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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

  • awillett

    Ha ha! My favorite part of the song was when she said he was gay. Because, you know, gay. Saying a dude is gay is funny.

    • ToMajorTom

       It always annoys me when I hear the supposed insult of “that’s so gay”.  But in this context, I felt it was for humor and not an insult, and I laughed.  Please don’t revoke my Q-card.

      • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

        Gay and ghey are homonyms.

        • http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai

          Oh, you’re just saying that one slur, but you changed the spelling, so I’m sure it is fine.

          • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

            Language evolves. Context and intent matters.

            I happen to think political correctness is a fine notion, but we shouldn’t abandon all nuance.

          • awillett

            There’s not a lot of nuance to “gay is bad,” which is what lies at the heart of all that. Changing the spelling is a fig leaf. This isn’t a political correctness thing: this is just common decency.

          • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

            The spelling isn’t a fig leaf; it’s a distinction. And BTW @mordicai:disqus , it wasn’t me who changed the spelling.

            ‘Gay’ nor ‘ghey’ = bad as such, but ‘ghey’ most definitely = lame. As popularised by South Park, which kinda indicates to me that it’s not going away in a hurry, regardless of anyone’s sensitivities. At least the intertron has forked the word with a different spelling, I figure.

            And speaking of nuance, IMO aside from the main lineage of the term there’s a connotation harking back to gay = happy, a usage which rings somewhat twee and hence lame to modern ears.

            I much prefer to avoid offending anyone on the basis of their sexuality, but I’m not going to bend over backwards or ignore which way the wind blows to escape the undiscerning ire of passive-aggressive types.

          • http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai

            Like the nuance of using a term for a group of people to mean generically “bad”?

            I get it, it is evolving like the way a group of oppressed people have their terminology co-opted by the hegemonic culture as a term of derision! No sweat then.

          • gamophyte

            I was giving a humorous example in the form of a statement  while avoiding the actual n-word. I apologize for any assumed ill will and outside censorship.

          • http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai

            Yeah, Poe strikes, Poe always strikes; for my part, I am not actually a humorless android, but right, the fact that Poe’s Law is out there is ALSO sort of the point, too. I mean, beyond broader issues of privilege & biased linguistics.

    • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

      Replied to your unreply-able comment

  • welcomeabored

    I thought about it for a few minutes, but just couldn’t find the downside (ahem) to a super hero’s dick falling off… if it’s fresh upon receipt.   Win-win.

  • bcsizemo

    So why is his dick still wearing the spider suit?  Or do they just look red and checkered pattern like that?

  • PhosPhorious

    I was a bit unclear on some of the  subtler details. 

    Am I to understand that his dick falls off?

  • nicholas1987

    A joke stolen from the Venture Bros. 

  • http://twitter.com/treelobsters Tree Lobsters!

    Bug Girl disagrees… http://membracid.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/scientifically-accurate-spider-man-is-not-accurate/

    • http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

       Yeah, to me it seemed more like “Vaguely Scientifically Accurate in a Way that we Think Will Amuse and/or Gross People Out Spiderman.” 

    • Will Holz

      Yeah, bug girl nailed it nicely.  I was totally baffled by the gay and milk bits!

      The sad thing is scientifically accurate could still have been just as funny, just differently so!  

  • Boundegar

    My teenage son will love this.  I am a terrible parent.

  • http://twitter.com/echolman Ethan Holman

    If I’m not mistaken, my Rose Haired Tarantula has silk spinners in the tips of her feet. It is how she climbs walls. So…

    • http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

      Not yet it doesn’t.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1287511372 Jamie DiBattista

    So it’s an animated metaphor of what happens when somebody says something obviously figurative on the internet and everybody pig-piles on her, thinking she somehow meant it literally.   

  • gwailo_joe

    I was waiting for the eight legs…but it’s a pain to animate; what can you do…

  • BarBarSeven

    Excellent!

  • GlyphGryph

    Those penises that fall off should really be coming out of his neck or shoulders or chin or something! This is totally inaccurate!

  • technogeekagain

    This one lost me completely at the “gay” gag.

    The webcomic _Spinnerette_  riffed on some of these issues, especially back when she was first acquiring her powers — specifically, the questions of where the silk is extruded from and the fact that one has to eat enough of the right stuff to feed the glands. She also has to deal with extra legs — well, arms — which complicates maintaining a non-hero identity.

    I must point out that before Hollywood got their paws on him, Peter Parker’s webslinging was a clever invention — a wrist-worn device that sprayed a chemical mixture which polymerized on contact with air. Ignoring the “can’t every teenager throw together a super-scientific device in his spare time?” aspect of it,  that made webslinging and -swinging much more reasonable. (It also gave an opportunity for complicating plots by having the cartridge run dry at a particularly inconvenient moment.)

    • BarBarSeven

      Ignoring the “can’t every teenager throw together a super-scientific device in his spare time?” aspect of it,  that made webslinging and -swinging much more reasonable.

      Not too clear on what you mean here. Do you mean that the mechanical/man-made aspect of the original web slinging device made it implausible?  Or do you mean it made it more plausible that someone else could make one?

      I like the non-biological web slinging.  It shows Peter Parker was smart & resourceful!

      • Will Holz

        Yes, he invented one of the best non-lethal weapons in the history of mankind and never thought to share it with anyone.

  • Bradley Robinson

    I used to fucking hate spider man.   Until now.

    • http://profiles.google.com/spacewatcer Marios P.

      haters not gonna hate?!

    • Antinous / Moderator

      I used to hate fucking spider man. Until I realized that his penises were collectible.

      • euansmith

         Gotta collect ‘em all! Penisachu!

  • CDD

    In Puerto Rico there is a similar character called “GuabáMan”. The story is that he was bitten by a radioactive Phrynus longipes in the island of Vieques where the US Navy use to do military training. Here is the youtube channel for “GuabáMan”  https://www.youtube.com/user/guabamanchannel?feature=watch

  • kinscore

    Hark! A Vagrant’s Brown Recluse Spider Man
    http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=308

  • lbigbadbob

    60% scientifically accurate…

  • Halloween_Jack

    A high school acquaintance of mine, with a minor bit of artistic skill and no shame whatsoever, drew a version of Spider-Woman who had one of the characteristics listed. I’ll let you guess which one. He was damn lucky the teacher didn’t find that one. (He also came up with a version of Iron Fist called “Iron Dick”.)

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Did you grow up in a Judd Apatow movie?

      • Halloween_Jack

        You know, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one. (I’ve seen Walk Hard, but that wasn’t directed by him.) I assumed that guys making dirty drawings and/or drawing their own comics was pretty common in high school, at least for guys. 

  • awillett

    (ceci n’est pas un comment)