#atsv spider-byte

[roseamongroses]

something about the history of spider-byte's name (and intial lack therefore of a last name) is calling to me. like even now that margo has a last name, ppl still don't recognize her civilian identity bc of how little screentime she had and the brevity of the comic appearance.

hmmmm ok i've marinated. idk much about tech so take the terms with a grain of salt and just focus on the emotional story. think i have some headcanons:

margo lives in a society where it's common to use virtual reality to escape/ experience life but margo is actually one of the more extreme cases of this escapism

she's friendly with others, something doesn't seem to be wrong, but her peersknow she's always connected to the vr/always online. they don't notice how little they know about her home life or about her, despite her being familiar with everyone else.

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and this disconnect only becomes worst once she takes on the mask of spider-byte. helping people in the way she's always desired to be helped is fufilling, but it doesn't take long for margo to become lost in her online persona.

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the longer she spends as spider-byte, the more the two worlds blur. and once she gains the ability to physically manifest her avatar, her spider abilities begin to transfer into her irl body

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at first margo was excited about this change. she could finally be the hero she wanted to be inside and outside of her vr- headset, but she quickly discovers that her bodily automony is being manipulated.

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sometimes her skin glitches, changing into a rainbow of colors without her say-so (she'd have to fake sick to avoid questions from her peers/parents) . sometimes when she splits her avatar her body doesn't immediately return and if it does it never feels the same. as if data is missing.

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but most obvious is that her understanding of humanity--of herself changes. not in a cruel way, but she feels an alienation from human connection that she'd never experienced before. she saves the day, not because of her childhood desire to do good, to be saved and save others, but because it is her avatar. it is her purpose as spider-byte, not the dream of margo kess.

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it's when margo catches herself refering to herself spider-byte, even when she was outside of vr relaxing that she begins to investagate further.

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she begins to question her relationship with the cyber crime police department and how easily they accepted her" "vigilatism"/ eventually she tracks down conversations between the department and an unknown scientist/ leading cyber security company. i'm thinking of this being her "doc oc" connection, but im open to other villian parallels tbh

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the thing is this "doc oc" knows that margo has been tracking them . they think its funny. they're facinated with their experiement and are very willing to play along with the investagation as long as they get to observe their subject.

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the fact that margo got "bit" was part coincidence. the program/ bug was sent out to find a suitable host. someone isolated, someone online for long hours to properly conduct the experiement, someone who had the need to escape and become something more.

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it could've been anyone. they were meant to be corrupted entirely by the program, only leaving behind a husk irl as they accepted their new reality. but margo was different her need to do good was so great that it redirected the prgrams goals entirely. allowing for her persona of a hero to infliratrate her real life and vice versua in a way "doc oc" had never seen before

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doc oc at first wanted to let margo live as a hero . but her changing the bug--resisting its intended purpose intrigued them more. it wasn't enough to collect data on the experiement spider-byte anymore. now doc oc needed to break her. to rebuild her and understand what makes her so special

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and this back and forth does mean margo loses a lot. some days she doesn't even remember her last name. but she's motivated now to reclaim her life, her heroism, and make sure no one else is taken advantaged ;like this again

[polararts]

They're all friends, wdym. Print preorder? available??

[jasminebythebay]

10 spidey engineers vs one (1) bug, who wins?

[xeebs]

some more spiders 👾🔆🎸🕷️

[wyvit]

the squad playing mario party

it came to me in a dream.

[aimasup]

Based on a Tumblr post

[keylimeart]

🌻 you're the sunflower think your love would be too much 🌻

[cinnavee]

Spider teens!! 🕸️

Heights r woefully inaccurate bc it’s hard to cram them all in when Hobie towers over everyone lmao

[fansids]

On their way to go annoy Miguel <3

(Ft. Meows Morales, Guin Stacy, Rabbitr Prabhakar, Margo Kestrel, and Yotie Brown)

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

[prismfractals]

hobie brown and margo kess i loved you for the 7-ish minutes you were on screen

[yabee-tea]

He's groovin

[birdybomb]

Spiderverse sketch cards #1-6

[xeebs]

did a bunch of margo art over the weekend cuz there’s not just enough art of her 😢

[azural83]

Everybody is talking about hobie but margo was a real one for not only letting miles leave but also joining gwen to save him despite not knowing him at all

Everyone in gwen's band has a connection with miles despite the short time they got to spend time with him,but not margo. She had a friendly conversation with him that lasted for 5 seconds yet is endangering herself to save him

[pandadrake]

Big backlog at the Go Home Machine.

Was drawing a different idea and it spun off into this doodle of the effect of all-nighters on teenagers vs. people in their late twenties.