#a girlfriend several magnitudes too good for him who loves him precisely as he is

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

@titanstogetherr

Oh, Peter’s not a dick for leaving the party, he’s a dick for not treating Mary Jane like an equal partner in their relationship. She’s his girlfriend. His decision to leave the party without her directly affects her and she, therefore, deserves a say in it. Or to at least know about it.

A mysterious blackout in a city overflowing with superheroes and cops is not something that was so urgent that he couldn’t have spared ten seconds to stick his head into the party, say, “Hey, Red, I think I’m gonna go take pics of the blackout now. You might want to ask Betty and Ned or Robbie to walk you home.” He has a built-in excuse! J. Jonah Jameson was RIGHT THERE and likely would have ordered him to leave and take pictures anyhow. They could have planned out what they were going to do.

Sure, there were plenty of people she could’ve asked to walk her home….but she had no idea whether or not that was even necessary because Peter didn’t think she was important enough to inform about what was happening. For all she knew, he ducked out to buy a soda and could return any second, in which case she should wait for him. Or he left to take pictures and could maybe take all night, which meant she needed to find her own way home. She didn’t know where he was or what she should do about it because he didn’t discuss it with her and let her have a say in their plans. WHICH IS A DICK MOVE. He was treating her as though she, her well-being, and her feelings did not matter enough to him to do her that basic courtesy, which is precisely the complaint she is making, and she’s right. Simply put, Peter failed to treat her like an equal partner in their relationship – she gets to have a say in decisions that affect her. He cannot unilaterally make them for her.

Being a superhero doesn’t justify treating the people in your life like dirt, absolve you from criticism, or mean you shouldn’t be held accountable for your actions.

Personally, if I went to a party on a date with a significant other—with the understanding that we would leave together too—and they left without talking to me about it, I would be just as livid as MJ. Even if I knew they were a superhero. Just. Let me know what’s going on? It is incredibly fucking rude to ditch your date without so much as a word in pretty much every context I can think of. Including this one. It makes it seem as though you do not give a damn about them or your relationship. It’s disrespectful, and props to Mary Jane for calling Peter out on it and not allowing herself to be treated so carelessly without standing up for herself.

Helping the city is fine. Not letting your girlfriend have a say in decisions that affect her? Less fine.

Separate though tangentially-related issue: I am also in no way a fan of the “I MUST LIE TO PROTECT MY FRAGILE GIRLFRIEND” trope. It’s sexist, patriarchal, and condescending. Mary Jane deserves the right to make an informed decision about dating Peter, a superhero, and all that entails. Including occasionally leaving parties early without her. (Yes, I know it was retconned so that she knew all along, but it doesn’t justify the fact that Peter chose never to tell her, no matter how serious their relationship got, which includes a proposal. Or Gwen, who died without knowing who he was, for that matter.)

Also…please explain to me how magically disappearing from a balcony with no discernible exit in any way helps him hide his secret identity from anyone at that party. Especially since, if MJ and/or anyone else had walked out two seconds earlier, they would have seen him dangling off of that helicopter. How is that preferable to saying goodbye and leaving through the front door like a regular, unsuperpowered person and thus NOT arousing suspicion?

Nope. It was a terrible way of handling the situation any way you look at it, and, again, MJ is right to be angry at his clear lack of respect for her.

P.S. – I was laughing at Harry, who I generally like very much, affectionately for his nosiness. The way those panels CLEARLY want you to do. They are setting it up to be funny, which is pretty damn obvious???? Harry tends to just generally be pretty nosy? It’s endearing most of the time???

Don’t you love it when someone is too cowardly to continue a conversation so they block you?

Yeah no.

 As I explained up top, there was an emergency and a small window of opportunity for him to act upon it.

 Emergency which could result in people getting hurt>Leaving a party without telling your boyfriend/girlfriend.

 Does MJ deserve a say in it? Yeah...except again...emergency.

 I mean honestly if like a police officer was at a party across the street from where a crime was in the middle of being comittied where someone was going to be hurt is would they be a dick for leaving their boyfriend/girlfriend without a word to resolve the situation?

 No. Like...not even a little bit.

 Sorry, there are bigger priorities at play here.

 And yeah actually it is super duper urgent for him to have dropped everything and leave right there. Putting aside how every minute people could be getting hurt (and he’d have to be finding MJ amidst the party crowd anyway in the dark) he needed to get onto the copter ASAP as it was flying over head. His window of opportunity was small.

 Let’s also put aside how in every super hero series basically the wider shared universe gets ignored unless the writer wants to acknowledge it meaning that no this and other books don’t operate on the basis of ‘this isn’t urgent because the Avengers exist so why should I worry’, the cops have a proven track record of being useless when it comes to super villains which the black out obviously was the work of. It wasn’t a random black out of one area, it was a systematic series, obviously deliberate. The cops on the ground (who were probably going to be simultaneously struggling in the darkness and have their hands full of whoever was taking advantage of the situation) could never have deduced the culprit and the police chopper which could’ve surveyed the situation couldn’t have mobilized action as quickly as Spider-Man could have. And even if they could have they would’ve been in immense danger because yeah, it was a full on super villain the average officer wouldn’t be able to handle.

 All this plus how was he supposed to make the excuse that he was going to get pictures when he literally didn’t have his camera? And everyone saw that he didn’t have it.

  As for what MJ thought, in context she could probably have deduced that he’d gone off to take pictures, but in hindsight she knew he’d gone off to be Spider-Man. Which doesn’t means he isn’t entitled to be mad, but she probably knew enough that she’d have to go home with someone sans Peter. It’s not even like this is the first time he’s done this, she knows he has to disappear at a drop of a hat. Even ignoring that she could just go home with somebody else, she didn’t need t wait for him, she knows he can get home by himself.

  But again...that’s really quite trivial next to the supervillain causing massive powercuts which endangers whole blocks worth of people.

 It’s not that her feelings objectively or from Peter’s POV don’t matter. It’s just that Jesus Christ they 100% do not matter in the face of this large scale pressing problem in which there is a massive danger to people’s lives.

  Like....perspective!

 She’s got a right to be angry, but he didn’t ACTUALLY do anything morally reprehensible. I can even understand why she was mad post Parallel Lives. But again...he was right.

 Trying to stop a supervillain who’s causing blackouts which are endangering shittons of people ASAP>Common Courtesy

 Emergencies>Common Courtesy

 He wasn’t making a decision for her (a ridiculous over extrapolation). He wasn’t treating her like dirt. He was addressing an urgent emergency which was by several magnitudes more important.

 If he really was just a photographer and just bounced without telling her then yeah, he would be an asshole. He wasn’t though, there was much more at stake than that.

 If you knew that your partner was a superhero and that they bounced to handle an obviously immediate emergency where people’s lives were at risk and you were livid over it then that’s more a dick move on your part than theirs. Innocent lives>your relationship.

 Letting you know what’s going on is one thing when there is time to spare and that’s easy, under these conditions it wasn’t. He was concerned about raising suspicions, he had a great avenue for getting to and assessing the crisis and thereby resolving it faster in order to help people. So again no, Peter was not being rude, or a dick. He was just trying to avoid people getting hurt. What an asshole I guess.

  In context yeah to MJ it might have seemed like he didn’t value her or the relationship, but again, we know int he issue, from past issues, and in hindsight that that’s blatantly not true. It was a great character moment for her and the story nevertheless, but at face value she isn’t actually morally justified because again we know what Peter was doing and why he was doing it.

 “Helping the city is fine. Not letting your girlfriend have a say in decisions that affect her? Less fine.”

  Again the safety of the city>MJ getting home. Also again, he wasn’t preventing her from having a decision. He was responding to an emergency whilst trying to protect his identity, that thing that’s endangered people when it’s gotten out.

  “Separate though tangentially-related issue: I am also in no way a fan of the “I MUST LIE TO PROTECT MY FRAGILE GIRLFRIEND” trope. It’s sexist, patriarchal, and condescending.”

  Then it’s a good thing that was absolutely not present in any way shape or form in this story then wasn’t it.

 Peter wasn’t lying to protect his fragile girlfriend. He was trying to protect his identity so that his life and the lives of ALL those cloe to him would not become endangered.

 Again...what a dick. What a dick move from the guy who was terrorized by three different lunatics who knew his secret and who killed someone he loved, nearly killed other people he loved, and who nearly mentally broke him.

 Also question. Was it sexist, patriarchal, condescending and other year one sociology glossary terms when Spider-Girl, Wonder Woman or female superheroes in general ever did the exact same thing?

  “Mary Jane deserves the right to make an informed decision about dating Peter, a superhero, and all that entails.”

  Not really.

  By this logic everyone of Peter’s friends should have the right to know who he is.

 But the more people who know his secret the less secret it is and thereby the more chance of it getting out and hurting people there are.

 Not to mention he has no idea if they are trustworthy or not, or how willing they are to bear the burden of knowledge.

 If he just comes out and tells Mary Jane and she can’t handle it, or if she for whatever reason reveals it Peter’s life and Aunt May’s life are going to be destroyed. Whilst maybe he doesn’t think this of Mary Jane specifically, anyone he confides in may well fall out with him (even more likely in romantic relationships compared to friendships) and thereby use that knowledge against him in some way. Which again has already happened with immensely bad results.

 Thus far in his life Peter has had three girlfriends.

 Betty, Gwen and MJ.

 Betty was bonkers and whilst he wasn’t wholesale innocent, really mistreated him and became incredibly upset at the mere mention of Spider-Man when he tried to reveal his identity to her.

 Gwen not only hated Spider-Man, but worse reacted hysterically and believed the worst fo him when he initially revealed the truth to her in ASM #87.

 MJ and Harry similarly took that news very, very badly and in MJ’s case, Peter has only just seen her change from the carefree party girl she once was into someone who’s still like that but more serious.

 Under these circumstances why would Peter or anybody, male or female, be simply upfront with the single most intimate part of themselves which amounts to literal life or death?

 They wouldn’t. And if they were with everyone they dated, suddenly there are a shitton of security risks out there.

 I’m not saying anybody he is with doesn’t deserve to know eventually at some point. But Peter and Mary Jane have been together for less than a year  at the point of this story. They are serious, they are in love, they are going steady, but neither of them are certain about where things are going, or will wind up and they have only recently gotten to that level after a HUGE emotional crisis that’s rocked them (Gwen’s return).

 Basically this is a straight choice between telling one person they might be in danger (even though MJ probably knows that, Peter’s aunt was kidnapped because he happened to snap Spidey photos) or risking everyone DEFINITLY being in danger.

 In relationships there are degrees of intimacy and degrees of trust (usually built up over time). For example it’s a bad idea to propose marriage unless you are relatively certain about your future with your partner and their own response. Peter’s identity is a much larger and much more dangerous thing than a mere proposal. He shouldn’t tell anyone his secret unless he’s as confidant as possible that they would be able to handle it and keep it safe, even if things don’t work out between them. He’s not there with MJ at this point.

 Hell the one time he DOES reveal his secret to his girlfriend it totally backfires. Felicia didn’t like learning the truth and she was cavalier with it too. He was just lucky she cared enough about him/hated Foreigner enough that she didn’t spill the beans when she had her mad on for him. Had she done that his life would have been over and so would Aunt May’s

 Furthermore divulging the secret is a huge deal for the person hearing it. It’s essentially burdening them with a massive and dangerous responsibility they didn’t ask for and maybe didn’t want. See Miles Morales for proof of this

SPOILERS he does tell his girlfriend...and she totally betrays him...to HYDRA...

But I guess that was better than him being ‘sexist and patriarchal’. 

“Including occasionally leaving parties early without her. (Yes, I know it was retconned so that she knew all along, but it doesn’t justify the fact that Peter chose never to tell her, no matter how serious their relationship got, which includes a proposal. Or Gwen, who died without knowing who he was, for that matter.)”

 See above. Peter was honestly proposing to her the first time around more out of other factors in his life. That proposal was him being a naive moron, though he did love her. He was likely going to tell her if she said yes.

 With Gwen his not telling her was again a forgivable mistake of youth. He was dumb kid at the point he wanted to marry her and seriously believed he could hide it from her.

 However he was in a catch 22 situation. He knew she’d reject him if she knew the truth because of ASM #87, and he knew she hated his alter ego. But at the same time he was in love with her and was a kid. Would he have committed to the lie had she lived or would he have broken it off or else tried to tell her the truth?

 We’ll never really know although it’s pretty fucking obvious they were never going to last.

 His initial solution though in ASM #100 was to just get rid of his powers altogether. Again, stupid and naive but he was a kid.

 Was it immoral of him to have married her without divulging the truth? Yes.

 Was it immoral of him to have not told her during their relationship as it was? Not really.

 Again he was a kid in a catch 22 situation where he was serious about Gwen (the first person he was ever serious about) but knew she’d reject him. Really from ASm #87 or her Dad’s death onwards he was just treading water trying to figure out what to do.

 Also because of the bullshtit Clone Conspiracy storyline Gwen actually did die knowing Peter was Spider-Man. But if we want to take all retcons into account Gwen was straight up pregnant with the kids of Peter’s best friend’s Dad...and expected him to raise them. She lied about that throughout their relationship sooooooooo....

     “Also…please explain to me how magically disappearing from a balcony with no discernible exit in any way helps him hide his secret identity from anyone at that party. Especially since, if MJ and/or anyone else had walked out two seconds earlier, they would have seen him dangling off of that helicopter. How is that preferable to saying goodbye and leaving through the front door like a regular, unsuperpowered person and thus NOT arousing suspicion?”

  a)     It was raining, at night time and in the midst of a blackout so how WOULD they have seen him hanging from the helicopter?

b)     The Spider Sense probably would’ve helped him avoid prying eyes

c)     The chopper probably was moving fast.

d)     In the blackout he probably figured people would presume he just slipped out without them seeing which is what MJ obviously did.

e)     Nobody actually saw him on the balcony. Robbie just suggested MJ try there as he saw Peter heading towards it

f)      Drawing attention to the fact that you are leaving to take pictures at a party full of investigative journalists, one of which you suspect already has an idea of your identity, the other being the guy who’s literally created supervillains to try and kill you, and all when you obviously don’t have a camera (and therefore cannot deliver any photos), is a comparatively larger security risk than just leaving and letting people presume what they will whilst they’re distracted by other stuff going on

g)     The chopper provided him a great way to get up high and assess the situation whilst also going direct to the action as they might have more information that he does. He knows the blackouts are systematic so being able to see the pattern from a birds eye view means he has a better chance of figuring out where they will strike next and how to stop it and end the desperate situation. If he chose to exit through the party and make explanations he’d lose his window of opportunity to catch up the chopper, especially given the pitch darkness.

  “Nope. It was a terrible way of handling the situation any way you look at it, and, again, MJ is right to be angry at his clear lack of respect for her.”

 Nope, it was the viable option for handling the situation that was itself not ideal.

 Nope he didn’t disrespect her. Just did what was necessary.

 Yes though she has a right to be angry, I never said otherwise, my contention as with YOUR assessment of HIM.

 Is it not charming how half the Spider-Man fanbase seems to shit on Mary Jane because they don’t bother trying to empathize with her and see things from her POV, whilst the other half shit on Peter for the same reasons.

 “P.S. – I was laughing at Harry, who I generally like very much, affectionately for his nosiness. The way those panels CLEARLY want you to do. They are setting it up to be funny, which is pretty damn obvious???? Harry tends to just generally be pretty nosy? It’s endearing most of the time???”

 Harry was drugged up because he’d just come out of the hospital.

I’m not saying Peter doing what he did doesn’t suck for Mary Jane. 

I’m saying Peter did what he did for the greater good which unfortunately screwed MJ over in an entirely non-lasting way which was ultimately more of an inconvenience for her and did more damage emotionally. Which he later tried to make amends for.

Peter obviously does respect Mary Jane as his girlfriend, but this was like so many things in his life an emergency.

#Spider-Man #MJ Watson #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Peter Parker