Slott, please shut up. Get internet away from him.

I'm just...

Okay, so I legitimately sat on tumblr, typing something of a response to the Silk half of the thing. I ran out of steam because I'm like "I shouldn't have to justify why I like a character, why I find the Silk half of this thing stupid, and why I really like the relationship," as well as venting it to my friend over the phone who happened to call in the middle of me writing this thing up.

So instead, I am going to respond here, and likely get a bit of hate for my opinion. But here it goes.

Regardless of what I think of Slott (as mentioned once on another journal I have come to respect him less and less as a person as time flies), I don't think that blog post (I realize this is not in fact on a blog, but it's formated like one so...) is fair. At least, when it comes to Cindy. While I feel that the Anna Marie thing deserves a large chunk of that hate, and can only hope that the Anna Marie thing is resolved at a later date, Silk is a "here and now" thing for me, since the amount of hate she gets for her actions is INCREDIBLY overdone in my honest opinion. Sure, Slott doesn't write her the greatest, I will be the first to admit that, but to outright say she is WEAPONIZING her pheromones on Peter? No, just, all kinds of NO.

I look at the initial kiss scene as nothing short of "Okay, they both clearly have no idea how to react to a brand new sensation, so they lose themselves to it" kind of thing. Let's be real here for a second and think about this from the perspective we DO see on the matter. That perspective of course being Peter's. He has had his powers for about 13 years, and has gotten used to how they tend to work. Specifically, his Spider-Sense has only really operated one way before: to alert him of danger. He has long since gotten used to the buzzing in the back of his brain warning him, and the adrenaline release it provides. So imagine you were him for a moment, and the thing you have a pretty good grasp on suddenly reacts in a way that it has never reacted before, the reaction getting more and more intense as time passes. It gets to the point where you have no idea how to respond to it anymore, and you lose yourself to it. As the Spider-Sense is mostly based on instinct, and in this moment it's guiding him and Cindy (who I also argue has no idea what the fuck is going on) to kissing via instinct. Calling this thing that they have no control over outright sexual assault and to throw any relationship they could potentially have under a bus is outright stupid, again, in my opinion.

Yes, the act was consensual, but it's not like either of them had enough awareness of what was happening to stop each other. It took Peter being told "I know who you are" to come to his senses for long enough to have them go back to his place... and go at it again, yes, but this time they likely had a bit more say in it. Not to mention that at that time, NEITHER PARTY was outright against the action either. On the other hand, lack of complaint does not equal consent. Given that after the first time, or maybe the second time, they KNOW that they can't get too close lest they lose control, it can be argued that this is some form of consent. They know what happens, yet let it happen anyway. I'm not going to say this is right, or that I agree with this, but I am not going to say anything against it either.

As for the act of Silk sniffing out other spiders in Spider-Verse... I personally DO NOT think that this is out of her trying to find a sex partner. I really don't think this is the case at all, given the fucking circumstances of WHY they are all there. She KNOWS that the Inheritors are after them, she knows that they, just recently fled from one, went back to get Kaine, and then fled again. She knows that this is NOT the place for that. If anything, I want to throw it out there that she was likely doing this to AVOID entering a make-out session mid-conflict. She only reacts to Kaine the way she does, and loses focus, because he is both A) a clone of Peter from the same reality as she is, and/or B) he's kind of a special totem as well (him being the current host of "The Other" and all). My money is on him being a clone of her Peter. Clearly the reaction isn't strong enough to do more then grab her attention for a brief moment, but it's still worth pointing out that she is INTRIGUED, not AROUSED by this sudden possible "Plan B" mate. If anything, she now KNOWS that she should probably stay away from him. Given that Kaine is very likely dead right now though, I doubt she has to worry about that.

So Honestly, I don't really care if people find this viewpoint to be "wrong," since my interpretation of events is different and I have 0 problems with Silk, nor her potentially romantic relationship with Spidey. I don't find Dan's tweet on them being "mutually attracted to one-another" to be wrong, since they are perfectly capable of having found something attractive by one another during the time they have known each other. I can only hope that future Spider-Man titles OR Silk's upcoming ongoing is going to say what that attraction is.

Those are my thoughts on this whole thing, and I just KNOW that I am going to be told "you are an idiot" for the whole "I don't see it as a problem" basis of my thoughts.