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Cracks In Canon page (WIP. Help wanted)

This was an attempt at making a work page that I later abandoned due to losing interest in the work, to the point where other tropers have fleshed this out much more than I have. Leaving this here because I don't want to throw it all away, but while it is meaty enough for a page, some examples could use condensing and other examples as well as the description could be fleshed out more.

Cracks In Canon is a Spider-Man: Spider-Verse fanfic by Mr_Chaos.

Cracks In Canon contains examples of:

• Author Avatar: Spider-Chaos is named and designed after the fanfics author, Mr_Chaos.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome:
  • Ultron of all characters is apparently this in Chris' universe. And a DJ as well.
  • Timepool is a nicer version of Deadpool and doesn't directly attack Peni, Noir, and Ham until Noir attacks first.
  • Nathaniel Asgard, a variant of Loki who turned his life around after a time traveler told him what was going to happen with his life.
  • In Doctor Parker's universe, various characters who are normally adversaries are instead his fellow doctors. Even Doctor Doom is described as a mentor to him, even if his medical school has a rivalry with (what is implied to be) Reed Richard's school.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • In Across the Spider-Verse, the Spider Society’s therapist is described as being a genuinely helpful outlet for other spider people to vent about their trauma, if a bit blasé. In Cracks In Canon, his being blasé is due to him being a hack with a Lack of Empathy, being more concerned with his office wall being destroyed than whatever his patients are going through.
  • Miguel is way more unhinged than he was in the movie, going as far as beating Miles so hard that he gets severely injured, even if he regrets it. He even goes as far as to threaten to take Mayday away from Peter. And even to personally snap Jefferson's neck 'in front of your wife and pathetic, worthless, MISTAKE of a son', in order to 'save your ungrateful universe'.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Whereas this was alluded to in the film, in this fic, the Spider Society is outright characterised as a cult. It resorts to the same tactics of manipulation, indoctrination, and outright brainwashing as real-life cults. And it's a death cult, with Chris calling them out for being killers, murdering canon event victims through inaction (which is sometimes even forced). Not to mention being perfectly willing to have countless children ripped from their homes and subjected to various other horrible fates like rape and murder by paedophile, and brainwashing and torture by the Red Room. Chris goes so far as to label Gwen a 'monster' for being a willing accessory to such crimes, both attempted and consummated.
    • Miguel reveals that Peter B staged his 'recruitment' into the Society, likely as part of their campaign to manipulate her and turn her into their perfectly obedient thrall. Chris explicitly tells Hobie that 'She is Miguel and Drew’s pet fucking project, Hobby! The perfect little minion!' Later, Gwen realises that Jess's seemingly heartfelt and heartwarming speech welcoming her into the Society was 'so perfect that it had to be scripted' - and this is part of her realisation of how truly brainwashed she had been.
    • The Society's modus operandi for handling its targets appears superficially innocuous, but is actually insidiously sinister. If a Spider has anyone they rely on or care for, the Society goes after them. The Society frames it as 'protecting loved ones and ensuring that non-Spiders didn't get caught up in the crosshairs'. But Chris sees through it for what it is: hostage-taking. And Hobie uneasily realises that he himself did this with Gwen, and that Chris is right.
  • In the film, Miguel was characterized as a morally grey Anti-Hero. His motivation for maintaining the canon was trauma over losing his alternate universe daughter, and believing himself to be the cause for that universe collapsing. Being gung-ho about canon events was him not wanting a repeat incident, but his aggression towards anyone who disagreed with him or his methods caused some members of the Spider-Society to turn against him. In Cracks In Canon, Miguel is instead portrayed as a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist villain whose motivation is anger at everyone else being happy while he is miserable.
• Brain Washed And Crazy: The Society targets Spiders at their lowest, often right after traumatic events like losing loved ones to death or estrangement. It gives them a sense of belonging and home. And asks nothing in return... at first. Then, bit by bit, it asks members to give up more and more of their independent thought and ethical compass, and threatens to throw them out otherwise. Ultimately, members are willing to betray even their most loved ones... all because Miguel O'Hara demands it - even when Miguel is perfectly willing to discard them just to preserve his precious canon. By chapter 22, Gwen explicitly and 'truly realize[s] how brainwashed she ha[s] been'.
  • Notably, even after leaving the Society, when Hobie calls out Miguel's excesses, Gwen unthinkingly and reflexively defends Miguel. When Hobie gets fed up over this and snaps, 'FUCK MIGUEL!', she even almost attacks him - after he's taken her in and defended her from a justifiably enraged Chris, severely straining his relationship with the chaos Spider. And Gwen tells Hobie how Miguel physically and psychologically abused Miles, calling him an anomaly who should never have been Spider-Man. Damningly, when Hobie begs her to 'tell me you spoke up and told that bastard he was wrong', she remains silent out of guilt. This finally causes Hobie to snap, ordering her to think about just what she's done, telling her that she will be sobbing over what she has done, and that if she runs again, he's done with her and will leave her to Chris's decidedly untender mercies.
  • Even after realising how awful the Society's mistreatment of Miles was, Peni feels guilty, not only over her role in it, but over wishing Miguel was right.
• Cerebus Retcon: Some minor things treated humorously in the movies are treated more seriously in the fic:
  • In Across the Spider-Verse, Hobie telling Gwen she left her things in his apartment is played for Ship Tease and Love Triangle fuel. In Cracks In Canon, it’s Hobie subtly trying to kick Gwen out because he resents her for joining the Spider Society.
  • In Across the Spider-Verse, Gwen introduces Hobie like, at worst, an admiring fangirl. In Cracks in Canon, Hobie disapprovingly notes that Gwen did this to hint that she slept with him when introducing him to Miles. Gwen even wonders if she did it to make Miles run away from her or to make him suffer.
• Cloning Blues: One of Chris' children is a variant of Miles, who is a clone of his Earth's original Miles. Chris adopted him and helped stabilize him so he wouldn't deteriorate.
• Driven to Suicide: One Spider, Legionnaire Spider, is so distraught over what happened to Miles that he throws himself over a building to the horror of Spider-Racer who jumps off the building to try to save him.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Cassie Strange is the Sorceress Supreme of Chris's universe being the most powerful magic user raised by the Fae outside the bounds of time and space. Really she's a Skrull Queen found by the Fae as a baby who assumed she was a magical human under a curse and lifted the mental programming to conquer the earth. She is so utterly convinced that she's just a magical human that she's not only convinced the Fae, she also convinced the Skrulls who came to retrieve her that they where like her convincing them to take on human forms and join her....And they all took the name Wong.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • In addition to the above mentioned Adaptational Jerkassery, the Spider Therapist is not very nice to Lyla, dismissing her as just a program who only does what she was programed by Miguel to do.
  • The Spider Society's (and Miguel's) excessively harsh treatment of anomalies seemingly stems from their fear and hatred of them. Gwen asks Hobie why no one held her accountable for breaking into Miles's school, hacking computers, and stealing clothes and money while in Miles's universe, whereas the Society immediately locks up displaced villains and doesn't even give them a chance to explain themselves. As if to dispel any lingering doubt over this prejudice, in one of his unguarded outbursts, Miguel explicitly shouts that Miles is a villain, 'No different than the Kingpin or Doc Ock or the Green Goblin'. Moreover, even after leaving the Society, Gwen and Peni also stereotype 'villains' like Nathaniel Asgard and Timepool, refusing to believe that these variants can be any different from their villainous versions - which starkly contradicts their willingness to treat countless variants of Spider-Man and Woman as individuals.
• Friend to All Children: Chris Chase has adopted several kids and is quite protective of them as well. The same could be said for the Wongs (Skrulls who came to Earth to get their Skull Queen who had become the Sorcerer Supreme, long story) who apparently try to kidnap Chris' kids for themselves.
• Happily Adopted: As stated above, Chris has adopted several children, including variants of Miles and Gwen. Corrosion is also shown (Mostly in the Christmas special) that she's adopted several variants of Rocket Raccoon giving them symbiotes of their own and raising them as her children.
• It's All About Me: For all his sanctimonious pretensions about protecting the multiverse, Miguel is really a self-mythologising narcissistic autocrat who can't stand to see people who break his rules have a happy life while he's miserable.
  Miguel: “I AM THE HERO! Not you! Not the Society! Me! I make the tough decisions! Me! And I swear if I have to snap your neck [points to Jeff] to save your ungrateful universe I will do so in front of your wife and pathetic, worthless, MISTAKE of a son I will!”
  Miguel: 'My daughter is dead and all the rest of you are allowed to think you deserve happy endings? You, Jessica, these people [the Morales family]!'
• Murder by Inaction: If a canon event dictates that someone must die, the Society is entirely dead set on stopping anyone from even trying to save them. It's the whole reason Chris labels them 'killers' and one of the key reasons he despises them so much.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The entire Spider Society over what they've done to Miles. But especially Gwen, Peter, Peni, and even Miguel and Jess. Even Hobie of all people struggles with self-doubt over his role in enabling Miguel and the Society's cult fascism.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Miguel has this reaction when Mayday is revealed to have recorded him threatening to to kill Jefferson Morales and sent the recording to everyone in the Society.
  • The entire Spider Society does this when Chris announces that the Society has ignored his warning that the multiverse's children are under his protection, so now he's coming for them.
  Chris: 'Spider-Society. Months back I warned you what would happen if you harmed another innocent. I told you that you were not welcome in the multiverse… that the children of all realities were under MY protection. I threatened to expose all of you but stayed my hand, convinced that you could learn. You… have not. And thus you leave me no choice. To quote a wise man: you are monsters. That is the role you seem determined to play so it seems that I… must play… mine... The one that stops the monsters.”
• Papa Wolf:
  • Peter B. threatens to break his Thou Shalt Not Kill rule after Miguel threatens to take his infant daughter Mayday away from him.
  • Spider-Chaos, (Chris Chase) states that a father would risk everything for his children during his fight with Miguel. Even if that threatens the universe. The Spider Society endangering his kids puts them on his shit list in the first place. He warns that Society that if they threaten another innocent, he will come for them. And when Miguel beats up a Miles just like Chris's, that's exactly what happens.
  • An uncle variant, but when the MCU version of the Prowler learns about what happens to Miles, he joins up with a hero named Skitterling who is his son from another universe (and the nephew of Erik Killmonger).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Plenty of these are given throughout the fic.
  • Chris gives Gwen a blistering one. He calls her out for traumatising his Miles G, who still has nightmares about Gwen and Jessica trying to forcibly return him to his Earth. Where he has no home, no family, and worst of all, no access to the clone medications that keep him alive. He rages at her for standing by and nodding along while Jessica tells this Miles that he cannot stay with Chris, and for seeing nothing wrong with essentially condemning the clone boy to a lonely, gruesome death. All because the Society deems him an anomaly and decrees that he cannot be allowed to remain on Chris's world, even though it literally thrives on chaos and paradoxes. After detailing her crimes and even rounding on Hobie for defending her, Chris drops this bombshell on Gwen: 'I have a Gwen on my world, you know. I look at you, all grown up, and all I can think… is how I PRAY she is NOTHING like you.'
  • Margo notably gives one to Richard Parker (the therapist) about his treatment of his patients, including her.
  • Chris gives Miguel a big one, telling him about what the fates of his adopted children would have been if he (Chris) didn't intervene. While also calling him out for replacing his other self and implying that Miguel slept with his other self's wife. And even calling Miguel a 'rapist'.
  • Miguel attempts one on Chris, ranting at him for being unable to accept that being Spider-Man requires sacrificing loved ones. It backfires spectacularly when one of Chris's Spiders reveals herself to be a Gabi variant - and Chris tells Miguel to tell her that it is her duty and destiny to lose her loved ones, suffer, and be alone.
• Rotating Protagonist: Each chapter depicts a different character dealing with the fallout of Miguel’s actions, as well as their own personal issues.
• Shout-Out:
  • During his fight with Miguel, Spider-Chaos states "slow, sloppy," and "you're not living up to the legend gato,". Which was due to his kids watching said film.
  • A few are given to Doctor Who, with Chris quoting the 12th Doctor, and Peter calling Miguel "Davros" in his fight with him, and asks him when he wants them in their Dalek Shells.
• Take That!: Timepool, a variant of Deadpool in his usual style, delivers jabs at both Secret Invasion 2023 (and the comic) and The Marvels.
• Would Hurt a Child: Miguel brutally beating Miles up is the catalyst that starts the story.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: When Cassie Strange discovers that Jessica is pregnant, she stops attacking her and imprisons her in a Soul Stone.

Overshadowed By Controversy entries

• Adam Dahlberg, better known online as Sky Does Minecraft and later Net Nobody, was a nonbinary YouTuber best known for their comedic Minecraft mod showcases and forming the Minecraft themed let's play group Team Crafted, reaching over 12 million subscribers on their YouTube channel. However, in January 2022, allegations of abuse had surfaced from one of Dahlberg's ex girlfriends on Twitter, featuring legal documents and voice messages. Many of Sky's nostalgic fans had suffered a broken pedestal, and Dahlberg would end up attempting to sell their channel after the controversy.

• The infamous Mother Bird sculpture from Japanese horror art gallery Link Factory is less known for who made it and the context behind its creation and more known for its association with the infamous Momo challenge, a 2018 meme where WhatsApp users were contacted by someone using the image, telling children to kill themselves. Even after the Momo challenge was proven to be a hoax, the resulting Media Scaremongering became so firmly associated with the art (despite the artist having nothing to do with the controversy) that the original sculpture was destroyed.

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