#also I imagine Peter doesn’t post often more sporadically

[stilesfuck1ngstilinski]

STOP a Spideypool au where Wade is a well known no face let’s play streamer and Peter is a random dude who got popular for his skateboarding vids cause people thought he was hot and then people found out he’s best friends with rich kid Harry Osborn so now he just uses his yt to post random vlogs of his interests including science, skateboarding, and his friends

Peter’s never stated much about his sexuality, but then mentions his boyfriend one video and doesn’t elaborate who

Wade has talked about his boyfriend extensively never mentioning a name but gushes about him. He also has never once shown anything other than his stream room, one day Peter comes into the room not knowing Wade had already started streaming and suddenly the chat is blowing up like YOURE DATING PETER PARKER!???

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 3: The Birth of Mysterio

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Before we dive into specifics of Amazing Mary Jane, there is a large chunk of context we need to establish about Mysterio’s history. Specifically who he is and some of the crimes he’s committed over the years. I will generally be emphasising stuff that Mary Jane would likely or definitely be aware of; or at least could easily learn about with a little research. This is important to bear in mind when we look at MJ’s attitude to Beck in AMJ.

For starters, let’s consider how and why Beck ventured into a life of crime in the first place.

Life before Mysterio

Quentin Beck before he became a criminal had a college education to some extent and had major technical and chemical skills at his disposal. He became an accomplished special effects artists and stuntman and had regular employment. Long story short, he got bored and after failing to transition into acting (though he obviously had some acting talent) he was inspired to get involved with costume villainy.

Due to retcons in BND, it was established that he went back to work in Hollywood. However, he later got blacklisted when one of his effects injured someone. As originally presented and intended though, he basically turned to villainy out of boredom and frustration.

After being blacklisted Beck undertook his first major campaign against Spider-Man, whom (due to other retcons) he resented for foiling some of his crimes during his first foray into villainy.

Whether you look at him as originally presented or in the wake of all these retcons it’s clear that Beck didn’t get pushed into crime. It was a pure ego trip for him. Even with the retcon in mind realistically his skills and intelligence would garner him legitimate work elsewhere. In fact in the ‘Guardian Devil’ arc of Daredevil it’s established he was instrumental in developing certain technologies and processes that made advances in film making possible.

In short Quentin Beck became a criminal because he LIKED it. He is 100% not a tragic figure like the Lizard. He is not someone who’s environment made it difficult for him to be anything but a criminal, as is often the case for people in poverty stricken parts of the world. He wasn’t even someone like Doc Ock or Norman Osborn whose minds were (arguably) inadvertently affected by some kind of extenuating circumstance. Nor is he someone diagnosed with some kind of anti-social personality disorder like Cletus Kasady or Eddie Brock.

Regardless of whether you feel such mental conditions mitigate those villains, my point is Beck DEFINIETLY cannot be excused for his choice of becoming a criminal.

Virtually every crime he ever committed were the actions of a sane, rationale and intelligent person who happened to also be selfish, egotistical, greedy and often nasty. Maybe not nasty the way Carnage or the Green Goblin are, but nasty nevertheless.

I’m saying he’s not just ‘a villain’ but also an outright bad person.

And he’s been a bad person since basically the start of Spider-Man’s superhero career. That’s anywhere from 10-25 years, depending upon whose math you want to use.

The 1960s: Making an Entrance

Were we to take retcons into account, Mysterio’s first crime was his involvement with the Tinkerer way back in ASM #2, circa 1964! This was literally the fifth ever Spider-Man story to be created.

However, retcons not  withstanding Mysterio’s first major crime was impersonating and framing Spider-Man, back in ASM #13.

He then went on to bill himself as a hero and defeated Spider-Man.

These events were a huge news story at the time and thus it’s not unbelievable that MJ would know about them via osmosis. Granted, there is leeway on that because MJ was not living in NYC at this time but she was making sporadic trips there and had taken a casual interest in Spider-Man’s adventures; this was partially because she knew Peter was Spider-Man.

However, one would imagine that it’d likely come up in conversation with Peter over the years given how this was his first (known) encounter with Mysterio and MJ was present for several consequent ones. It’d also be believable given that it’s just common sense for Peter to inform MJ of any enemies who could possibly impersonate him. Forewarned is forearmed (as arguably Gwen’s death proved) so knowing about Mysterio could help MJ ensure the safety of herself and her loved ones; for example MJ’s Aunt Anna and cousin Kristy.

Furthermore it is important to note that Mysterio’s very first major solo effort was a form of identity theft (there is probably a more accurate descriptor but I don’t know of one). The crime was intentionally designed so that he could build up his own reputation off the back of someone else’s.  Does this perhaps remind you of another time Mysterio might’ve tried to selfishly benefit at the expense of another person’s reputation, not caring if he damaged it along the way? Like for example any female-led comic books released in 2019 for example?

The next time Mysterio duelled Spidey he used highly convincing robot duplicates of the (3 of the original 5) X-Men.

So, Mysterio is an expert in robotics and can create loyal and dangerous robotic servants. These robots can also trick people into thinking they are a real person, including Mysterio himself. Thus it’s very possible for Beck to convince someone he’s in one place when he’s actually in another, or alternatively get his robots to do something on his behalf when he’s otherwise indisposed.

Mary Jane 100% knows about these robot duplicates because versions of them (plus Iceman and Jean Grey) appear in Amazing Mary Jane #1.

It would suuuuuuuuure be illogical for MJ to just presume Mysterio would definitely NEVER misuse such robots for any nefarious schemes, or use them to slip under the noses of the press monitoring the movie. Or if he or his crew maybe used them to violate/evade justice somehow…

Also, just for the record, Mysterio was potentially risking damaging the reputation of the X-Men/mutants in general by creating duplicates of them. Yet another example of Mysterio is selfishly cavalier with someone else’s reputation.

Arguably (because I’m not an X-Men expert) this was especially awful because of how the general public already hated and feared mutants, who were of course chiefly allegorical to African Americans back in the 1960s. In this sense Mysterio could be viewed as exploiting societal bigotry or at least caring so little about it he doesn’t realise he’s potentially going to make it far worse. *

Mysterio’s third major encounter with Spidey was in a lot of ways one of his most twisted efforts.

His plan was to learn Spider-Man’s identity by convincing him that he was mentally ill…yeah…

Posing as psychiatrist Doctor Ludwig Rinehart, he convinced Jameson to publish an article claiming Spider-Man was heading for a major mental breakdown. 

To make this more convincing he used his illusions to make Spider-Man believe he was seeing things that weren’t really there. His efforts bore fruit as Peter genuinely began to doubt his own sanity.

Beck’s endgame was for Spider-Man to seek out treatment from ‘Rinehart’ and in his vulnerable state divulge his secret identity. It was only through Jameson’s inadvertent intervention that Peter’s secret (and loved ones) remained safe.

I’m not suggesting Mary Jane necessarily knows about this incident; though it’s possible Peter told her. It’s more relevant because it illustrates what a twisted person  Mysterio is to try and get to Spider-Man in such a way. It also illustrates the distress his illusionary skills can cause to people, both mentally and emotionally. This is a fact that Mary Jane need not have studied psychology to grasp; it’s just common sense. She knows Mysterio’s M.O. is tricking people into believing things that aren’t real and she’d know how believing something uncomfortable or frightening (even if it isn’t real) can be a dangerous and unhealthy thing. Her friend Harry Osborn had mental health problems that caused him to believe things that weren’t true and (for a time anyway) it destroyed him and harmed his family.

If you still think this is a concept MJ wouldn’t have grasped, then Mysterio’s next exploit would’ve likely convinced her.

During the course of Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1-2 Mysterio intentionally attacked the mind of MJ’s acquaintance J. Jonah Jameson. He did this by tricking Jonah into believing he’d been killed and gone to Hell. Simultaneously he also framed Spidey for Jameson’s alleged murder.

Events from this story formed part of the screenplay for Mysterio’s biopic. Proof of this can be found in ASM v5 #29 wherein Peter and MJ are rehearsing Mysterio’s script and the dialogue is almost verbatim from the Webspinners story in question.

As such it is very possible that MJ would know about what Beck did to Jameson. One would imagine Peter would at least tell her about that in the course of rehearsing with her.

We are skipping ahead a bit, but another instance of Mysterio using his illusions to cause terror can be found in ASM #66. In the issue he hijacks TV airwaves and essentially delivers a terrorist message to the city at large. He depicts scenes of New York decimated and threatens to make them a reality unless Spidey confronts him. The incident upsets Aunt May (a woman with an underlying heart condition) and realistically would’ve distressed other people too. This might’ve included MJ’s Aunt Anna who was living with May at the time.

Given the public nature of this broadcast and the distress it caused Aunt Anna’s roommate, the chances are MJ would be aware of it. Even if she failed to catch it initially she’d have heard about it via sheer osmosis.

Even if you disagree, it’s yet another example of Mysterio selfishly and callously causing distress to people for his own ends. If one buys into Marvel’s sliding timescale these events also pack more of a punch since they would've happened post 9/11.

The 1970s: Scamming Seniors

We’re skipping ahead again all the way into the 1970s.

In ASM #141 Betty Brant and Ned Leeds inform Peter that Mysterio died a year earlier in prison. This horrifies Peter because he fought Mysterio earlier that very night.

This was public knowledge meaning there is a chance MJ would’ve heard about it in the news. But even if it wasn’t widely reported or if she just missed it, she’d have still likely heard about it. After all she was dating Peter at the time and was also very friendly with Betty (even serving as her Maid of Honour not too long after this). This is important to remember for the next section.

As it turns out he actually battled a new Mysterio, Danny Berkhart. Berkhart believed himself Beck’s friend and inherited some of his equipment after the latter’s death. He decided to take down Spider-Man out of respect for Beck.**

Much later it was revealed that Beck hadn’t really died, he’d merely used Berkhart to fake his own death. In the guise of Doctor Reinhardt he took over a nursing home. Consequently he swindled vulnerable elderly people out of their life savings, amassing almost $8 million. According to this inflation calculator, in 2019 that’d be about $40,780,313.20.

My, what a sympathetic individual…

This scheme snowballed into Beck faking Aunt May’s death on behalf of the burglar who killed Uncle Ben.

To be fair to him, The Burglar was threatening his life. However given Mysterio’s technology and intelligence it’s highly unbelievable that he couldn’t have taken the Burglar down if he wanted to. He does exactly this in ASM #198 once he’s learned the Burglar was after a fortune hidden in Aunt May’s old home, opting to seek out the fortune himself (see above).

It goes without saying how devastating it was for Peter and May’s friends (chiefly Aunt Anna) to believe she’d passed away.

It beguiles belief that, between MJ’s closeness to Peter, their mutual friends (like Harry and Flash), Aunt May and Aunt Anna, that MJ wouldn’t at some point have learned about May’s ‘death’. By extension she would’ve learned of the circumstances of it being faked and surely have been at least miffed about it! Thus she’d have deduced that Beck had faked his death, as she’d likely have heard about his alleged death in prison.

Even if MJ didn’t hear about any of this during the incident itself, considering that this was all a matter of public record and would’ve been reflected in May’s medical history MJ realistically would have learned about this at some point. This would especially be the case because May’s death was faked a further two times; and that was when MJ married to Peter.

After all, if it was public record that May’s death had been faked before then her consequent ‘death’ (it was actually an imposter) in ASM #400 would require a degree of verification that’d go beyond most patients.*** And it’s highly unlikely that Peter and MJ wouldn’t have been informed about this process. ; or that they themselves didn’t inform the doctors that they should triple check given May’s history. This is literally the reason the actress impersonating her in ASM #400 was specified as being ‘genetically altered’ so her DNA would read as Aunt May’s.

All this means that there is simply NO WAY MJ wouldn’t know Mysterio caused this kind of harm to two of the people she loved most in the world (Peter and May).

The 1980s: Old Tricks

We skip ahead again all the way into the 2010s, albeit an untold tale set circa the 1980s. In Symbiote Spider-Man #1 Mysterio’s attempts to rob a bank inadvertently led to an innocent woman (with kids no less) being shot and killed.

Now to be fair, this wasn’t intentional and he felt bad about it. But it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t committed a crime in the first place. He also wasn’t exactly turning himself in due to remorse or giving up a life of crime. MJ might not have known about this but it’s the first time (to my recollection) Beck was involved with someone actually dying. So you know, he’s definitely a killer and is unwilling to face the consequences of his crime. Real sympathetic right?

I will admit this is something of a contentious example as this series doesn’t exactly fit into continuity and so could be arguably discounted. Nevertheless it definitely offers food for thought. An insight into how Mysterio likely would  act under these circumstances.

Jumping back to the 1980s proper, in a much later encounter with Spidey Mysterio once again attacked Peter’s mind. This time he tricked him into believing that an innocent person had died on his watch.

MJ again definitely knew about this because a guilt-ridden Peter talked to her about it before he learned the truth. Later she tried to talk him out of his guilt ridden state.

I think I will leave it there for now. We’ll continue our look at Mysterio in the next post as we enter the 21st century.

*I’ve got no place for this in future instalments so I’ll just say put it here as an aside.

MJ to my recollection has no experience with the X-Men (sans Wolverine), but she is definitely no anti-mutant bigot. Wouldn’t it be logical for her to be wary or at least conscious about how Beck is playing with the optics of the X-Men/mutants in general in his vanity project?

Not to mention their inclusion I’d imagine would be in reference to ASM Annual #1 where he tried to use them to kill her boyfriend.  She has no qualms about the guy responsible for that recreating that event on film in an effort to glorify him self?

On the other hand we don’t know exactly how they are being used in the movie so I’ll let that slide.

**Berkhart isn’t all that relevant at the moment but he will be in the next instalment, so bear him in mind.

***Alternatively one would imagine in a world where the fantastical is a matter of fact, death would be checked to a greater degree than practiced in real life.

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[bountyofbeads]

Trump keeps dismissing Syria as just ‘sand.’ Experts say that’s wrong — ‘and just sad.’

By Miriam Berger | Published October 17 at 1:04 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 17, 2019

President Trump has a penchant for referring to Syria as simply “sand.”

He did so Wednesday when he dismissed the significance of the United States’ pulling out troops from northeastern Syria, a move that enabled Turkish troops to march in and unleash a domino effect of political and humanitarian crises while reducing U.S. influence in the region.

Syria has “got a lot of sand over there,” Trump said. “So there’s a lot of sand that they can play with.”

He’s used similar language before.

“We’re talking about sand and death, that’s what we’re talking about,” Trump told reporters in January.

To be precise: Syria has dusty — not sandy — deserts. (And the area, once widely known as part of the Fertile Crescent, also has a rich history of agriculture.)

While about two-thirds of Syria is classified as desert, it’s more of a dusty semidesert than the stereotypical rolling-sand-dunes-style desert, according to experts.

“Syria is a dry country,” said Syrian environmental journalist Muhammad Fares. “It has fertile areas in other ways.”

Fares distinguished between Syria’s dusty and dry semidesert (called badia in Arabic) with the sandy sahara (which means desert in Arabic) found in other Middle Eastern and North African countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

“There’s been plenty of opportunity for successful agriculture [in Syria] over a long period of time,” noted Colin Kelley of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University. “Even though we know that the area is aridifying due to climate change, it’s certainly not only desert.”

The disputed Golan Heights — which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and the Trump administration controversially recognized as annexed Israeli territory in April — is particularly renowned for its lush, rolling green hills and apple and grape orchards.

There is one area where Trump could find his sand: western Syria, where there are two mountainous coastal cities, Latakia and Tartus, home to sandy beaches and nearby Russian military bases.

Moreover, northeastern Syria, which borders Turkey and was the direct target of Trump’s latest comments, is in fact one of the least desert-y parts of Syria. This area is historically part of the Fertile Crescent, where scientists say agricultural and herding society began 12,000 years ago.

“The real significance of the Kurdish-controlled northeast is that that’s the traditionally wheat and cotton basket of Syria, as well as the part of the country that has a significant chunk of the oil,” said Peter Schwartzstein, a journalist and fellow with the Center for Climate & Security.

There is a connection between Syria’s climate and conflict, just not the Orientalist Arabs-fighting-in-sand image that Trump’s word choice may conjure up, experts said.

Kelley was part of a team of scientists that published a report in 2015 analyzing how decades of Syrian agricultural policies forced an overuse of groundwater that led to a major drought in 2006. They argued that the drought then destabilized the country’s economy and society, setting the stage for much of the dissatisfaction that drove people to the streets in 2011.

“President Bashar al-Assad’s liberal economic policies increased destabilization by removing fuel and food subsidies that many rural families depend on for their livelihoods,” the study concluded. “These policies continued despite the drought, making agricultural work unsustainable, thus inducing mass migration of rural families to cities.”

Fares, the Syrian journalist, said he sometimes laughs when he hears Westerners describing Syria as just a country of sand and camels. But more often, “it’s really just sad,” he said.

In addition to its human cost, the Syrian conflict, now in its eighth year, has worsened many of the country’s already dire environmental issues, such as desertification and deforestation.

Fares said Trump’s comments upset him most because it felt “as if there are no people” in Syria. He likened the mind-set to how the Syrian government, which has been accused of committing war crimes, sees Syria’s people and environment.

“It’s the same way the Syrian regime looks at the country,” he said, as just “resources to exploit.”

*********

Trump’s puerile letter to Erdogan should give every American the chills

By Henry Olsen | Published October 17 at 2:40 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 17, 2019 |

I rarely comment upon President Trump’s communications style, preferring instead to focus on his policies or political standing. But I’m making an exception for his letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It is puerile and insipid — an excellent example of why so many people in Washington think Trump is not up to the job.

Let’s start with his opening sentence: “Let’s work out a good deal!” Trump’s view of human nature is famously transactional, and he doesn’t disappoint here. For him, it seems there is nothing but the art of the deal. He apparently views politics as nothing more than a series of ad hoc deals, strung together with no glue binding them together other than the momentary advantage each dealmaker gains from the pact. That might be the way businesspersons think, but it is certainly not the way serious politicians and statesmen behave.

Political leaders always have some aim in mind beyond the deal itself. For some, it is keeping or extending power. For others, it is the accomplishment of some task consistent with a set of articulated principles. But for all, any deal must be seen as consistent with those larger aims. Trump’s letter ignores this basic political instinct.

Look at the world from Erdogan’s point of view. Turkey has a long, troubled relationship with the Kurds living in its own country. It has suppressed the Kurdish language; sporadically carried on a guerrilla war against Kurdish separatists within its borders and beyond; and views the Syrian Kurds as in league with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a group it considers a terrorist organization. A man focused on wiping out a threat to Turkish territorial sovereignty isn’t worried about what Trump calls the “slaughtering” of “thousands of people”; he might actually welcome it.

A nationalistic war against a longtime enemy could also shore up Erdogan’s flagging political standing at home. His party, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, lost control of many major cities in local elections this year, including the capital, Ankara, and Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul. His own job approval ratings are also in decline, dropping to only 44 percent by early September, and both he and the AKP had seen support drop below 40 percent by early October. A military victory against the Syrian Kurds, then, might be exactly what Erdogan wants.

Trump’s letter shows no understanding of any of this. Instead, he tries to persuade the Turkish strongman to negotiate by alternating insults — saying Erdogan could be viewed as “the devil” and is merely playing “a tough guy” — with platitudes such as “history will look upon you favorably.” Serious political men, and Erdogan is certainly that, look at a such jejune mishmash incredulously. It is mind-boggling that the president of the United States thinks Erdogan could be deterred by name-calling or attracted by an ego massage.

It is also beyond comprehension that Trump thinks empty threats could do the trick. Trump conflates his own ego and U.S. interests when he vastly exaggerates U.S. power and tells Erdogan that he could destroy the Turkish economy. According to the World Bank, Turkey’s exports to the United States were only about 5 percent of its total in 2017.. It also imported much more from Russia and China than it did from the United States. Trump would have to get international cooperation to make sanctions or tariffs really hurt the Turks, something he will likely find difficult in light of all of the other conflicts he has instigated with many of the countries whose cooperation he would need.

The letter damningly confirms many of the traits that the president’s critics have long assumed: It shows Trump to be uninformed, narcissistic and naive. It shows him as obsessed with process and uninterested in substance, craving the applause of a multitude whose identities he does not know. It is the sort of note one could imagine coming from a clique leader in a movie about high-school angst, such as “Mean Girls” or “Heathers,” not a man who has access to the nuclear button.

The announcement of a five-day cease-fire could lead Trump backers to say the letter worked, but it’s hard to make that claim stick. The letter is dated Oct. 9, more than a week ago. It was clearly intended to forestall exactly what we have seen over the past week. Even if that argument were correct, it would still reveal disturbing things about how the president views politics and American power.

Trump’s instincts have sometimes produced great success, such as when his threats of tariffs shocked Mexico into assisting the United States to reduce illegal border crossings. He has also been successful taking the advice of competent aides, such as during the negotiations that produced the 2017 tax cut or in his decision in February to walk away from a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without a deal. But this letter shows what can happen when Trump acts on his own without counsel. That sight should give every American the chills.