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Category Archives: a fit of inspiration

The amazing Man-Spider!

Let’s speculate.  Because it’s fun to do.

You all know the origin story of the amazing Spider-Man right?  Mild-mannered Peter Parker is accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider and acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid as well as the ability to cling to walls and ceilings.  With these new found powers, he goes on to become Spider-Man.

But…what if we reversed that?

What if, instead it was a radioactive spider biting a human, you have a radioactive human biting a spider?  Radioactive humans exist, either for medical treatment or science experiments gone wrong or ignorance or nuclear disasters.  They exist.  Now, what if you got one of them to bite a spider?

Admittedly, this would be difficult.  A spider can bite a human and the human can survive since a spider is typically much, much smaller than a human (and we are discounting venom).  I’m not really sure how a human can bite a spider and have the spider survive.

I guess we can play with the sizes a little.  Make the spider one of the giant species of tarantula, like the Gooty sapphire (links to a picture, obvs).  They grow to be about as big as your face.  Another plus about the Gooty sapphire is that they already have a really great crime-fighting outfit.  They’re really pretty spiders.

Female spiders also tend to be bigger than male spiders, so we could also make sure the spider in question is female.  I’m not sure if that would change the title of the character though.  The amazing Girl-Spider?  The amazing Woman-Spider?  I guess it doesn’t really change it.  Because those two titles imply that it was a female human biting a spider.   I guess we don’t differentiate gender in spiders with different terminology.  And we could argue that we’re using “man” as a generic term for humankind.  For simplicity’s sake.

But what kind of powers would the amazing Man-Spider obtain from getting bitten (and surviving) by a radioactive human?  Peter Parker didn’t lose any of his human abilities when the spider bit him, so I don’t think our spider should lose any of her spider abilities.  Humans are known for their…speech?  And intelligence?  And opposable thumbs?  I guess those would be good traits for the amazing Man-Spider to have.

So the amazing Man-Spider!  A spider bitten by a radioactive human!  Inexplicably develops opposable thumbs on all of her legs and the ability to speak and gains super-intelligence (for a spider)!  With these new found powers, she decides to go and fight crime!  And I bet she’d be pretty successful at it judging by the rampant arachnophobia in this world.

Brain dump: Fountains

In the days of yore and in lands yonder, fountains of oatmeal were a common sight. They dotted the villages and hamlets, in their central squares and plazas. It was a gathering place for the townsfolk, where they could share their day’s stories and acquire breakfast for the next morning. There was happiness and good cheer around the fountains.

But for one man, the oatmeal fountain was a travesty, a mockery of what nature had intended. The fountains were typically erected over naturally occurring deposits of prepared oatmeal so as to allow easy access to breakfast. But François knew these oatmeal deposits were so much more than just breakfast. He knew that the oatmeal fountains were not harnessing the full potential of oatmeal deposits. He knew that the the best use would be…oatmeal hot tubs.

The previous was brought to you by a five minute brain dump inspired by this conversation:

Me: I am writing with a fountain pen. 9:56 AM
Friend: I read that u were writing about a fountain 10:00 AM
Me: I am writing about a fountain. 10:01 AM
Me: That might be a good exercise. Maybe I’ll do it. 10:01 AM

I may or may not finish the story as I warranted that a five minute brain dump was a good enough exercise.  My brain dump stories tend to get out of hand pretty quickly.