#sexism through the gwen stuff

[retired-ceo]

Noco has a ton of appeal imo! The most obvious is that it’s one of those sun-moon / cat-dog / squidward spongebob type ships! That’s a very popular pairing type no matter the media.  Now you may think, why not ship n*wen? And well, noco did come first. N*wen wasn’t a thing in TDI, and nostalgia is a hell of drug.  But other then that, what else is there? 1) There’s a lot of people who dislike how c*derra was handled in world tour. Noco allows that feeling to be validated. If you relate to Cody’s experience, Noco can be healing. Noah is one of the few people who consistently points out Sierra’s flaws, and he can affirm that Sierra’s actions were indeed terrible, and *not* a joke. A lot of noco fics involve Sierra for that reason, in a kind of “right a wrong,” way. To some victims of SA, that can be really powerful. I don’t think you get that in other Noah ships, becaue well... Cody isn’t in them. 2) Another thing specific to Cody is that Cody is kinda... rlly into women. He seems to have a very heterosexist mindset. Which is BAD! And noco allows you to challenge that mindset, because now Cody’s in an M/M relationship. This also allows you to explore Cody’s seeming need to be loved, contrasted with his need to be cool. It’s very fun.  3) Lastly, in canon Noah and Cody have a decent relationship. I wouldn’t call them friends, but they tease each other in a good-humored way. Which is rare for Noah relationships. Most times Noah insults people, they react with violence [Duncan, Courtney, Chris, Alejandro (if you count the elimination), or they don’t react at all (Sierra, Izzy). Owen either gets it or he doesn’t, depending on the moment. But most of the time, he doesn’t really have a reply. But Cody has the potential to match Noah here, because he’s not usually violent, but he can be mean. And I like that. Cody can keep up with Noah. And Cody is also well... selfish/prideful enough to know his rights, in a way Owen... rlly doesn’t. If you look at RR, Owen lets Noah get away with a bunch of stuff. He does try, in the air guitar episode. And it works. But only for that episode. And then Owen just kinda accepts that Noah is a shitty friend. But Cody is annoying and persistent enough that it probably wouldn’t happen. Maybe too persistent, too shameless. It’d a double-edged sword. But at least something would be happening. And it’s not as if Noah wouldn’t argue back. I like ships where the characters challenge each other, and Noco *would* do that, I think.  If you don’t like Cody, (which is understandable), then you won’t like Noco. But I do like Cody, I think. He’s overbearing, but that also means he’s persistent. He’s entitled, but that means he’s optimistic. And that’s the complete opposite of Noah. They push and pull at each other in a way other Noah ships don’t, imo.  Also noco is loser X loser. we love loser x loser. 

there is genuinely 0 appeal to noco (and also cody). usually i can see some sort of appeal in ships i dislike but i can't see anything with noco

.

[msookyspooky]

Hi Spooky !! So I’ve been getting through some of the recs you gave me for my Halloween marathon :33 AND i saw Child’s Play — which i liked way more than I thought i would, like it’s genuinely pretty funny And i cant wait to watch the sequels, leTS FUCKING GOOO — Yesterday was Idle Hands which sksksks wanna a silly little movie, ‘twas truly delightful, all the characters are fun/cool except for Anton most of the movie so it took a while for me to feel bad for him, BUT i did eventually, i really enjoyed it so it’s definitely up there for the rewatchbility of it !! — I CANT REMEMBER IF YOU RECOMMENDED POLTERGEIST OR NOT ??? I think you did but anyways I really liked it !!! The supernatural stuff is pretty mild + the 80s special effects make it not that scary to me, also i felt really bad for that fucking family ? What the hell ?!?! The dad was the fucking mvp he did The Most and he looked great doing it (10/10 - could watch again)

NOW for movies that ik you didn’t recommend but have been mentioned here at some point: Black Telephone and Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker. I saw someone recommended BT for you a whole ago and if you haven’t had the time yet to watch it please know it’s super worth it !!!! The main characters are really good and interesting and the acting is just phenomenal, specIALLY THE KIDS WTH, AND theres a bit of a supernatural thing to it but it was just fun/good for the plot and not so much trying to get you to shit ur pants, ya know?

AND for BBNM, i was very excited for this movie, to me it was a classic like 80s slasher, the tENSION, the creative like weapon choices, the like twist/break the killer goes through (like after its clear to us/other characters they did it) and THE ACTORS ARE JUST PHENOMENAL — like the aunt is/has been basically grooming her nephew since he was 3 and god does it show, some scenes are so creepy, and moments were someone would you know question her/ her actions, he doesn’t even Think to doubt her, it was terrible (but in a good way, story wise) OH AND BILL PAXTON, he doesn’t show up a lot (i think with dialogue for 2 or 3 scenes maybe) and he plays classic homophobic with daddy issues so 😐 but he did look good tho so theres that

STAR THIS IS LIKE WEEKS UPON WEEKS LATE FORGIVE ME 🥲

Idle hands is such a dark humor dumbass slap stick but I love it 🤣 Listen, I just thought he had the worst asthma of his life I didn't even know what weed was till I was like 11 but as a kid seeing that hand terrified me and child me remembered it being so scary and adult me rewatched it and I was like....What? This is the movie that terrified me??? afjsafkjs

POLTERGEIST! That completely slipped my mind, I didn't watch it often but I do remember parts of it and it's really good. And I did see the black phone!!! It was so good I mean the protagonist was so smart and using the ghost of the children was a haunting aspect I didn't expect but so glad they did it. Gwen was my favorite character she reminded me of how I was as a kid and I also have prophetic dreams like her. So does my one grandmother. We both dream of family deaths and major events going to happen and it almost always comes true so it was so different to see them utilize that in the movie. I went in expecting a kidnapping survival and got so much more!!

And bro I have GOT to watch it!! I couldn't find it under Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker so I saw someone recommend searching Night Warning and there it is (Idk why they picked these titles bc it makes it so much harder to find bro ong) and yeeaahhh I kind of expect the homophobia and sexism in 80s movies I just try to take it with a grain of salt I think that's why I like Lost Boys and Near Dark sm bc...Wow...An 80s movie with an 80s aesthetic...and no homophobia or sexism or racism? OMFG FINALLY!!

Another one with Bill I watched but was HORRIBLE was Boxing Helena. I'm usually not a snob with movies but it was like bad cheesy softcore porn for someone with weird fetishes. The guy/doctor is basically an incest mommy issues guy bc of his vapid mother who just 'died' out of nowhere and he inherited her home and he's engaged to a wonderful woman that is also a doctor and too good for him but the kicker is he is OBSESSED with a woman that he had a one night stand with years ago and wants nothing to do with him but he's a toxic fucking weirdo that does everything he can (Including cutting her limbs off....You heard me.) in order to make her dependent on him bc...Shocker; she reminds him of his shitty Mom. You are filthy rich go to therapy you freak. I felt zero remorse for him and the movie tries to make you sympathize with him and it's like...Why?

THE ONLY part, I do mean, THE ONLY FUCKING PART worth watching is the explict Bill Paxton sex scene the first 15 minutes he has the woman's entire boob in his mouth while he's grinding her hips on his uh...And MOANING while he does it...I'd scream w/o the s on the spot if I was her istg 💦 Like I was so flustered bc I DID NOT expect it to be that explict 😳😳😳

He plays an asshole rockstar lover to the woman but compared to the guy we're supposed to sympathize with at least he's not wackadoo nuts tbh. I will take cheating asshole over whatever the fuck is wrong with the doctor if I had to pick....And I mean...Lolk at him-

Like I can't show any scenes from his part in the movie but if you want to watch like the first 15 minutes then skip to the end where Bill's character pistol whips the guy holding her hostage and mutilating her. I mean, Bill's character beats the shit out of him (Again, so hot of Bill's character to do that🥵😤) understandable bc I regret wasting almost 2hrs of my life watching it

WHY IS THE HOTTEST BILL PAXTON SCENE I'VE EVER SEEN IN THE SHITTIEST MOVIE??? WHY 😭😭😭

If ppl like it good for them but I deadass couldn't hardly focus on it at all it was just a hot mess and the ending had me fuming lmfao

I also watched The Watcher and Nope and those were so so good!!!! Especially Nope!

[leaiorganas]

Hello!

Hello to all my new followers! I am not sure why so many of you have found me but welcome to this multi-fandom mess (although my obsession with pedro pascal may be bleeding through). And mess it is.

Things you will find:

Lots of Rogue One and The Mandalorian...I guess Star Wars in general, lots of it. I like pretty people and I ship ALOT so. 

I love Doctor Who and multi-ship there so you will find that sprinkled in but I like pretty things as well. 

You’ll find aesthetics mixed in with pretty people like diego, pedro, john, gwen, and tessa. I love, love edits and I really always try to reblog so people can see and we can keep the community going. 

I tag so you should be able to find most here but if something is NOT tagged, LMK right away.

I make stuff though it’s sporadic; edits and stories 

Prompts stay in the inbox and maybe someday I will get to them but I am the worst at those but every now and then one really hits me and a 3K fic comes out of nowhere

I am the worst at chats but I try to always respond to asks

I have been getting anonymous, random questions and I LOVE IT. So ask anything, anytime. 

I’m older so understand that if you don’t want to follow someone who’s married, has a cat named Penelope, and travels for a living (well, before 2020, we will see what 2021 brings). PS - this is me 

Things you won’t find:

I try to keep my opinions on fandom stuff to myself. I am pretty c’est la vie. I may not ship it but that doesn’t mean you can’t. You do what you do. 

Definitely miss me with any racism, sexism, homophobia, or pro-trump anything. I’m all set and will not engage at all. 

I think that’s it. SO glad you found my humble blog and welcome. Feel free to say hi and introduce yourselves! And if you like my blog, you will love my sister from another mister, lindsay @timelordthirteen. Hers is a multi-fandom blog and wonderful!

[mellifluousoctopus]

Rewatching all the Halloween towns reactions

Halloween Town

strange man comes up to you and gives you candy? from his ear? and you you trust him completely? and actually want the candy? huh?

why does this movie feel so disconjointed? but make sense?

Zombie elvis?

how did this mans know marnie’s name?

we’ll fly it out then flys it in a circle

if halloweentown is a town why is it local government building called cityhall

how come dylan never showed signs like marnie and sophie of magic

does sexism exist in halloween town? I mean it was ruled by a matriarchal family of witches for a very long while

yEaH BAbY

yes let me just  sit alone in a sweatbox while children just walk around me and i will not say anything

the betrayal on this mans face as he gets punked

why do villans openly believe themselves evil I dont get it especialyy when they think they are doing right?

Halloween Town II: Kalabar’s Revenge

*bouncey music as i describe actual life or death situations*

i cant tell if the costumes got better or worse

look at that dinosaur of a computer and chatroom

*angrily chops lemons* 

cindy is a mood

marnie’s relationship with her mom is a mood

*flirts with showing a guy my grandmother’s room*

why did they link the town with a giant decoration thats in the center of town? who thought this was a good idea

a spell that turns you to a normie is kinda scary

why is he so monotone?

was merlin a cromwell

dylan doesnt know what a amphibian is? out of character

elevator music fitting yet jarring

i wonderif there are any matching socks just by sheer probability

hackers? offline? update? whats with the intentional computer references

WHAT ARE you doing in my swamp

baby cockroach

its a plot block but what about aggies friend (glorck?) sats he’d sell his junk

cindy is no longer a mood

marnie darling he clearly is in emotional distress whyare you playing around

instead of playing cool gwen decides to openly shout at her daugther to not do magic

oh god its a family of science nerds

the magic of french

why are they counting down til midnight for halloween

“you can do it”, yeah thats well established why was she doubting herself at all

maybe you could use another spell to hellp your mother idk two witches and a warlock seems like you could brain storm a bit

IM reALLY THiRSTY

are warlocks/witches/sorcerers/etc considered human they are the most human looking

what! are! the! rules! of! magic! 

why is kal just chillin that spell didn’t turn ALL humans

lemme just glow real quick

...why did they explain it this way.

why did dylan decide to use magic during his 13th birthday if he didnt want magic 

nice credits song

Halloweentown High

Knights??? Aggie made it sound like they chose to do it out of choice why didn’t Marnie know about them, why wasn't Aggie 

what is the counsel?

are they a clan or a coven?

why does everybody have the hots for the mom?

Marnie is at level one but has bent space and time before??

Aggie is Ms. Frizzle

I forgot that Ryan from HSM was in the Movie omg als o is that Chelsea?

what happened to the cloth bag

CANADA

2! red berets!!

Small school but its larger than my large school

Is chemistry different for witches??

SCIENCE 101

imagine having your first day of school having a strange teavher who makes a parrot and then gets chided by a student as if the student is in charge

I think marnie actually just wants to experience life in Halloweentown seeign as she has no plans to introduce humans to halloweentown

where are the Head phones

marnie you narcissist

I remember this scene! (marnie hitting the bag)

Aggie x DiVinci is my new otp

oh? what is the legality of catching a ball with your mouth

considering women couldnt be actors and plays were signs of indecency Aggie was an absolute legend. 

(trans aggie???? :))

Aggie x Divinci x Shakespeare

yells secret stuff out in a busy mall

whys this dude where chainmail at the mall if this was 2020 id see it but...

matching black and white stripes

so im confusion about what constitutes as human

Marnie’s room in a whole different section of the house than the last movie

does ever school have the same hallway tile

hes ugly in two worlds lol mood

a witches training ends at 13 so really why is cassie going to marnie she knows so much more than marnie

there is no way this gym is that quiet

WHAT CONSTITUTES AS HUMAN

this is legit trying to be Sabrina the Teenage Witch which is weird because they were own by the same company at the time

And the twist is...unsurprising

the mirror has a popsocket

how? did? a? child? lose? an? ear? in? Gym? 

i dont understand why people hated the walk through if people watch those walk through doll villages during Christmas and like then theyll like the Halloween version

theres just a spell to take magic? and he can just take it without any witnesses?

He steals aggie’s and marnie’s but not sophie’s, Dylan’s or mom’s thats not very smart

fucking food boy has magic, not cromwell magic but hes got it and has been done with his trainng for at least 3 years why doesnt he use it

how can you use a spell with no magic 

[nerdypixel]

Okay so I want to add to some of the points I raised and to shine a light on some of the things my friends said about the matter, just to make this more complete.

First the lovely @melandrops raised the point, that fandom in general is somewhat sexist.

She also rephrased some of my points like this (which I think is excellent):

a) while the women in tma play an obvious role in the story, most women's role in the story is as a narrative foil, specifically to jon (ie gertrude, melanie, agnes). this isnt a bad thing, it just is a thing. the men in the show play a much more central part in the story, and it's no wonder that jonmartin gets the focus, they're one of two canonic relationships in the story and theirs is a 200 length romantic tragedy. obviously people will lean more into that the melanie/georgie (no offense) (this is basically what you said pixel)

b) if we're talking about sexism as a fandom, let's look at the tmagp fandom which is the same fandom different font. there, the focus is all on our women blorbos, our girlfails and our disastrous lesbians. if the tma fandom is that sexist, you would think all of us would be posting discourse about why gwen and lena and alice are all terrible people

And I'd like to add some points:

most women's role in the story is as a narrative foil, specifically to jon

This is, because Jon is the main character. He is the focus of the story as a whole and everything evolves around him in some way or another. It's a common tactic in storytelling to let side characters further the development and character arc of the protagonist. Jon is shaped through his interactions with everyone. And some characters, like Gertrude, move the story without even being alive. All of Jons problems are influenced in some way by stuff she did and that definitely gets acknowleged in fandom. As well as Annabelles spooky Web shit.

If the tma fandom is that sexist, you would think all of us would be posting discourse about why gwen and lena and alice are all terrible people

This is an excellent point. All I've seen so far was overwhelming love for all the women in tmagp.

And to quote @vickozone "Do you know how many lesbians alone listening to Archives? ......... It's just LESBIANS".

Lesbians who might still love to read or write gay little love stories about the main characters in tma and that's okay

To quote @murderandcoffee "fan fiction is DOMINATED by people who write m/m ships! that’s just how it is! but if you look a fanart, you see a lot more pieces dedicated to a much wider array of characters. tma itself focuses on male characters more. tmagp is focusing more on female characters. there is GOING to be an imbalance of what the fandom writes and draws because of the imbalance in the text itself!"

And I mus say, I noticed this in myself. Now to be clear, I am bi as fuck. I love both women and men. My first fandom experiences and writing attempts were mlm though, so I have far more experience writing those. Now going into tmagp, I'm experimenting with flf stuff for the first time, both in art and writing. I'm not as interested in the potential gay ships tmagp has, (even if I love the idea of samicolin) when we have Dyhard and Gwen/Lena and Lena/Alice and Alice/Celia and heck even Gwen/Celia.

The Magnus Protocol gives us much more potential for awesome lesbian ships that can take the stagelight and comand the story.

Now to one point that bugs me a lot about the original post.

"Having a preference towards men is sexism plain and simple"

No it's not. That's just a bullshit statement. Having a preference towards any gender is just that. A preference. Sexism is, when you make your preference everybody elses problem.

Example:

"I prefer men." - Not sexist.

"I prefer tall people." - just a preference as well.

"I prefer men, that's why I think all women are worthless." - Sexist.

"I prefer tall people, so all small people should be deeply inconvienced in every day life." - deeply problematic.

And... Statistics....

I had some fun with the filters on Ao3 and just took a look, what happens, if you exclude all Jon x Martin fanfic.

There are about 11.100 of those. That would leave you with roughly 16000 fanfic without them as the main couple or focus.

So a little over half the fanfiction in the tma fandom is about other characters than the main couple.

The other popular ships are focused on the weird Elias/Peter and Elias/Jon relationship dynamics and at fourth place come Melanie/Georgie

You also have to consider that the statistics are screwed because not all characters get tagged in every story they show up. They might be there, but only mentioned briefly or only have a minor role in the story. There might be a sideplot with another ship that doesn't get tagged to not get people confused about the focus of the story. There might be other factors at play entirely. Pointing at a main ship, comparing it with a relationship between sidecharacters and expecting the same amount of engagement is just not realistic.

And all of that is not considering the extremely engaged and dedicated small fangroups of specific Avatars and Sidecharacters that don't even get mentioned in the filters. I've seen a lot of Gertrude x Agnes fanart here on tumblr. I've seen people dedicate entire blogs to Jane Prentiss, my beloved worm wife. I know there are people super excited about Karolina Gorka.

Making generalized statements about an entire fandom is just not fair and I will end my post on this note. Have a nice day.

Ok putting serious thought into this

SEXISM IN THE TMA FANDOM

[pt: sexism in the tma fandom]

There are a lot of female characters in tma, all very complex. Yet they dont get a lot of attention in the fandom, which I am going over

Ao3 is a good for this actually. This is the tma tag without any filter

The top character tag consists of 6 male characters and 4 female characters, with sasha barely being in the top 5. Hell GERARD KEAY a character who had a speaking role in ONE EPISODE has more fics than daisy, a character whos been in a large large amount of episodes. Georgie, someone who was in the majority of season 3 and parts of season 4 and 5, isnt even in the top 10

Along with that the top 10 male characters that have been tagged on fics a total of 51041 times, with top 10 female characters at only a mere 12199 times. The difference between those is 38842

The top ships tags has mlm at 15588 fics tagged as such with wlm ships being at 1830. That is a difference of 13728 fics.

And lets check tumblr

Here are 4 female characters in tma and their follower tags on tumblr

See thats all good now lets look at them men!

oh. well then

Shipping is not much better:

Jonmartin is so much more popular than wtgfs. And before someone says 'Well wtgfs dont get much in canon' there should be some people who actually acknowledge them

A more clear example is pitting Helen and Michael against eachother. Helen undeniably has more screentime, while Michael has around 4 episodes total? So lets see the results

And as expected it is again, much higher in the male category regardless of how much screentime he actually gets

Lets do another one, a male character that is barely in the series vs a female character that is in the series a lot

And theres so so much more, such as how all the women get demonized while the men get praised, Im just pointing out the clear unavoidable facts

So all in all even if the women DO get attention they still are horrifically overshadowed by the men. Hope you all had fun, please fix this the girls dont deserve it

Also I swear if one person goes 'The men are just more interesting' or 'I just have a preference theres nothing wrong with that' you are entirely missing the point. Having a preference towards men is sexism plain and simple, look at yourself and fix it

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Amazing Mary Jane #1 Thoughts

Apologies for not getting to this, or indeed other of the recent comics sooner. I’ve felt unwell recently and had computer troubles which conspired to delay my reading and writing up about this.

As such this is possibly going to not be as nitty gritty as I maybe usually would do as I’m going off memories a bit.

TL:DR version is, it’s good with one, albeit notable, flaw.

And Hell let me get that out of the way immediately.

Why...isn’t Mary Jane informing Peter that she’s working alongside a bunch of criminals?

Now look...I’m willing to give the story and Leah Williams the benefit of the doubt. MAYBE Mary Jane is playing a long game here or something. But if she’s not...I mean...that’s kind of a big problem with the story isn’t it?

MJ is allowing actual criminals, including Mysterio, to roam free. Worse she’s arguably doing that because she wants to make the movie and have it be a success but...isn’t that rather irresponsible and selfish, to say nothing of dangerous to herself. Of course MJ is a bad ass and can handle herself. But she is literally surrounded by criminals including a guy who Spidey usually only beats because he has a magical danger sense to help him out. Unless she engages in some Batman levels of cunning she wouldn’t realistically survive this situation.

Now again MAYBE there is something more going on, I very much hope so and am waiting eagerly to see that, but if there isn’t it’s going to be a huge thing working against this series quality.

However apart from that literally everything else was firing on all cylinders.

It’s difficult to do anything other than gush.

First of all the artwork is fantastic. It’s like if Todd Nauch and Ramos had a kid and it looked stylized like Ramos but also how people should look like Nauck.

The characterization, exempting the one thing I spoke about, was also very much on point. I can’t recall Mysterio and MJ ever interacting much (if ever) before but the idea practically writes itself, it’s such a natural pairing!

The gag about being insured was great and clearly drawn from Leah Williams past experience in that business, I hope we get more of that.

MJ herself is presented very well. She’s confident, she’s serious, she’s determined, but also fun, upbeat and has dashes of goofiness and flirtation (with Peter I mean).

So far, so good Williams seems to have a strong grasp on her character (again sans that ONE problem I noted).

I especially liked how Mysterio wasn’t a typical thuggish villain like you’d imagine Scorpion or Electro being. For instance rather than make inappropriate remarks regarding MJ as the likes of Crusher Creel might do, he actually gets angry at the idea that she used sex to get her part. But here is the nuance in Williams writing. Because whilst it’d be typical to make Mysterio a thuggish villain like Rhino or Sandman or Electro, in it’s own way it also would’ve been typical to have made him a pseudo chivalrous villain who doesn’t tolerate sexism. Instead she sets that up but then veers to the side as Mysterio is actually angry at the idea that HE could be manipulated by sex (or ‘womanly wiles’ as he puts it) thus making Mysterio atypical but still most definitely a villain.

  The idea of Mysterio as the ‘artiste’ of the Spidey rogues has been milked very effectively starting with Spencer’s run and the idea that he and MJ could honestly connect through their passion for their art is a great bit of character writing. It tells us a little about who Mysterio is whilst also demonstrating MJ’s own social skills. Peter and Mysterio could never get along this way, and I know that because they started to in Webspinners #1 (which Mysterio’s movie is based upon btw) but the conversation got awkward and they walked away from one another.

Other stuff I liked was the subversion of expectations. I walked into this believing the plot would likely be that about us readers fearing for MJ as she didn’t realize who she was working for and thus how much danger she was in. But Williams simply had MJ figure that out almost immediately and now, besides the Savage Six, we don’t know where things are going to go and that’s a good thing.

By the way, isn’t it great that this is a story where yes MJ’s association with Spider-Man has led MJ into working with one of his enemies and arguably being exposed to danger from him, but she herself deduces that, then chooses to continue taking that risk and isn’t bothered by it? The real danger is coming from Mysterio’s enemies not Peter’s (okay they are technically Peter’s enemies too but you see what I mean). Literally just 2 years ago this would’ve been fuel for the ‘see they can’t be together because it’s too dangerous for her’ jackasses like Slott.

Now it should go without saying (but I will say it anyway) that the PeterxMJ scenes were delightful.

For a split second was thinking phone sex isn’t really in character for Spider-Man. But then I thought you know...MJ has in the past had the effect of loosening him up (see every kinky 90s thing artists did with them) and you could arguably say they were being somewhat ironic anyway. Of course the shipper in me liked it all the same. As I did with the 20 second dance party which I suspect will be trotted out many times in years to come within the MJ fan community. Appropriately it was referenced in the same scene as her crowing moment of awesome, the Chameleon (who appeared in ASM the same day) baseball bat incident. Williams knows her shit it seems!

Now there is one other thing I feel I should talk about.

There was a rather lengthy scene regarding the writing of MJ’s character that was clearly intended to be meta commentary upon the portrayal of female characters.

The question is what specifically was Williams passing commentary on?

How Mary Jane has usually been written?

How she has usually been written until this solo book of her’s?

How women in comics are usually written?

Or how women in films/comic book movies are portrayed?

I’m not sure. I think if it’s options 1 or 2 that’s rather unfair and not really looking at the nuance of the character.

But to be honest looking at this book and Williams’ own comments regarding MJ in interviews prior to this book’s release I don’t buy that. Williams’ comments combined with some of the deepcut continuity she references here doesn’t paint her as someone who thinks MJ is underdeveloped or who’s only purpose in the story is to serve Spider-Man’s story. Indeed any MJ fan worth their salt is aware that part of what made MJ successful and popular to begin with in the 1960s was that she precisely DIDN’T do that.

As such I think options 3 or much more pressingly option 4 is what Williams is commenting upon.

The condensed nature of comic book films mean that it’s a rarity for characters beyond the lead or the villains to get much of their own stories to play out. This is certainly the case with Michelle in the MCU Spider-Man movies and Emma Stone in the Webb movies. But curiously less the case with Dunst’s Mary Jane.

Let’s also consider that this story was promoted as talking about the movie business, something Williams has insider knowledge of and thus it makes sense she’s commenting upon and satirizing that as opposed to comic books (hence we got that insurance gag early on).

In a sense you could say she’s using Mary Jane as a (logical and entirely in character) mouthpiece to comment upon how female characters in movies like Mysterio’s are more like Gwen Stacy but should be more like her, Mary Jane.

Although I must admit the dialogue where they talk about her character int he movie lacking powers and such did confuse me. I didn’t get that.

So over all...yeah...this was great. Again there is one notable problem I hope gets addressed before everything is said and done but in every other way this thing is scoring touchdowns all the way.

Buy it!

Buy 2 copies!

Buy 2 copies and some variants, then get the digital edition and pre-order the trade!

P.S. Thanks to this new comic I learned a new word! Ingenue, gotta find a way to slip that into conversation some time.

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review... Gwen Rowley, “Knights of the Round Table: Gawain”

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: fantasy romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Knights of the Round Table #3 (of 3)

Summary: Loyal Sir Gawain pledges to marry a hideous crone in exchange for the answer to a riddle that will save King Arthur's life. But the loathly lady is actually the lovely Aislyn, former sorceress, in disguise, who is out to make Gawain pay for rejecting her in the past. Then Aislyn finds herself enchanted by the gallant knight.

***Full review under the cut.***

Overview: I’m currently reading a bunch of romance novels with a friend of mine as a way of getting more familiar with the genre, and I remember seeing this book recommended by another medieval enthusiast, so the two of us decided to give it a whirl. While the idea of retelling the story of Gawain and Ragnelle isn’t inherently a bad one, I felt like this book missed the mark in so many ways. There were some saving graces; the relationship between Arthur and Gawain was very well done, in my opinion. It just wasn’t enough to make up for the things that bothered me.

Trigger Warnings: violence, misogyny, rape

Writing: Rowley writes with a fairly straightforward prose style, but one that tells a lot rather than shows. It wasn’t the most irritating style I’ve encountered; it just made the book more skimmable, which I guess could be a good thing if you’re a reader who likes to get through books quickly. Some of the dialogue was humorous (by design), which made for a more light-hearted reading experience; it did feel very modern than what I would expect of medieval characters, aside from a few stray “yons” and “lemans” thrown in to make it feel more archaic. Honestly, I preferred the more modern style rather than the fake medieval-speak, since the medievalisms made the dialogue feel more wooden than natural. But overall, the I didn’t find the style unbearable - it just wasn’t interesting. The major flaw in the writing, for me, was the random insertion of characters’ memories and flashbacks. They occurred at random moments that interrupted the flow of the story - they sometimes interrupted a sentence that continued on after the memory was over! I would have preferred flashbacks be handled more deliberately, not thrown in whenever something in the plot vaguely reminded a character of something from their past.

Plot: As I mentioned above, the idea of retelling the story of Gawain and Ragnelle isn’t a bad one. I love authors who try to rework medieval tales to give women more agency and character. Unfortunately, Rowley decided to do so in a way that cut out a lot of the most interesting stuff from the original tale. We start with the end of the story, when Aislyn, disguised as a crone named Ragnelle, agrees to give Arthur the answer to his quest in exchange for Gawain’s hand in marriage. Rather than the curse being inflicted on her before the marriage, as it is in the medieval tale, the curse is inflicted after, when a character is trying to punish Aislyn for messing with Gawain (in the form of her using her crone form to torture him for a past slight). For me, this killed all the excitement and shifted the focus away from the original message of the tale (about female agency and sexual dynamics) to one about how love can overcome barriers. It would have been a good shift, but I didn’t get the sense that love was overcoming barriers by the end of the book - Gawain doesn’t seem to actually learn the lesson from the original tale, and Aislyn mostly struggles with whether or not to be obedient to Gawain. While I can understand wanting to make female characters more agentive from the beginning, I found this book’s reworking of the plot less interesting than the original medieval tale. The change in focus also made the plot drag a little bit. In the first 80 pages, all of the focus was on Gawain’s disgust at Ragnelle’s form or Aislyn’s/Ragnelle’s desire for revenge. We follow Gawain and Ragnelle as they explore married life, which isn’t as exciting as it sounds since Gawain is forever struggling with Ragnelle’s ugliness and Ragnelle/Aisling is always looking for ways to torment him. After Aislyn is formally cursed on pages 85-86, the plot has a goal, but nothing in the structure of the narrative seems to work towards that goal in a very efficient way. Events don’t seem to build on one another, so the plot didn’t feel like it had shape. There are also a few events that seem to be inserted to show conflict between Gawain and Lancelot, and some that showcase Gawain’s anguish over his past. While some of these things bring Ragnelle and Gawain closer together, the conflict with Lancelot and Gawain’s emotional pain definitely overshadowed the moments of tenderness between the characters. What I disliked the most, however, was that everyone - main characters and side characters alike - seemed to be in petty conflict with one another. There’s obvious tension between Gawain and Lancelot, and Aislyn’s inner thoughts about Guinevere and the other ladies of the court disappointed me (why can’t we have more medievaly stories in which women band together, I ask). Aside from these conflicts, everyone got on my nerves for treating Ragnelle as subhuman. While their treatment of her could have been the moral lesson of the book, it didn’t come through consistently; I did get the sense that the book was supposed to showcase how Camelot isn’t the paradise it is made out to be, but a lot of the mistreatment felt like drama or humor rather than a teaching tool. I did like, however, that Ragnelle’s purpose seemed to change so that she was at the center of a lot of conflicts between men - in this way, I think she exposed a lot of the underlying problems in a male homosocial society. However, as much as she pointed to a lot of the problems, she also perpetuated them.

Characters: I had an extremely hard time liking either Aislyn or Gawain for a large portion of this book. Aislyn, our heroine, is constantly thinking ill of other women or thinking herself better than them, except in incidents. She’s out for revenge, and while I get that being left by a man you loved is devastating, I personally find seeking revenge for that a little petty, especially when you can just use your words and clear up any misconceptions. She got better as the book progressed, standing up for other women and calling out injustice, but I still had a hard time with her, since she seemed to waver between being a strong-willed character and being a bully. Gawain, despite being one of the best knights in Arthurian lore, starts out as kind of a sexist jerk with a lot of emotional turmoil from his past. His sense of honor was admirable, and I want to make clear that I do think that aspect of him was well done, but he was so angsty that his main purpose was to be a wet blanket for most of the book. I also wasn’t wholly convinced he had changed in his ways by the end of the book. The villains of the piece weren’t even that interesting. Morgause is completely one-dimensional: a power-hungry seductress whose motives aren’t exactly clear and, based on her actions, poses next to no real threat to anyone. Somer Gromer Jour (or Launfal), Aislyn’s brother, could have been interesting if Morgause herself wasn’t so over-the-top and Launfal had more of a purpose other than to be Morgause’s victim. Lancelot and Guinevere are also turned into antagonists by the way they blatantly disrespect not only Ragnelle, but other knights of the Round Table. It was kind of a mess. But despite all that, I did like the relationship between Arthur and Gawain. They had some nice exchanges that showed how complex their dynamic was, with Arthur being both Gawain’s king and uncle. Gawain and Ragnelle also had some nice moments where they were honest with one another, and those bits were well done.

Other Romance: I honestly didn’t see much romantic chemistry between Aislyn and Gawain, perhaps because Aislyn was so antagonistic towards him for so long. Don’t get me wrong - I’m a fan of enemies-to-lovers tropes, but this novel didn’t really feel like it was really getting to the heart of the angst and pain between the characters and working on unraveling it. Instead, the conflict was easily cleared up by just talking (even if the characters didn’t act on it for a long time). Instead, their relationship felt more platonic, which wouldn’t be a problem if this book was marketed as a genre other than romance. Misogyny: I understand that a lot of authors writing about the Middle Ages will embed some sexism in their books, but I am still irritated when I see it. Rowley has Gawain start out as holding very misogynistic views, despite his medieval counterpart being one of the most courteous knights to women (and even in the book, Gawain wavers back and forth). The book also makes use of various tropes which  I dislike: Morgause is a seductress who (I think) rapes Launfal regularly, characters use words like “bitch” and “slut,” a male character views his wife as worthless for not bearing a son, etc. Poor Guinevere couldn’t catch a break since she was being portrayed as a cheating harlot the whole time, and Morgana popped in for all of 10 seconds to serve her part in the plot before moving on. Rowley also writes an episode where the Saxons blame the women for the peaceweaver system failing, which was utterly baffling to me. And Gawain still seems to hold his view that a wife should be obedient to her husband until the very last second - around page 307 of the book.

Moving on to Other Books in the Series? No.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re a romance reader or interested in Arthurian retellings.

[badscienceman]

One lovely beta has agreed to read, but I could use another if anyone is willing. Here’s some more details for anyone interested:

Moonstruck is a fic which focuses on Wade’s experience with mental and physical illness, including ableism, chronic pain, and how it all shapes his mental state and life; Wade and Peter’s dynamic as strangers who end up getting thrown together despite being set up to be enemies; and the Marvel universe when mixed with some Lovecraftian horror.

Main pairing: Peter Parker / Wade Wilson

Genres: Erotica, Horror, Romance

Warnings: drug use, graphic depictions of violence and sexual content, Hydra/Nazis, mental illness and trauma, mentions of past sexual assault, mentions of war, past abuse mentions, past character death, temporary character death

Summary: Peter is perhaps Wade’s only hope at getting what he wants, and Wade’s going to make this happen even if it means pissing off Hydra, going down south, giving up five mil, and being chased around by a god or two. It doesn’t hurt that Peter turns out to be a total babe.

If you’re interested in giving it a read, I would be forever grateful! I’m willing to repay through writing stuff for anyone up for the task or beta reading in return. It’s okay if you’ve not beta read before or anything like that, just having some people to give feedback and catch any places where things don’t flow well, make sense, etc. would be great! Feel free to contact me (through dms, asks, the notes of this, wherever) if you have any questions or concerns.

The fic is currently 30+k words. It’s not done. If you agree to beta, I’ll ask you to read through the first chapter, which is about 9.5k words. I will not expect anyone to go through all 30k or the rest of the fic unless they want to. I’m doing it this way because feedback is liable to change the way I write, manage, etc. the rest of the fic.

Some more specifics on the warnings and other pairings mentioned under the cut.

Mentioned Pairings: Bucky Barnes / Steve Rogers, Loki / Tony Stark, Death / Wade Wilson, Past Wade Wilson / Vanessa Carlysle, Past Peter Parker / Mary Jane Watson, Past Peter Parker / Gwen Stacy

Warnings: ableism (Wade’s internalized ableism and his mistreatment by others), cosmic / Lovecraftian horror elements (eldritch entities; breaking down the xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. characteristic of Lovecraftian horror rather than relying on it), drug use (both for medical reasons and recreational use), graphic depictions of violence and sexual content (pretty canon typical for Deadpool; mutilation, torture), Hydra/Nazis (mentions of ethnic cleansing, eugenics, etc.), mental illness and trauma (PTSD, dissociation), mentions of past sexual assault (specifically of the incident with Typhoid Mary), mentions of war (specifically Wade’s time in the military), past abuse mentions (Wade as a child and in past romantic relationships), past character death (Gwen Stacy and Vanessa Carlysle), temporary character death (Deadpool)

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Part 1

I fucking hate the comicscube at the best of times. Quite apart from honestly arguing (even before OMD) that in altering time Peter never made the deal and therefore was absolved of it, they consistently publish bullshit like this.

Strap in.

“It’s pretty obvious at this point that the marriage between Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson was an abject failure. In the over 50 years of Spider-Man’s existence, his comics have been some of the most consistently entertaining in all of the medium, except for the nearly 20 year span when he was married. If you look at the list of his most beloved storylines, almost all occur before or after the marriage years, with a few exceptions. That cannot be a coincidence.”

 Wow they don’t even try to hide their bias.

 It’s pretty obvious that the marriage was an abject failure.

 That marriage that lasted 20 years, needs to be teased as returning to spike sales, got it’s own universe in Marvel’s biggest ever event comic, was the most successful story during said event outside of the main book and got it’s own spin-off series off the back of that that’s outlasted similar efforts and gotten consistent critical acclaim.

 Yeah...abject failure. I hope these guys used protection whilst they were bending over for Marvel.

 Let’s break this first paragraph down.

 Could it be that lists of his most beloved stories contain less stories from during the marriage due to:

 -          Sexism directed at the marriage due to Mary Jane’s presence within it (MJ is a historical target for sexism within fandom and marvel offices) as well as the desire to have Spidey be ‘a swinging single’ (which he rarely was before the marriage but whatever)

 -          A consistently pushed narrative that reinforces an anti-marriage stance upon people before they ever even pick up a storyline from when he was married. This also applies to the Clone Saga which isn’t a story so much as it is an era and within that era contains multiple very strong stories

  -          Compilers of list typically being comic book news sites which have vested financial interests in siding with the companies narratives AND supporting their most recent content meaning there is undue bias and praise given to recent works regardless of whether it’s warranted?

 -          Half the marriage occurring in the 1990s when there was WIDESPREAD creative problems within the comic book industry which included a prioritization of gimmicks, style over substance and quantity over quality. The last one was a big problem for Spider-Man who had to support a minimum of FOUR monthly titles, each coming out a week after another and typically telling individual stories, for most of the decade. This was toxic overexposure for the character AND all characters within the narrative compromising over all quality and it was a problem MOST characters suffered from.

 Or you know maybe Spider-Man being married was the reason a lot of 90s X-men and 90s Teen Titans and most of 90s Image comics had serious quality problems too?

  But hey let’s move on to other parts of this opening...er...lie. Yeah. Lie is a good word.

 Spider-Man comics have been consistently entertaining except for the 20 years when he was married.

 I’m not mathematician but if 20 out of 55 years was allegedly unentertaining that means over 36% of your content was NOT entertaining, well over one quarter.

 So this piece of shit article is already shooting itself in the foot. If 36+% of unentertaining content is NOT entertaining then your series is by definition NOT consistently entertaining jackass.

 Now obviously we all know the allegation that there is 20 straight years of crap in Spider-Man is an outright lie but let’s dive deeper into that notion.

 Consistently entertaining?

  Lol...no.

 I love and adore Spider-Man but I’m not blind to when the seires was bad.

  Fact is after the Master Planner Saga the iconic Lee/Ditko run was not that great. Better than most stuff today sure and interesting historically but as stories unto themselves they pale in comparison to what came before and were angry and even pessimistic.

  This is why in the very first Romita era Spider-Man issue (ASM #39) we opened up with everyone being hooked on happy pills (sans Jameson because he’s beyond medication) and everyone is playing nice with one another.

 Lee and Romita did some great stories but not too long after Peter and Gwen became a couple in earnest the series’ quality began again to flag mostly due to Stan Lee probably writing it for a bit too long.

 There were some exceptions of course but it’s really, really obvious that by and large the second half of Stan’s run with Romita (or even his run over all) isn’t in the same league as what he was doing in the first half.

 And frankly Amazing Spider-Man #100-110 is pretty consistently mediocre or forgettable, especially when Roy Thomas was ripping off King Kong for some reason. Hell I’ll say it, Amazing Spider-Man #100 is straight up bad. It’s a clipshow, within a dream sequence repetitive of OTHER dream sequences we’ve seen in the series culminating in something dumb as fuck in the form of Spidey having six arms.

 We then get Conway’s run which is again forgettable until Gwen dies and then it gets interesting. But not really in so far as the superhero action. No, most of Conway’s 1970s superheroics tended to also be lame or mediocre barring some exceptions. However the personal life stuff which constituted less than half of each issue was better than it had been in years.

 We then got Len Wein’s run. Again, some exceptions not withstanding this is a run mostly remembered for bring back Harry, hooking him up with Liz and introducing a new Green Goblin who lasted five minutes.

 Parts of it are bad but mostly it’s just aggressively average but nowhere near the heights of the series past.

 Spectacular began during this run and the issues were a mess of uneven quality for a long time.

 Wolfman took over from Wein and whilst his stories were more exciting due to actually having more momentum they were flawed and regressive for various characters with a clear cut agenda and reductive idea of Spider-Man. Again some GREAT stuff but not what you would call consistent...not when he was chasing the disco era so much. Bill Mantlo in Spec was maybe doing more consistent and lower key work at that time.

 Then Denny O’Neil showed up and presented us with absolutely nothing of value whatsoever for a few years.

 This was the first ever time Spider-Man had an overall run that was honestly bad and it was the early 1980s.

 We got our asses saved by Roger Stern who, his issues writing women aside, gave us many classic stories as did Mantlo in Spec. However we then began the long painful ride in Spectacular of seeing Felicia’s character get dragged through the mud by mantle and then Jim Mooney. Not all bad but that’s just my point...not consistent.

 Now when DeFalco was handling ASm and Peter David was handling Spec that was consistently awesome....so long as you don’t count the utter mess that was Web of Spider-Man. Oops...it does count. Still 2 outta 3 good books ain’t bad I suppose.

 Oh but now we come to the real evil don’t we.

 The marriage.

 Mmmmmhmmmm this begins the horrible 20 year long train to OMD marked by wall to wall garbage right.

 Well...not exactly because we open with Kraven’s Last Hunt.

 What’s that?

 One of the most highly regarded Spider-Man stories of all times that on occasion tops the charts for greatest Spider-Man stories of all time occurring DURING the marriage?

 Impossible!

 It must be a fluke.

 It’s not like it heavily relied upon the marriage as part of the status quo to tell it’s story and provide emotional payoffs or anything...oh wait...yes it did and the creator 100% confirmed this.

 Ah but after this though we have the real garbage don’t we. We have the Michelinie run on Spider-Man that opens with...oh...the debut of the unquestionably most popular and famous Spider-Man of all time who fills a role within Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery that had never been occupied before: the evil counterpart to the hero.

 Huh?

 Insane.

 Another fluke.

 I mean what else do we have in this run?

 Oh, Peter Parker growing and maturing as a person precisely because he is now navigating life as a newly wed and acting competently in his crime fighting duties. And MJ also growing as a person, including trying to balance her career with Peter’s. The pair of them going through a new take on ‘Spider-Man has cash problems’ and a solid subversion of the damsel in distress trope.

 Well I guess someone can have multiple flukes in a row what else did the early Michelinie issues really accomplish besides all that...and the second Venom story...that is regarded as the best Venom story ever...and is often put among the best Spidey stories of all time even by the anit-marriage Wizard magazine.

 Er....how about those other books though right! Spec and Web must still suck a lot by this point in time.

 They sure do. After Peter David writes a powerful sequel to his iconic Death of Jean DeWolff storyline Gerry Conway takes over both Spec and Web and creates another long lasting villain in the form of Tombstone, gives character development to a beloved, classic POC supporting character in the form of Joe Robertson and generally explores the supporting cast a lot.

 THEN we have a fun crossover between all the books where Spider-Man fights opponents usually out of his league because he has cosmic powers and so we ask questions about how Peter should use these new immense powers responsibly cutting to the heart of the series.

 Awwwwww crap. It looks like these early marriage stories have turned out to have failed our ’20 years of unentertaining garbage’ test.

 But the 90s are here now and we all know there was NOTHING worthwhile published during that time period.

 The debut of Carnage.

 The Harry Osborn Saga by the guy who wrote Kraven’s Last Hunt and in fact his entire run on Spectacular Spider-Man.

 Amazing Spider-Man #400

 The Lost Years

 Final Adventure.

  Spidey’s tie ins to Onslaught.

  Redemption.

  Revelations.

 Citizen Osborn also by the guy who did KLH and in fact his SECOND entire run on Spectacular.

 Identity Crisis

 Freefall

 Yep NOTHING redeemable whatsoever.

  EVERYTHING in the 90s was melting clones or Mackie/Byrne/Kavanagh nonsense.

 Everything.

 Okay maybe not EVERYTHING...or like...most of it...but A LOT of it really did suck you guys so that’s kinda sorta maybe like saying EVERYTHING in the 90s was unentertaining.

 Just like how every story before OMD in the 2000s when PSidey was married wasn’t entertaining.

 Remember that first Morlun arc with one of the best new jobs and battles for Spidey ever and the unquestionably most noteworthy new villain for him since Carnage in 1992?

 Unentertaining!

 Remember that poignant 9/11 issue?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember that conversation where Aunt May learned his secret identity finally?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember that airport conversation where Peter and MJ reconnected?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember the arc after that which organically and slowly got them back to being intimate in a believable way?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember the critically acclaimed first 12 issues of Marvel Knights that spiderfan.org declared to be more the main book than ASM?

 Unentertaining!

 Remember everyone waxing lyrical about Spidey joining the Avengers and unmasking in Civil War.

 Well apparently they were mostly lying about that.

 Remember the 100% BEST Black Cat story of all time by Sacasa in Sensational Spider-Man?

 Unentertaining!

 Remember Back in Black, the story where Spider-Man finally beat Kingpin in a satisfying manner?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember that Matt Fraction annual entirely about the marriage that was nominated for an Eisner award, an honour never before or since bestowed upon any Spider-Man story at all?

 Unentertaining!

 Ah well now we’re through the woods into the nirvana of post-OMD Spider-Man we’ve truly reached the pinnacle of Spider-Man quality haven’t we.

 Like these five separate stories that feature, threaten or heavily imply rape!

 Or this story about Spider-Man and Black Cat acting out of character horny teenagers.

 Or THIS story about the Lizard’s entire character being eviscerated!

 Oooooooh lookee here Spider-Man has a one night stand with a sexist AND racist ‘hot Latina’ stereotype of a character who then goes on to break the law by destroying his property and committing physical assault despite apparently being a lawyer.

 And hey hey, what a treat a SEQUEL to the worst Spider-Man story of all time that, wait, wait YES, it actually manages to be WORSE than the original story AND make the original story seem worse in hindsight too!

 How lucky we were back then.

 But the good times haven’t stopped.

 Since we’ve been blessed with Dan Slott’s writing we’ve been treated too:

 Amazing Spider-Man consistently treated like it’s Marvel Team Up complete with guest stars or characters who aren’t Peter Parker taking centre stage very frequently

 31 issues worth of Doctor octopus as the lead character instead of Spider-Man

 A modern version of Maximum Carnage except instead of the visually interesting villains of Carnage and Shriek going on a street level killing spree it’s the visually dull Morlun and his variant action figure family going bullshit magical crap that has little-no place in Spider-Man...while they kill beloved characters for shock value.

  Spider-Man acting like a manchild as he is also turned into a rip-off of Iron Man instead of anything resembling Spider-Man!

  Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

 How ‘consistently entertaining’.

  And by entertaining I mean KILL IT WITH FIRE!

 Huh, wait a tick....it’s almost like the quality of Spider-Man’s stories have actually NOT been all that consistent in terms of their quality and that during those 20 marriage years there were more than a few good stories, some of which HAVE made it into countdown lists of the best Spider-Man stories.

 But what do I know.

 I’m just someone who’s worked on literal comic book info books, knows Spider-Man lore fairly deeply, has read a lot of this stuff and can maybe consider not oversimplifying something into a lazy conclusion like ‘no marriage stories exist in this list because obviously the marriage sucked’.

  “But how could something as relatively minor (in a fictional sense) as a relationship status be such a detriment to entertaining comics?”

 Because narrow minded jackasses like this author kept trying to get rid of it under false pretenses and wound up facilitating some of the worst stories ever.

 The worst parts of the Clone Saga?

 The Mackie Byrne reboot.

 OMD.

 Everything post-OMD.

  These are literally the worst of the worst Spider-Man stories and all of them have involved trying to either deep six the marriage or make Spider-Man work after the fact.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

This going to sound harsher than I mean it to but...I think there is a certain subset (and I really do think it is a subset and NOT the majority, far from it) of female fans who are in their own way as guilty in regards to Peter’s character as they are of what a subset (albeit a way more vocal and currently in charge subset) of male fans are guilty of in regards to MJ’s character.

  They are very quick to throw the shade at the character (even throw him under a bus at times) without either properly contextualizing the specifics of a situation they are talking about or else not bothering to place themselves in his shoes and try to imagine realistically how me might feel.

  Or else they simply don’t try to ask “Okay Spider-Man is doing this thing that seemingly makes him look bad. Let me consider if there is a believable enough justification for his actions before I commit to condemning the character.”

  On tumblr I’ve seen that more and more among some posters in particular female ones (far from all of them though, like I said I believe them to be a minority) who clearly do LIKE Spider-Man, both as a series and as a character, nevertheless throw out shade along the lines of:

 -          Well he just makes such poor life decisions

-          He’s such a MESS, God get your life together Peter

-          What an asshole he was for not wanting to meet Mj because he didn’t realize she was pretty

-          Peter has such an EGO, look at whenever he used to interact with other heroes

-          Peter is so self-centred wow

-          MJ and Felicia and Gwen are too good for Peter

   Saying Peter makes poor life choices is untrue half the time and only true the other half of the time within the context of a dramatic entertainment series wherein it’d be boring if certain concessions were not made.

  Saying his life is a mess is intrinsically idiotic for the same reasons saying MJ sucked for worrying about Peter and complaining about his life as Spider-Man the way she did in the 90s. If YOU were in either of their positions and had the same histories, the same emotional attachments would YOU be much different? Would YOUR life be totally in order when you spend a large chunk of your time being a superhero both to financially support yourself and you know for ENTIRELY ALTRUISTIC REASONS? Would YOU honestly NOT act the way MJ did in the 90s?

 These sorts of attitudes to me demonstrate a really, really weird dismissal of the (relative) realities of life as or with a superhero. It’s like Peter being Spider-Man somehow ‘doesn’t count’, like he’s going out to play sports or something as opposed to actually being something important that should be taken into account when analyzing his life. Like...the entire premise of Spider-Man very much hinged upon the notion of showcasing the realities of life as a hero, how it came with a cost and didn’t fix everything. Like Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man No More literally SHOW you that NOT being Spider-Man WOULD allow his life to NOT be a mess, but that’s the price he pays for making sure nobody else loses THEIR Uncle Ben.

  Did Peter used to have an ego? Yeah...as did you know...EVERY Marvel hero under Stan Lee. Shit Silver age Superman had a humungous ego. It’s a trope something you don’t take 100% at face value. That smoothed out with his maturation and whilst he still had an ego at times, that was a debilitating flaw, just something that happened every once in a while as it would for a lot of people.

  Not to mention after what he has lived through and how hard he is on himself most of the time SOME ego is surely forgivable, healthy even. Which brings me to the whole ‘he thinks everything revolves around him’ argument.

  No...he doesn’t. He just holds himself to an incredibly high standard due to an obviously highly traumatic event he went thorugh growing up compounded by a few other similar events (Gwen’s death) as well as threats to his life and those around him by individuals specifically out to get him (Betty Brant was targeted at least 3 times in the Ditko run).

 Is it any wonder he’d be somewhat self-centred? And not even self-centred in a selfish way, self-centred in a ‘I suck, I let everyone down, I should have done better.’ Kind of way which is a million miles away from say pre-heart injury Tony Stark kind of self-centred.

 And finally the thing about not wanting to meet MJ...I’m sorry...how many male and female teenagers would NOT have been apprehensive over a blind date their old fashioned Mom set up for them out of fear that the date will be unattractive. Especially when in canon the qualities mostly pushed about her was that she would allegedly ‘make a good housewife’. 

 That isn’t a ‘Peter Parker is shallow’ thing or a ‘men are shallow’ thing. That’s a ‘teenagers who’re naturally immature and inexperienced with dating, romance, sex, etc tend to be shallow’ thing. 

 Don’t lie to me and pretend like the pre-Parallel Lives 14-18 year old Mary Jane herself would have been all for meeting her aunt’s neighbour’s geeky ass nephew. She wouldn’t have been and we all KNOW she wouldn’t have been. And that’s okay, that’d be realistic and entirely in keeping with how most teens (male or female) would feel in that situation.

 Let me be clear there are MALE readers guilty of this too (especially on CBR) but maybe it’s because I spend more time here in my (admittedly far from comprehensive) observations the fans who say stuff like that tend to be female more often than male.

  It’s nowhere near AS bad as the shit that unjustifiably gets thrown at Mary Jane mostly by male fans, but whilst collectively it might be worse each accusation is as equally unfounded.

  And as someone who truly loves both those characters I loathe seeing either of them unfairly thrown under the bus that way by people who aren’t even bothering to TRY to justify what the characters are doing out of laziness, a desire to be snarky or just enjoying the act of ripping into them.

  In much the same way a lot of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fans these days have been defencive and protective of Luke and Frodo in light of the mass shade thrown at both characters, I’ve become more and more like that towards Spider-Man in recent years. I’ve been like that with Mj for ages but only recently have I felt it necessary to extend it to Peter too.

 I don’t know WHY exactly these sort of ill considered, narrowminded, half assed criticisms are emerging more and more these days. I can’t blame it on the existence of other Spider characters because I’ve more frequently seen this stuff stem from people who didn’t even discuss guys like miles or Kaine or Spider-Gwen. Just Peter himself.

  The hard truth is...I think gender might be the biggest factor.

 Like I said I really do think this is a MINORITY of female fans who say the stuff I’ve discussed but I think for them there is a certain lack of empathy or at least attempt to honestly see through the eyes of Spider-Man himself because they are female and he is male.

 Whilst this doesn’t seem to happen much at all in Harry Potter fandom (which might possibly be owed to Harry being a male character written by a woman), critically the HP narrative is mostly utterly dominated by seeing through Harry’s eyes it makes identifying with him less of a leap as compared to Spider-Man where there is more ‘distance’ between the character and the reader.

The Spider-Man series is mostly from Peter’s POV but whilst Harry Potter rarely deviates away from Harry is experiencing at any given moment within his own skin, Spider-Man cuts to other scenes and other characters and even presents scenes with Spider-Man from their POV very frequently. It’s perhaps the natural pay off to the comic book medium vs a novel. You do have to SEE your protagonist from the outside whereas with a novel you can much more easily be on the inside looking out.

 I think because of that relative distance, for some (but far from all) female Spider-Man readers it becomes easier to emotionally/mentally not make the leap into his head and really questioning why he thinks, feels and acts in the ways that he does beyond what is on the surface level presented to us.

 Peter talks back to the Fantastic Four when he first meets them. It must be because he’s an asshole and not because he’s you know, a teenager, who just lost his Dad, is desperate for cash, is somewhat naive and used to being an entertainer and wrestler

  Although I think at the end of the day a character can be relatable and identifiable regardless of what their identity might be (skin colour, gender, etc), I do feel that male readers of Spider-Man are probably going to be more inclined towards empathising with Peter and inclined towards trying to see if there might be an explanation for his actions.

  The reverse holds true as well. It’s painfully obvious that 90% of the garbage criticisms levelled against Mary Jane throughout her history stemmed from mostly (but again not all) male readers who were simply not even trying to put themselves in her shoes or else couldn’t.

  Okay sure, you could argue institutionalized sexism or the larger proportion of male to female Spider-Man readers is the reason there seems to be way more male MJ bashers than female Peter bashers, as well as using that to explain why the female Peter bahsers still seem to like the character on some degree whereas MJ’s loudest bashers tend to just hate on the character.

 However I’d also propose that a big reason for one group’s larger and more intense negative feelings compared to the other stems again from the genders involved.

 Male readers are going to find it comparatively harder to make the jump into MJ’s head and seeing things from her POV than they would Peter’s simply because they are men and she is a female character.

 It’s far from impossible and I think most male fans do make the jump. But it helps to explain why so many do not. The problem is exacerbated by MJ being a supporting cast member and thus her POV and panel time is given far less breathing space than Peter’s, who’s story and POV dominate the narrative. So when MJ is compalaining about Peter’s life as a hero to him in a scene from his POV it’s challenging for male readers to take a step back and consider HER pov.

  I’m not even calling that some kind of soft core misandry or misogyny.

 I just think it’s something that naturally occurs for a lot of people as a consequence of life and the style of storytelling weare discussing.

 Doesn’t make it cool to do though.

 Stop bashing MJ AND Peter and try to justify anything they do before you tear into them.