Leitmotifs in Across The Spiderverse.

Let's talk about how the music of Across The Spiderverse tells us more than what might be obvious. Spoilers for both movies from here on out: you've been warned. 

EDIT: added in one more very important instance.

For those who don't know or need a reminder, a leitmotif is a musical signature associated with a character, an idea, a situation, or some or all of those things together. And for the first Spiderverse movie, Daniel Pemberton made excellent use of at least two big ones. 

To see what I mean, check out this video. If you haven't already. It highlights how music helped tell the story of Into The Spiderverse. 

While this video exclusively covers the leitmotifs in the soundtrack of ITSV, once you know what they sound like, you can hear their inclusion in ATSV.

For instance, Miles' personal leitmotif (that ties together the themes that makeup Miles-as-a-person's journey) shows up both times he attempts to tell his mother that he's Spider-Man.

But the Spider-Person theme, in particular, is all over the place in ATSV. This is fitting, considering it features so many Spideys. Not only is it front and center in Peter B.'s theme and is hiding out in Gwen's, Pavitr's, and Hobie's themes, it demonstrates how Miles-as-Spider-Man has developed between movies: playing throughout My Name is Miles Morales. It's one of the first things we hear when we see the young hero again.

This is an evolution from before, as for most of the first film, the Spider-Person motif plays incessantly for the other Spiders but sparingly for Miles. Whenever it was used for him, it was to show he'd reached a new station in his learning and growth. It plays for him when he first thwips away from Doc Ock and intertwines with his personal theme during his leap of faith to show that he's finally become Spider-Man.

So to have multiple iterations of the Spider-Person leitmotif jammed into the song that plays when we first see Miles again shows how much he's grown.

However....the other places it plays in the movie can give us clues about the nature of the conflict between Miguel's Spider Society and the newly formed Spider-Band. To illustrate this, I want to talk about three specific moments where it's prominent in the soundtrack.

During Nueva York Train Chase, Miguel busts out of the train like a horror movie monster and calls after the younger Spider: "Who do you think you are? Really!?"

Miles answers: "My name...is Miles Morales. I was bitten by a radioactive spider. I'm pretty sure you know the rest, jerk!" He then proceeds to drop, kick Miguel in the face, and then nail him with a ball of webbing.

This is around 2:05 of Nueva York Train Chase on the official ATSV soundtrack by Daniel Pemberton. What do we hear after Miles declares this and then (temporarily) eludes 2099?

The Spider-Person leitmotif.

It's not much later that we hear it again. When? At about 2:25 in the track The Go Home Machine. When Margo Kess, Spider-Byte, decides not to interfere with the titular machine and keep Miles in Nueva York.

This moment is critical. Miguel is trying to stop Miles. Even if the machine doesn't take him home, it gets Miles out of the older Spider's clutches and gives him a chance. And when he gets away, what plays? The Spider-Person leitmotif. The music tells us that at this moment, in trying to escape and save his father and not halting his escape, Miles and Margo are acting like Spider-People.

The music is on Miles' side. The music tells us that Miles is acting like Spider-Man by resisting the Spider-Society. He's doing the right thing.

And on top of that, what do we hear after 2:35 of Start a Band? The moment where Peter B. looks outside and sees Gwen waiting for him? The Spider-Person leitmotif. It tells us that in taking Hobie's watch and gathering her band together, Gwen's acting like Spider-Woman.

It then plays over and over again until the credits role. The music is telling us that the Spider-Band's mission marks them as Spider-People. They are living up to the title. They are doing the right thing.

I don't think the music is the only thing in the movie that points the audience to that conclusion. There's also a lot of subtext, meta, and suspiciously little information about how Cannon Events and the multiverse generally work. But this is one of the simplest ways the movie tells us that Miles and the Spider-Band are in the right. 

Lil Wayne should get a grammy oscar tony pulitzer for this moment of MCU hate alone

post 5 songs I'm currently listening to

my bae @tradedsymmetry tagged me

these have been on a steady rotation the past few days

from now on we are enemies- Fall Out Boy

the (shipped) gold standard- Fall Out Boy

Silence(dj tiesto edit)- Delerium, sarah McLachlan

Don't Go- YUNGBLUD

Self Love- (ASV soundtrack) Metro Boomin, Coi Leray

thanks love, this was just what I needed <3

@tentoriumcerebelli @sweeteatercat @heiko-goes-detroit @treeffles @disdaidal anyone else who wants to do it!

Now that a lot of people have seen Across the Spider-verse

(THE CORNER® | OPEN MANUAL AUDIO VISUAL)

@ Daniel Pemberton WHY did you make ANOTHER score that fuckING SLAPS?!!?!!! 2?5?5?2?2?2!!??!6

I'M SUPPOSED TO BE STUDYING, WTF?!!!!???!?

Consider me in your yard, amgry

They’re besties!!

Why won't you love me now? / Why won't you love me now?

... there's a first time for everything, right?

all i want is for them to spiderman kiss, but with gwen upside down 🌻 image ID below, detailed ID in alt :)

Begin Image ID, done by artist. A digital drawing of Miles and Gwen from Across The Spiderverse. They are both drawn from the waist up and in side profile, wearing their spider suits, but without the masks. Miles is on the left, standing with his hands in his pockets. He has warm brown skin, and a dark brown afro with flat sides. His suit is black, with a red spider on the front in graffiti style. He is making eye contact with Gwen, who is hanging from the top of the drawing on the right side. Gwen has light skin and blonde hair, which is tied in a small ponytail that hangs down; she also has an undercut. Her suit is black and white, with a white hood that hangs down and hugs the back of her head. Her arms are pulled forward in front of her, as if holding onto web to hang from. The sleeves of her suit and inside of her hood are bright pink, with blue web designs. Gwen looks at Miles with a flirtatious smirk and raised eyebrow, and Miles smiles back at her softly in return. They are both blushing slightly. The background is bright yellow and blue, with different-styled sunflowers drawn behind each of them. End ID.

So it turns out the common thread between all my favorite characters in these movies is *loud noise*.

Can’t wait for the Prowler and Spider-man 2099 in BTSV to enter a room at the same time and blow out my speakers.

Selections from a doodle page of me teaching myself how to draw the Davis brothers. Plus bonus angry guy who is mostly just there cause I wanted to review where they crease faces in the film’s art style. His face creases so much.

Thing I’m noticing is that the boys in La Familia-42 don’t actually have much facial expression. They have really cold, serious faces that look really intense without actually showing much. It's a Prowler thing, I guess.

Aarons in general don’t make very exaggerated faces. There's lots of times where he looks super intimidating but his actual expression is just 🗿.

So if I want Aaron-42 to look more intense or scary, there’s not much I can push in his actual expression without making it look OOC.

Way different from drawing the big snarly man where you can pretty much put tiger expressions on a human.

Regret to say that the Into The Spiderverse sequel is, despite going on for 2.5 hours and then ending on a cliffhanger, actually incredible. Poetic Cinema.

Favorite things in 2023

Inspired by Trash Taste Podcast

Dating Headcanons for Himiko Toga

Request: Could you possibly write headcanons for Toga with a fem civilian s/o?

A/N: I love her design so much!! I love her fangs and bangs and her eyes!! She’s so cute!!

-

Himiko loves with her entire being. She never meant it to be twisted or malicious, but certain upbringings and repression has made it out to be so. Having her as a partner is a dangerous one, she’s a villain- a young one at that. She is unstable, but she never means for her own obsession to hurt you with malicious intent. She can’t control it, she loves too much- too wholeheartedly. 

Perhaps she has a type looking at her past two most obvious crushes. She likes to think that she doesn’t- that she loves people and all that they are, but she likes convictions. That’s what attracted her to the young two promising heroes, how far they were willing to go for the other, but you aren’t a hero. You’re a civilian, and it's been a long time since she actually liked anyone like you. But she becomes lovestruck when she sees how kind you are. 

There’s a panic around the area caused by her and the others- people push past one another and somehow she’s been caught in the middle of it, pushed to the ground where her bare knees become scraped. The crowd disperses as soon as she's in the ground, and she’s not astanger to scrapes and cuts, but the knee injury hurts just a bit too much, and any pressure on her ankle makes her think that she might have twisted it. She’s taken in a sharp breath, ready to brace herself and move forward when a hand is held out in front of her. You must know who she is, when you hold out your hand to her when she’s fallen, there’s no doubt that even with her attire, there has to be some common sense in your head telling you to run the other way. Instead of doing the most logical option, you help her up, and hold her hand in yours for just a moment too long, until you pull away and mumble an apology, running the other, leaving her in the middle of the desolate plaza, with her heart beating against her chest. Late at night, she lays awake thinking of you, fisting the hand that you held and covering it protectively with her free hand. 

She wishes that it were more of a challenge to find you- you’re too predictable, too easy and unaware of your surroundings, especially after an attack where you happened to be at. Fortunately for her, you walk home alone for a few blocks and that’s when she makes herself known, grabbing at your hand, and pulling you close to her. You’re startled, but not scared, and you let her lead you into an alleyway where you certainly don’t belong. She’s infatuated. Lovestruck. Obsessed. You aren’t scared of her. You’re letting her hold your hand. She already knows you’re kindhearted. She knows your name. She knows your schedule. She introduces herself, and when you reply back with your own name, she wraps her arms around you, already giving you a nickname, one dripped in sugar and everything nice.

There’s only so many places the two of you can be together without raising suspicions, and your family has already started to wonder why you keep going to the playground at night, so that location has to be shelved until further notice. Other than that, you often go wherever she leads you to which happens to be the current location of the League hideout. They didn’t take too kindly to you at first- Twice, or Jin- being the most harsh in wanting to keep you out of any type of League affairs. You later learn that he and Himiko have a rather close relationship, so you understand the brash behavior and reservations that he may have about you. The both of you usually meet up together after school. While you do your homework, she likes to peer over your shoulder and help with whatever she can. When you have passages to read, you like to read them outloud to her. She’s always happy when she gets to hear you read to her no matter how boring the story may be because she can rest her head on your shoulder.

No matter how sweet she can be, she’s still obsessive. Her questions always start off innocent enough- how did your day go? What did you learn? How was gym class? Who were you with during lunch? You’re not getting bothered are you? Is that teacher still giving you a hard time about your grades? She needs to know how your day went, and when she doesn’t know, that has her worrying her bottom lip. She cares too strongly, loves too fiercely. When she notices that you’ve had a particularly draining day, she holds off on the questions, instead taking you into her arms and resting her cheek over the top of your head. 

It comes to no surprise that she’s an affectionate person. She loves to have her hand on you in some type of way. Your hand will be in hers, and she;ll press her palm against yours, comparing the size and slowly intertwine your hand with hers. Whenever you do your homework there at the hideout, she sits next to you, mumbling about how she always hated homework, and what subject she was the worst at. Sometimes, she’ll get a forlorn look in her eyes, and when she realizes that you;ve been staring at her, she’ll press her lips against your cheek and rest her head on your lap, asking you to read her the chapter of the day. 

The rest of the League- once they get used to you and agree with each other that you probably won’t rat them out- do they actually tease the young member. It did take a while for the rest of the League to become comfortable with you and while you won’t admit it to your partner, you’re positive that they each gave you their own version of a shovel talk. During the threats, a part of you thinks that it’s nice that she found a family within them, how they all care for each other without actively saying it. Most of them didn’t even actually have a full conversation with you, only showcasing their quirks in front of you and you quickly understood that that was a threat. 

With her quirk, she feels the need to have to suck on blood. And being around you can be a struggle. There has to be restraint, especially since she doesn’t want to scare you away from her. There’s been a handful of times where you’ve gotten a cut in front of her, and each and every time, she watched you with unblinking eyes. The scent of iron is thick in the air no matter how little the cut was, and there’s a heavy flush that reddens her face. She hardly makes a sound, and it reminds you of a predator watching their prey, with how her pupils dilate and how silently she moves. She leaves the room for a few minutes and returns as if nothing has happened, asking you if you’re okay and giving the bandaged wound a kiss.

Whether you give her a taste of your blood or not, she understands both decisions and she doesn’t press. She won’t ask for a drop of your blood. She’s loyal to you, and she just likes to be around you- more than she would have ever realized. If you were to offer your blood to drink to Himiko, she takes it as a great show of your relationship with her. She’ll take your arm and ask how you would like to do it. She could give you a little cut, or bite down, or press her needle into the soft of your elbow- whatever it is that you choose, she’s fine with that fact. Either way, she takes your hand in hers, twisting it around and kissing at every inch of skin that she can, mumbling how she's thankful for having met you. There’s still red beads of scarlet that prick from your skin, and watching you, she swipes the tip of her tongue across the wound, pressing a kiss into it and mumbling how she has to clean you up now. There’s a lovely look in her eyes when she glances up to you, her pink dusted in pink, and only deepening when you kiss her.

I will say I like the soundtrack of Into The Spiderverse more than Across The Spiderverse but I think their original scores are equally as good

Both are amazing tho, rarely does a movie soundtrack ever leave any kind of impression on me in the first place