#I sincerely do not care about the plot or the discourse around the setting of this show because I already knew Castlevania

[imperiuswrecked]

Sincerely I do not care about any other character in Castlevania except for Olrox and Drolta.

[unhingedmarvelandclassicwhobuff]

Since we're now in the time period of WandaVision's fourth anniversary, I'm gonna go on a rant about how much I hated the experience of watching it as it was being released

As I've mentioned before, starting in mid-2019 I started to become worried that Marvel would try to go the comic route and twist Wanda into a villain. It got so bad that I had nightmares about it. So you can imagine how nervous I was knowing that she was getting a show where Vision was apparently alive again.

While for the first few episodes I was able to appreciate how good the sitcom recreations were, it was incredibly frustrating to be getting a Wanda show where she's acting absolutely nothing like herself.

I still remember the first time my heart dropped and I thought "Fuck. They're doing it." was at the end of episode 2 when time rewinds. The moment is edited to make it look like Wanda did it intentionally (though retroactively there's no way that's possible), and that was the start of a downward spiral of me thinking Marvel was seriously doing what I was scared they were doing.

I'm still more than a little amazed that Marvel had so little faith in the audience that after just three episodes they slammed on the brakes and painstakingly spelled out exactly what questions the audience should be asking. That feels like a studio-mandated choice.

Another big moment that made my blood run cold was the very end of episode 4, because again, the scene where Wanda throws Monica out is framed like she knows exactly what's going on and doesn't care. And then Monica saying "it's all Wanda" at the end... Let's just say four years ago today was a pretty bad day for me.

Episode 5 was the worst of it for me. Not only was that the episode where they hammer in just how torturous the mind control is, but it's also the episode where Wanda herself is at her absolute worst, as we've gone over in painstaking detail. To this day my most hated scene in WandaVision is the confrontation outside the Hex. It's just there to make the audience think Wanda is fully in control and couldn't care less about what she's doing. I don't care how well-executed the scene is, to even insinuate that Wanda would ever intentionally hurt innocents is enough to send me into a blind rage.

And just to cap it all off, the Fake Pietro reveal at the end made my heart sink for another reason entirely. 99% of the discourse I saw online during those weeks was little more than people theorizing/hoping that the show would be a plot device to introduce mutants or the Fantastic Four or the X-Men or a dozen other fucking things that have nothing to do with Wanda. So while for basically everyone else Evan Peters showing up was a massive vindication, for me it was confirmation that this show really didn't care about Wanda and was mainly focused on setting up future projects. At the time I distinctly remember coming to the conclusion after episode 5 that the main function of the show was to cement Wanda as a villain so she could be used as one in a later movie.

Things didn't get much better in episode 6. Vision wandering around and seeing all the frozen people in unending agony again made me want to vomit, because at that point I still thought Wanda knew about it and didn't care. The scene where he "wakes up Agnes" just solidified that for me. Wanda saying she didn't know how she did any of this didn't help much, as I immediately figured she was lying through her teeth. Granted I wasn't paying a ton of attention to her mannerisms or body language during that scene that prove otherwise. Wanda expanding the Hex was another nightmare-come-alive moment for me, because I sincerely thought it meant she was fully aware of how to control it and what it did.

Episode 7 wasn't any better either. It upset me greatly to see Wanda casually note right at the start that she knew she had created the Hex, and I think by this point I had sort of dejectedly accepted that the woman I loved was dead and an amoral monster who had no problem with casual torture had taken her place.

Even Agatha showing up didn't make me perk up, because I immediately thought she was just another creation of the Hex for Wanda to use as a scapegoat.

So as I think you can tell, this show's misdirection worked hook line and sinker on me, and I hate it for that, because it was baiting me into thinking my literal worst nightmare was coming true right before my eyes.

I went into episode 8 with a numb acceptance that this show had murdered Wanda for the sake of using her as a big bad later on. So you can imagine the gigantic whiplash I got when it ended up being a respectful, tear-jerking depiction of her that suddenly removed the veil and revealed she truly didn't know what was going on at all.

The finale was equally heartwrenching for me, choppiness and all. It was... more than a little upsetting to see the people of Westview confront Wanda with what had been happening and to see her just as confused and horrified as I was, and by the end of that scene I was crying right along with her. I shouldn't have to reiterate how much I love what little interactions Wanda gets with her family before the Hex collapses.

Seeing how many people online had the exact opposite reaction to me, where they were loving the show until episode 8, just made me feel like the only person who truly cared about Wanda.

So, TLDR, on initial release I was HATING WandaVision for 80% of its duration, and it only won me over in the final two episodes by showing me that the creators truly did understand Wanda. I still don't consider it to be worthy of her glory, but those last two episodes are pretty much the closest the MCU will likely ever come to having a good showing of Wanda as the hero she truly is.

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 14x17

SPOILERS AHEAD! BEWARE!

Sooooooooooooooooo. Admittedly I wasn’t looking forward that much to this episode, because both Donatello and Nick (and his Lucifer obsession) are characters/storylines I’m not that interested in. However it seems like Jack will be the character all storylines will evolve around now, and that has me sucked in. I’m concerned about Mary and her fate and I hope that Supernatural has learned from their past and doesn’t sacrifice a beloved character in order to create man-pain.

But, as always, let’s have a closer look.

Lady in Red

(Random observation: loved Danneel’s look). In this week’s subplot we have Cas enlisting Anael to help him find God, in order to restore Jack’s soul. Anael is yet another angel who has become disillusioned with God and his creation. She can’t understand how God has created earth and humanity, his so called perfect people, but allows hatred and pain, because he doesn’t meddle. We do know that God at times does meddle (Cas specifically mentions his resurrections) but that of course in creating humans he also gave them free will. And that’s kind of the point (and in many ways what this show is about: we are our choices). Mary reminds Sam that what Nick did is not his fault, because they were Nick’s choices. There will always be evil in the world because there will always be people who make that choice. But there will also be goodness; Sam’s choice to give Nick a second chance was an act of kindness. As Mary said it shows the kind of man he is: a good man.

Anael, like many other angels, can’t grasp the concept of free will. She uses her powers to meddle, to make a difference. On the surface it looks like she does it for money, but as she told Cas, if you think that is the only reason you haven’t paid attention.

I feel a lot of Cas and Anael’s interactions were there to contrast the two characters and to show once again how different Cas is from all the other angels, how human he has become (it is a pattern and knowing the show will come to an end it feels like he has to make a choice eventually). In the waffle house we saw him ordering food, whereas Anael denied even a cup of coffee. Anael says that they are all alone, but Cas disagrees. Anael has lost her faith in heaven, in her angelic family, in God. Cas says it doesn’t matter if God cares about them or not because they still have each other; Cas has found a new family. And Anael of course was right in her assumption that Cas is currently hiding from Sam and Dean, that he is afraid to tell them the truth. His priorities are with his family and no longer with his mission.

The other repeated theme is of course God himself and how often he had been mentioned this season, especially calling out his absence and that he doesn’t seem to care. We heard that before from Michael, who because of God’s absence took it upon himself to become the new God. God of course is also always seen as a parallel to John (the way Michael and Lucifer work as a parallel for Dean and Sam). God isn’t the only absent father. However John did return this season and it gave his sons a chance for closure, to make their peace with how he raised them, and to reflect on their own lives and realize that they no longer need their father, that they no longer have to carry around the ghost of John. Cas saying that it doesn’t matter if God is around is similar to that. It is possible he will make another appearance after he has been mentioned that much, and because he might be the only one powerful enough to either save or stop Jack. Emotionally it might lead to another sort of closure, both for the Winchesters and the angels.  

We need to talk about Jack

First of all, the main discourse after this episode, and my opinion about it: PINEAPPLE DOES NOT BELONG ON PIZZA. DEAN IS RIGHT, IT IS AN ABOMINATION.

That being said I loved the five seconds of domestic Winchesters we got this week (why do you have to be so cruel show). Dean playing Mouse Trap is of course a foretelling of Nick and his complicated trap to get what he wants: Lucifer. I honestly don’t care about Donatello as a character (sorry dude), but it pained me to realize that Nick was right about something: the Winchesters don’t have many friends left he can use as bait. Of course there was a very specific reason why Nick needed Donatello: as a prophet he could use him to communicate to Lucifer. I wonder though if you can simply inject angel grace to a human? We know that not every human is capable to contain an angel, but it was just a little grace. It might have also something to do with Donatello’s special status as prophet or the fact that he is soulless that his body seemed unaffected by the grace.

The whole Nick storyline was… well I’m glad it is over. Nick has gone to a point where he identified himself so much with Lucifer that he feels incomplete without him, that he even referred to Jack as his own son. Of course he needed Jack for a very specific reason, or rather his blood. This might be the reason why Lucifer could come back: because a part of him is still tied to this world. Jack is his blood. Which is quite similar to how ghosts are created in the world of Supernatural: they can only stay because something of them still ties them to our world (their body, a certain possession etc). It also seemed to me that Nick was especially interested in Sam and that he was jealous of Sam’s status as the perfect vessel for Lucifer. I’m not sure if Nick’s speech to Dean, how being a vessel for an archangel changes you, was just there to provoke Dean or if we will see some change in Dean after all. So far he seems to be his old self again.

So let’s talk about Jack. We start the episode with Mary expressing her concern and Jack being annoyed by it, before he puts on a face to reassure Mary that he is alright. Mary of course knows Jack well enough to see right through it (in the time they spent together in the Apocalypse-World he became another son to her, perhaps more than Sam and Dean, because he still needs a mother to guide him). We see how utterly terrified Jack is by the thought that he might no longer has a soul. He wants to be ok, he wants to be all right, he doesn’t want to worry his family. Part of Jack’s behaviour read to me as a metaphor for depression. The absence of his soul, the emptiness he feels because of it, how he wants to be right again, how he doesn’t want to hurt his family but at the same is annoyed by their concern for him.

Jack repeatedly asks Mary for moral guidance. He asks for her permission to use his powers in order to find Nick. He needs her to tell him that it was okay that he killed Nick, and when she doesn’t he becomes upset, and is afraid she tells Sam and Dean about it and what their reaction might be. @mittensmorgul already pointed out that Jack misinterprets “Something is wrong” into “You are wrong”. Jack wants to be right, he wants to make the right choices, but he can no longer tell what is right and what is wrong (which brings us back to ‘we are our choices’). If they set up Jack as a villain (and I’m not 100% sold on that) it would make an interesting difference because for once we would have a bad guy who desperately doesn’t want to be a bad guy. And it might come back to Sam (and Dean), to good man, who give second chances, who try to save him instead of killing him.

At last I want to talk about Mary and potential death. I’m not saying she is but it is a possibility. We saw her giving two speeches to her sons, that should ring any alarm bell because they looked like goodbyes. She told Dean that is grateful for the time she spent together with her sons (after apologizing for being closed off and hard, which reminded me why I love her so much as a character: she is not the traditional mother, but rather a complicated complex female character). She tells Sam that he is a good man and proud of him. It is possible that they will kill of Mary (again), that they will use her death as the point of no return for Jack and to show us how much of a danger he is, that he is perhaps past saving.

However I really hope that won’t be the direction where they go. I love Mary as a character, I love that they brought back the original fridged character and that is why her death would be so problematic for me. Killing off a beloved character to get the plot in a certain direction is something Supernatural has done so many times and it never works and I sincerely hope they have learned from their mistakes. And surprisingly it is Nick who gives me hope here. Because after all nobody stays dead anymore.

Until next week <3

[elcorhamletlive]

MCU Rewatch: Age of Ultron

Those first few moments at the beggining of the battle are kind of dull, but I do love the shot of all the original six together.

I like the “language” line. I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but to me it works because of how obviously shocked Tony is by it and how Steve himself recognizes he’s kind of playing into his own stereotype when he goes “...I know”. I think it’s fun banter.

I also love that he throws his motorcycle at a car just before he says “it just slipped” lol.

There’s a very weird “people outside the U.S. resent the Avengers” subtext going on in this movie that is just too shallow for the theme it’s serving. It’s something that I see in fandom sometimes too, and it always rings kind of hollow because it’s like people trying to be “woke” without actually understanding what imperialism is and how it works (that’s also where a lot of Bad Takes about CW come from, but I digress). I feel like the movie just kind of puts it in the middle of the larger “are we monsters?” theme, but it really doesn’t work if it’s not properly explored.

I love that Steve lands on his feet after Pietro throws him up in the air LOL. Acrobat Steve is very present in Avengers movies in general, which I appreciate.

I looove the move of Thor slamming the shield with his hammer. It’s so clever and so cool.

“Please be a secret door, please be a secret door... yay!” So cuuute.

The emphasis Tony’s vision places on Steve is downright amazing. Tony straight to him, checks his pulse and no one else’s. Hears his voice talking. I live.

Wanda definitely sees the vision she gave Tony, but I don’t think she necessarily crafted it. This is an important detail for no one but myself and my endless wip-creating mind that still wants to write a fic of these two.

It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but Steve is helping Clint on the quinjet when they’re going home. 

Thor’s report on the Hulk is amazing.

“How is he doing?”/”Unfortunately, he’s still Barton” LOL.

Everyone’s outfit in the party scene is so on point, and then there’s Natasha with that weird skirt.

Also, that kind of goes without saying, but I love everything about the party scene. So many small and fun interactions, and the seeds to Steve’s home arc are laid out. It’s nice.

I love everything about Steve’s characterization in this movie, in fact. Him talking to Bruce is so sweet, and he’s also helping Nat as well by doing it. I love.

Everyone attempting to lift Mjolnir is the best part of this movie. Rhodey and Tony trying together. Steve managing to move it. Thor by the end with his “you’re not worthy” line. It’s perfect.

I love that Hill just has a gun on her at all times.

Oh my god Bruce falling with his face in Natasha’s cleavage is so cringe-worthy.

Aside from that I love the fight with the Iron Legion scene. Steve using the table as a shield, Tony using the fondue fork to attack a robot. Very good.

I’m sorry I’m not trying to get into Discourse but in the scene right after the fight? Tony is completely in the wrong and I literally can’t fathom someone watching that scene and thinking he’s a poor misunderstood baby in need of protection.

I do GET the complaint about how Whedon wrote Tony here, though, because the whole laughing and pretending it was funny was just a very, very dick moment that did feel a little forced. I feel like maybe if we had gotten one extra scene exploring how the vision played with his ptsd and anxiety (or even him just dwelling a little on the vision itself) it would’ve worked better, because then we’d see Tony’s emotions at play a little clearer.

Hnnnnng and there’s it is. “Together”. The moment I turned into absolute certified garbage. Tony’s FACE.

I do like that the Maximoffs interactions with Ultron kind of set up how they’re in over their heads with this whole thing. It’s also shown when they try and epically fail to intimidate Klaue.

Ultron’s whole “I’m not like Tony” thing while also saying things Tony would say is another weird element that never really pays off. It’s just... there.

I will forever love the “pretending you can live without a war” line, and how it ties with Steve’s vision. How the camera flashes sound like shots and wine stains look like blood. How Peggy asks him to “imagine” going home and then the room goes empty because he CAN’T. I really love it.

I feel like Clint’s family is kind of a weird plot point and it plays into some tropes that I don’t really like (like, we don’t know anything about these characters, but we’re supposed to care because they’re the stereotypical Nuclear Family and this makes them important), but Tony’s “these are.. smaller agents” line almost makes it worth it. lol

Clint staring out at Steve and Tony thoughtfully while saying “maybe they’re my mess” is the most relatable moment of the entire MCU.

I feel like BruceNat could have worked a little better if Ruffalo had made Bruce seem actually attracted to her, as opposed to incredibly uncomfortable every time she comes on to him. And she comes on so strongly, it eventually gets awkward because of how one-sided it feels.

And hoo boy there’s the “I’m sterile” talk. I really don’t think Whedon meant to equate infertile women with monsters here, but the way the dialogue is written, it’s kind of the impression that gives off. It’s uncomfortable.

LOG-RIPPING SCENE, YES!! I have a lot of Feelings about how Tony deliberately pokes at Steve because he thinks Steve seems to be doing okay (because Steve is hard to read for him), and how he doesn’t seem to notice that the whole “go home” thing hits Steve really hard. And he is being honest and trying to communicate, he just... can’t see it, and Steve doesn’t know about the vision, so it can’t really get anywhere. 

I will say that this movie is definitely missing a scene where Tony TELLS the others (or even just Steve) about his vision. Like, it feels that the resolution can’t be complete without it, because Tony’s fear can’t be fully addressed if it’s never out in the open. I enjoy Tony’s scene with Fury (and I love him calling the tractor “dear”) but I feel like this moment was necessary.

Tony gives a cute smile at Steve’s silly “craziest thing science ever made was me” line :D

Okay, the Thor subplot is completely unnecessary. I know it sets up the Infinity Stones, but it could have been waaay shorter. And the second fight before they create Vision is so dumb. There’s no reason for Tony to just jump into creating Vision AGAIN without even TALKING to everyone else. I’m on board with pretty much everything Stony-related in this movie, but this is unnecessary, dumb conflict that didn’t need to be there.

All the pseudo-philosophy that comes out of Ulton’s mouth is just so weird and artificial. It doesn’t fit with the quippiness he’s supposed to have inherited from Tony, and the result is that when he needs to seem scary he just sounds kind of stupid.

I do love Clint’s speech to Wanda, though. And Natasha talking about the view. These are nice moments.

Awww the “captain’s orders” guy from TWS is at the helicarrier! I had never noticed that.

The fact that Tony echoes the “together” warms my heart, and I do feel it provides some resolution for his argument with Steve - as in, he gets his point, they should work as a team. But I still wish there had been an actual turning point where we could see Tony understanding that, instead of just jumping from point A to point B.

Pietro’s death is so hollow because we just don’t spend enough time with him to truly care, but I like Wanda’s scream destroying all the bots around her. And also her ripping off Ultron’s heart.

I do like the last talk between Ultron and Vision, too. Paul Bettany just sells it to me.

Steve and Tony and their dumb bantering because of Mjolnir is too cute.

ALSO: When Tony says “I’m gonna miss him. And you’re gonna miss me”, like... It feels like he kind of throws it out as a joke, and then immediately adds the “manful tears” comment. And then Steve says “I will miss you, Tony”, and you can see for a second the little look he gives, like, “yeah?” like he can’t really believe it at first. And then when he asks if Steve is okay... I feel like this is a rare moment where they actually manage to understand each other a litte more, through these small glimpses, but it’s all still very tentative, very hesitant but still very sincere. I love this scene to bits, especially the last line.

“It’s a very nice wall” is the WEAKEST snark ever omg Steve. Nat absolutely drags him by calling him and Tony out in response lol

I actually do like this movie. It has many flaws, it’s not as tight as the first Avengers by any means, but ultimately I enjoy it and I think the hate it gets is a little unfair, even if I get where it comes from.