#and it would be kinda nice to have a *specific* spidey name for Miles

[theshadowrealmitself]

I miss Miles’ jacket, it was such a cool look on top of his spidey suit but, growth spurt aside, it was only a matter of time before his dad recognized it and either came to the correct conclusion or a hilariously wrong conclusion that kinda made him wish his dad just figured out he was Spidey

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Abramazing Spider-Man #1 Thoughts

Very mixed feelings on Abramazing Spider-Man #1

I think I’ll be preaching to the choir here when I say the best thing about this book was the art. Pichelli draws a nice Spider-Man and one of the best Mary Jane’s period, at least of the modern era.

The rest though...

 The moment I saw the dialogue about ‘him’ in the previews I knew this was an Elseworlds, which it wasn’t originally promoted as. That might be for the best given that Cadaverous might be veering a little too close to Kindred right now and what happens to Mary Jane.

 MJ’s death MIGHT sink the whole book for me as she was heavily featured in the promotional material and seeing an adventure with her in it was part of the appeal. I don’t want to say this was a bait and switch in that regard but it was at least flirting with being that.

 The best parts of the book were seeing Aunt May as a grandmother and contention between Peter and Ben, between a Spider-Man who’s given up on his sense of heroism (probably because of Mary Jane’s death) and his son who in a sense carries the ideals Peter used to live by in him, he just lacks the ability to do all that much.

 On paper that’s a really compelling hook for a Spider-Man story, it really is, although I think my interest in it was more derived from the fact that it’s set up as a story about a father and son (I have a fondness for those, hence I love Lion King, Star Wars and a lot of Dragon Ball Z) actually written by a father and son. I don’t know if that’s why that argument in the car was the best scene for me or if my knowledge of the behind the scenes is making it a bigger deal than it actually is. After all for all we know J.J. Abrams himself might not be doing all that much storywise, it might be his son doing the lion’s share.

 It’s worth remembering also that the seeds of this story were planted back in 2004! From what we know none of the story elements that wound up in this mini-series were conceived of back then.

 But for what it is worth in some ways it certainly feels like that. A dark depressing AU where Mary Jane getting fridged is a driving factor in the motivation of Peter’s retirement and his son’s rise to heroism. Throw in a Peter Parker down a limb and it very much feels like a throwback to the days when Spider-Girl was on the stands alongside more darker and cynical stories. Plus Aunt May knows the truth that was a big thing in 2004. It also bears remembering that 2004-2007 was when the end goal of OMD was very much in mind, they hadn’t pinned down specifics but they knew it was going to happen so stories like Spider-Man: Reign happened which were weird love letters to the the relationship whilst also subtextually floating the idea it was a bad thing at the end of the day.

 In fact Spider-Girl meets Spider-Man: Reign in a lot of ways could describe the set up for this series.

 In fairness that might just be a reflection that currently the state of affairs in Spider-Man’s world is closer to what it was like in 2004. Peter and MJ together, Aunt May being better written and more relevant, an acknowledgement that Spider-Man could be older, could even be a parent and have interesting stories.

 As for how this stacks up against the last ‘Elseworlds’ outing we got, Life Story, well I have to concede that so far it’s an improvement. Life Story had false advertising and a muddled concept behind it. So far Abramazing Spidey only has the former problem and arguably not as severely. It’s clear the spectre of Mary Jane is going to hang over the proceedings as it very much seems her absence is a huge component of Ben’s personality and of Peter’s retirement, and as such the tension between them.

 I’m just personally kinda bummed MJ not only died but got fridged within like 5 minutes of showing up. It was a shock, I will give them that, I did gasp out loud. But...I’m not a fan of it. Maybe they can do something with it but so far I mean...isn’t this a little cliché?

 I only really realized that after the fact. I confess when reading the story I was enjoying it well enough, it wasn’t blowing me away but I didn’t think it was bad.

 But between a dead parent, a father and son at odds with one another, a disabled retired super hero, a spider person getting their powers as a high schooler, discovering their powers whilst crawling on their bedroom ceiling (which is very similar to the end of Ultimate Spidey #1 and Miles’ second ever appearance), the stereotypical jock bully (do they even exist anymore) and the thing that broke the old hero coming back to haunt him...I mean...It just feels very been there done that.

 Even the idea of an old villain returning to settle a score and conveniently it’s tied directly to the thing that retired the former hero, that’s straight out of Spider-Girl’s origin.

 The only thing that’s vaguely different is we do not know who Cadaverous is, but even...he(?????)...she...they.......even Cadaverous has what seems to be an on ice lady love like Kang’s from Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes or any number of other comic book related stuff.

I personally think the woman in the tank WAS Mary Jane. Like Cadaverous as the name implies, appropriated her body from the grave for some reason....which now I think about it would make it even more like Reign...

 On the one hand if this is Henry Abrams’ first shot at comic book writing I guess maybe we could forgive some of these cliches.

 But J.J.? If he’s mostly responsible for this then absolutely not.

 And in either case this book thus far doesn’t live up to the hype or price point. I mean $5 to see J.J. Abrams do his take on Spider-Man? Shouldn��t we get something more than stuff we’ve seen a lot of times before? And I don’t even mean a billion times before in comics I mean a lot of times before in Spider-Man specifically.

 I guess because this is an AU that isn’t even pretending to sync with standard continuity, you could also get away with some of this too...but I also found there to be problems in characterization.

 First of all it seems like Peter is a reporter of some kind...why wouldn’t he just become a scientist full time if he’s intelligent and isn’t Spider-Man any more. If nothing else he could whip up a robotic arm for himself, I mean we’ve got more sophisticated synthetic limbs NOW don’t we?

 Second of all I’m on the fence about whether or not Peter would retire because MJ died, maybe if it was like indirectly his fault but even then...wasn’t Gwen’s death way more directly his fault and she didn’t prompt him towards retirement.

 Third of all Aunt May draws comparisons between Ben’s acting out and Peter. Initially I thought maybe she was referring to MJ, that MJ was more of a wild child in her youth but the dialogue gives little room for doubt she meant Peter. And Peter just really was not like that in his high school or college days, especially from Aunt May’s point of view.

 Finally I question why Ben effectively believes so hard in the mantra of great power = great responsibility (not said explicitly mind you) if his Mother didn’t teach him that because she was dead and his father didn’t teach him that because he’s actively dissuading him from living by that. I guess Aunt May but like...Peter didn’t get that message until Ben died and she raised him too so...Just maybe flesh that out a little is what i’m saying.

 Storywise the kindest thing to say about this is it’s kind of mediocre and the story angles it’s going for have been done a lot before in Spider-Man and done much better. Instead of seeing the origin of little red haired Ben Parker and his Mommy issues couldn’t we have just gotten a Spider-Girl or MC2 mini-series instead. People already like those characters and you can already tell stories about parents clashing with their kids in those.

[seenashwrite]

Dearest Nash, I've touched on this before in (I believe) in a discussion re: why some mainstream fics get oodles of notes while more original ones do not, *but* I wanted to get a bit more specific here. There are certain writers here whose writing has a definite vibe to it (if you will) that separates their work from others, and your name is one of the first that comes to mind. Bear with me, because trying to detail what makes your writing stand out is difficult while trying to articulate a Q

^ this is a gif with parts 2 - 4, just FYI

Hmmm… this is a bit of a brain buster. But I can answer it, and I think succinctly, maybe with a touch of that Spidey sense you mention:

Thank you for your inquiry, hope that helps! 

I kid. But this is a brain-turner. And a characteristic which, like you say, ain’t limited to me. I’d honestly throw comedians under this umbrella, too, not because I’m necessarily gunning for a laugh every time, but because it’s pretty much their job to take a “basic” (a tenet or fact of life or present reality or whatever) and present the observation with a twist. I think of storyteller comedians specifically, your Patton Oswalt-s, Maria Bamford-s, Kathy Griffin-s, and John Mulaney-s.

So if I can sum up, assuming I’m tracking with you, what you’re more or less driving at with the “how” is this –> Is there anything beyond simply personality, or an auto-pilot thought cascade (for lack of better terminology) that contributes? Are there things someone could do/be proactive about, to perhaps cause this same sort of reaction to happen in their brain?

I think there just might be.

Folks reading this, let me ask you a question, and you cannot look it up:

What was the name of the Sherpa guide who led Sir Edmund Hillary up Mount Everest?

.

.

.

His name was Tenzing Norgay.

Nash, what in the name of the frozen corpse of George Mallory does this have to do with Lion’s question?

I shall tell you.

My father told me that fact when I was quite young, so young I legit couldn’t even ballpark my age for you. The context was that having little facts tucked away in your brain may come in handy. Not in a Jeopardy kind of way, more in a conversational way. I’ve no idea why the man thought the Sherpa guide who led Hillary up Mt. Everest would ever come up during a conversation with enough regularity to justify my knowing that fact (aside from him randomly quizzing me throughout my life) but hey, I guess it just did.

But speaking of Lil’ Nash, the situation for her was that she was the eldest of all the Nash litter by miles… like seven or eight years, I’m not bothering to check. So I had a lot of alone time, and my grandmother was my chief babysitter, so prior to kindergarten and then til I was in about second grade (so: all day long during the week, then every weekday after she picked me up from school), I was pretty much always at her house. Yeah, there were toys, but not a lot to do. And I’d read. I’d been reading on my own for a decent while, not because I was some prodigy but because my dad read to me *constantly* when Lil’ Nash was Itty-Bitty Nash, and it “took”. My mom also, every time she went to the grocery store always - and I mean always - brought back a book for me. It might’ve been an Archie comic—-

Mandatory #fuck the CW’s Riverdale tag

—-or a Babysitter’s Club, or Sweet Valley High, Judy Blume, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, you get my point. Some small paperback. It would piss Dad off because he’s a cheap bastard and two buck books once or twice a month were really gonna cut into the savings [eyeroll] but also, in a way, because I’d kill it in a half day/a day. Wouldn’t put it down. After awhile, I started writing my own silly little kid stories, then - and this is where the creative writing love came about -  I started writing soap operas for my Barbies. (When I was older - like, 5th grade? 6th grade, maybe? - none of my peers were still playing with Barbies, and I got made fun of when, at a sleepover, they saw my stash. And I was like - No, no, no. Those aren’t for playing. That’s my cast.)

Time went on, and when I was bored at post-church lunch/dinners, I would also read the old encyclopedias at my grandmother’s, the ones from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s that she had for my mom and my aunt. As I got even older and became fascinated with rooting through the boxes in gran’s basement, looking at all the cool old clothes, I stumbled upon my aunt’s collection of Whoa-Hooooo Shit There’s No Way My Grandparents Knew You Read These books. Those kinda Harlequin-esque ones, except my aunt’s tastes run close to mine, none were the same shtick with different covers, shmultzy-sappy romance, there was always some sort of intrigue along with the sexy times, and she also had, like, every legit V. C. Andrews (meaning: not the ones from the ghostwriter, this was way before her death) book.

What is my point? I read a LOT. Now-a-days, other than fanfic (which… straight up: I don’t read a lot of that, either. I peace out on probs 80% of it before the third-to-fifth paragraph. It’s gotta sell me fast, yo) I haven’t read fiction in probably, oh…. 12 years? I think the last ones were the first couple Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Wait, no! I lie! I read the 50 Shades books when I was traveling 2x/wk for a job about 4 years ago, and I needed the laughs. It worked. Oh my days, that woman can’t write. The screenplay might’ve been worse, it goes her, then Buckleming, then everyone else. It’s bad. In any event, past decade or so, it’s more historical stuff and true crime and science stuff and all that old fart jazz.

Okay, so that’s #1: Read. And not just anything, be well-read, and that doesn’t mean developing some level of expertise, by “well” I’m saying to cover the spread. You’re building your tool kit, is all. You won’t use most of it, but it’s nice to have options. You also don’t always have to get this stuff from reading now-a-days, because podcasts. Cover the spread there, too. Lemme look at my bookmarks…. 

[Spongebob narrator voice: A few moments later]

I’m back. Science - Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe; General current stuff without being news - CGP Grey’s Hello Internet; current events with shittons of pop culture, past and present - Greg Proops’ Smartest Man in the World; fun history stuff - The Dollop; entertainment stuff - How Did This Get Made.

#2: Keep a notebook with you and jot down turns-of-phrase that spark something in your brain - things you read on websites, on twitter, in articles, things you hear people say (real life, TV, movies, podcasts), and write it. Don’t snap a pic with your phone or make a note in your phone. There are studies behind this, I’m not hunting them down, you’ll just have to trust me, but there are, and it goes to being reflexive, a brain “muscle memory” thing, if you will. You’re not doing it to plagiarize, you’re doing it to dissect it, kind’ve like you did with the example you gave on me —> went from punch action to punch spiked with booze to a punch with a spiked gauntlet.

Which leads to #3: Mental dictionary. I have a large vocab repository, and it stems from the tons of reading - I stop and look up stuff if I either don’t know it, or it’s used in such a way that I think they’ve got it wrong and want to double-check that maybe there’s another usage I don’t know - and also stems from a drive to combat the (still fairly thick) deep South drawl I can’t kick, and not for lack of trying. But see, I couldn’t have whipped out that progression if I weren’t aware that one definition of “spike” is “to add alcohol to”, or of the common shtick in stories of spiked punch like at high school proms typically, or knew about the existence of spiked gauntlets / old school armor. 

And I guarantee you that a good chunk of people didn’t really “get it”, and just thought “Nash Be Nashin’, that nutty gal”. So they “get it” on that level, but don’t Get. It., if you see what I’m saying. And that’s fine. Maybe it got something cranking in the back of their mind and it’ll hit ‘em in the middle of the night, or they’ll be watching Game of Thrones or something, see a gauntlet and be like “Oh goddamnit, I just got a throw-a-way one-liner from three years ago” and have a chuckle.

Related, re: looking stuff up and things that people “get”? I didn’t know fuck-all about Twilight, but it seemed of import to the folks around 5 years younger than me, the Nashlings wouldn’t shut up about it, so I got a good working knowledge of it. Same with Harry Potter, and through it I got to “know” J.K. Rowling, who I find to be an exceptional writer, so that was great, and I’ve watched the movies for the most part over the years at Christmastime, and I don’t give the first shit about what “house” I’m in, nor do I care about what Patronus I’d fart, but I have a working knowledge of what those are, and horcruxes and who Snape and Voldie are, you get my point. I can keep up. But to do it, I had to take the time to look it up. One thing I would not trade for gold is Michael Sheen chewing the goddamn scenery in that battle segment from the last Twilight movie. Have I watched the movie? No. But that scene is the shit. And that baby CGI is horrific on several subtle levels. And not-so-subtle. I’ve digressed.

Back to those notes: So if you’ve got these notes jotted, you might see something else and think “I feel like that could’ve been snappier…. why do I think that….” And you’ve got a resource at your disposal, that little notebook. Hell, jot that thing down - things you think could be done better. I have in many documents a highlight around chunks of scenes for my big dog story where it says in bold above or below “DO BETTER”. Meaning: there’s a better way to get from A to B, but I’m just not quite there yet. I’m pretty quick on the uptake and can crank out something snappy on the fly (like say, in CASPN chat or when banging out a short reply or thank you note) but there’s definitely times I gotta slap a DO BETTER on it and walk away til that snappy something-or-other light bulb goes off. 

Here’s a recent one where I backtracked, matter of fact - that noir spoof thing I wrote? Along with my co-writer, Moscato? There was a line that I couldn’t hit with a good zinger, so I just said moments were going by like a fat hamster on a wheel, which is cute, but not really grooving with the setting/the vibe. Less tipsy, when I was correcting some inelegant formatting and a misspelling [sigh], I went “Oh! Why didn’t this occur to me last night? Right. Wine.” So the line is now about moments dragging like a rolling donut with a copper on its tail. Get it? The cop’s a fat ass. The donut-cop stereotype.

…….Fine, it ain’t my best, but it fits better. Moving on.

And this leads nicely into #4, and a specific tip I can impart - assuming you’ve got a passable-to-high level of vocabulary in your tool belt, practice messing around with making nouns into verbs, and twisting random stuff into descriptors and using bizarre words/things in metaphors/analogies. Like, I say “adulting” quite a bit. Ali - @littlegreenplasticsoldier - I thiiiink was writing recently about Sam being drunk, and he’s a tall wobbly Jenga tower on his last Jenga. Going back to the noir, pulpy detective style, try messing with the whole “S/he was like a ___ that ____”. Add on to stuff that’s well known - He was like a dog with a bone, if the bone was a ____ and he was a ____ and we were in a ____. (I have *nothing* in mind to fill those blanks, by the way, feel free to twist it into sumpin’)

What else…. okay, here’s a #5: In drafts, let yourself wander, and see what kicks out. It can be fueled by silliness or anger, but I don’t reckon you’re gonna get the “snappy” you’re aiming for if you’re down in the dumps and going full-court-press angst. The best stuff, IMO, comes from the space in between goofy and pissed, and that is The Land Of Snark. You can always re-style it to bend more dry or wistful should you need to, certainly, depending on the situation.

Have a sample of a primo Nash Digression that was fueled by ire in a recap from Season 12 (episode 19). I had said - RE: the random inclusion of the character Joshua, which still pisses me off because they burned a character that held massive potential for future stuff as he’d been shown to be the only angel with direct access to Chuck, so, y’know, that could never come in handy, like ever again in the series, right? - the following.

Mandatory pre-emptive #fuck Dabb

[Spongebob narrator voice] A few moments later —> 

On god, I have no idea where that came from, and here’s where we go back to ol’ Spidey up there, because end of the day?

All that other stuff’s the foundation, sure, but there’s always gonna be the weird iggy, the thing that can’t be learned or taught, whatever the quirky synapse is that fires off in my/our brains. In my experience, it’s an ADD-ish sort of jam mixed with the Nostradamus effect. Meaning, (A) we’re at Level 10, rapid fire thought processing >50% of the time, and (B) throw out enough stuff for long enough, some of it’s going to stick. And I whiff it plenty. Multiple times in CASPN chat I’ve been like “Whoo, tough room” when something falls flat.

A specific example: @mrswhozeewhatsis - and I think you saw this, but anyone else seeing this may not have - gave probably the most fantastic analogy I’ve seen regarding the whole “getting it” thing, and while it was on the topic of meaty plots that get too far into the weeds (my specialty) and how it can lessen appeal to a broader audience, it still applies here. 

She said “Sometimes, when I’m reading something of yours, I feel like there’s a joke I’m missing. It’s like watching Spaceballs without having seen Star Wars.” I say that to say - nobody’s gonna land references that cover the spread 100% of the time. And, y’know, fine. I figure maybe it’ll prompt someone to do a quick google for - well, let’s use Spaceballs. Most folks will no doubt get the Star Wars part, but maybe not Spaceballs. Maybe they’ll check it out, find something they enjoy. Or learn a new word. Or get a brainstorm for a story. Who knows?

Last tip: Don’t actively mimic anyone’s style. Much fail. And I don’t only mean because if they’re on a social Venn diagram with you, would likely recognize themselves in your stuff——

Takes a moment to wave to the peeps still trying with me! #bless your hearts

—–but because it’s fucking hard. I did it broadly on the noir thing, that’s not a hard thing, to homage generalities, but the way I’m messing with doing this on that silly Princess Bride series? Purposefully styling it like Goldman? It’s good  challenging and all, and it is making it feel more in the groove with the book/movie, but I have to be in the right frame of mind or it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, and when I have pushed it, then gone back, it’s sloggy, soggy garbage.

I say all that to say: it’s an amalgam of brain-wiring/personality, and world/life perspective(s), and knowledge acquired over time. The first just is; the second will evolve in myriad ways, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse; the last is the one where you/we have control, we can fill bucket after bucket of information, and the well won’t ever run dry.

Sorry this took so long. I kept adding and subtracting. This is the edited version, if you can believe it. Welcome to Nash Brain. 😉