Knowing My First Ever Comment Repost Is From My Half Awake Angst Post Is Both A High Praise And Misery.

Knowing my first ever comment repost is from my half awake angst post is both a high praise and misery.

Thankyou for being sad :)

Sometimes I'm happy and then I remember that both versions of Miguel spent the rest of their lives thinking about Gabriella.

Her original father who'd have done nothing but worry and care for her. Think about her every second he was away at work or she was at school. Who likely thought about his little girl when he was dying. Who thought about her from the very day she came into his life. Whose final thoughts were her.

And Spiderman Miguel, who is exactly the same. Who worried and cared and watched over her just a little more, already having seen too much that could hurt her. Who had to watch her disappear. Who spends the rest of his days thinking about her.

They both suddenly had a moment of worry about what would happen to her, and both lost her. Both were dragged away from their little girl.

And she isn't with either of them. Stuck between alive and dead. Not even existing.

Just found this in my notes from my holiday last year and Holy shit-

I don't know if other people will like or get this but I've never put anything on tumblr before and I don't know if I ever will again so I'm sending this into the void like a time capsule. :)

Just based on how Miles was visually based on a deer and when I first started seeing about ATSV I could see a lot of thematic similarities between the two of them. In my eyes, making him an Irish Elk, an ancestor to the common elk (I believe??? Last I checked) and a now extinct species.

"Miles is young. He's small and impressionable and excitable, keen to be a symbol of good and hope. To do all that he can for the world. He sees someone similar to him. He doesn't care that he's bigger, stronger, scarier. They both have the same hooves, antlers that stretch towards the sun, glistening in the light. They are the same.

Miguel is worn. Tired and stained, like a skin rug, trodden on and left on the ground to collect more dirt. He is soiled. He is alone. He is not like Miles. Small and spry, full of hope, a belief that he can do good. Miguel will do right. He has tasted flesh and he spends his day paying pennance. He is no deer. He is a beast. A lost part of history, wandering the land in hopes of finding more like him. Making more like him if he must.

Miguel's antlers touch the sky, greet the sun and wish for it to kiss his face, but his own reaching limbs shield his view. He cannot see the sun.

Miguel is no deer.

He is not the same."

-Neon, October 2023

Why does the print on his back look like a fricking Haxorus to me???

It's taken me a few days to figure out just how to put this, but over the last few weeks, the starlings above my window have started to fledge, and my youngest cat has been learning to hunt. The first night, she brought a little fledgling home my dad was visiting, and even if he encouraged me to set it loose, let nature take course, I couldn't bear the thought of it. I held that little bird in a box and forced my dad to drive the forty minutes to a rescue. A few days after that, when my dad wasn't visiting, my cat brought another one home. This time, she didn't get into the house because the back door was shut, and she hadn't figured out how to jump in the window while holding the bird. My mother and I only knew she was out there because the panicked mother bird was screaming at my cat, unable to save her baby. So I did. I picked up my cat, locked her indoors, pulled on some gloves, and picked up the baby. This one was far more mobile than the first, but unfortunately, it had ended up with a chipped beak. I remember it's blood on my gloves, I still see it on my hands.

Without my dad, we had no car, so we just had to phone the rescue and wait for their ambulance. We waited, waited, and waited. My mother phoned hourly for updates while I sat in with that bird, trying to research everything I might need to know. Soothing it when I had to check for injuries and answer the receptionists' questions. Holding it against my chest to make sure it wouldn't fall. Letting it fall asleep in my hands before gently setting it down in its home made nest. Too afraid to feed it in case I made it sick.

Eventually, we both had to relent and get some sleep, me being dragged up the stairs by my mum. Tossing and turning for hours, waking up at my first alarm and running down the stairs. Not stopping to feed my cat. Instead, just shutting myself in the dark bathroom and worriedly checking on it, only to find a dead baby. A baby that in such a small time I had grown to view as my own. That I sat with, in the dark, holding it's cold, stiff body, sobbing until the sun came up. Until long after my little brother left for school. Eventually, being blinded by the hallway light when my mum came in and held me as I sobbed and helped me dispose of him.

I heard the starlings cry that day.

And I hated myself for not being able to save their baby.

I have not sobbed that way in years, not since I lost my littlest brother.

I have not seen someone sob that way in person since I saw my mother at his funeral.

But I have seen people sob like that since.

Every time I see a Palestinian child, I see myself, mourning my brother.

Every time I see a Palestinian mother, I see my own.

And every time I remember my little bird and feel that horrid ache in my chest, I know I can only imagine a fraction of their pain.

I stand with Palestine. I stand with the parents of Palestine, the siblings of Palestine, the children of Palestine.

Free Palestine.

Sometimes I'm happy and then I remember that both versions of Miguel spent the rest of their lives thinking about Gabriella.

Her original father who'd have done nothing but worry and care for her. Think about her every second he was away at work or she was at school. Who likely thought about his little girl when he was dying. Who thought about her from the very day she came into his life. Whose final thoughts were her.

And Spiderman Miguel, who is exactly the same. Who worried and cared and watched over her just a little more, already having seen too much that could hurt her. Who had to watch her disappear. Who spends the rest of his days thinking about her.

They both suddenly had a moment of worry about what would happen to her, and both lost her. Both were dragged away from their little girl.

And she isn't with either of them. Stuck between alive and dead. Not even existing.

I don't tend to have much of an online presence, and I often struggle to verbalise my thoughts, so I'm doing this how I'd normally do so. With and analysis and a reference/comparison.

When I was around 8 years old I read Roald Dahls, 'The Magic Finger' for the first time. A story in which a young girl has these odd powers that can bewitch someone/something if she points at it. Though, she isn't the protagonist in the book, but a narrator, telling the story of a boy she knows and his family. How their father is a man who shoots birds for sport and his mother is a vain woman who encourages him, and how they both encourage their two sons to 'play along'.

One day, the girl bewitches the family and they wake up, finding out they have wings instead of arms and have shrunk down to the size of birds, so they take flight and decide to explore the garden. Later, coming back, only to find two giant birds that have grown arms have taken their house. Afraid and hurt by the realisation, they build a nest in the garden, eat some fruit, and fall asleep. Waking up only to find the birds pointing the fathers old shotgun at them, and they panic. They cry and beg for their lives and they call the birds evil.

And child me agreed. I could not see a reason why these birds would shoot the family. I had seen them be cruel, I had seen them be proud of their cruelty, but I could not understand why the birds would copy them. Because if it was bad, they should just shut the people out and ignore them.

After the family apologised, swearing to never shoot another bird again, their lives returned to normal. They quit hunting, they were kind and gentle, and even chastised another set of hunters who were cruel. An ending I thought was fitting.

Now I am older, I know this ending was lucky. Not impossible, but rare. And I side with the birds. The birds who cried and mourned hundreds of birds before them. Their children. Their mother and fathers and brothers and sisters. The birds who grew tired and knew their only escape, their only chance to be listened to, was mirroring the behaviour they'd been taught.

I can understand why people are hesitant, why they might fear or misunderstand rumours about Palestine. About Hamas and October 7th. But I think, if you can grow to understand why the birds might become tired of being mistreated, you can understand why a group of people might as well.