Title from My Name Is Dark by Grimes.
I'm probably not going to win NaNoWriMo this year; I only have like 3000 words left to go, but I'm probably not going to hit it because I'm in a bad place psychologically and probably won't write that much before 12, if I write today at all. I slept all day and played a little Kingdom Hearts 3 and that's it. And if that's it, that's fine, at least I was lazing off instead of getting into more trouble. I really don't trust myself to do much else today.
Basically I've been listening to Grimes and enjoying moping around hating myself and life and feeling all defeatist about everything.
Obviously I should have loftier goals, but we all have Those Days TM.
I picked up a copy of Awakener by Alisha Howard on Kindle because it's free on Amazon.ca right now, and I bought all the paperbacks for the My Blood Approves series by Amanda Hocking. I'm finally going to own one of my favorite self-published series in physical copy! It's hard to invest in indie books, and I say this as an indie author, because they're so damn expensive for print-on-demand books, and it sucks, but it is what it is. I'd love to buy the Hollows series too, and in fact, I'm hopping over there to do that now, because I just talked myself into it, it's only two books, and God knows when I'll have the money again. It came up to like 95 bucks for the MBA books, they're like 17 bucks each. Hmmm, maybe I will wait to buy the Hollows. I talked myself into it and then out of it again, lol. Money is scary, especially when you have very little.
I honestly think I'm supposed to help my cousin move in a couple days and watch all my packages come while I'm out and get stolen. I'll have to build a contraption or box or something for the mailmen to put them in that doesn't draw as much attention.
I'm honestly reeling from what a weird November it's been. It's crazy that this month is over because it felt like it went on and on and on forever. I'm kind of in denial that it's winter again, but at least it's mild so far. Thanks for that, global warming. You ruin the things that ruin everything else, but you also kill polar bears, so you can still go fuck yourself.
Yup, I'm gonna go NOT-write and wish aliens would abduct and murder me already. I know at least ONE galactic overlord has to have internet access, I know y'all see this; what's taking so long?
Saturday 30 November 2019
Something I Once Said
Here's a passage I wrote on this blog way back in 2016 that I found again today and really needed to hear:
AT LEAST ONCE in your writing career, but probably way more times than that, you will find yourself sitting on the floor in your underwear, getting drunk and crying, wondering if you're throwing your life away. You may or may not try to ask your dead relatives for advice from beyond the grave. They won't give it to you, though, selfish villains that they are. This is normal. This is the stress of being a living, working artist. But you know why you got into this and you know what it means to you, so don't you fucking let your stress win. We've all felt like we were facing doomsday at one point or another, legacy or self-published, and those storms always pass. It doesn't matter if you're a first-time indie or the next Suzanne Collins with hype and a big six publisher and a movie deal at your back - you have undertaken a huge project, and you are allowed to have a human moment about it, okay?
Maybe you need to hear it today too, so here it is.
AT LEAST ONCE in your writing career, but probably way more times than that, you will find yourself sitting on the floor in your underwear, getting drunk and crying, wondering if you're throwing your life away. You may or may not try to ask your dead relatives for advice from beyond the grave. They won't give it to you, though, selfish villains that they are. This is normal. This is the stress of being a living, working artist. But you know why you got into this and you know what it means to you, so don't you fucking let your stress win. We've all felt like we were facing doomsday at one point or another, legacy or self-published, and those storms always pass. It doesn't matter if you're a first-time indie or the next Suzanne Collins with hype and a big six publisher and a movie deal at your back - you have undertaken a huge project, and you are allowed to have a human moment about it, okay?
Maybe you need to hear it today too, so here it is.
Wednesday 20 November 2019
RETURN OF THE BLOG ZOMBIES
Obviously I've blogged more in the past couple days than I have in a long time, and that's going to keep happening, because I'm in a much more convenient position to write blog posts now. So, here's some stuff you can except to see me talking about in the next few weeks and months:
1) Spider-Man. This has happened and will happen again.
2) Video games in general. I've got Fallout 4 and inFamous First Light coming in the mail, and inFamous Second Son just arrived today.
3) The short stories I'm working on!
4) Pop music. Always pop music. Although right now I'm weirdly getting back into indie rock.
5) Dropping Like Flies. This is my next new full-length book and it's about a cannibal. Nuff said.
1) Spider-Man. This has happened and will happen again.
2) Video games in general. I've got Fallout 4 and inFamous First Light coming in the mail, and inFamous Second Son just arrived today.
3) The short stories I'm working on!
4) Pop music. Always pop music. Although right now I'm weirdly getting back into indie rock.
5) Dropping Like Flies. This is my next new full-length book and it's about a cannibal. Nuff said.
I Want To Tell You About My Grandparents
All of my grandparents are gone now, which is a really weird feeling. I never really knew my grandfathers, in fact I only met one of them. But my grandmothers were such a huge part of my life, and it feels weird that I haven't talked about them much here, because it just feels painful and hard. But now I think I am at a place where I can talk about them from a place of happiness and wonder at the fact that I got to meet these beautiful people and share so many moments with them in life.
Like a lot of kids, my parents were always busy working, they both had nine-to-five jobs that were physically demanding, and they were overworked and underpaid, so I got left with my grandparents a lot while my brother who was older was allowed to run around with his friends or go to after-school programs. I had no problem with this, because I was antisocial and I liked my grandmothers both better than I liked other kids my age and my friends at school. Even as an eleven year old boy, I had the personality of a woman in her late fifties. What can I say, some things never change.
My grandpa Al died before I was born, when my father was about seven or eight, I think. After he died my Nanny Better had a nervous breakdown; she grew up an orphan in the Canadian foster care system and had bounced around from group home to orphanage to foster home, etc, from what I've been told, and she ended up sending both my uncles to live with our great aunt Lillian, while my father, who apparently had intense behavioral issues, was sent to live in a boys home for a few years. At some point, Betty got her life together, she bought an apartment building and turned the bottom floor into a commercial space, opening a convenience store with her girlfriend Josie, who we grew up knowing as aunt Josie, because I guess everybody thought we were too young to understand that Grandma was dating a woman, lol. That convenience store is still there, in fact I went there a lot growing up after they'd sold it. It's called Sam's now and it has been since the eighties or mid-nineties, at least. In the early two-thousands my Nanny Tony, who lived a few doors down, would send me there with spare change and I'd buy Miami Cakes and pizza pockets galore before going back to her place to watch unhealthy amounts of TeleToon.
Anyway, Betty eventually ended up selling the store and becoming a librarian of all things. She loved books, but not as much as she loved cats and cigarettes. I have fond memories of listening to Stephen King audiobooks on tape at her and Josie's apartment in the West Side, in the dark, while trying to fall asleep, at like seven years old. I was traumatized. Baby's First Audiobook!
Nanny and Josie lived together for years, even after they broke up. The last time I saw them together was in 2015; I blogged about it on this blog, actually, if you go back to summer 2015, it's when I got my first tattoo with my cousin Amelia. I remember that summer so fondly, we went swimming and saw a truck back into the water and get stuck, we went to Dixie Lee and got decent greasy chicken and iced green tea, we walked every night with Josie and her sisters. Nanny and Josie had moved to Josie's hometown at that point so she could be with her family, I think they moved around 2013 or so. Amelia visited them dozens of times, but I'd only ever gone that once.
A short time after that trip Nanny Betty was moved back to our city, into a home, as her condition deteriorated and her dementia got worse. I'm ashamed to admit it, and it's a big regret for me, but I never went to see her while she was in the home for the last three years of her life; I was afraid, because I knew my father and I are probably both going to get dementia one day, it's like a family curse, and my father is already showing signs. I knew from Amelia and other relatives that she often didn't know who they were, that she often didn't know where or when she was. I couldn't see her like that, and the idea of it sent me into an anxiety attack every time, so my parents tried to shield me from the questioning and prodding of the rest of our family to the best of their ability.
Everybody tells me I'm like my uncle John, Betty's son, Amelia's father, because we both love reading and books, and we're both writers, and the truth is I think I'm like him because we're both like her. It comes from her, the love of books and stories, and police procedural dramas. She babysat me for years in elementary and middle school and she was always watching some form of CSI or Criminal Minds.
Nanny Betty always had a cat calendar on every surface, and cat plushies, and cat figurines, and more, and one of the keepsakes I have from her is a tiny cat statue on my bookshelf, it's white and blue and very elegant looking, even though I'm sure she bought it at a local dollar store sometime around like 2004.
On the other side of the family, there's my mom's parents. I only met her father once, when I was very young. He wasn't close with anybody in the family, and when my parents got married years and years ago they sent him money for a plane ticket and a hotel but he never came. My mom talked to him on the phone occasionally, but I never had much interest in him. He died a few years ago and my mom found out he'd had more kids and she has a half-brother and half-sister out there, who she's had a little contact with here and there.
Her mother, though, my Nanny Tony, was a HUGE part of my life. Nanny Betty and Josie always favored Amelia and my brother Brandon over me, which was very hurtful as a kid. I felt like I was the odd one out in the family who nobody wanted. But Nanny Tony clearly favored me, to the point where I truly believe I was her favorite person in the world. She died very suddenly when I was eleven, and my last words to her, a few weeks before that, were 'I love you' which brings me a lot of comfort even now that I'm an adult.
I would go to Nanny Tony's almost every weekend, Friday to Sunday. Amelia's maternal grandmother Lillian lived right down the street, so if she went to her place we could both hang out and play as much as we wanted, which was amazing.
Nanny Tony made the best scrambled eggs I've ever had in my life, and I always demanded she make them for me. I still try to make them like she did and I always fail. She loved Christmas movies and romantic comedies, and her house was a hub of activity, there was always several friends and family members coming and going, at all hours. If I slept in on the couch too long the living room got so crowded people would sit on my legs and wake me up. When my parents got into a bad argument my mom would storm out and take me and my brother to her place. We went there every holiday, and I remember one year on Easter she and my uncle Chicken, who passed away last year of a heart infection, put on the horror movie Boogeyman. Traumatized my dumb ass for life. Watching it now doesn't do anything for me though, it's so corny in retrospect.
Nanny Tony also smoked like a chimney. Her and Nanny Betty would sometimes meet up at the bingo parlor and were bingo buddies for years before they had a falling out and turned icy with each other. (Drama, drama!)
My mom took on Nanny Tony's personality trait of wanting to feed everybody all the time, although at this point I don't know if it's really a personality trait or a genetic disposition Greeks have towards hospitality and wanting to force-feed people. Both of them can cook a good damn meal. My mom is vegetarian and eats a mostly vegan diet now, but she still cooks meat dishes for my dad and I sometimes, like last night she cooked an amazing ham for us.
I have very fond memories of running in and out of the kitchen while Mom and Nanny Tony cooked family dinner, and how various cousins and uncles and family friends and whoever they were all dating at the time would come over to eat with us. Everybody loved her. At her funeral they printed out cards with her portrait and the caption 'Queen of Duke Street' which seems pretty damn accurate to me. I used to sit with her on her front stoop all morning, watching people pass by, and more than half of them inevitably stopped to say hi and chat with her.
I'm going to hop off now, since I think I've successfully conveyed how awesome these women were. They formed who I am and who I'll always be, and I'm eternally grateful I got to know them.
Like a lot of kids, my parents were always busy working, they both had nine-to-five jobs that were physically demanding, and they were overworked and underpaid, so I got left with my grandparents a lot while my brother who was older was allowed to run around with his friends or go to after-school programs. I had no problem with this, because I was antisocial and I liked my grandmothers both better than I liked other kids my age and my friends at school. Even as an eleven year old boy, I had the personality of a woman in her late fifties. What can I say, some things never change.
My grandpa Al died before I was born, when my father was about seven or eight, I think. After he died my Nanny Better had a nervous breakdown; she grew up an orphan in the Canadian foster care system and had bounced around from group home to orphanage to foster home, etc, from what I've been told, and she ended up sending both my uncles to live with our great aunt Lillian, while my father, who apparently had intense behavioral issues, was sent to live in a boys home for a few years. At some point, Betty got her life together, she bought an apartment building and turned the bottom floor into a commercial space, opening a convenience store with her girlfriend Josie, who we grew up knowing as aunt Josie, because I guess everybody thought we were too young to understand that Grandma was dating a woman, lol. That convenience store is still there, in fact I went there a lot growing up after they'd sold it. It's called Sam's now and it has been since the eighties or mid-nineties, at least. In the early two-thousands my Nanny Tony, who lived a few doors down, would send me there with spare change and I'd buy Miami Cakes and pizza pockets galore before going back to her place to watch unhealthy amounts of TeleToon.
Anyway, Betty eventually ended up selling the store and becoming a librarian of all things. She loved books, but not as much as she loved cats and cigarettes. I have fond memories of listening to Stephen King audiobooks on tape at her and Josie's apartment in the West Side, in the dark, while trying to fall asleep, at like seven years old. I was traumatized. Baby's First Audiobook!
Nanny and Josie lived together for years, even after they broke up. The last time I saw them together was in 2015; I blogged about it on this blog, actually, if you go back to summer 2015, it's when I got my first tattoo with my cousin Amelia. I remember that summer so fondly, we went swimming and saw a truck back into the water and get stuck, we went to Dixie Lee and got decent greasy chicken and iced green tea, we walked every night with Josie and her sisters. Nanny and Josie had moved to Josie's hometown at that point so she could be with her family, I think they moved around 2013 or so. Amelia visited them dozens of times, but I'd only ever gone that once.
A short time after that trip Nanny Betty was moved back to our city, into a home, as her condition deteriorated and her dementia got worse. I'm ashamed to admit it, and it's a big regret for me, but I never went to see her while she was in the home for the last three years of her life; I was afraid, because I knew my father and I are probably both going to get dementia one day, it's like a family curse, and my father is already showing signs. I knew from Amelia and other relatives that she often didn't know who they were, that she often didn't know where or when she was. I couldn't see her like that, and the idea of it sent me into an anxiety attack every time, so my parents tried to shield me from the questioning and prodding of the rest of our family to the best of their ability.
Everybody tells me I'm like my uncle John, Betty's son, Amelia's father, because we both love reading and books, and we're both writers, and the truth is I think I'm like him because we're both like her. It comes from her, the love of books and stories, and police procedural dramas. She babysat me for years in elementary and middle school and she was always watching some form of CSI or Criminal Minds.
Nanny Betty always had a cat calendar on every surface, and cat plushies, and cat figurines, and more, and one of the keepsakes I have from her is a tiny cat statue on my bookshelf, it's white and blue and very elegant looking, even though I'm sure she bought it at a local dollar store sometime around like 2004.
On the other side of the family, there's my mom's parents. I only met her father once, when I was very young. He wasn't close with anybody in the family, and when my parents got married years and years ago they sent him money for a plane ticket and a hotel but he never came. My mom talked to him on the phone occasionally, but I never had much interest in him. He died a few years ago and my mom found out he'd had more kids and she has a half-brother and half-sister out there, who she's had a little contact with here and there.
Her mother, though, my Nanny Tony, was a HUGE part of my life. Nanny Betty and Josie always favored Amelia and my brother Brandon over me, which was very hurtful as a kid. I felt like I was the odd one out in the family who nobody wanted. But Nanny Tony clearly favored me, to the point where I truly believe I was her favorite person in the world. She died very suddenly when I was eleven, and my last words to her, a few weeks before that, were 'I love you' which brings me a lot of comfort even now that I'm an adult.
I would go to Nanny Tony's almost every weekend, Friday to Sunday. Amelia's maternal grandmother Lillian lived right down the street, so if she went to her place we could both hang out and play as much as we wanted, which was amazing.
Nanny Tony made the best scrambled eggs I've ever had in my life, and I always demanded she make them for me. I still try to make them like she did and I always fail. She loved Christmas movies and romantic comedies, and her house was a hub of activity, there was always several friends and family members coming and going, at all hours. If I slept in on the couch too long the living room got so crowded people would sit on my legs and wake me up. When my parents got into a bad argument my mom would storm out and take me and my brother to her place. We went there every holiday, and I remember one year on Easter she and my uncle Chicken, who passed away last year of a heart infection, put on the horror movie Boogeyman. Traumatized my dumb ass for life. Watching it now doesn't do anything for me though, it's so corny in retrospect.
Nanny Tony also smoked like a chimney. Her and Nanny Betty would sometimes meet up at the bingo parlor and were bingo buddies for years before they had a falling out and turned icy with each other. (Drama, drama!)
My mom took on Nanny Tony's personality trait of wanting to feed everybody all the time, although at this point I don't know if it's really a personality trait or a genetic disposition Greeks have towards hospitality and wanting to force-feed people. Both of them can cook a good damn meal. My mom is vegetarian and eats a mostly vegan diet now, but she still cooks meat dishes for my dad and I sometimes, like last night she cooked an amazing ham for us.
I have very fond memories of running in and out of the kitchen while Mom and Nanny Tony cooked family dinner, and how various cousins and uncles and family friends and whoever they were all dating at the time would come over to eat with us. Everybody loved her. At her funeral they printed out cards with her portrait and the caption 'Queen of Duke Street' which seems pretty damn accurate to me. I used to sit with her on her front stoop all morning, watching people pass by, and more than half of them inevitably stopped to say hi and chat with her.
I'm going to hop off now, since I think I've successfully conveyed how awesome these women were. They formed who I am and who I'll always be, and I'm eternally grateful I got to know them.
Tuesday 19 November 2019
The Importance of Spider-Man
All I've been doing for the past few days is play Spider-Man for the PS4 and waiting for my new laptop to come in the mail. It's here now, and it's very fancy, and I'm using it to catch up on NaNoWriMo, and, yes, writing Spider-Man fanfic. I'm only human.
I grew up on Spidey. I know most of us did, but still; when my dad was a kid in the seventies and eighties he would dress up as Spider-Man and climb on top of his roof to amuse his friends. When my brother and I were growing up in the late nineties and early two-thousands, we had cool Spider-Man pajamas and toys and gadgets like mini web-shooters that shot silly string all over the house and effectively turned our mother homicidal. We watched the Sam Raimi trilogy all the time. Toby isn't my favorite Spider-Man, or even my favorite movie Spider-Man, but he was still fantastic, even though those movies got corny sometimes.
I have a very clear memory of going to a birthday party at some kids house when I was like, eight or nine--I still have no idea who this kid was, if he was my friend or my brother's, or just the kid of one of our Dad's friends who we got shoved into spending time with, although I think that was it.
My brother was a social butterfly, and I was sadly not. I didn't fit in with any of the kids my age, and I was shy and I felt weird and out of place. I didn't know any of the kids at that party, but I remember they put on one of those movies for us, I think it was Spider-Man 2, and we all sat in the basement watching it while we waited for this kid's older brother and his mom to tell us who had won this contest earlier in the night, one of those where you have to guess how many jelly beans there are in a big glass jar full of them. I don't remember what number I guessed exactly, but I was right; I remember halfway through the movie I had to go pee so I went upstairs, and on my way back down I overheard the brother asking his mom how many beans were in there, and she replied with my guess, I had somehow gotten it exactly right, I don't know how, but I knew I'd won before anyone else knew I'd won. The prize, of course, was the huge jar of jelly beans. My brother didn't usually like me, but he sure liked me that day, when he got to stuff his face with my winnings. I just remember watching the rest of Spider-Man and feeling very proud of myself.
I remember another time when I was around eleven or so, my neighbor Megan's little dog ran away, and my friend Brandon and I (not to be confused with my brother Brandon, because of course there have to be multiple Brandons running around just to keep things interesting) and I went out looking for it. We found the thing, and when we brought him home, Megan's mom was so happy she bought us both a box of Spider-Man gummy candies as a reward. I shared mine with my dad.
I don't know why I love Spidey so much, or maybe I do, honestly; maybe it's because he's a superhero whose alter-ego is just as easy to root for as his hero persona is.
Clark Kent is just pretending to be a nerd with glasses, he's a hot, buff alien who doesn't really have that many confidence issues. I know he's a DC hero, but bear with me. Wonder Woman, another DC hero, is a literal fucking Amazonian princess. Even on the Marvel side of things, it's like, Tony Stark is a hot rich playboy asshole most of the time. Black Widow is a kick-ass Russian spy. Northstar is a fucking famous figure skater.
So, yeah, they're cool, interesting heroes, but they're not relatable to most of us.
Men, women, white folks, black folk, straight folk, gay folk, we all relate to Peter Parker because he actually IS that nerd with glasses, he's not pretending, it's not an act. He's just a nice dorky kid from New York who usually lives at home with his family, or if he lives alone is super overdue on rent, he's into nerdy shit like photography and science. He's a dork. He's a real underdog. We all see ourselves in him.
And when Peter puts on that mask, he's not shedding his fake Peter persona, he's not becoming somebody else, because Spider-Man is actually a part of Peter, he's Peter unleashed. He has no reason to be shy or hold himself back under that mask, and the real him comes out, the funny, charming, playful part of himself he's sometimes too shy or awkward to let out in real, daily life. When other heroes shed their normal clothes and slap on spandex, they're not really putting on a costume, they're taking one-off; the hero persona is the real them, and the alter-ego almost becomes an act half the time. (Depending on the writer, obviously. I'm not shitting on all other heroes, but it's obvious that they often lack something Peter Parker has that makes people respond to him on a much more crazy, fanatical level of fandom...) Peter Parker is Peter Parker, whether he's wearing flannel or spandex, and that's what makes him so special, he doesn't become a completely different person between personas, he just becomes more himself.
I'm not sure why I feel the need to say all this. I just love Spider-Man I guess. I know it will probably never happen, or at least not for years, because, you know, Tom Holland and Marvel-Sony and Into The Spiderverse, there's just a lot going on with this property right now, so I think it would muddy the waters a bit too much, but SOMEDAY I'd like a Spider-Man TV show. A nice 45-mins-per-episode TV show with an ensemble cast, following Peter from becoming Spider-Man to meeting Miles Morales and becoming a mentor to him, giving MJ a Jessica Jones P.I. type slant (minus the mean personality and alcoholism, because I'm pretty sure Jess has those trademarked) and more. I'd love an ensemble cast drama in this world, with these characters, is what I'm saying. It was a TV show way back in the day, it could be again.
I also want a bi Peter Parker, though, so I'm probably just throwing shit out there. That leaked Sony email basically said "Spider-Man can never be gay or the anti-SJWS will riot!" so it's probably ruled out. And they're right, I mean, anti-SJWS hate Holdo from Star Wars because they're convinced having pink hair makes you lesbian (I think the director or writer did pull a JKR, Dumbledore type deal with her, but it's not in the text so fuck them, it's not canon) and they ignore all of Rey's character development to call her a Mary Sue feminazi bitch while upholding Padme and Mara Jade, a flat, boring static character and a literal overpowered Mary Sue as more well-written alternatives, so people are basically insane and will riot whenever any form of minority is in their fiction these days, sadly. I get it.
Spider-Man being gay or bi would sent the internet into a tailspin, and I kind of want to see it because I'm a shit-disturber and I think it would be funny.
But also because, come on, Peter Parker is bi as fuck. He's had weird sexual tension Flash Thompson and Eddie Brock several times throughout his comics runs and various other forms of media. He's got weird vibes with his best friend Harry. I don't know, I just don't buy that Peter is 100% straight. I do buy that he's 100% pure-hearted and a total dork, though, which is why he's the best superhero. He makes nerds and dorks believe in themselves and he's funny. And he represents the twinks. And the twunks. And that's why Spider-Man is so damn important.
If I was a huge blockbuster, top-selling YA author who could land gigs like these superhero novels people like Margaret Sthol and Leigh Bardugo and SJ Maas are getting, I'd want to write a Spider-Man trilogy. I'd probably be Kevin Fiege's slave for life if he or someone, anyone, at Marvel, would let me at this property.
Alas, I'll be restrained to the realm of fanfic and daydreaming, but I'll still love Spider-Man as long as I live.
I grew up on Spidey. I know most of us did, but still; when my dad was a kid in the seventies and eighties he would dress up as Spider-Man and climb on top of his roof to amuse his friends. When my brother and I were growing up in the late nineties and early two-thousands, we had cool Spider-Man pajamas and toys and gadgets like mini web-shooters that shot silly string all over the house and effectively turned our mother homicidal. We watched the Sam Raimi trilogy all the time. Toby isn't my favorite Spider-Man, or even my favorite movie Spider-Man, but he was still fantastic, even though those movies got corny sometimes.
I have a very clear memory of going to a birthday party at some kids house when I was like, eight or nine--I still have no idea who this kid was, if he was my friend or my brother's, or just the kid of one of our Dad's friends who we got shoved into spending time with, although I think that was it.
My brother was a social butterfly, and I was sadly not. I didn't fit in with any of the kids my age, and I was shy and I felt weird and out of place. I didn't know any of the kids at that party, but I remember they put on one of those movies for us, I think it was Spider-Man 2, and we all sat in the basement watching it while we waited for this kid's older brother and his mom to tell us who had won this contest earlier in the night, one of those where you have to guess how many jelly beans there are in a big glass jar full of them. I don't remember what number I guessed exactly, but I was right; I remember halfway through the movie I had to go pee so I went upstairs, and on my way back down I overheard the brother asking his mom how many beans were in there, and she replied with my guess, I had somehow gotten it exactly right, I don't know how, but I knew I'd won before anyone else knew I'd won. The prize, of course, was the huge jar of jelly beans. My brother didn't usually like me, but he sure liked me that day, when he got to stuff his face with my winnings. I just remember watching the rest of Spider-Man and feeling very proud of myself.
I remember another time when I was around eleven or so, my neighbor Megan's little dog ran away, and my friend Brandon and I (not to be confused with my brother Brandon, because of course there have to be multiple Brandons running around just to keep things interesting) and I went out looking for it. We found the thing, and when we brought him home, Megan's mom was so happy she bought us both a box of Spider-Man gummy candies as a reward. I shared mine with my dad.
I don't know why I love Spidey so much, or maybe I do, honestly; maybe it's because he's a superhero whose alter-ego is just as easy to root for as his hero persona is.
Clark Kent is just pretending to be a nerd with glasses, he's a hot, buff alien who doesn't really have that many confidence issues. I know he's a DC hero, but bear with me. Wonder Woman, another DC hero, is a literal fucking Amazonian princess. Even on the Marvel side of things, it's like, Tony Stark is a hot rich playboy asshole most of the time. Black Widow is a kick-ass Russian spy. Northstar is a fucking famous figure skater.
So, yeah, they're cool, interesting heroes, but they're not relatable to most of us.
Men, women, white folks, black folk, straight folk, gay folk, we all relate to Peter Parker because he actually IS that nerd with glasses, he's not pretending, it's not an act. He's just a nice dorky kid from New York who usually lives at home with his family, or if he lives alone is super overdue on rent, he's into nerdy shit like photography and science. He's a dork. He's a real underdog. We all see ourselves in him.
And when Peter puts on that mask, he's not shedding his fake Peter persona, he's not becoming somebody else, because Spider-Man is actually a part of Peter, he's Peter unleashed. He has no reason to be shy or hold himself back under that mask, and the real him comes out, the funny, charming, playful part of himself he's sometimes too shy or awkward to let out in real, daily life. When other heroes shed their normal clothes and slap on spandex, they're not really putting on a costume, they're taking one-off; the hero persona is the real them, and the alter-ego almost becomes an act half the time. (Depending on the writer, obviously. I'm not shitting on all other heroes, but it's obvious that they often lack something Peter Parker has that makes people respond to him on a much more crazy, fanatical level of fandom...) Peter Parker is Peter Parker, whether he's wearing flannel or spandex, and that's what makes him so special, he doesn't become a completely different person between personas, he just becomes more himself.
I'm not sure why I feel the need to say all this. I just love Spider-Man I guess. I know it will probably never happen, or at least not for years, because, you know, Tom Holland and Marvel-Sony and Into The Spiderverse, there's just a lot going on with this property right now, so I think it would muddy the waters a bit too much, but SOMEDAY I'd like a Spider-Man TV show. A nice 45-mins-per-episode TV show with an ensemble cast, following Peter from becoming Spider-Man to meeting Miles Morales and becoming a mentor to him, giving MJ a Jessica Jones P.I. type slant (minus the mean personality and alcoholism, because I'm pretty sure Jess has those trademarked) and more. I'd love an ensemble cast drama in this world, with these characters, is what I'm saying. It was a TV show way back in the day, it could be again.
I also want a bi Peter Parker, though, so I'm probably just throwing shit out there. That leaked Sony email basically said "Spider-Man can never be gay or the anti-SJWS will riot!" so it's probably ruled out. And they're right, I mean, anti-SJWS hate Holdo from Star Wars because they're convinced having pink hair makes you lesbian (I think the director or writer did pull a JKR, Dumbledore type deal with her, but it's not in the text so fuck them, it's not canon) and they ignore all of Rey's character development to call her a Mary Sue feminazi bitch while upholding Padme and Mara Jade, a flat, boring static character and a literal overpowered Mary Sue as more well-written alternatives, so people are basically insane and will riot whenever any form of minority is in their fiction these days, sadly. I get it.
Spider-Man being gay or bi would sent the internet into a tailspin, and I kind of want to see it because I'm a shit-disturber and I think it would be funny.
But also because, come on, Peter Parker is bi as fuck. He's had weird sexual tension Flash Thompson and Eddie Brock several times throughout his comics runs and various other forms of media. He's got weird vibes with his best friend Harry. I don't know, I just don't buy that Peter is 100% straight. I do buy that he's 100% pure-hearted and a total dork, though, which is why he's the best superhero. He makes nerds and dorks believe in themselves and he's funny. And he represents the twinks. And the twunks. And that's why Spider-Man is so damn important.
If I was a huge blockbuster, top-selling YA author who could land gigs like these superhero novels people like Margaret Sthol and Leigh Bardugo and SJ Maas are getting, I'd want to write a Spider-Man trilogy. I'd probably be Kevin Fiege's slave for life if he or someone, anyone, at Marvel, would let me at this property.
Alas, I'll be restrained to the realm of fanfic and daydreaming, but I'll still love Spider-Man as long as I live.
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