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#YES it is the same spider!
cemeterything · 1 year
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tbh in a world where so many people are so hostile to bugs it makes me so happy to see people who keep them as pets and provide them with as much safety and care and enrichment and love as all the conventionally cute animal owners out there
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whaliiwatching · 8 months
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sparks fly
cleared the smoke for you
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torukmaktoskxawng · 5 months
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Keep scrolling if you blame Spider
Spider, who is literally still a child by human standards.
Spider, who never gave away Jake's or the Omatikaya's location.
Spider, who cares about the Sullys' safety over his own.
Spider, who didn't want any blood on his hands or a guilty conscience if he left someone to die.
Spider, who just didn't want anyone else to get hurt.
Spider, who never betrayed the Na'vi (unlike Jake but hey, who's counting that, right?)
Spider, who had to fend for himself to survive the toughest events because he didn't have an adult who would tear the world apart for him like the Sully children do.
Spider, who loves Pandora and Eywa.
Spider, who just wanted to be one of Her children because he never knew what it was like for a mother to love him.
Spider, who probably understands Eywa's whole "balance of life" meaning more than others.
Spider, who already lost Neteyam but he couldn't afford to lose anyone else in his life, no matter how terrible they are as a person.
Spider, who helped Jake save Kiri and Tuk when everyone else was still too shocked to move.
Spider, who chose mercy over violence/death.
Spider, who did what he could to survive (I'd like to see how YOU would react under such pressure. It all seems obvious and easy watching from the other side of the screen, right?)
Spider, who was likely being misled, brainwashed, and gaslit by the Recoms.
Spider, who is clearly a victim but hey, let's blame him for simply being a decent human being, right?
Spider, who likely thought he owed Quaritch after he saved him from being tortured.
Spider, who likely thought he owed Quaritch for giving him life.
Spider, who just wanted a father who was proud of him.
Spider, who has been clearly neglected by the heroes (Jake and Neytiri) but doesn't openly or verbally blame them.
Spider, who doesn't purposely threaten children's lives like Quaritch and Neytiri do.
Spider, who just wanted to be one of the People.
Spider, who wouldn't have made those difficult choices had he been properly loved and raised.
Spider, who is as easy to blame as Lo'ak for endangering the people they love (but again, no one's counting, right?)
Spider, who is clearly not a villain, just misunderstood.
Spider, who wasn't raised by the village but didn't burn it down to feel its warmth because he's not petty, not vindictive, not evil, and not a killer.
Spider, who is. A. Child.
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phvnthom · 1 year
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Yo Margo is deadass out here with a whole job and career that she quit to save the multiverse
you know her mama probably think she up there playing Fortnite or Tekken or something
She don't even have to hide nothing she's in her room 'on the game'
Talking bout 'this a live match I can't pause it!!' meanwhile Miguel in front of her going apeshit on the go-home machine. Her mom turn off the wifi it's game over forreal
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mayfriend · 7 months
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incorrect avatar quotes (16/?)
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frankencanon · 5 months
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Do you think Daredevil could drive a car?
No middle ground, it's either a yes or a no — would you trust Matthew Michael Murdock behind the wheel of a car?
If someone suggested he drive, would you second it or would you respond with hell no—? Would you get in the car, or would you say no thanks, I think I'll take a cab.
Pros: He has enhanced superpowered senses, particularly hearing, which he is able to use to get around and fight without sight. He does it so well that people have absolutely no idea that Daredevil is blind. If you tried to tell them that he was, they would probably just laugh in your face. He can even catch projectiles and throw with precision.
Cons: He's fucking blind. Like, full-on absolutely zero light perception blind. He can't see shit.
Do you think he could drive a car?
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Edit: Since making this post I have been made increasingly aware just how little I, a non-driver, actually know about driving cars... Whoops.
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frayazicat · 2 months
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what if Triplets Dan, Danny, and Ellie?
like, people like to make at least Dan and Danny twins, but why not all three?? i never see that happen.
here's what i'm thinking. Reveal Gone Good, but Danny now has to tell his parents about the OTHER TWO biggest secrets he's kept from them; Dan and Ellie. he's a little hesitant cause this is not Phantom Planet compliant so they don't know about Vlad.
Dan's still in his thermos timeout thinking about what he's done and Ellie is...somewhere.
so, he tells them about his clone and his future self. this includes what Vlad has done to him. does it include who did this? maybe, i don't know. dealer's choice. anyways, the Fenton parents want to meet their new kids.
Team Phantom gets in touch with Ellie to get to FentonWorks as soon as possible while Danny introduces them to Dan.
it..might not go as planned, might end up fine, that's also dealer's choice. but! in the end, they somehow redeem Dan. Ellie arrives and the duo are welcomed into the family!
but, there are two problems now.
1) how do they explain away their new children?
and 2) Dan is full ghost (and adult-sized, i'm not sure the parents are old enough for a kid his age) and Ellie is an unstable clone - both half Vlad, and really not wanting to be half Vlad.
their solution to the second problem? make new bodies for them! they made two fully stable Halfa clone bodies from Danny, had Ellie and Dan fuse their cores inside these clones near the end of making them, and waited for them to pop out of the tubes at the same age as Danny! this might take some help from Clockwork and Danny to pull off without more melting clones..
anyways! now, they have three Halfa children. all they have to do at this point is find a way to explain the sudden appearance of TWO MORE KIDS!
their solution for THAT problem? hack into the database and change the medical files so it showed that THREE kids were birthed instead of one; Danail Jack, Daniel Jackson, and Dannielle Jacklyn Fenton. Dan, Danny, and Ellie.
but the parents take it SO MUCH FURTHER. they bribe the local schools and hospitals, they make fake receipts of things bought for them and fake records of government child support, and they even photoshop younger versions of Ellie and Dan into the family photos to make it legit. heck, they might have even gone back in time via Clockwork to add the birth certificates! they're THAT committed!
so, we got a new family of six gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing their way into legitimacy.
"What do you mean we only had two kids this entire time? Look at these records! Look at how similar they are to their triplet brother! The evidence says otherwise!"
"Listen, if you just play along and say nothing contrary to anybody who asks, we'll stop ghost hunting or driving for one month every time you do so. Sound good? We'll even put in some money to sweeten the deal."
"If we never had these children before, then why do we have memories of Dan viciously beating up Danny and Ellie's bullies at school?"
that sort of thing.
they're COMMITTED. it's INSANE. the town is going CRAZY.
where did these kids come from?? did we seriously forget about two teen kids for sixteen years??
(things go off the rails when Sam and Tucker get in on the action.)
now, i'm putting this under DCxDP, cause of just ONE little detail. Ellie's obsession involves moving, right?
well, what if the Fenton family becomes a wandering family of crime-fighters/mad scientists with an interest in the occult?
what if they get on the JL's radar because of one too many supernatural cases being solved by the Fentons in the JL's local cities?
they're at Gotham? suddenly, it feels as if the air is lighter and that it's not as drenched in evil and insanity as before. what did they do? fought the curses in the local Lazurus Pit like someone wrestling a pig in their mudpen.
they're in Metropolis? Lex woke up one day to find his entire stash of Kryptonite was missing with no trace. what did they do? the triplets broke in after sensing the gems and ate them like candy, their natural ghostliness shorting out the security feed as they do so.
they're in D.C.? all of the ghost relics in the local museums have been stolen with only a note saying, "Sorry for the disturbance! These were too dangerous for the living, so we put them somewhere safe! Don't worry! :)" left behind. what did they do? they took them and chucked them into the ghost portal where some allies on that side put them in safe places.
and that's all i got.
TL,DR; Fenton family goes full mad scientist in order to welcome Dan and Ellie into the family before packing up and wandering the states, effectively gaining the JL's attention with their suspicious and crazy appearances.
(i hope i didn't accidentally steal this idea from another. if i did, i'm sorry. feel free to smack me or something if that's the case.)
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sincericida · 10 months
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ANDREW GARFIELD at the Zegna Spring/Summer 2024 Fashion Show during the Milan Fashion Week menswear.
(via GQ Spain)
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amiracleilluminated · 9 months
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demigod-of-the-agni · 1 month
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Spider-Man India, but... where from India?
A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.
I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian” is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.
If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.
So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.
The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:
THE RESULTS
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South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?
Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.
Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"
Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South
Context: I want to make art of the boy again
At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.
Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.
But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:
Where did Spider-Man India come from?
FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA
As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.
But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.
We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!
I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.
So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.
BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?
Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.
It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.
Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.
This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.
So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.
BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL
I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.
I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.
I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it. 
You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.
It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.
AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA
He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!
“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?
“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?
“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?
“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?
I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.
Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:
Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?
... but why shouldn't i?
I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.
It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.
SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK
“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”
Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?
Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.
But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.
There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).
And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.
Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.
What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.
Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:
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It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first three are written in Hindi. The fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Tamil there, much less any other South Indian language. Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?
Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!
I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.
It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.
It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!
Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!
And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer. 
So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.
We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.
THE POLL: REINTERPRETED
This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.
Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this. 
So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”
(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)
#long post + more tags that kinda spiral away BUT expand on the points above AND kinda puts everything together concisely#BROS THIS IS AN HONEST TO GOD ESSAY#THAT HAS BEEN COOKING IN MY HEART FOR A WHILE NOW. SIMMERING FOR MONTHS BEFORE FINALLY BOILING OVER IN THE LAST WEEK#genuinely hope you read MOST of it because yes it has Quite A Lot Of Exposition but it all matters nonetheless#put in a lot of thought into this so i expect you to do your part and challenge your thoughts as well#you see how i'm not asking for you to listen to me. but to actually Think. i want you to cook your thoughts and add some spice and flavour#and give it a good mix so you can come out of this a little more wiser than before#because!!! yeah!!!! spider man india is just that!! he's indian!!!!! we don't need to collectively agree on where he comes from#bc it gets rid of that relatability factor of spider man. at the most basic level#think of it as a schrodinger's. he is every single culture and none of them at the same time. therefore none of us are wrong!! sick!!!!#pavitr's first priority is making sure HIS PEOPLE are safe. that's probably as far as we can go that relates him back to peter parker spide#he loves his people and working in the name of justice to FIGHT for HIS PEOPLE is just the duty/responsibility he takes up#it makes sense that he loves everyone and every culture he engages with bc that's the nature of spider man i suppose#if peter parker spidey acts as the guardian for the regular folk.. then in my mind pavitr spidey stands as the bridge uniting the people#because society as its core is very fragmented. and having pavitr act as a connection to other folks.... mmmmm beautiful#that's what i'm talking abouttttt !!!#anyways guys this is literally 3001 words on my document EXCLUDING THE TITLE. THAT'S 7 PAGES AT 11pt FONT. i'm literally cryingggg wtf#pavitr prabhakar#spider man#spider man india#desi#desiblr#atsv#across the spiderverse#atsv pavitr#indian culture#india#desi tumblr#what the fuck do i tag this as#agnirambles
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pumpkaaboo · 8 months
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fuck it. massive pile of byrgenwerth headcanons
Willem was a decorated and well-established scholar from a wealthy family. When he decided to depart his previous university and establish a new one near some recently-rediscovered historical sites, no one really thought twice, but very few followed him. Not many wanted to brave the bitter winters of the mountainlands (and, though no one would admit it, the rumors of a blood-drinking aristocracy and immortal monarch certainly played a part in many a scholar's decision). That was alright, to him. His ideas attracted company.
Laurence was one of Willem's students, and decided to put his doctorate on hold in order to follow his favorite professor to the newly-established university. He admired Willem's boldness and willingness to break new ground, to challenge assumptions about what was impossible. Over time, he grew disillusioned as Willem began urging caution towards the findings from the labyrinths, eventually leading to the Byrgenwerth schism. By the time he would have realized his mistake, he was too far gone to understand what was happening to him.
Gehrman was initially a simple mercenary hired to escort scholars through the tombs. However, the bond he fostered with Laurence drove him to catch up with the rest of the students and participate directly in their research. Eventually, he became something of a gold standard for tomb prospectors, and only those willing to follow in his footsteps were permitted access to the deeper layers of the labyrinths. He left with Laurence, not because he agreed with the newly-crowned Vicar's ideas, but because Laurence was the only person he had ever really been honing himself into a weapon for.
Rom was an orphaned scholar from south of the mountainlands who drew attention by being one of the only noncombatant scholars to accompany the prospectors to the deeper layers of the tombs, and she was the one who first Made Contact with lonely Ebrietas. And the left-behind Daughter of the Cosmos adored her. At first regarded as a charming little sister figure by most of the other scholars, resentment towards her began to grow once the realization that she was outpacing her peers became apparent. Rom was aware that she suddenly no longer felt welcome among her classmates, and began spending more and more time with her surrogate mother. The closer she grew to the stars, the more distanced she grew from her peers, the less able and willing to share her findings with them she became. Until one day, she was no longer human at all. The knowledge of how to contact Ebrietas died with her, not to be rediscovered until the Choir found the Isz chalice.
Maria, though technically a relative of the Queen Undying, was so distant as to be for all intents and purposes a member of the servant class. She took up the role of common knight just as her mother, and her mother's mother, and her mother's mother's mother had before her. What was not common was the circumstances behind her knighting; on her own, she slew the great, winged, many-clawed thing that had been her own mother using nothing but the blinding glint off a hand mirror and a sharp-toothed metal comb. Such a prestigious feat was almost enough to overcome the dishonor of a family member losing themself to the sanguine plague, and she received her title when she was barely old enough to lift a sword. In fact, Annalise herself was considering and subtly training Maria for the role of her own personal knight, though Maria left before she could make any such announcement. In Byrgenwerth, she saw the potential for growth instead of stagnation; for the creation of a new future instead of endless nostalgia for an increasingly clouded past. Not trusting the ideals she was taught by an aristocracy that made blood magic into an art, told her that her grief over her mother should instead be shame, and maintained feudal rule for centuries, she essentially outsourced her morality to her fellow scholar-prospectors. This would turn out to be a mistake, though she wouldn't allow herself to realize that until years after the fact. The hamlet, as it was happening, was merely the first crack in the facade to her. But before that, she was Gehrman's apprentice, and brought with her the techniques and traditions of Cainhurst's knights. She was responsible for Yharnam's hunters becoming descendants in spirit of the knights, though few bothered to learn enough about Cainhurst to draw the parallel. Gehrman ended up learning almost as much from her as she did from him.
(Cainhurst's cultural views on gender and sexuality are very different from those of most of the rest of the world, as implied by the knight's sets, Maria's hunter gear being clearly based on the masculine version of the knight's set, and Annalise's whole... everything. Maria probably had to be taught what the cisheteropatriarchy is and how she'd be expected to act by Rom. Her response was likely something along the lines of "That's so stupid and just makes everyone's lives worse, why do people agree to participate in it???" Rom did not have an answer for her.)
Logarius was a descendant of the knights who fought against the faction that would eventually become Cainhurst in the great Pthumerian civil war. Over time, a political conflict had been mythologized into a legendary battle between purity and corruption, not helped by Cainhurst's general isolationism. He initially joined the tomb prospectors in the hopes of learning more about the glorious history of his ancestors, and was quickly accepted into the ranks of the scholar-prospectors alongside Gehrman. Naturally, he was none too pleased when Maria showed up and almost immediately earned her place as Gehrman's star pupil. Maria, who had never been very good at reading the emotions of others, was unaware of his resentment towards her until the founding of the Executioners in their modern form. Ludwig, who arrived in Yharnam once the Church was already in full swing, was a descendant of these same knights, but despite Logarius's efforts to recruit him, he was far more willing to let the past stay in the past and focus on the issues of the present.
Micolash was a relative newcomer. He was the archetypal "former child prodigy gets to college and is surrounded by equals or superiors for the first time in their life and immediately has an identity crisis". The fact that said superiors included women was salt in the wound. (Compared to the rest of its contemporary universities, Byrgenwerth was fairly egalitarian in its admissions, but this was still a time period where women were seen as property. That mindset is difficult to shake, and most didn't see any reason to try.) He was determined to find a breakthrough that would outshine everyone else, and surrounded himself with people who never criticized him. Laurence was actually a bit reluctant to let him come along to the nascent Church, and definitely regretted his decision on more than one occasion. Especially after the School of Mensis for all intents and purposes severed itself from the rest of the Church.
(In a modern AU, Micolash would be selling cryptocurrency and Great One NFTs)
Caryll was a bit of an enigma. They never drew close to anyone, throwing themself headfirst into their work and only contacting anyone else to share their notes and results. No one was ever able to figure out whether they were a man or a woman. Maria was the only person unphased by this. Sadly, Caryll's transcription of runes only began to show truly impressive results once Master Willem's mind had already begun to fail, so he was never able to both see what his student had produced and understand what he was looking at. Caryll eventually died of dehydration after multiple feverish days spent working on a single rune, forgetting to tend to their physical needs. Ironically, the rune carved into the desk where their classmates found their body was Lake.
Yurie the Last Scholar was named as such because she was the last person to ever visit Byrgenwerth for the knowledge contained within before Yharnam, and everything around it, fell into ruin, not to be unearthed for centuries. Her mission was twofold: first, she was to comb through the texts of the university for anything new to the Choir. Second, and perhaps more importantly, she was to destroy any record that could be used to harm the church; most notably, this included attendance records which might be cross-referenced to determine which students had left alongside Laurence. She completed the second mission, but not the first. She lost herself in eldritch knowledge, and eventually forgot why she came to Byrgenwerth in the first place, so immersed was she in the thrill of discovery, of ever-expanding insight. Not that there would have been anything for her to return to. Perhaps what happened to her could be considered a mercy. She never had to know.
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whaliiwatching · 7 months
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pillow that loves you
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squishy-min-mochi · 9 months
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I think it’s important to remember that straight ships are just as valid as queer ships!! I know in some of my queer friends there’s a knee-jerk instinct to make sure that their main ships are reflections of themselves or other part of the queer community (which is valid!), but in the same breath will dismiss or cringe at a heterosexual ship— especially if the heterosexual ship is being implied as cannon in the text.
It’s an important part of the queer normalisation sequence that cis and het ships and characters are fine and normal!! And that there’s a difference between not shipping something based on preference vs political/social standings
— <3
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thecustomcosplayed · 9 days
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canon hbh spider would bully the fuck out of fanon spider
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twny-cr0ws · 7 months
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all the jokes about how miguel needs to grovel (true) and spend the rest of his life making it up to xina (undeniably true) and yet very VERY little meta abt what would want to make xina take him back in the first place.
so little i see abt how even if she was marginally more well-liked than he was growing up, she still moves through life relatively isolated as a direct result of her (justified) standards for herself and others and how lonely that must be for her. but miguel understands that about her in a way that almost no one else does or probably ever will
all this to say it might be fun to watch miguel self-flagellate for the rest of his life but i'd imagine for her at some point that can no longer be the entire basis of their relationship. if that's all she's getting out of it there's no reason for her not to just move on from him
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