt straight-up confirms that his interest in her is sexual. it's not subtle.

"my dick is on fire. and here you are: moth to my flame." i mean. come on.

see how the moth/flame reference happens twice? it's a callback to him referring to the symbiote as a way to sap harry's powers out of him. a 'moth to a flame.' so uh. textually, he sees a sexual relationship with gwen as a way to further depower her. and he would have started one after gwen took on the symbiote and was fully out of control (and after harry was taken from her. one more layer of humiliation). she barely got out of there in time.

yeah uh now we have go back and to reexamine the whole power-up arc with the knowledge that if gwen hadn't left him when she did, he would have started sexually abusing her. he wasn't just grooming her to be his evil apprentice. he was, you know, grooming her.

look back. it's all there. look at how he's always touching her as she's squirming away from him, even in broad daylight in front of cops he has on his payroll, or even her own dad.

look at the double entendre in gwen acknowledging in predators that he literally wants her on her knees in front of him. look at all of his talk about 'teaching' her things that might have nothing to do with combat. look at how he became infatuated with her when she was underage and does not care that she's barely nineteen and he's in his thirties, or that she's completely indifferent to his advances and may be queer.

[sidebar: look at how felicia hardy and kitty pryde are also young women with superpowers and complex issues with their fathers, and are canonically bi in 616, who are pressured into compromising situations by murdock that lead to their villainy and imprisonment. he has a pattern of behavior and a preferred type of victim. gwen isn't unique to him, she's just his newest plaything.]

look at how gwen's so viscerally disgusted by him that she can't stop venom from popping out when she has to touch him.

there's a Lot to unpack there.

through the entire latour run, gwen's dodging unwanted and harmful affection from men-- peter the incel who tries to kill everyone when she isn't into him, harry the ex who loves gwen and wants to punish her for what she did to peter (... but realizes he was wrong and redeems himself), rhino the villain of the week who gropes her during their fight, miles the Nice Guy who wants to take her away from everyone she loves and turn her into a trophy girlfriend who makes his spiderbabies, the dozens of spider-men who see her as a vessel for girlfriend trauma venting. and matt, as her nemesis, is the ultimate culmination of all of that put together. he's a groomer and an abuser to his core.

which makes the way gwen deals with him all the more poignant: after trying to evade, work with and placate him for her entire run, and finally snapping and turning on him, she has him on his knees. not because she personally has defeated him, though she did kick his ass-- because the system he's destroying himself to support has discarded him after eating him alive.

she doesn't try to See The Good In Him, she acknowledges that there simply isn't any. he isn't misunderstood, he isn't a woobie, he's absolutely not sexy or alluring. he was never cool or badass. his tragic past doesn't justify the harm he's done in the present. he doesn't have anything valuable to teach her and he never would have protected her. he's a pathetic little man who tries on personas to hide his sense of inadequacy and could have always risen above his circumstances to be a better person but simply chose not to. he’s a white guy with a katana who uses dated slang to try to sound cool to the teenage girls he wants to abuse.

(... tiring of the fandom to not pick up on any of this and treat murdock like a badass. he wasn't. that's the point. murderdock is a kind of evil that's mundane and familiar. that is the scary thing about him: that you know this guy.)

she doesn't kill him, she leaves him behind to presumably be arrested, tried, jailed and have to live with himself in the way he never ever wanted to. no more personas to hide behind, no more wealth or followers he can use to bully people. he's in hell, just not the one he was hoping for.

and she never interacts with him again.

he's an absolutely incredible villain for gwen. his relationship with gwen works to activate her redemption and evolution into a full hero; gwen's entire latour arc is about grappling with the consequences of her irresponsible and selfish behavior. like matt, she's done some terrible shit, is tied up with bad people, and hates herself for it. but unlike matt, she wants to be a better person and puts in the work to do it.

he's a physical representation of the meta forces that are holding gwen stacy the character back: men who see gwen herself not as a person but as a sex object that can make them look impressive or feel less inadequate, who want to deny her any agency or her own relationships, and take them away when she does obtain them, so they can make her all about them. and who see her power as something annoying that should be stripped from her so she can be an accessory to a more powerful man, or as a fun bonus feature that can only be used for that man's advancement. the character of gwen stacy is literally stuck in a cycle of abuse where she's killed, resurrected, killed again, and never gets a break. murdock is representative of the forces that keep that cycle turning, and spider-gwen breaks it, not by existing-- by putting in the work to give herself a narrative that frees her from that status quo.

watching gwen's relationship with murdock evolve solidifies the symbolic narrative about patriarchy running through the entire run.

(we watched matt be absorbed into a violent, male-dominated system against his will as a young boy, and consciously choose to keep perpetuating it, even though it makes him miserable to the point of wanting to die. and the thing that makes him buy in fully is the idea that hey, he might be miserable, but if he gets a girl to submit to him, he can take out that misery on her, gain status for having her under his control, and use her to advance that agenda against others.)

we watched gwen, as a young, naive girl, try to avoid the patriarchy entirely and girlboss her way through life, insisting that she can do whatever she wants because she has powers.

we watched her get the shit kicked out of her in her origin story when it caught up with her, cornered her, and she realized she wasn't the exception. and murdock is the source of this realization because he's the one who instigates the hit on george stacy that causes her to reveal her identity to him.

in the power up pill and sitting in a tree arcs, we watched her literally flirt with the idea of selling out to it, and try to work with it when it offers her special privileges for doing so (cough gwiles cough)

in predators, we watched gwen realize any safety or special treatment it offers her is bullshit and the cost of playing along will violate and destroy everyone she cares about and her most of all

in gwenom, we watched her embrace her most uninhibited self and attack it head-on

in the life of gwen stacy, we watched her realize that a full awakening means embracing other women and taking responsibility for protecting them and her community, rather than simply beating the thing oppressing her until it's dead

we watched her call it and all its enforcers and believers who still cling to it useless little bitches and turn her back on them for good.

this is the gwen that gets away from the male gaze. (or at least she was. thanks spiderverse.)

and even though gwen's defeated murdock, his influence lives on.

gwen's constantly dealing with villains who are attracted to her, whose attraction to her is the basis of their violence towards her (peter 65, harry and em jay for a time, rhino, matt, jackal, maybe johnny storm if the mcguire run hadn't been canned).

she's constantly being knocked around the multiverse and shoved towards miles with a kiss-me sign around her neck because of the same possessive patriarchal bullshit that matt tried to impose on her.

she has serious intimacy issues, particularly with romance. she's flighty, she can't commit, she excuses toxic behavior in em jay, she can't stand up for herself around miles or peter and deny their advances bluntly, she's constantly on this carousel of nearly coming out of the closet and ducking back in.

and though much of this, in-universe, stems from her knowledge of gwen stacy's role in the multiverse, murdock's psychosexual obsession with her is the direct visceral source of that trauma on a personal level. and she hasn't really unpacked this.

he still looms large in her subconscious in a way that no other villain has ever matched. thank you for letting me soapbox about this.

[powerin]

I wonder how would you compare and contrast Miguel's love interests and his treatment of them? Somehow, I get the feeling the third movie in the Spider-verse trilogy will take him to task for his treatment of women over the years.

this better not be bait. kidding, but there’s some dude who likes to victim-blame and slut-shame dana in my tumblr DMs and it is Very Tiring to ignore him. hope you understand if this reply comes off as combative. 💖

dana’s obviously my favorite. “the virtuous and beautiful whore who sacrificed herself for the one woman she didn’t like.” she will always be my One True Love.

but i wish dana was smarter, less naive, and wasn’t preyed on by tyler stone. i wish dana and gabe stayed together and she didn’t cheat on him (miguel was not worth it). i wish miguel didn’t call her “stupid, deaf, worthless” and throw plates at her. clearly their relationship deteriorated after miguel became Spider-Man (a toxic entitled egomaniac becoming a superhero is a Bad thing? pinch me im getting megamind flashbacks). but dana saying that miguel should leave his toxic company and that she didn’t want miguel to feel any more pain… it hurts me deeply.

especially since dana was right: miguel should leave alchemax. and miguel is the one who causes dana so much pain.

moving on, i should like xina because i am ALSO a brainy tomboyish chinese woman. plus she’s miguel’s childhood sweetheart.

but more to the point, xina’s NotLikeAllGirls internalized misogyny irritates the shit out of me, and she forcibly changed lyla’s personality so lyla would talk badly about dana. lyla even says some misogynistic homewrecker bullshit like “ruin any relationships today dana?” and then says right after, “im sorry… i don’t know why i said that.”

plus when xina and miguel are alone… xina undresses in front of miguel to get him to sleep with her. but he just says (paraphrasing here), “not in the mood for romance plus you’re not that pretty.”

miguel literally calls xina ugly to her face. and xina still thinks dana is the problem. she irritates me to no end. if xina isn’t interested in romance, why is she so upset about the cheating and the engagement? me thinks she’s a dishonest actor. tbh, if i’d be more accepting if the cheating was just a one time mistake and miguel can Move On with xina. but given these panels:

dude did not cheat once. he did not cheat twice. he cheated over the span of 1-2 years (i’m glad you shaved like i asked, years ago). how much can miguel love xina if he’s always cheating on his childhood sweetheart?

keep in mind, when they meet, miguel rubs it in xina’s face that he’s engaged to dana. HE NEVER PROPOSED TO XINA AND HE DATED HER FOR OVER 10 YEARS. but suddenly dana comes along and he’s like “gotta wife that girl”?

you’ll never get me to be a miguel/xina cheerleader, but i don’t hate xina. i understand xina’s mad at dana for “taking miguel away from her” but miguel didn’t slip and fall on dana and whoops they’re together now.

for the majority of the 2099 fanbase to portray dana as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making miguel marry and have kids with her is taking a tragedy and twisting it into something that is frankly, deeply misogynistic and disgusting. they should be ashamed of themselves.

(not meant for you, by the way. i realize you’re here to have a discussion in good faith.)

lyla is lyla. she is cute, but she is also an AI. she cannot consent to a relationship nor sex. but idk. she’s okay when her programming isn’t being messed with by xina. she shouldn’t end up with miguel though. weird non-consensual things abound with robots and AI and cyberpunk that I Would Rather Not Talk About. but miguel treats lyla disrespectfully in the comics and the movie (played for laughs in the movie though? lyla does get him to say please.)

aaaaaaaand I haven’t read anything with tempest. i know she’s miguel’s canon baby mama and wife, and tyler stone fucks with tempest with some kind of mind-control parasite and forces miguel to kill her. i don’t know enough about tempest to have an opinion, but her design is… all right. i don’t dig the pink hair or the wings. maybe she’ll grow on me? does miguel cheat on her or throw plates at her or neg her? if not, she’s already doing leagues better than xina and dana.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

You fool, you've activated my trap card! Prepare for an overly wordy but hopefully respect analysis of an animated movie!

The Society, Canon Events, and Gwen's Living Situation

[Part Peter B. Parker hate post, Part analyzing the society, and how canon events play out in real time.]

I mean Jess was the one who asked Miguel to take Gwen in and she was her responsibility, plus all the people are staying at Spider HQ they should have rooms, even so, Jess 'wanted' Gwen and is her mentor so she's the one whose responsible so shouldn't she be in charge of finding Gwens living arrangments?

Firstly I will say, based on what we see from Lego-Spider-Man (being at work) and Pavitr (showing him at school and with his Auntie) - most Spider-people do not live on campus.

In fact, I'd assume almost all live elsewhere, either with their Aunt May (if she's still living) or own their own - like Hobie, or any of the other older Spider-people.

So I'm assuming the living arrangements there aren't too robust simply because there's little need.

And also, Jess didn't know Gwen knew Peter when she welcomed Gwen. Gwen didn't even know Peter was there. So of course, she'd assume the role of her mentor - until she comes across someone who Gwen openly trusts and likes - Peter.

Gwen never wanted to have an emotional relationship with Gwen. As soon as Gwen asked her 'Adopt me?', Jess seemed taken aback. She wanted to ensure Gwen's safety - which she did, nothing more and nothing less.

Peter however has an emotional obligation and connection to Gwen that Jess doesn't. Gwen is currently going through - realistically, the darkest time in her life, and obviously battling mental health issues.

She needs to be around an adult she can trust and confide in - and the only person capable of that is Peter. He should be the one mentoring her because he's the one who can mentor her most efficiently and give her the help she needs.

Why should the responsibility have to be passed off to a strange rather than someone the child actually feels safe and close to?

My point is that it was Miguel and Jess who should've helped Gwen. Because blaming Peter, you may as well blame Spider-Noir, or Spider-Pig or Peni, should they have responsibility too since they worked alongside the others in the first movie?

Spider-Noir and Spider-Pig aren't in the society from what we know - and they might not have even known Gwen was homeless at the time. Besides, Noir's universe is under the threat of fascism. He's sadly in no place to take her.

Peni is at the Society - also she's a child. She couldn't have helped. If anything, she seems to be going through the same thing Gwen is. ANOTHER L for Peter, as him failing ALL THREE of the children who depended on him in ITSV.

Also sidenote another unrelated topic. Spiderwomen/Gwen had abandoned her dimension for months while being with Hobie/Miguels spider-ciety. So all of her villains and her home she left and never returned to and there was a dimension with NO spider-women.

Lmao tbh I assumed that if something did go down, they'd just deploy a team there to handle it - but realistically speaking IDK how they'd handle it. We don't know if Spider -Gwen IS active. We just know Gwen can't go home or get caught by cops.

I assumed that Lyla watches her universe, and if something comes up Gwen is alerted and Spider-Gwen is deployed, before returning back to Nueva York immediately for a mission report. That way Spider-woman is active and handling the situation - however Gwen Stacy is missing and removed from her home life.

Jess and Miguel disrupted that. If they didn't take Gwen, the Villains would've attacked her loved ones [her dad] meaning the Captain would've died hypothetically since that would've triggered the event if she ended up in the back of her dad cop car mask down for the reporters to see after that art exhibit disaster. by Gwen leaving that must have disrupted an event, and how can Gwen go through her 'canon' events if shes has not even BEEN in that world for months to experience them?

It could be argued the opposite though. That Gwen wouldn't have been revealed if it weren't for Vulture - and that her being revealed is NOT a part of canon.

And by taking her into the society and avoiding having her identity being revealed, they saved her from a canon disruption by being outted.

Because then that naturally gets in the way of canon events like meeting her Mary Jane (or whatever in-universe counterpart they have as her romance) or joining the Bugle, etc. etc.

So far we don't know how long one can delay a canon event, or whether canon event are fixed, and I do think it's something that needs to be explored.

So far I believe that most canon events can be delayed to a certain point, however once the event stops - it's like a video game. You can't disrupt it.

For example - Your Gwen is gonna die on your next date. Things may come up and you may reschedule a couple times, and that's fine. But once you DO go out, and once she DOES start falling, there's absolutely no way you can catch her without some kind of outside intervention (i.e - another spider-person catching her)

That's why Pavi's was a disruption. Since the watch had signified the event was happening, I assume the universe assumes a kind of 'Don't turn off the system' type mode. The same way a video game does when it's saving almost.

And during that time I also HC your watch stops working - to restrict you jumping to another dimension to avoid the tragedy.

And from then on it has to go through the canon event VERY specifically, and then after the universe restabilizes.

So that is to say, her not being there and her dad not dying wasn't a threat to canon. But say, Hobie helped her saved her dad during the moment, then yeah - that's a direct disruption. Delays don't have the effect disruptions do.

But uhhh,, that's just my take on it. A lot of it is let up to interpretation and REALLY open ended, so a lot of this is just me making conclusions based on honestly what seems like the only way the Society wouldn't collapse. Cause I also questioned who was handling Gwen's universe.

I just assumed 'If Lyla can see in every universe Spot is in as well as detect canon events, then naturally she'd probably be able to tell when Gwen's universe is experiencing an attack, and send her to handle it.' etc etc.

Also NO WORRIES!!!! You're talking to the king of overly wordly and unnecessarily analytic discussions about the Arachno-Humanoid Poly-Multiverse! Conversations like these help me realize things and angles about the movie and I'm STILL learning stuff about it.

Plus, since this stuff is undiscussed/open to discussion it's always fun figure out how people assume the Society operates, how they see the characters, and how that effect the way they see the plot.

UHHHH Sorry if this was wordy but also..I'm not. I love stuff like this. Thanks!

Bye.

Pointing fingers at Jess 'pressuring' Gwen to stay and comply-

Let's acknowledge the fact that Peter B. joined the society before Gwen.

He was there when Gabriella died. When she arrived to HQ the first time, she probably saw him.

And it's easy to assume that because Peter was the only adult she knew in that universe HE was probably the largest influence on her staying.

All the times he's desperately trying to defend Miguel to Miles - he probably did that to Gwen for months.

They were together on campus for months - and the whole time Peter - the only adult she knows is telling her "No, he's a good guy! Miguel's just a little rough around the edges!"

Who do you think is going to have more of an influence on her? Jess, who she just met? Or Peter, who knows both HER and MILES.

All those months Gwen was at HQ he could've stuck up for her. He could've HOUSED her.

But nah, let Jess mentor her and let Hobie house her - just look at a pic of his baby.

Peter B count your mfing days!!!!