Nerd Zone

actually wait. so in the mcu's civil war, when we're introduced to peter, he's like. much thinner than you would expect spider-man to be, and much thinner and less muscled than he is two months later during the events of spider-man: homecoming. obviously out-of-universe this is because tom holland hadn't properly bulked up for the role yet and did so in the year between civil war and homecoming but also in-universe. peter and may go from living in a much simpler apartment that you would sort of expect from the parker family to a slightly nicer apartment in homecoming, where peter has a bunk bed and a lot of toys compared to his sparse room with retro computers he fished out of the dumpster in civil war. again out-of-universe this is because jon watts is a shit fucking director who never should've been put in charge of peter parker movies as someone who prefers miles morales (BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT ENDED IN COPYING SHIT FROM MILES' STORIES AND PASTING THEM ONTO PETER. FUCK) BUT. when you combine those two facts. and remember that tony (asshole supreme in this situation) initially got his foot in the door to make may let him in their apartment by lying and saying that peter applied for the september foundation (which is a GRANT), which he then would've had to follow up on because otherwise may would've been like "??? okay where's the money from that grant you got accepted for" then you can honestly paint a picture of peter that is. much closer to his first comic?

i mean think about it. peter is a mutate who was mutated six months prior to civil war. he has enhanced EVERYTHING including his metabolism. he's visibly thinner compared to homecoming. may didn't know that he was spider-man so she probably would've assumed that he was just growing as every teenager does and needed to eat more, and to afford more food she would've had to work more hours at whatever job she had at the time. peter would notice this and because he is a person with a guilt complex the size of manhattan he would feel bad and try to eat less, or at least eat more at school by sneaking food or something so he ate less at home. what was his motivation for wanting to join the fantastic four in the very first issue of the amazing spider-man comic? MONEY! the second he found out the fantastic four didn't get paid he bailed on them. he needed money because ben had died and he and aunt may were financially struggling. and he literally cuts tony off in civil war to ask if there's money involved in the september foundation:

Peter Parker: Let me just stop you there.

Tony Stark: Yeah?

Peter Parker: Is this grant, like, got money involved or whatever? No?

Tony Stark: Yeah.

Peter Parker: Yeah?

Tony Stark: It's pretty well funded.

Peter Parker: Wow.

Tony Stark: Look who you're talking to.

so clearly they brought that motivation over from the comics. it's just that it would've made more sense if they also explicitly tied that into their financial situation + peter's desire to be an avenger (like he wanted to be a member of the FF) in homecoming. like yeah the reason that peter's suddenly super muscular and healthier-looking and the reason that may doesn't have to work as many long hours is because peter got that grant and forked over the majority of the money to may (and then used his own little portion of it to buy himself that bunk bed and the new desk and the toys and whatnot). which would also explain why may was seemingly unconcerned about the financial aspect of peter repeatedly losing his backpacks (with school supplies inside of them??) and obvious Their Entirely Different Apartment. like i'm just filling in the blanks for a bunch of shit that shouldn't need to be filled in because the mcu is a horrible franchise with horrible storytelling regarding one (1) peter parker but LIKE the in-universe enhanced metabolism guilt complex and going from thin to healthy (for an enhanced spider mutate) in a short period of time like that makes him infinitely more interesting to me ESPECIALLY since obviously he canonically insisted multiple times at first that he did not want to go to germany with tony!! but then when he was actually IN germany and fighting he started yapping about how he had to "impress mr. stark". in that instance of COURSE he wanted to become an avenger if he gets a fat paycheck for checks notes being blackmailed and kidnapped into fighting in an international conflict for unknown reasons (to him). like all he had to do was be exploited as a child soldier and let captain america knock him around a little bit and suddenly he actually doesn't have to starve himself anymore and his aunt isn't as tired all the time because she doesn't have to work as many hours because of Him, Specifically??? SIGN HIM THE FUCK UP!!!!

quite frankly i love when internal dialogue is framed as a good thing when actually it serves as insight as to how fucked up a character is. like in amazing spider-man issue no. 6 of last year peter had this internal dialogue that went:

"I have this weird itching in the back of my brain. Been there all day. It's not my spider-sense or whispers of mind control or any of that stuff. More like the ache you'd get after exercising a muscle you haven't used in a while. I was getting sort of worried, because I have a great imagination for worst-case scenarios, but I finally cracked it. It's the feeling of remembering something I didn't even realize I'd forgotten... I'm happy."

which on the surface it's supposed to just be "yay! peter's feeling good! he's been through so much shit that it's nice to see him genuinely smiling for a panel or two!" but then you think about it for two seconds and it turns into "this man spent the better part of 24hrs thinking something was wrong with him to the point where he actually considered the possibility of mind control before finally realizing that he was feeling an emotion called 'happiness'. He actually forgot what genuine happiness felt like" and it's like. Oh my god dude everything is wrong with you for realsies