#Spider-man: Far From Home review

[panosatthemovies]

Spider-Man: Far from Home continues the second and more successful reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, this time as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And with that, it continues the sin of taking for granted that viewers would have seen the previous "Avengers" films in order to know what the hell is going on before the movie even begins. So, for the first 30 minutes or so, I thought this was total rubbish, with some alien "element" monsters attacking European landmarks and some "hero" named Mysterio chasing them; assuming this must have been in the previous Avengers films I skipped. Well, I was in for a big surprise, and after an unexpected reversal, pulling the rug underneath the audience, the film suddenly started making sense, and I managed to enjoy it a bit more than the first instalment, but in no way better than the original couple of Sam Raimi films. Still, it was fun in a nerdy, comic-like way, especially seen not far from... home, with my kids, on my TV with HDR and surround sound. That's for whom these films are made anyway, so who am I to complain?

B-

Trailer: https://youtu.be/Nt9L1jCKGnE

[the-sky-queen]

On Saturday I watched Spider-Man Far From Home, but I didn't have time to review it, so I'll do that now.

I really liked this one! I think I just enjoyed the villain more, but I also really like the base and the story. Exploring the aftermath of the blip is really interesting and I love it! It's a lot more complicated than we were expecting.

I also kinda adored the whole thing with May and Happy. That was so cute and made me laugh! A lot of moments in this one made me laugh, honestly. What I really want to talk about though is Mysterio.

I. Loved. Mysterio!!!

This is probably my favorite villain since Doc Ock or Electro! The coolest thing is that he doesn't actually have any powers, but you can hardly tell! He has such control over his illusions that you can't tell the difference until its too late! Y’know that scene where Mysterio traps Peter in a massive illusion that keeps changing until he tricks him into telling him which of his friends know? I love that scene so much. It's so cool!!!

(Honestly, I watched that scene and thought, 'THIS is what Infinite torturing Sonic in Forces should've been like!')

And that ending! Peter's in trouble! He is in serious trouble! I kinda want Happy to just scoop him and May up and take them to one of Tony’s old mansions so they can be safe. I just know Peter's gonna be so wanted now.

Overall, really great movie! I loved it! I should be watching No Way Home tomorrow and I am beyond excited. This is what I've been waiting for!!!

[ao3feed-irondadspiderson]

performance review

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49261927 by iron_spider “Don’t start running,” Bucky says, holding his hands up like he’s trying to appear non-threatening, “you know Stark has alarms set up for every time your heart rate goes above normal—” “That’s not true,” Peter says, even though he firmly recalls that time he got frustrated during homework and accidentally shut the facility down. “It’s absolutely true,” Sam says, and he snatches the folder out of Peter’s hands. Peter sighs. “Come on, guys,” he says, trying to snatch it back, and he thinks about trying to web them, because he does have a webshooter on, but that would make this whole thing a lot more dramatic than it needs to be. “It’s not like he’s gonna—have promotions or—fire people or anything—” Words: 3778, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Thor (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Stephen Strange, Steve Rogers, May Parker (Spider-Man) Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark Additional Tags: Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Not Canon Compliant With Movie: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Precious Peter Parker read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/49261927

[milimeters-morales]

okay under the readmore is part 1 of a oneshot i wrote about an autistic miles morales for fun, but overlapped pretty conveniently with disability pride month at the time. Really self-indulgent, and i got some nice reviews on it and wanted to test sharing my writing on here for autism acceptance month ^.^

Content Warning: Miles does self harm a good amount in both parts without realizing, and thinks some pretty ableist thoughts (at least I think they would be considered that) about himself every now and then.

Word Count: 5k+

Pairings: Minor Milesganke, everything else is platonic!

Miles lets his feet dangle off the side of the building, his heel hitting the brick wall to a rhythm in his head. One two, swing out, one two, swing out, one two, shake-swing out, and start all over. He layed back on the roof, soaking up the last of the warmth from the sun and heated concrete. It was a common thing he did, this rhythm and movement, it helped him calm down or keep him from getting too bored. Too bored was bad, too bored was almost physically painful, but it’s not like he’d tell anybody that. Well, anybody besides Ganke. The other boy understood that perfectly well, it’s one of the many reasons they’re best friends.

He wasn’t sure why he actually did this though. But he didn’t like to think too hard about it, and he’s always got a lot of other stuff to do anyway!

Speaking of, Miles sits up, still letting his feet hit the wall and bounce off, when there’s a pained shout from below. Seeing a man in a dirty chef’s apron bending over with a hand on his back and a pained expression, Miles jumps down from the roof and lands quietly on the street in front of him.

“Do you want some help?” He asks him. The man nods his head to the paint buckets on the ground next to him, and Miles easily picks them up, barely registering the weight. The man walks stiffly and a bit hunched inside his shop, telling Miles to set the paints down on an empty table.

The inside was a mess. Napkins littered the floors and tables, sauces on the seats and counter, and a whole uneaten meal sat alone on the far end of the counter. Miles glances again at the man. He’s sweaty, exhausted looking, all alone in here going by how Miles can hear only his heartbeat, and he just hurt his back. There’s no way Miles would leave this man to deal with this mess himself.

“I’m gonna clean up these napkins so we don’t slip,” Miles tells him, already picking up the pieces. He wouldn’t slip of course, but the man definitely would if he wasn’t careful. “So, Mr…”

“Call me Bob,” the man says after putting the paints away somewhere in the back of the kitchen.

“Mr. Bob, how’d this even happen?”

Mr. Bob sighs and runs a hand through his short hair. “My kids invited their friends over, made a huge mess, left before I saw it, you know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Miles agrees, not knowing how it is at all. He throws all the napkins in the trash and was about to ask where a towel was so he could clean up some of the sauce mess, but Mr. Bob places his hands on his back again.

“Hey Mr. Spider-Man, how about you run along? My back is killing me, and I don’t wanna make you clean up alone,” he says, eyebags somehow becoming more prominent by the second. Miles winced under the mask and hoped it didn’t translate through. 

“That’s nice of you, but are you sure? I really don’t mind,” Miles offers, making a sweeping gesture to the rest of the mess still in the store.

“Nah nah nah, it’s fine. It’s my kids who should be cleaning it up anyway. I’ll make them do it when they get home,” Mr. Bob explains. 

Ah, okay. That’s better than the man just working in pain. 

“Alright. Bye sir!” Miles leaves Mr. Bob inside the shop, and swings away to another rooftop. He wishes he knew more about treating bad backs though, he might have been able to help more! Maybe he could ask his mom? But wait, would that be an overly familiar thing to do for a stranger? Surely not, helping someone in pain is what he does nearly everyday anyway…but some people get real upset if he has to help them, and he just doesn’t know why. Ugh, so complicated, and for what?

Doing a few extremely low swings that end up sending him high into the air, he lets the wind press against him with each rise and fall. It’s like being smushed, or hugged just tight enough to make you so relaxed that you feel weightless. He gets dizzy sometimes, but in a good way, he promises. He wishes Ganke could feel this. He wishes a lot of people could feel this, actually. They’d be much happier, he’s sure of it!

___

It’s not like he’s… embarrassed, he guesses is the right word, to have to keep shaking his hands at his sides. It’s just that he gets weird looks sometimes when he does it. It’s not often at all, it’s actually pretty rare, but when it does happen, it makes a weird feeling curl in his stomach and around his throat, making it hard to speak, which is embarrassing. It makes him stutter, pronounce words wrong, makes him unable to focus on whatever’s happening, it even made him tear up one time. It’s different, when he just doesn’t speak for a while, because at those times there’s nobody pressuring him to talk or for an answer on why he’s “being weird”.

“Well?” the officer asks. She pointed out his shaking hands, and asked him why he was doing that. And Miles was going to answer her, he was! It’s just… the way she said it. It was like when he got caught drawing on his worksheets and the teacher made him throw the entire paper away and start over. Or his parents caught him sneaking small animals under his clothes into their apartment. Or when the kids at school would try and see what he was drawing by looming over his shoulder. 

His chest felt kind of tight. Why did he even let her approach him? He tries to avoid as much interaction with the cops as much as he can besides calling them to places

“I… uh…” was all he could manage to utter. It felt like everyone was staring at him, even when he knew that it wasn’t true.

“Spidey’s still around?” Oh god, of course his dad is here. And approaching rapidly. 

“Yeah, was trying to ask about the hand shaky thing, but he just froze up,” the officer explains, turning away briefly- Miles can feel the tightness just a little- shrugging with a raised eyebrow. She tucks her hands in her pockets and turns to look back at Miles. Great. The feeling was back.

“Oh, this?” His dad asks, copying the moment, making it much harder for Miles to not shake his hands. Thanks a lot! “My son does that, lots of kids do that. You don’t do that?” 

Miles wants to run, so he does. Not like he needed to be there anymore anyway. He’ll go somewhere that calms him down so much to the point where he doesn’t even need to shake his hands.

___

Pavitr tightens his hold on him, arms a comfortable pressure on his waist. He nuzzles into the crook of Miles’s neck, humming when Miles lets out a happy sigh. 

They do this, sometimes, when the stress is becoming too much. Just hold each other. It works out great, because Pavitr loves giving hugs, and Miles likes getting hugs, and they have no problem being this close to each other. 

Miles traces a figure eight onto Pavitr’s back, fingers feather-light on him. He doesn’t like pressure the way Miles does, says it makes him feel trapped and anxious, but Miles couldn’t disagree more if he tried. Besides the obvious bad-pressure, like a building and debris falling on you, there’s good-pressure, and that pressure is what Miles craves almost daily. It makes him feel much closer to whatever’s going on around him without making him hypersensitive to it- he can focus better, basically. The weight on his body is like a firm reassurance that he’ll be fine, that he’ll be safe, and that he’s… real. Not some mistake and about to float away into non-existence, or whatever. 

He’s heard of weighted blankets, and has been wanting one for a few years now, but he’s always chickened out when it came to asking his parents. And it’s not like he can ask any of the other spiders, then he’d have to lie to his parents how he got it, and he’s trying to keep the “lying to your loved ones” part of being Spider-Man to a minimum. Plus, he just doesn’t think it’s that serious. It’s not like he’ll die without it.

Miles stops drawing the figure in Pavitr’s back and simply rests his hand on the back of his neck. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Pavitr mumbles into his neck.

Miles wishes they weren’t wearing their suits. He’d much rather feel the vibration directly on his skin.

“Nothing,” Miles answers automatically. The two are silent for a bit before Miles continues, “Oh, there was this cop. She kept asking me about this thing I do with my hands-”

“The stimming?”

Miles ignores the interruption and continues, “-where I shake my hands when there’s too much energy somewhere and I get all antsy.”

“Should’ve brought Hobie. He would’ve dealt with her,” Pavitr says, shoulders shaking lightly with silent laughter.

Miles rolls his eyes and raises his chin to rest it on Pavitr’s head. His hair was so soft, it was another thing Miles liked about these cuddle sessions, he guesses he’d call them. Pavitr was a good mix of soft and firm, like a foam cube in a gym or children’s play area.

“Wasn’t really her fault, I just got nervous. Thought she would call me weird or something,” Miles mumbles.

“Don’t they already do that? In the uh- the uhh… The news company with the musical instrument.”

“The Tuba?”

“Yes! That is the one, haha,” Pavitr giggles, “remember when they called you a clone of Peter?”

God, does Miles remember. Not only was it completely out of nowhere, it just didn’t make sense for so many reasons. One, how could a clone be a different race? Two, why would a clone be way younger and have no idea what he’s doing? Wouldn’t you want your clone to be just as smart as you and the same age, so when you died, it’s like nobody would notice? They even sounded different! People called him down just to try and rip his suit to see his face for days, causing fights to break out between civilians when someone tried to defend him. He couldn’t just fight back like usual, so all he could do was lightly slap their hands away or shove them off and swing away, and then just deal with his lowering reputation that came with “self-defense.” He was glad that there were a good few people, his parents included, ready to defend Spidey if they saw that happen in front of him, but it didn’t really matter. He really hated, still hates, the Tuba for that.

He can’t see the humor in it, but a lot of other people found it funny, so maybe it was just a him thing like it sometimes is… yeah, he's probably just missing something. Miles closes his eyes and says, “Yeah,” and relaxes again when Pavitr’s sensed his hold had gotten too loose and tightened it around Miles again. 

He’d have to leave eventually, but he’ll enjoy this time while it lasts.

___

“Miles, stop that, you’re gonna get a cramp in your legs,” his mom scolds him lightly as he passes by her.

Miles looks down, and hurries to flatten his feet from walking on his tip-toes. That was always embarrassing to have pointed out, but at least he wasn’t in public doing that. 

___

It was all too much. He thought coming to Gwen’s dimension would calm him down, it was much prettier than his and a huge inspiration when it came to art, so he thought he could come here after a particularly bad fight to just enjoy the sights and maybe draw them. But now, he can’t stand the sight of most things. He can’t even stand the feeling of anything. He was huddled on a roof, a dirty, disgusting roof, there’s probably dirt all over him now and his stupid suit- it’s too on him, he can feel it and the sweat scratching at him and trying to seep into his pores. The creases causing awkward pockets where the suit isn’t actually touching him, but he can still feel it, the thought of all the germs and dirt and god , the trash, the wet trash --

how would that feel?

--his body jerks violently and he falls to his knees.

He wants to yell. But even that would feel wrong. He’d feel his voice in his teeth for god’s sake.

He takes off his gloves, but he isn’t even able to enjoy the cool breeze hitting his now exposed hands because his nails, his fucking nails , they hit the concrete and scrape lightly. The feeling sends shivers down his entire body and makes him rip his hands away as if he had been burned, and bite down hard on his fingers. He can’t fucking stand it. He- it’s too much. It’s all too much. 

nails on chalkboard 

silverware scraping

that man coughing down the street

the smell of approaching rain

metal on your teeth

blood under your nails

flesh squelching in the rubble

sickening crunch 

his breath on your face

digging in your skin

too heavy too close he’ll kill you he’ll kill you

His thoughts spiral, he can’t control it. One bad feeling, and he can’t stop thinking about the other bad feelings just like it, and it keeps going until his brain reaches the end of its list. 

He hates this. He hates that his brain even does this, that it even thinks it’s the right course of action. Nobody else’s brain does this, he bets. Why is his so dumb that it can’t even realize it’s only making things worse? 

Miles keeps biting on his fingers and starts biting on the rest of his hands when the feelings aren’t going away. He tries to him to his favorite song to calm down, but it doesn’t work- nothing is working-

Gwen is here, he vaguely registers in his mind when a black and white blur lands in front of him. She’s here, and she’s grabbing his wrists and pulling his hands out of his mouth, and she’s trying to hold him. He scrambles back, but she catches him and lifts him bridal style. Miles tries to kick out and shoves his hand in her face to make her drop him, but she holds on as tightly as possible. The pressure from her fingers digging into him is- good. Bad. It’s just more touch - he doesn’t want touch right now, he wants pressure-

holding you down you’re a mistake breaking your neck is so easy keep fighting keep fighting 

“I know,” he hears faintly. Was that him, or Gwen?

He keeps thrashing in Gwen’s hold, almost escaping once when he bit her shoulder and started to scratch, as she hopped from rooftop to rooftop. It was all a blur, he could only focus on how her heartbeat was too loud, and the feeling of her fingers and just her being so close was confusing his stupid fucking brain, it was all good, but it was actually all bad because he didn’t want that now, it made it worse actually.

“I’m sorry, I know,” he hears Gwen apologize to him. 

God. Someone end it. Someone cut him out of his skin. He can’t be here. He tries to wiggle out of her grasp one last time before he gives up and brings his hands back up to his mouth to bite down, to have any sort of control over anything he’s feeling.

“It’ll be okay,” Gwen whispers- still too loud.

He doesn’t really remember much else.

___

Miles rouses slowly. His eyes don’t open immediately when he tries, the crust is uncomfortable on his skin, and his limbs feel like they were made of stone. He turns his head to the side, only to be met with webbing. He moves his body slightly, feeling himself swing. So he’s in a hammock then. That’s fine, it’s better than waking up on the floor. Or that rooftop.

Wait, the roof, Gwen, he bit Gwen-

He sits up and looks out of the hammock as best as he can, quickly spotting the girl gently rubbing her now bandaged shoulder with a solemn expression. Quickly scrambling out and crawling down to be next to her, apologizing before he even hits the ground.

“Gwen, I am so sorry, I have no idea what came over me, I don’t know why I did that to you, I’m so sorry-”

Gwen stops him, “Miles, calm down, I’m fine, see?” She gestures to her shoulder, and his eyes trail down and catch her bandaged hand.

He doesn’t even remember that one, and that makes him feel even worse. Shame curls in his gut, makes his fingers twitch, he feels disgusting.

“Listen, you aren’t disgusting,” Gwen says gently, “you were scared and in pain, you might have been overstimulated. I know it gets really hard to control what you do. I’ve done, like, the same thing.” 

Miles nods, not believing her.

“Seriously Miles. I’m not mad or anything.”

Yeah right. Who wouldn’t be mad after being bit and just… being forced to deal with whatever that was. Even he’s mad about it, because it never lasts. It always ends eventually, he doesn’t know why he was being so dramatic and violent when he could have just stayed still and dealt with it until it passed.

It’s whatever. It’s over now, and Gwen is clearly trying to move on from it. He shouldn’t make her more upset. Talking with her is already like walking a tightrope, lately.

“I uh, I wrapped you up in that hammock. Did that help? You said- well, not really said, it was more like… mumbling, that you just wanted pressure. So did that help at all?” Gwen stumbles through asking, fiddling with her hands and furrowing her brow.

Her question takes him out of his thoughts for a second. “I guess it did,” Miles says after a moment of consideration. He honestly wasn’t sure how he was feeling, but he certainly wasn’t feeling bad, so that’s definitely an improvement. He’d have to keep this hammock idea in mind, how did he never think of that?

And like the strings controlling her had been cut, her shoulders drooping and lenses closing as she breathes out a sigh of relief (look at what you did to her, Miles), Gwen reaches out to him. She stops right before they make contact, allowing Miles to move forward and finish the hug. Gwen hugs tighter, but in weird waves, like she doesn’t actually know how long a hug is supposed to last and keeps trying to part when she thinks she should. Miles loves it anyway, because it’s Gwen, and the last time she hugged him this tight was when… oh, nevermind that. He doesn’t want to think about that right now.

Gwen’s hug tightens again, and he feels the tension in his body slipping away.

___

The one thug that’s still conscious decides to try his luck at talking with him. 

“So I noticed something…”

Congratulations , Miles doesn’t say. He doesn’t have the energy to speak to anybody for the night, and while people didn’t really like that because it also tended to mean Peter was ready to beat someone to a pulp, they’ve learned that sometimes the new Spider-Man was just… didn’t speak.

“Why are you organizing us by shoe size? And you got Har- um, gray tennis shoes wrong. He wears a size 11.”

A good save on the name reveal AND a correction so his order is perfect? Well mister, looks like you’re walking away scott-free tonight!

Just kidding . Miles smiles to himself as he picks up “Gray Tennis Shoes” and places him in between Blue Nikes (size 10)  and Black Boots (size 12 and a half). He turns back towards the talking thug, pointing to his shoes, who sighs before answering, “Size 7. And a half.”

Miles smiles wider as he drags the cocooned man to the right spot, and begins walking away to investigate the den.

“Wait, you didn’t answer my question! Why are you organizing us like this?” The man calls out to him, trying to sit up but failing. 

Because he overheard cops on duty making fun of the way he organized people by their hair color last time. He had to go for something a bit less noticeable. Obviously. 

But Miles doesn’t say any of this, because he just doesn’t want to. Not like he had to answer that guy anyway.

___

Now, don’t get him wrong. He doesn’t have complete control over when he wants to speak or not, as much as he’d like to pretend he does to save himself some embarrassment from admitting it. And it seems to be both random and stress-induced, which is already bad when you’re Spider-Man. Most of your days are extremely stressful with worrying about the best outcomes, the best and most effective ways to save people in danger, time management because of school or a job interview or a party your parents threw that you cannot be late for again, the usual. The simple moments to help around are like a mini-break where he can take his time to breathe and get a second wind, so they’re greatly appreciated. Don’t even get him started on the power-naps he can sometimes sneak in if it’s a calm enough day with just the right temperature and breeze…

Off track. Basically, he can’t always control if he goes silent or not.

Right now, during the cleanup after a fight, where all the debris is moved to small piles for him and others to clean up, and any civilians injured are given medical attention immediately or taken away to hospitals, he can’t speak. The villain- which looked surprisingly too high definition- only stopped attacking after it heard a little girl screaming, and it was pulled through a portal by a red, blue, and white hand. Miles didn’t even care about a Rhino from a different dimension somehow turning up here, and what that could mean about the (worsening) stability of his dimension, he just wanted to curl up somewhere nice and dark, and sleep for fifteen hours.

But Spider-Man has a duty to the people.

He removes the last bit of rubble from on top of a woman’s car, tears in her eyes as he guides her away from the smashed vehicle. She’s certainly going to have to replace it, but she definitely has bigger things to worry about, like the glass sticking out of her arm from jumping through the storefront window to avoid the Rhino’s rampage. 

That was pretty badass of you, he can’t say. He frowns. He wanted to make her feel a bit better. That’s one of the many drawbacks of this unwilling silence, it prevented him from comforting people in the way he knows best: talking their ear off until they’re too absorbed in (or annoyed by) his ramblings to freak out.

He sits with her in an ambulance that’s treating the people with more minor injuries. The paramedics are stretched thin, so he’s here taking the smallest pieces out of her arm while the paramedic is on her other side and checking for a concussion. 

The woman winces.

Sorry, he can’t say, but he looks up with a sad expression to meet her own exhausted and tear-streaked face, and knows the message isn’t getting across.

He goes back to pulling the glass out. He can’t even apologize for all the pain he’s causing her.

Focus, Miles.

“Spider-Man, you’re alright?” The paramedic asks after the woman is cleared and sent off. The hospitals have been at their highest capacity since… ugh. He doesn’t want to think about it when he has something to focus on now. “Not a talking day?”

Miles shakes his head, already making his way to help other people.

The entire time he’s pulling more glass shards out, holding more hands through painful processes and anxious checkups, hugging more children and holding more babies as the parents are found and reunited, simply sitting with those too shocked to even understand what had just happened, not once does the barrier come down. The people look to him for words of encouragement, assurances that it’ll be okay, they cling tighter to him and hope he’ll say something kind to ease their fear, that the person on the stretcher will survive and heal just fine. 

And it breaks his heart when people see he won’t say anything, it makes him feel so useless, what is he even sticking around for? He sees the hope leave their eyes, sees it replaced by grief, by horror, by nothingness. Nothingness is the worst, if you ask him. They’ve given up because he can’t even muster up enough strength to say a few simple words. It shouldn’t be this hard for him, Spider-Man, to say “you’re okay” or “take a breath” for god’s sake! If he could, he would yell until his throat was raw about how he was sorry for all this pain he’s only made worse. How everyone would be fine, just don’t look at the bodies! How they just needed to follow his breathing, and to follow him to the ambulance! Don’t worry about your destroyed car! How he’ll do better, he won’t let something like this happen again, how didn’t want this, didn’t choose this, he wants to tell them so bad-

But he can’t. So he doesn’t.

The probably-now-orphaned girl clings to his legs as they stand in front of a pile of rubble Miles hadn’t moved yet. He knew there were bodies (or what used to be bodies, anyway) under there, heard the heartbeats instantly stop while the Rhino threw the hunk of concrete so he could hold Miles down and slam his fist into his entire body. He thinks she was the one who screamed and stopped that Rhino for enough seconds to be taken away. There was blood splattered on the bottom of her frilly green dress, and all over her legs and shoes, and Miles just hopes she has family somewhere that’ll take her in. 

He really should move her away from this. At least cover her eyes.

You’re a hero, he can’t say. And I know it doesn’t mean anything right now, but you’ve saved a lot of people, he hopes his look to her gets across. You saved me.

The girl looks up at him with angry eyes and a dirty face, clean lines created by her tears going down her cheeks. Some good that did, she’s saying.

Miles says nothing, because of course he doesn’t, and holds her hand as they walk to an ambulance. She needs that blood cleaned off her.

___

Miles sobs into Ganke’s pillow, wishing the boy would return from the nurse’s office quicker. It’s been a week since then, and now he’s finally able to talk. So of course the first thing his brain makes him do is cry so hard he can’t even breathe properly. Ganke was appropriately freaked out by his sudden crying spell, and went to go get an ice pack for him for the headache that was sure to follow. 

The hiccups are bordering on painful now, his teeth and jaw aching from grinding his teeth so he doesn’t cry too loud when he needs to take a break from practically suffocating himself in the pillow. He can still see the blood on the ground, on the rubble, and on the little girl’s dress. 

He closes his eyes and covers his ears, for a reason he doesn’t understand, curling up and sobbing some more into the pillow. He tries to dig his toenails into his other foot’s skin, the pain doing nothing but making him flinch. Maybe it just wasn’t the right spot to get rid of it, these thoughts. If he found the right spot, maybe even combination, his brain would focus on the pain instead of these horrible memories. 

He removes his face from the pillow and bites down on his hand and scratches at the side of his face, his thighs, his neck, any skin he can reach. He finally feels the switch from “slightly painful and annoying” to “very painful, we’re in danger” like a gentle wave, and releases his hand from his jaw, letting out a weak cough of relief as he falls limply back onto the bed. His breathing makes it sound like he just ran a marathon, and It aches and burns like he just did too. A lot. His mind is blessedly empty and numb, he realizes, as his eyes struggle to stay open. What’s he fighting it for again?

Ganke. Right. Ganke was coming back with an ice pack for the headache that hasn’t hit yet. Stay awake for Ganke.

He inhales his friend’s faint scent from the pillow and sheets, and feels the dip in the mattress from where Ganke sleeps, a bit off center. Miles always tells him to flip his mattress, but he never does.

He faintly hears the door opening over the blood rushing in his ears, and feels a hand grab his own. The touch is gentle, but is gone before he has the chance to lean into it. There’s a welcomed cold sensation on his forehead, making him shudder and sigh.

And he’s waking up, the alarm screeching into his ear and making him groan in annoyance. He goes to smash the alarm clock, but a hand catches his before it could do any damage.

“Not this time man,” Ganke’s sleepy voice scolded from above, “we aren’t replacing that thing again.”

Above?

Miles opened his eyes, realizing he was in Ganke’s bunk. Oops. An apology was already on his lips as he peeked out from under the bunk, but it died on the tip of his tongue at the sight of Ganke’s bed-head, squinted eyes, and scrunched up nose. 

“You good? Because I had to take care of your hand last night,” the boy asks with a yawn.

Miles looks down at his hands and his eyes widen in shock. His right hand was bandaged up in a white gauze, albeit a little sloppily, like Ganke was in a rush or something when he did it.

“Yeah, sorry if it looks bad. It’s just that I wasn’t really expecting you to break skin,” the boy tells him, “have you seen my glasses?”

“They’re on your forehead,” Miles tells him in a fond tone, “and thanks man. I know it’s weird-”

“Uh uhn, don’t start that now. It’s too early in the morning for me to talk with you about if anything’s weird or not.”

Miles shrugs and rolls his eyes. “It’s always too early in the morning for you,” he says as he tries to find his clothes to get ready for the day.

___

Dear Diary,

Haven’t been the best lately. It’s like i’ve only been hurting people and myself. I bit Gwen a few weeks ago, then i couldn’t speak and help people when that Rhino dude came, and last night i bit my own hand. I know it’s bad and gross, but it feels like it’s the only thing i can do sometimes even when i can’t really control it. And it works for me most of the time so it’s real confusing. It’s like i don’t have control, and then next thing i know i’m biting myself, and i’m calmer. Ganke says it’s not weird, just worrying, but i’ve never seen anyone else do it. Guess i never really bothered to look it up either because i know it’s bad. wanted to end this entry on a good note but i can’t think of anything. tomorrow is another day though so there’s that.

Part 2 >>>

[popculturebuffet]

Top 20 Animated Episodes of 2023 Part 1

Hello all you happy people! It's now 2024, and with 2023 behind us it's time for my faviorite yearly thing on this blog: my top 20 episodes of the year list!

For those of you new to this tradition or needing a refresher, each year I take 5 episodes each (or less if the show had less), from the various shows I watched that year, and then slowly wittle it down from a massive pile to the 20 best, split into two digestible parts, and let you all enjoy the results. It's one of my favorite things as it gives a nice, personal, wide berth of what happened in that year, gives this blog something unique to do, and allows me to touch on shows I haven't covered yet or may simply not get to for some time, if ever.

2023 was a mixed bag for me, both professionally and personally: It started.. with a kick in the teeth as my cat Stewie died after living a long, fufilling life of looking mildly pissed at everything but still being cute.

He was a good cat and his loss is something I still haven't fully gotten over a year later.

It was a harbringer of change: with Stewie's death we finally moved out of the house I lived in pretty much my whole life, and into a smaller, nicer and far better apartment with my own mini office in my room even and all my children/books/children returned to me. It's taken 6 months but I feel like i've fully settled into my new, wonderful home.

And towards the end of this year as the loss of Stewie still stung all this time later, I got another great change with the addition of Maddie

Maddie was the dog of a close friend of the family who had to go into a retirement home. She needed a home, and now has one in my room looking morose, licking my face and occasionally going under the bed for hours at a time like the cave goblin she is. She was a much needed bolt of sunshine in this storm of a year. I do metaphor good.

So with all these c-changes, how did this blog fair? Suprisingly great but not entirely in tact. Quality wise I do think I did some of my best work this year: I tackled the first apperances of every spider-man, woman and pig in into the spider-verse, the movie itself, finally web swining around a bit thanks to kev with a little more spidey planned for this year, with a tie in for Kraven later this year that's exactly what you think it is. I finally got to do an x-men month, covered rocko's modern life static cling for pride month, and in one of my finest hours, got to do a retrospective on one of my faviroite fairly recent comic strips breaking cat news with the help of my friend emma. Her sponsorship meant I got to cover something great and while few people have read it, i'm happy just to have it out there.

In addition to that I covered Tugs, an osbcure UK series and spirtual brother to thomas the tank engine that involved state mandated death dates for boats, pirates, and eleven minutes of explosions. I finally got to enjoy the madness that was the Telltale Sam and Max Games, with Save the World in the pocket and Beyond Time and Space wrapping up next week. And biggest, best and brightest of all I did a retrospecitve on little shop of horrors, finally seeing both the stage play and original corman film, as well as little shop. And someday i'll have recovered from seeing little shop.

The delay on that though brings me to the other shoe.. this year my productivity was in the basement and my week was at an all time low. Several reviews got delayed, from stewie's death leaving me unable to work for a few days for damn obvious reasons, to the move frequently taking my time or leaving me off balance. Not only that I didn't plan my time off for the move well, so I was left having to rearrange my whole schedule. It's why both pirate month and pride month, proud institutions on this blog, were reduced to a week and a three part special, something I wasn't remotely happy with. Things kept slipping by, and in general it wasn't my best year for getting shit done. I realized i'd simply taken WAY too much on, and thus have scaled back to ten reviews instead of 12 a month, and may scale back further if necessary: i'd rather these reviews be their best and get put through a spellcheck than be glad it's done only to realize I have nother thing that's due yesterday.

Not helping were towards the end of the year, a massively loud noise from my computer fan that made it hard to concentrate, something that's hard for my adhd ass in general let alone with a giant whirring fan that nothing can out loud, and having finally solved tha tproblem thanks to my dad's help.... then having my wrist go out, and while it's recovered now, it meant an extra week off, which sounds nice and was in places.. but was mostly spent in pain or asleep to escpae the pain till I got things to help with that. Then after a nice christmas, a lovely few days after... I got a cold, which spent up a large chunk of my vacation in a sick coma.

I apologize a bit for all the venting as you can tell this year's been a long one. I came out the otherside well with a loveable dog and a great new work/living space, but it was a bitch getting to here.

Thankfully animation wise, the industry wasn't in as MUCH turmoil this year. It still wasn't great: We got more cancelations with Lumberjanes and Phoebe and Her Unicorn announced formally dead before arrival had even started, and cancellations for Inside Job, Star Trek Progidy and Praise Petey, the last two seemingly in limbo as a result, with only one getting saved. While it wasn't the cancelnado of last year that wrecked many a service and nearly ended me, it was still pretty bad and Warner showed zero signs of learning from their lessons: after taking a few months off thinking the heat died down they tried canceling coyote vs acme.. only to then nakedly start a bidding war, making what they were really doing with most projects obvious: making them unaviliable.. and then starting a bidding war for other streamers. I'm not upset many of these shows are on other streamers as their safer from Zaslav there, but it shows just how nakedly greedy, transparently corrupt and blatantly fraudlent Warner Bros Discovery has become.

While the sales of the brilliant Merry Little Batman and sure to be great Batman: Caped Crusader to amazon are GOOD as Amazon has learned what animation means, it unmasks warner as simply doing all this tax writeoff shit to make money.. and then often forgetting to even sell the shows, not carring if no one's buying and just shrugging off someone's heart and soul being cast into the void. The loss of Final Space and Close Enough STILL stings and hasn't gone away even with the maker of the former both having found a way to finish the story and move on with his life.

The cherry on top of this shit sundae is Zaslav, no shit, saying the decision to shelve Batgirl, a movie that was entirely done and could've had the elseworlds label slapped on it if they didn't want it in the DCU, BRAVE. Yes that.. really happened.

It wasn't just Zaslav fucking up this year though, as other execs certainly tried their hardest or were arm and arm with him: The biggest blunder is obviously the strikes which while not affecting animation for the most part, was still a long dark night of the soul that was entirely the fault of executives not wanting to give up the precious theorietical money they could make once AI gets to the point it can create actual things, nor the likenesses of DEAD PEOPLE they should have no right to. Exec behavior was at it's most disgraceful this year... I don't know how that bare somehow got lower but that's the hellscape we're in with both zaslav and iger beign part of the corprate hydra that kept rejecting any deals presented and tended to flip the table and leave in a huff , leaving the negotations for weeks at a time till it became apparent that no amount of veiled threats of starving them out.

That said the strikes... were a net positive: they were long, brutal and threw tv off and delayed a show or two.. but it was well worth it. It helped show just how much actors and writers of all pay levels are needed, got them badly needed pay increases and protections and left the door open to help fiddle with AI protections as while AI isn't remotely good at creating scripts, that's never stopped execs from promoting something anyway. Despite MANY attempts to demonize the strikers, frame them as hollywood elites despite the fact the bulk were just trying to live on and were putting their liveleyhoods at stake to make sure they had one, or paint them as the bad guys.. it never worked. The public held firm, the strikers held firm and deflected most attempts with solidarity, with said big fish they tried to use as propoganda.. instead gladly donating to help the strike keep going. Fran Drescher and co fought hard, and the result is a slightly better hollywood.

And that hope for a brighter future really radiated this year: while Animation is still in flux in places, a lot of the networks hit hard by corprate dumbfuckery last year started to regrow: Netflix, after a year or two of rapid cancellations and baffling decisions, finally regrew it's animation divsions: Outside of Inside Job, most cancelations were shows that really weren't the best idea or execution to start with, and most hits got renewed, with them even picking up Star Trek Prodigy for another season and likely as many as they can carry. They pivoted more to adult animation with hits like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Pluto, Castlevania Nocturne, Carol and the End of the World and Blue Eyed Samurai, the latter three I wish I got to but i've heard are incredible.

While WBD was still BURNIN DOWN THE HOUSEEEE, it snuck in a few hits with My Adventures with Superman and tons of great stuff I did'nt get too like Scavengers Reign, the beginning of the end for Craig of the Creek, Fired on Mars, and Hair Love, while having a suprise banger in the form of Tiny Toons Loonveristy, proving just how to reboot a classic property once again. Not only that the finale movies for Venture Bros and Metalocalypse came out, which given the last year was a huge fingers crossed thing. But both came out, I got both on blu ray, and got neat posters with them in the bargin and both closed up two of adult swims best series in the way they richly deserved. We also got an Urkel Christmas Movie. I guess.

Amazon continued it's own building: in addition to the dark knight picups mentiond, Invincible and Legend of Vox Machina both had amazing season 2's, with Vox Machina picked up for two more seasons to close it out proper and a Mighty Nein spinoff, with a Belles Helles Spinoff all but guarnateed at some point, and Hazbin Hotel after a truly agonizing year of waiting for someone to announce they had it, finding a perfect home for the happiest place in hell.

Finally, the indie scene, already thriving blew the fuck up. For the first time I nominated six diffrent pilots from various indie creators who all did a fucking great job: Godspeed, Lackadaisy, In Limbo, Atlas and the Stars, and Swift Spark and the Defensive five all had impressive showings and I regret not watching Lackadaisy in time to support it, but I can't wait to see what it brings to the table and to see all of these shows make it to series, not to mention up coming ones like ToonrifiqTariq's "Hey" that are likely going to come out next year.

It's a strange time for animatoin.. but one tha'ts proven you can make your own way, that the big coprations are trying and that in film.. is at one of i'ts brightest: while there ere some stumbles we had masterpieces like Nimona, which also made disney look horribly stupid for homophobically canceling it, Across the Spider verse (which needed to treat it's animators better but still deserves mention), and TMNT Mutant Mayhem.

It was a hell of a year and I can't want to share the best of it with you. And as a result of such a good year there's a few firsts: This is the first year with Anime included and if you want to know why i'ts taken so long it wasn't snobbery.. I just.. plain forgot to watch the ones I DID want to watch the past few years. That's... really it. I usually prefer reading the manga, as it's both faster and less time consuming, and Some of the best often aren't on the streaming platforms I do have. Pluto and Scott Pilgrim got by by being adaptations of something I love with all my heart a piece and thus coudln't bear myself to miss, but I might try to vary up my viewing more next year. I do want to check Zom 100 out at some point.

Anyways the other is that I allowed two dtv movies in here. Now this is with a caveat: It has to be directly linked to an existing animated series, a sequel, a prequel, etc. It's something I never really thought about before, but makes sense: While Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart and Army of the Doomstar were both considered for my film list too and are films.. their the proper conclusion to their stories. Not only that with Pluto's inclusion on this list, we have a series that had episodes only about ten minutes or so shy of both films runtime, so I figured fudging the rules like this was fair. I would've included Craig Before the Creek, but I want to wait to watch it when it comes on HBO Max next month.. and buy it on Physical as I don't remotely trust WBD to keep digtial copies up forever anymore. And really it feels in the spirit of things like operation zero back in the day or in both metalocalypse and venture bros own histories, all this and gargantua 2 and doomstar requieum.

Okay now that's settled this years list is intresting as while there's a decent amount of returning shows most haven't been on this list before. Of the nominees the only returning shows are The Legend of Vox Machina, Invincible, Helluva Boss, The Great North, Miraculous and Big City Greens, with mainstays like Tuca and Bertie and Close Enough sadly gone thanks to WBD being pralines and dicks. Thus our shows competing are an eclectic mix of returning combatants, one for sadly the last times, revivials of old shows, reboots of old shows, two limited series, and a handful of spectacular pilots

These are the shows that I got to see this show and thus entered the running, all sorted by platform since.. there's a lot.

Amazon Prime: The Legend of Vox Machina Invincible

HBO Max: YOLO: Silver Destiny Clone High Tiny Toons Looniversity Adventure Time : Fionna and Cake Aqua Teen Hunger Force My Adventures with Superman Disney+: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur The Owl House (Final Year) Kiff Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir Big City Greens Hulu: The Great North Futurama Bob's Burgers The Simpsons Netflix: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Limited Series) Pluto (Limited Series) DTV: Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Special) Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (Special)

YouTube: Helluva Boss Godspeed Lackadaisy In Limbo The Amazing Digital Circus Atlas and the Stars Swift Spark and the Defensive Five

So with our nominees in clear view, who shined the brightest, who didn't and whose going to yell at me over my choices? find out under the cut!

FULL SPOILERS FOR MOST EPISODES ON THIS LIST. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

20. The First Episode (Atlas and the Stars, Pilot)

"Sorry for dragging you into this man. You don't have to trust me but I promise to make this up to you, I swear."

Coming in just under the wire as the last released episode on this list, it's placing is just a fun concidence, we have The First Episode... the pilot for new series Atlas and the Stars. You can watch it here

So it's come up soon but the reason I put MOST episodes on the spoiler warning.. is this pilot and another on the list, I really DON'T want to spoil much as both rely on you watching it, this one in paticular not revealing what the show's premise will be from here on out, instead telling the parallel tales of Atlas, a human from a dying planet who hyjacks a space ship to acheive her dream of endless freedom in the stars, Atmosphere, a shy loveable alien embarking on his first day regestring ships at a space port, and Quasar, the lord of a mysterious planet who keeps having to sacrifice.. somethign to a portal to keep it alive... and it can't keep up forever and his beligeured assitant nebula. ALl of this comes togeter in a beautifully animated, well active and creative sci fi adventure with one hell of a hook from where it goes form here, awesome character desgin work and some neat sci fi tek in Atlas' googles. Miranda Toomey used every inch of whateve rbudget she had to make this and it turne dout gorgeous, and I can't wait to see the next episode in this and how this story progresses. It's well done, gorgeous, heartfelt and engaging and I recommend you go watch it before we move on to our next entry.

19. Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Venture Brothers, Finale Movie) "All you need to know is the person who gave birth to you loves you, I promise you that"

From a start to a finish we have Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, the long awaited and thankfully came out with a dvd and everything ending of the Venture Brothers. It's shockingly low on this list, but as much as I love this series.. it came out in a tight year with some even better finales, and had the burdern of having to cram in a season's worth of content, even with the cuts they made, into an 84 minute film.

The results are still excellent: Radiant is a fun, frantic race to the finish line that satisfyingly answers a lot of the series biggest questions: Who the boys mom was, how Monarch and Rusty are related, can HELPER fire a shot gun, will Hank and Dean reconcile... all the closure we needed in a tight 88 minute story that also includes classic hip hop traick it's takes 2, magnetic shenanigans, Hank using giant novelty checks for money, dermott using a piss filled super soaker, dean thinking he's a vampire, a halfway house for supernatural heroes, and Mantilla, one of the series most delightful villians and one I really wish we'd gotten proper time with. It's a joyous reaffermation of what this series is about, has nice moments for most of the best cast members, including Brick Frog my beloved, and ends on a mostly satisfying note. It also gives us a golem made entirely of pants and isn't that the greatest adventure of all?

18. "Lights, Camera, Sparks?!" (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Episode 5)

"You've known him for three f***ing days!" "Is that all it's been?!" Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was an easy faviorite this year and given my longstanding love of the Scott Pilgrim comics and like of the movie, it wasn't a huge shocker i'd love whatever the anime turned out being. I was pumped from the announcement, worried it'd just be "the movie but animated" when the cast was announced.. and then over the moon when it turned out that no, the cast was all coming back but the take on the franchise was all new.

What we got wasn't the straight adaptation that was pitched.. and was all the better for it. If you haven't seen Takes Off.. please do it's fantastic, I did a whole review on it, go, and if you won't then this is your last warning as I can't really talk about the episodes of it on this list without getting into spoilers as it's one of those series where the first episode twist.. defines the rest of the show.

Okay we good. So the first episode progresses as normal, a few tweaks to let you know this is it's own universe, enough character moments to show that even with the film voice actors the main cast is closer to the comics..... then Scott seemingly dies.

From there things go off the rails, and that's where the magic kicks in: While Scott's still key to the story and turns out, naturally, NOT to be dead, instead kidnapped by a mysterious portal, Ramona takes the lead, with us getting to know her better now she's the pov character instead of the guy worshipping the ground she skates on. While Ramona was fleshed out in the comics, the series gives her more to do as she solves this mystery. It's intriguing, it's fun, and it gives Mary Elizabeth Winstead the chance to play a more fleshed out version of the character with more sides to her than "aloof".

What the series also does well.. is go the fuck off the rails. Matthew uses his newfound confidence to punch gideon out of all his companies and fancy suits, Gideon becomes the best worst couple with julie, and Young Neil becomes a spacey moron who assumes the mysterious person writing a script based on how the story originally went is his sleep paralysis demon. The series has a lot of great character, animation and development as Ramona's forced to .. talk with her exes instead of her new boyfriend punching most of them for her.. but it can't be forgotten it's also delightfully nuts, easily the goofiest this franchise has gotten and i'm here for it.

That brings us to "Lights, Camera, Sparks?!", easily the biggest shit post of the entire series, and one of the funniest episodes of the year easily. While the previous ones are a bit melancholy in tone with the goofy stuff as a nice side dish, fitting how scott pilgrim rolls, LCS is just one long farce with Ramona struggling to get any detective shit done while Wallace wrecks envy and todd's relationship, Edgar Wright but voiced by Kevin McDonald slowly looses his mind, and Neil gets into various shenanigans while only being a quarter aware of anything going on, including what was in the script his sleep paralysis ramona from the future wrote.

The setup is simple: Toronotwood is making a film based on how scott's story usually go, again ghost written by a mysterious sleep paralysis demon, and hired Lucas and envy to play scott and ramona. Lucas got can...something for dating a 30 year old who looks like a high schooler, so now i'ts todd clumisly shoved into Scott's clothes. Wallace is also there, having throughly humilited the notoriously straight actor playing him out of a job and letting his ego grow 15 sizes that day.

What follows is a mocumentary masterclass as Envy and Todd can't stop being horny for two seconds, Wallace making out with Todd and being his bi awakening reading them to constantly "run lines in his trailer", Neil is hilaroius and you will repeat everything he says and Ramona is left bobbing around unable to actually get any answers.

This all leads to a delightful explosion as Todd falls in love with Wallace, Wallace is a callous dick, Wallace sicks his stunt doubles on Envy, Ramona is sicked on them, and everyone is confused, all cumilating in todd binge eating poutine and crying, an option I wish americans had but alas we are poutineless while Matt shuts down the production then sputters like a kid who got a lucky punch in on his bully when he finds out Scott is alive. Also Knives and Stephen get a meeting with him leading to the greatest musical of all time.

As you can tell this episode is very stupid and I love it. It's just 100% nonsense the whole way through, letting Wallace do something since the only main character who isn't Ramona he interacts with is in the future right now. There isn't much to disect, i'ts just pure comedy gold with props to both Kirean for really nailing a more douchestastic wallace and especially Brandon Routh who has shockingly deep comedic chops. A great episode and a nice break before we dive full speed into just where Scott went.

17. Lackadaisy (Pilot Episode)

Old Man River! That seems far too austere a name for something made of mirth and rage. O, roiling red-blood river vein. If chief among your traits is age, You're a wily, convoluted sage.

Is "old" the thing to call what rings the vernal heart of wester-lore? What brings us brassy-myth made kings. And a preponderance of bug-type things.  To challenge titans come before!

O, demiurge to a try at Avalon-once-more?

And what august vitality in your wide aorta stream. You must have had to oversee alchemic change of timber beam to iron, brick and engine steam!

Your umber whiskey waters lance the prideful, sober sovereignty of faulty-haloed temperance, and wilt her self-sure countenance; Yes, righteousness is vanity.  But sport's for imps, not elderly.

So if there's a name for migrant mass of veteran frivolity That snakes through seas of prairie grass and groves of summer sassafras; a name that flows as roguishly as wild waters, fast and free, It's your true name: Mississippi.

That beautiful poem opens up Lackadaisy, thank you wiki so I didn't have to transcribe that whole glorious thing, as a roustabout cat in 1927 St. Louis names rocky spends the first few minutes playing fiddle, basking in the glorious moonlight and waxing poetic about the mighty missisipi. It's a beautiful opening that shows off the series deft animation and MIssouri setting, something that makes me want to learn more about my own state's history. It's clear from the word go a LOT of love and research went into this setting, and given creator Tracy Butler had started Lackadaisy as an even MORE lavishly drawn webcomic.

Lackadaisy has a simple setup: three cats working for the titular saloon, Rocky, our dreamy narrator and mild loon, Freckle, his grumpy sidekick whose perhaps a bit TOO good with a gun, and Ivy, a peppy girl who takes jabs at Rocky and flirts with Freckle. I .. I ship the fuck out of it. These two are adorable. The three are robbing a body for canadian hooch but have to deal with the deathly serious and deathly hot, Mordecai Heller and his much more excitable, jokey and bloodthristy associates Serfafine and Nico Savoy.

The short is mostly a tense back and forth between both parties as our heroes barely surivive, we get a lot of good Ivy and Freckle content and Rocky saves the day by hyjacking a goddamn steam shovel and loading it with dynamite while waxing poetic and laughing madly. If that's not enough to get you to check it out if you haven't, I have clearly failed in some way as Lackadasiy is excellent and like Atlas and the Stars, leaves me wanting more of this cast. I'll defintely be reading the comic and plan to at least try to get the print editions coming up soon, as the pilot does a good job of showing who these characters are simply by action.. but leaving you questioning WHO they are and how they all ended up in a failing saloon, and why say Mordecai spares Ivy towards the end. Whatever it is I only want more of this, and am so happy those of you who weren't late adoptres like me helped get us a full season 1. Thank you so much and I can't wait for this show to show up here again. It's gonna be a riot and Micheael Kovach steals the show any time Rocky speaks, while SunWongCho is just... amazing as Mordecai and gives us a great antagonist to work with, a classic mystery man whose side your not sure who he's on, you just know he's a threat when he shows up.

16. Simon Petrikov (Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, Season 1 Episode 2)

Does somebody jump for joy? Does somebody cry? Now that I'm not part of that sadness? Does somebody want me now? Now that I can’t fly? Now that I'm not part of the madness? Part of the madness?

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake surprised the hell out of me in the best way possible. See while I never stopped caring in SOME way about adventure time, my dropping off mid series after ... THAT happened in Breezy, only coming back occasionally for an episode or two, the orgalorg arc and the finale, I really wasn't interested. I did enjoy the two episodes of Distant Lands I saw, Stakes was excellent and Together Again felt like a more fitting final chapter to the series. Both didn't feel like continuation of the story: Stakes was a coda giving us the Bubbline content CN denied us and Together Again is an Epilogue, set at the very end of Finn's story.

So I was kind of.. Meh on Fionna and Cake's announcment. I wasn't against it but I'd just never really cared about these two, with the series having made two great episodes about them (and two more I hadn't seen at the time), but the whole "created by a creepy old guy" part of it always held me back from fully embracing these two. I was badly hoping they'd throw away the whole fanfic conceit and just move on.

They didn't do that.. but Fionna and Cake not only found a way to revitalize that, but reminded me WHY the original series was so strong. Fionna and Cake grew up with the original audience, a piece about metafiction, fandom, growing up, and depression all made wonderful and really stretching the property as far as it'll go and i'ts unexpected season 2 greenlight makes me all too excited.

The thing I was most excited for though.. was still greatly done. Alongside Fionna and Cake getting a slice of life makeover thanks to Simon going back to "normal", we get some closure for Simon who ended the series seemingly fine: Betty is gone, but he's sane, Marcy gets her real dad back, job done right?

Adam Muto, Adventure Time's ep from season 6 and the archeticht of most things from Rebcca Sugar's leaving till present day, disagreed, planning a simon special for distant lands before rewriting it for this series. And it points out something a lot of fans noticed about this ending: it's.. not okay. Simon lost betty AGAIN, and is now trapped in a world he never made.

And the series makes this into his arc, how does he fit into this world, and what he tries to do to escape it instead of dealing with it. Simon Petrkiov paints a picture of where Simon's been in the 10 year time jump between Come Along With Me and his debut in this series, Simon Petrikov.. and it's a deeply depressing picture.

Simon's a living exhibit on the humans floating island, unable to connect with his fellow humans as he can't relate to them in any way shape or form. He's a 20th Century man and their 24th century men and women. Not helping is an overzealous, or sweet fan girl he keeps shooing away who just CAN'T understand that the man who wrote Fionna and Cake.. ISN'T the same guy making toast in a fake apartment and watching Cheers every day. The Ice King was PART of simon, but they were never the same person and every reminder of the hell the poor man went under, the things he did, the people he hurt just reminds Simon how far away he is from home.

Not helping is something all too common with depression and trauma, something I know all too well... Simon won't open up to people. He doesn't get help (and as we learn via a minerva bot in the finale Therapy was ALWAYS there for him), and he keeps space from the surrogate family he does have. He dosen't want to "ruin" marcy finally being in a good place and thus barely calls her, content to just visit and pretend things are okay. Finn TRIES reaching out.. but while he's older, wiser, and beardier now, and to my delight still with Huntress Wizard (and in headcanon in a throuple with Flame Princess, but that just me. ), but he's still an adrenline junky raised by a loveable manchild who can't quite relate to someone like Simon, who just wants his old life back.

All this is punctuated by the return of Rebecca Sugar, who sings the beautiful and tragic "part of the madness" which sums up where Simon is: he's normal, he's who HE wants to be.. but the world simply feels like it rejects him, when really he's just as much rejecting it. Instead of trying to find some calm in the storm of this life and admit he needs help.. he chases betty, trying badly to get her back even though it just.. isnt' possible.. and causing this series as a result. He just can't let go.. but the series shows him he has to if he wants to truly live.

15. Miraculous World Paris : Tales of Shadybug and Claw Noir (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir World Special 4) | In the daytime, I'm Gabriel Just a normal man, with a normal life But I have a secret I must keep at any cost Or all hope will be lost. Miraculous! Fear is a cage! Hear the message, answer the call! Miraculous! Yes, you can change! The power of love will free us all! Miraculous!

Yeah after two years of watching it, Miraculous Ladybug actually made this list. I'm shocked i'ts both this high AND this good. See while i'm a fan of Miraculous Ladybug, most of the fandom is more a fan of what it could be, the potetial it'd have if Thomas Astruc hadn't been the one mostly running it for 5 seasons and running it straight into the ground into the molten core of the earth. The Recent film, while far from perfect, felt like more what the series SHOULD'VE been, with the secret id bullshit resolved by the end of what's essentially movie/season 1, Gabe given more depth etc.

So i'ts ironic that in the same year the show itself, via it's spinoff specials gives us ANOTHER universe that's way better than the mess they've made of the main timeline with Miraculous World Paris. Mirror Universes are nothing new, to the point Kev and I have a whole series on mirror universe episodes featuring this very special planned, starting later this month.

With Ladybug's lack of subtley, misuse of good ideas and goofy incompetence, I assumed this special would be at best goofy fun with overblown multiverse and mirror universe tropes. Instead... it's the single best episode of the shows run, a truly moving piece that made me enjoy mirror universes again the same way Fionna and cake has made me enjoy AU's again

Miraculous knows just the right way to make evil counterparts: instead of the earth 3 versions of Marinette, Adrien and Gabriel the complete opposites of our heroes or just "Evil, Evil and less of a prick", Shady Bug, Claw Noir and Betterfly are all the same people we've come to know, simply gone down a diffrent route. Gabe is a better person, having STARTED as his earth 1 shitheal self working with his earth's eviil shadow overlord supreme... the loss of his life somehow changing this course. Instead of using the butterfly miraculous to try and bend the world in shape to get his wife back, he honors her legacy as Betterfly, helping others, something that seems IMPOSSIBLE for our gabe to consider without an ulterior motive.. but all too plausible if he just let go of his ego and his wife and let her die in peace instead of holding her in a dome coma and fighting teens. If he accepted he can't control something

Likewise Shadybug is Mari if Alaya hadn't befriended her, if Chloe just kept bullying Mari and Mari never stood up to her, the bullying just made her worse. If her parents WEREN'T there to support her: the bakery and her room is.. but it's very clear her alternate parents just aren't the loving duo our Mari's are. This is the kind of Mari that would've easily become an akuma.. but instead becomes something WORSE thanks to Supreme, a mysterious entity linked to the guardians, very heavily implied to be earth 3 Master Wu, who gives out the miraculouses to those who can tighten his grip on earth, and selected Mari and an Adrien who never went to school and thus never got out of his shell and is even MORE distant form his dad due to Gabe's new job as his pawns.

It results in a tearful battle as our heroes are both forced to TRUST the best life version of their nemisis, and battle what easily could'e ben them, while their counterparts find out , after Shadybug tries the wish thing, that supreme was using them and their lives are being drained by overusing their powers, explaning why the regular miraculouses limit our heroes to one use of their powers and limited timing. This is what happens otherwise and Monarch is all too happy to take advantage of that. There's more to this special, a lot more I can't wait to explore in april, but needless to say Miraculous World Paris.. is what I wanted from this series: a creative, tightly told, heartbreakingly well done superhero story with tense action, creative uses of the kwamis, and good character stuff for BOTH versions of our protagonists. I'ts a true masterwork and I wish THIS is the show we got more consistently.

14. The Amazing Rudy (Bob's Burgers, Season 14, Episode 2)

"I kinda walked away on dinner with my dad and her boyfriend and dad and his vicky for the first time which I guess how family dinners are gonna be from now on and I guess technically... I ran away"

It's weird but despite my deep love of the Great North (Which for the first time since it's debut missed the list this year, but damn did it have a good one, even if season 4 had to wait for 2024), until this year I wasn't consistently watching it's sister show Bob's Burgers anymore. I liked Bob's, I loved the movie, I had nothing against it. But any time I tried to get back there'd be an episdoe that just took me out. So now while I won't watch every episode, I still watch most, as the show is good as ever, if not on a comeback after a few seasons apparently felt (if TV Tropes is a good indciator) as very hit and miss. Season 14 is fantastic and it's no surprise it's second episode ended up being one of the series best.

The Amazing Rudy is something completely different in tone and staging, with a more melancholy peanuts style soundtrack, a somber tone and more muted humor. It fits perfectly, as the episode isn't centered around the Belchers this time but Louise's best friend, future husband and morality pet Rudy. The show has had secondary character spotlights before, Rudy getting a few himself, but usually the Belchers are still front and center and one of them still plays a major role in following this character around. For instance a few episodes later we get "bully-leive it or not" a zeke spotlight episode, but one where the other three kids are still very present: Zeke and his shameful past are the focus, but Louise and Tina still figure heavily into the plot, louise nearly bullyign Zeke's former bullying victim thinking the guy bullied zeke and that's why zeke freezes up seeing the guy, while Tina guiding the kid around is what kicks things off. The two aren't the focus, but it still feels like a bobs burgers adventure, helped with a bob subplot where he grapples with Jimmy Pesto, now played by Eric Bauza after a long absence thanks to his previous actor being an insurrectionist which lets face it Jimmy totally also was or at the very least thought about before finding the air fair was too much.

Here the focus is on Rudy to the point it feels like an episode of a Rudy spinoff show that does not exist but we now all want it too. It's still in Seymour's Bay (Which I forget is the name of the town this show takes place in as mostly people we know are in wonder wharf or on ocean avenue), just following Rudy as the lead instead. The Belcher's show up, in the middle of a bob's burger's episode we'll never see about Gene getting good grades and thus getting baked potato lasagna, a recipie he made up and assumes "everyone else must enjoy" is part of the reward, with the payoff him realizing he can't force someone to love his abomination, but he CAN have their portions. Being Rudy's closest friends and future wife it makes since there the ones he talks to when he goes to the mall with his dad to get a magic trick for the night and a snappy hat when he crosses them.

The Belcher's presence also hammers home what Rudy's dealing with though and that's.. a loss of family. Rudy's Parents are divorced. This isn't a new fact as it's come up casually in the past: being the kids Teddy, i.e. the person closest to them in their age group to be clear, not the person who defintely has passed by the restraunt at night every night and just.. stares in the window. But being the kids most prominent supporting character, with Jimmy Junior and Zeke a close shared second, we've gotten to know him: his parents divorce is amnicable, he alternates weekends, and they've both moved on. We haven't really seen his mom but Rudy seems just fine with her and with his dad being his primary caregiver, is a bit closer to him, as shown in this ep as the two are adorably in synch and have their rythm.

See Rudy didn't LOOSE his mom or dad, both are still very present.. but he lost the three of them as a family and until recently had their monthly "We're still a family' dinner", what, as we learn in a heartbreaking montage i'll get too shortly, was a monthly family dinner and became a way to show that both his parents still loved him and still liked each other even if they weren't together. The problem is while a well meaning gesture, both parents have started bringing their partners, which is fair but makes it less a family dinner.. and more Rudy stuck with four adults having a hangout who accidently forget he's there. While I never went through one of these as a middle schooler when my parents broke up, I know the type of event Rudy deals with all too well: it's mostly adults, there's no one to talk to and your alone. Granted I was fine with it because I just.. read whatever book I brought anyway, but rudy is a social butterfly, an awkward awkward butterfly, so he has no idea how to handle this, or really deal with it.

His one ace in the hole is a magic trick, from his faviorite shop, the same one we saw in the magic episode way back. See while Rudy's love of being a magician is another character trait that's come up, this episode gives weight to it: Rudy got into magic not just because he dearly loves it and the person at the shop gladly mentors him and supports his talent, but it's seen in a montage of previous dinners that any time his parents started fighting, before and after divorce, a simple trick reentered the night and reminded them what's important.

Naturally the trick, done using a glass of drinking water and some tablets, goes wrong, and while Rudy's parents encourage him to try again and no one really is mad at him or upset it went wrong and spilled everywhere, he feels utterly humiliated, something we all went through as kids: you screw something up and while your parents don't make a deal out of it, you just can't. Hell I still have that problem. So combine that with already not wanting ot be here and Rudy bounces, his parents not aware he's gone.

Naturally, given the earlier setup, he bounces to the Belchers. And it's easy to see why: The Belchers are a loving, wonderful family, and Bob and Linda not only gladly let Rudy join, but engage with him in a way Rudy's parents simply forgot. Rudy's parents aren't callous... adults simply make mistakes and in likely trying ot make sure rudy's okay with both their partners being there, their partners feel good, the million other things they got going on.. they talked over Rudy. It's what makes this work: we feel for rudy, but it stings more that this isn't some problem with an easy fix. There will be plenty more dinners where he's wallpaper and plenty more times they likely forget him without meaning to. The trick COULD'VE helped.. but it failing was a reminder it was just a distraction from the fact his parent's aren't a family anymore, just two people who share a kid, loving him and caring about each other.. but what little bit of what he had before the divorce is just gone.

Brian Huskey's voice as he gives the monologue I used for this episode's quote is just heartbreaking.. you can feel the kid just.. relaizing he can't just run away from it. It's just.. how things are. HIs sad revelation of this just hits, Louise's "Oh boy", and Rudy sounds on the verge of tears.. we've seen him mad, we've seen him kinda sad.. but never like this. Just a child realizing things won't be the same and he has nothing to do but go back to it.

Thankfully as bob and linda mindly panic after realizing "oh god this child just ran and his parents don't know oh god", Louise knows what her best friends need and offers to walk him back. not only is the moment shiptastic.. it's sweet. Louise gets Rudy is having a hard time with all of this and needs some support, needs someone his own age there to talk with and to help deflect attention. And to punch out anyone on the way who tries to hurt them with brass knuckles, which naturally linda gave her as santa. After all he IS from the streets. It provides a pretty morose episode an utterly sweet ending as the two walk back, Bob couldn't be prouder, and Rudy.. for now at least.. isn't alone among his own family anymore. He may never have what he had back.. but he's gained someone pretty good along the way.

13. Watching and Dreaming (The Owl House, Season 3 Episode 3, Series Finale)

"Eda, King, Thank you for Everything" "Right Back atcha kiddo" "Weirdos?" "Weirdos"

The Owl house was the best show of the 2020's and while it had some stiff compettion this year, it still hasn't been surpassed. It was hilarious, had a wonderfully built messed up world with lots of thought, deep character arcs, and was sadly cut short way too soon, but will never leave the hearts of those of us who loved it.

So thankfully they stuck the landing, as Watching and Dreaming was a worthy conclusion to the series. After the decent but easily weakest of the three season 3 specials "For the Future", Watching and Dreaming is a nicely packed finale that wraps up the series wonderfully and while it leaves me wanting only MORE, MORE DAMN YOU MORE, as the series always had, it's a good note to end on while Dana gets the hell out of mouseton for a while.

It was also the last episode of a show I covered as it came out, with an attempt to do so with legend of vox machina adding way too much to my work load this year to really work out, and as a finale to that.. it was just as welcome.

Watching and Dreaming spends it's first third on the Collector, and while there is a bit of disconnect between what he puts our heroes through and where he left off, with Luz once again hving her anxieties reinforced via a horrifying puppet show, the show quickly recovers as the big three are reunited after two long episodes and several long months in and out of universe: Luz has her other mom and little brother back, Eda has her kids back and King has her family back. We also get a quick show of just how far they've come since the pilot as each one easily bodies the collector's games... and leaves him wondering why they won't play fair, why this isn't working. It takes three people who had to learn their lessons the hard way through tears, isolation and learning their life was a lie, to teach the boy god empathy and unveil that at his heart.. he's just a kdi who REALLY didn't know what he was doing was awful.

Unfortunately just as the collector learns friendship, belos POSSESS THE TITAN'S CORPSE ITSELF and plans to do .. something.. genocidey and after an attempt to just forgive him fails, the only thing our heros have is each other, with Luz's friends aka our other heroes busy saving allt he puppets with their new starry pjamaed pal.

Luz gets a last minute somewhat asspully upgrade, but it's all three together that defeats belos. It's an epic finale but one that nicely focuses on who Dana intended as the core of the series: a child who found her place in another world and learned responsibility and to forgive herself, a witch who learned to forigve and let others in, and a titan who learned empathy, all kicking that blobs ass. And then curb stomping it. It's a moving, fast paced, excellently animated finale with a fun time skip epilogue to tie it all together. Owl House may be gone... but it'll never be forgotten.

12. Army of the Doomstar (Metalocalypse, Finale Movie)

"I am a wheel in the gear of the Klok. I feel not my mortality".

The other adult swim finale movie this year and the one that had the harder road. While Venture Bros got it's movie offer at the same time as cancelation, it took Brendon Small a decade, a whole ass album designed to be as close to a finale as he could get without a lisence and a LOT of campaning to finish his story to get here. Metalocalypse ended just as the final verse of blood, metal and stupidity was about to be written, and it was thanks to Small and the Fans themselves that we finally got it with this movie.

Army wraps up 4 seasons and another movie, a movie I dearly loved when it came out and still do, with an epic. It's darker in tone as the metalocalypse that begun at the start of the series is almost here and Nathan Explosion has a full on existential crisis trying to write the song that will save the world, having no idea how and not helped by his disasterous attempted propsoal to abigail while on a lot of wine and xanax (Props to small for ending a pretty disliked subplot exactly the way it shoudl without just.. tossing it out for time or some shit AND making it tie perfectly into the plot). The films dives into the overexpecations we put on creatives to MAKE US MORE DAMMIT, and how hard that actually is.. but also how fans.. are something to treasure and not spit in their face as our heroes have the whole series, seeing them more as parasites than people.

It maintains the series ballance of having an epic story.. but not sugarcoating that these guys are fucking morons with Nathan charging into a funeral on xanax and telling everyone, Pickels having ot literally be everyone's mom, and Pickles ordering a last meal fo rnathan of cool ranch diritos and choclate milk. The shows as goofy as ever, but adds a heart that's been only glimpsed on occasion as our heroes are allergic to feelings, as our heroes must save the world. We also get some kickass metal music as always, with SOS being a standout, giving us one last awesome dethklok performance and song as our heroes rally the world to show them their not alone.. and they never were. An epic, hilarious, and well done film that manages to cover all the bases it needs to and wrap everything up in 96 minutes. Pretty brutal.

11. The World Vs Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim Takes off Episode 6, Series Finale)

"Hey, because I'll have a lot of trouble saying it later, let me say it now: I love you, Scott. And I run away from the thing that I love. But what I've done in the past doesn't have to define me. Help me keep remembering that, okay?"

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was a thrilling watch but there was one worry I had as it went.. sticking the landing. It set up a compelling mystery, to the point I genuinely wasn't sure who would kidnap scott as while the twins DID have to show up and were likely involved.. it just didn't fit that it was them. It being their robot who being a robot has never eaten anything, thus never eaten meat and would have none of the bilogicial weaknesses of a human, was brilliant as it is hilarious bonkers.

Who sent the robot.. was even better as it turned out to be Scott himself, a twist that told me everything was going to be alright. Specifically this is a scott who lived what this story would've been: Scott beats the exes, gets the girl, and they have a happy relationship and then marriage for 15 years, having become their best selves. The thing the series challenges though .. is if they can STAY better versions of themselves. It's something the other versions didn't really WANT to poke at because it makes the ending less happy: if they don't end up together, what's the point of all this. Yet.. relatoinships break up. Hope Larson, the real life inspriation for Ramona, divorced Brian Lee O Malley. The relationship COULD fail and where would that leave them.

As it turns out.. not great as Ramona bailed when it got hard while being vauge as usual, and Scott spiraled hard into his worst habits, moving in with wallace, again, and rather than figure out where he wen twrong.. wanted to hit undo on what he felt was a sunk cost, a relationship he put his heart into only for it to seemingly fail, even if he still had a chance to save it. Hence the brilliant and only not making this list because this year was paccckkked with good episodes, 2 Scott 2 Pilgrim before this. It also helps the takes off scott spedrun his charater development as future him is everything Scott tries to ignore about himself, his laziness, selfishness, short sightentess and very stupid brain, as a person he really can't ignore because that person kidnapped him because he took a joke Wallace made seriously.

So Scott naturally motors with the help of Future Wallace and Older Ramona, who was indeed the sleep paralysis demon and like her ex husband really sucks at plans, but gives Scott a lift home. So.. everything good? Ramona Grew, Scott Grew, Scott acknowlegeds he never should've dated a literal teenager... we goo dright? Right?

Thing is as this episode reveals midway through... Older Scott REALLY didn't want his past self to take the gamble that he could do it the right way and instead of giving himself tips.. gave himself anti kissing nanites so he and ramona can't kiss, the two naturally thinking it's the exes. We get a great opening here as scott confronts each of them, having only kinda witnessed their changes.. and most don't care. Even Gideon's moved on to Julie, his perfect match and a pariing I can't belivie I love and fits perfectly: their both the worst, and together their awful. Brilliant.

The two seemingly don't solve things.. but thankfully Old Scott is more than willing to show his hand.. as even older scott. Even Older Scott is terrifying, taking some of Scott's good traits.. and making them into something nightmarish. After his failure to change the future, not considering that

Instead looses his mind, training himself in video games and the martial arts for 10 years, all to counter everything his friends and the exes can do... all so he can KILL EVERY LAST ONE. Scott's worst nightmare across all realities has come to past, he's an evil ex.. and the evilest ex of all. Well in terms of power and madness, Gideon still put a bunch of women in jars because they broke up with him who Matt hopefully let out in this timeline.

We get a great fight as the utterly jacked, utterly terrifying even older scott, who nicely resembles evil ryu from street fighter and has pixel effects ala movie!gideon, cleans house, with Ramona wondering if she should just.. leave all this. It's only realizing that's literally all she does that gets her to realize she want sto fight for this, even if it ends poorly, and Scott, already all in, helps her.

Ultimately it's not the duo who win their future this time.. but Ramona's own future, what could be, even older ramona, saving her past self via fusion, a super mode (Just like Sonic 2.. or 3.. or dragon ball.), and some words of encouragment, giving EOS another chance and Scott the beautiful words above.

It's a powerful message and one that's real: it's hard to change.. but it's even harder to get change to stick. You just have to keep remembering it.. and keep trying. No matter how bad things seem.. you can make it better.

This is all helped by the beautiful ending, a pixel version of god only knows as everyone, exes now included, gets to live their best life and we last see Ramona as she dons what we finally find to be her natural hair color, blond (with some highlights because, hey, it looks badass), ready to face the future)... and the best worst couple hyping a sequel that will never happen, but frankly it'd be werider if they didn't, A truly spectacular finale to what may be the best version of this story.

[danielfeketewrites]

The Marvels (2023)

Not usually reviewing films but here we are. A friend of mine invited me to the cinema to see The Marvels. And so we did, two days ago.

Neither of us expected much. I haven't seen Ms. Marvel. I thought Captain Marvel was 'meh' and a bit bland. Not offensive in any way (if you discount the blatant milatary propaganda) but ultimately Just A Marvel ProductTM. And not even a fun one. At least not fun for me.

And no offence to Teyonah Parris, but her character was definitely the least interesting thing about WandaVision. That's not saying much, seeing as that miniseries was great and one of the best things Marvel did since Infinity War... But it just goes to say that this didn't seem that promising.

The trailer for it looked quite cool though.

My friend Marek, who was bitching to me about how bad Captain Marvel is for years now, invited me to see The Marvels with him in the cinema. Mostly as a joke. Although he did enjoy Ms. Marvel. But still, neither of us expected much.

To our surprise - The Marvels is really good and we both enjoyed ourselves a lot.

It's really, really good.

While I don't think it can stand shoulder to shoulder with stuff like The Suicide Squad, Across the Spider-verse or GotG Vol. 3, I still feel comfortable calling it one of the best superhero movies of this decade so far. It's easily the 2nd best MCU movie since Spider-man: Far From Home, imo. (admittedly, I haven't seen all of them, so take this hot take with a grain of salt... I just really enjoyed The Marvels)

So now I'm gonna do a wee bit of gushing about some of the reasons why it's so good. (spoilers bellow)

Carol, Kamala, and Monica are just really fun to watch? Their interaction is amazing.

Kamala can be a bit cringey but in an authentically teenage way and I really enjoyed that! Her being a huge fan of Captain Marvel never stopped feeling real. Yeah, of course she's into RPF.

Consequences! I love when things in stories have consequences. And this is all built around consequences to the stuff Captain Marvel did. She did them with good intentions... But that didn't necessarily matter. And I love that. It adds a bit of complexity and nuance that's less and less common in superhero movies these days.

Which ties into... Carol not being perfect. She's amazing and powerful but she can't save everyone.

Carol is also... really fun? With a slight nudge she just became a really well-written, interesting protagonist? I love this version of Captain Marvel and I want more!!! Brie Larson finally gets to show off a bit as an actress!

She just really gave me Xena vibes, in the best possible way.

While the villain isn't an all-time great, the actress went for dignity and it payed off. She feels iconic and you understand where she's coming from.

Monica's sacrifice was quite powerful and kinda hit me.

The "training sequence" where Carol, Monica, and Kamala are practicing the switching is perfect. I love it. No notes.

I love that while it's only an indirect continuation of Captain Marvel, it takes the best bits from that film and builds on them. For me, Goose is the best bit of that film - a cat, but make it eldritch and alien, as well as bigger on the inside? Nice, love it. So what do we do with that idea the second time around? MORE CATS!!! I got a bit excited when I saw the kittens in the trailer and they did not disappoint. (Can the next movie be set on their planet? Please?)

But it's not just "there are kittens now" though. THE KITTENS ARE INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT. It's not just there to be there, but it's an important plot point. And it's so fun!

Nick Fury is also fun.

But it's not just taking what worked and expanding on it. This movie got really creative!

For example - the worlds! Especially the Bollywood planet. Great stuff.

That's just some of the reasons to like this film. I'm probably gonna watch it again when it's on Disney+

If you haven't seen it yet, go do that it if it's still playing in a cinema near you. It's definitely worth a watch if you are in the mood for a fun, well-made superhero film.

I'm really looking forward to what Nia DaCosta does next. This film really didn't deserve to underperform and I hope she gets another stab at a big blockbuster like this in the future.

[deasbanker]

Catch up on the Marvel movies that I miss, become aware of their similarities, and regard its "multiverse" as a means to integrate/streamline superhero movies based on Marvel Comics.

30/4/2024

I've watched 10 Marvel films from phase 4 to 5 this time. Overall, they were not that boring, thanks to fast-paced drama, rhythmical dialogue, casual/light atmosphere, and constantly dynamic image, but I honestly didn't enjoy most of them. As far as I can see reviews of the movies on the Internet or reaction of my friends, this slightly harsh review can be attributed to my personal taste in film. I like Black Widow the best among them and Spider-man: No Way Home followed by. Watching the movies from phase 4 to 5, I noticed that they have a little in common in terms of "multiverse", or many unforgettable female characters, who are not only strong and wise as we've seen before phase 4 but also so humorous that I could tell multilayered background underlies their characters and feel more familiar with them than ever, in fact.

[Then, I can see a certain direction which the studio has been going in: increasing the number of women appearance as speaking roles/major characters in films, presenting diverse female images in personality, embodying power by not just showing their fighting, thinking over/preventing expressions of post-feminism by cooperating with each other, valuing their own everyday life to make them seem ordinary far away from exceptional, and so forth. In other words, Hollywood has been striving to adapt to the time and meet an audience's needs. Some of my classmates and I used to think of that as superficial and commercial. Of course, I know the importance and influence of practice and visualization, but I always worry about specific representation of women which could be interpreted as an advocate and promote post-feminism/neoliberalism so naturally. I suppose there is another way of female empowerment but keeping depicting girls' knocking enemies to the ground or getting into MIT of any kind]

As for other films, I found that Shang-Chi had a lot of Asian/Chinese stereotypes, but I'm not supposed to judge if they're ok or not as I'm mere Japanese woman. Yet, Asians in Hollywood are always masters of something and strong, I would say; I scarcely see Japanese actors/actresses not using "Katana" and just being at work in American movies even to date.

[rruhlreviews]

Film Review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I read The Hobbit in 2018. I’ve never seen the movies before, nor have I read or watched The Lord of the Rings yet. I was excited to give the movies a try, starting at the beginning. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had questionable pacing, arguably extraneous additions to the book’s story, and relied on the audience’s knowledge of the outside lore for parts to make sense, but the deeply resonant theme and the escapism only an adventure story can provide make the story a beloved classic.

Let’s first talk about the good qualities of the film. By no means did I think it was a bad movie, even if the pacing was off. This is the kind of story that resonates across the generations. A man leaves home and travels far away on “an adventure.” There are simplistic yet powerful themes of good versus evil, of leaving and returning home. Tolkien’s writing takes inspiration from Norse mythology, stories so important to humans they have endured for millennia. The popularity of fantasy is due to the escape it provides from the real world. There may still be darkness and grief, but there is also magic and dragons. A reader can imagine leaving their dull home, picking up a sword and an enchanted ring, and going on an adventure to save the world instead of to save the office job. Tolkien wrote from his experiences in WWI. In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, people are caught in a war, but their struggle is not for nothing, and they are not forgotten. The great evil in the world can actually be defeated by the goodness of people. The foreword in my copy of The Hobbit mentions the books didn’t gain popularity until the 1960s. In the United States at the time, people needed escape and comfort from the Vietnam War and a battle for civil rights. Epic fantasy stories can be inspiring.

I know Tolkien wrote from a British perspective, but watching An Unexpected Journey, I was reminded of old Western movies. There’s a band of righteous travelers, their mystical companion, outlaws, wild animals, authority figures that don’t believe in the quest, and a legendary city of gold. Characters travel through ruins and graves and sing of a bygone golden age. From the perspective of our protagonist and the insert for the viewer, the whole world is literally larger than life for a Hobbit. Gandalf the Grey, whose magic serves as a deus ex machina on more than one occasion. Thorin Oakenshield, slayer of countless formidable foes. The otherworldly knowledge and abilities of the elves. Giant spiders and stone giants. We have this grandiose setting populated by heroes and villains and their exploits, but the theme is antithesis to that. The story is about a small person who doesn’t know how to use a sword and would rather be home reading.

For this one line, the film spoke to me, and I fell in love with it. This one scene was the heart and glory of the story.

In some ways, the movie gets caught up in the great power, but the book starts on an intimately human level. “In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.” From the book comes the core of the film. It isn’t the battles or magic the film added to the book that makes it a success, but the good story it was based on.

I don’t think The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey could be successful on its own if not for the success of the books and the preceding Lord of the Rings films. If we treated this like a regular fantasy adventure story not associated with the popularity of Tolkien: the pacing was slow, the plot jumped around a lot with little sense of connection between points, and the titular character is not the focus of the majority of the film. If I had not read The Hobbit previously, I would have been completely lost. Honestly, I still was lost with the pieces that were added for the film. The book is 300 pages. Stretching that into three movies is too much, in my opinion. Some scenes seemed to drag on forever. I was almost certain I did not remember the parts with the orcs or Gandalf’s other wizard associates from the book, and I was glad a friend pointed out they were added for the movie. I don’t mind film adaptations of books being a little long because they’re trying to be true to the story, but The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey could have been about half an hour shorter, and closer to an expected two hour film runtime, if the scenes that weren’t in the book weren’t added just to stretch a short book into a trilogy. The one thing you never want your audience to be, regardless of what genre you’re writing, is bored. I got bored and had to spread this film over several days of watching, and honestly if I didn’t know what climax this movie was building up to, I would have stopped watching because I lacked investment.

This is the problem with creating a movie or book just to establish context for a future installment in a series. There’s a ton of exposition and rising action, but the climax isn’t going to happen until the second or third movie, which risks leaving the viewer unsatisfied or questioning the purpose of the film at all. I think two parts would’ve been grand for an adaptation of The Hobbit rather than three. One has to wonder if the length of the film series was not in the spirit of creating an immersive story but rather for the box office. I hate to be pessimistic, but given the fact some side plots were added that weren’t in the book, I’m inclined to consider the latter.

That’s the thing about blockbusters though, isn’t it? When a title becomes immensely popular, saturates the cultural consciousness, and gains a large and dedicated audience, they can create whatever they want and it will sell. If something says Marvel, or Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings, or even Frozen, it will be read, it will be watched, and it will make lots of money because the existing fanbase is already so loyal. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing as long as the audience is enjoying it, but I do become cynical when the quality of installments noticeably drops because the studios have figured out they don’t need to spend a lot of effort to get a large return. This contributes to a “fast fashion” cycle of rapid consumption in our current media climate, which is stressful on both fans and creators. It makes it harder for new stories to get a foothold in the market if they have to compete against Avengers 22, or Star Wars Episode 16, or the umpteenth remake of a Disney cartoon, or Harry Potter Prequel 7: This Time With Even More Bigotry, or whatever it is this month.

I’ve gone on a tangent, and I’ll end on a good note. I didn’t really appreciate epic fantasy until watching this movie. When I read The Hobbit six years ago, it wasn’t at the right time of my life for me to fully connect with the story. Now, I feel immersed in the comfort the escapism can provide. You can always return home, though not unchanged. Change is an inexorable part of life, but if you have the courage to confront it, you can do great things.

[racefortheironthrone]

Also what's the deal with Miles? I have vision issues, so graphics and that other stuff has little impact on me (bright side - I can't see Henry Cavill's non-moustache), so Into_ was just a nice little movie, and Across_ ... raises some questions. Like, he has electric powers, and can turn invisible? Why doesn't he turn invisible ANY time it would tactical and not creepy? EVERY other version of Spider-man is on the Council of Ricks but Miles? "Extra powers"+"sole right-thinker" = writer's pet.

Post #2 is where I started to notice some bad vibes. Fair warning, I might start to get a bit annoyed and ramp up from there.

Miles Morales does indeed have invisibility and bio-electricity powers. While sometimes his invisibility is used as an obvious metaphor for feelings of alienation and loneliness - he feels invisible, so he literally becomes invisible - he absolutely uses it tactically in both movies. In ITSV, he uses it to get the jump on Liv Octavius in the super-collider:

And in ATSV, he uses it to sneak past Spider-Byte and access the "Go Home Machine" in order to get the machine to send him back to his home universe and prevent the death of his father. Miles' invisibility allows him to outwit Spyder-Byte, LYLA, and Miguel.

Moving on to your next question, which is a wild pivot in topic, Miles wasn't told about the Spider Society specifically because Miguel views him as a dangerous anomaly and wants to keep him in the dark about what the Spider Society is doing.

Indeed, far from being a designation of any superior status, the movie explicitly frames Miles' exclusion as something that makes him feel anxious and insecure, that he's not good enough to be invited to the club.

Finally, regarding the "writer's pet" note: I feel the same way about this that I do about calling Storm a Mary Sue. Miles Morales is the goddamn protagonist (although given Gwen's prominence especially at the beginning and the end of the film, I'd call him a co-protagonist) and expecting the film not to act like it is just bad cinema appreciation.

Moreover, your specific complaints are baseless:

The movie is absolutely full of Spider-people with "extra powers" - Miguel has talons and fangs and cyber-webs, Jessica Drew has a motor-cycle (and in the comics, pheremone powers and venom blasts like Miles') and can fire webs from her fingertips, Spider-Byte is a decker, there's tons of mecha-Spiderfolk, and on and on. Hell, half the point of the Spider Society is to give the writers and animators the freedom to think up as many Spiderfolk with as many "extra powers" as they can.

The movie explicitly shows that Miles isn't the "sole right thinker." Not only is there the whole arc about Gwen finding her "band" of other spider-dissidents - Peter B. Parker, Peni Parker, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Ham, Pavitr Prabhakar, and Spider-Byte - but there is also HOBIE GODDAMN BROWN, anarchist community organizer. As I said in my original review, he knows that Miguel and the Spider Society are wrong from the beginning and works subtly in the background to radicalize Miles and others against the Spider Society, help Miles escape custody, and steal/reverse-engineer Miguel's tech to allow Gwen to assemble her "band."

[capsarcastica]

Deadpool & Wolverine Review

This one is the weakest in the Deadpool series but also has so much to enjoy. It's more like the swan song of the Fox X-Men series rather than an MCU entry.

First the bad. It's pretty tame compared to the first two Deadpool movies. It may be because it's now under the official Disney-Marvel banner, or maybe it's because the Writers and Actors strikes during development. Whatever the reason, it seems like it's pulling its punches. It still has plenty of bite, but there's some obvious stuff the movie avoids going after.

Already, some of the worst of the MCU is bleeding in. Mostly, that it relies too much on other works. Don't know the entire history of Marvel movies including undeveloped ones then the cameos don't feel special. Some of the stuff can go over the heads of casual fans. Didn't see Loki on Disney+? Then a lot of the second half won't make any sense. Deadpool has always used references to other Marvel work, but this is the first time it's necessary to the plot to know this stuff.

Sadly, the supporting cast seems to have been tossed aside. There's the party scenes that bookend the movie, but they're entirely gone. None of the fun interactions with Colossus, Negasonic, Dopinder, etc that made the first two so much fun. There's a moment that seems like a set-up to a side story about them rescuing Wade, but nothing comes from it.

The movie doesn't have the emotional core that the earlier two did. The first was a love story and the second about family. They had personal stakes. This one is about the destruction of the universe, which is big but lacks that personal touch. It also doesn't connect to the end of the second film as far as where the characters are. Too much of the in-between has to be explained when it would've been easier to just rewrite some scenes.

There are two villains, but neither are interesting. Both seem to do whatever furthers the plot but not what makes sense. Neither have a plan that seems thought out, just to make the most problem at any given moment. The previous two had great conflicts, and this points to that lack of personal stakes.

And finally, the Multiverse. Marvel and DC Comics have made great use of alternate realities, What Ifs, and possible futures. The movies not so much. I love seeing Patrick Stewart, Michael Keaton, and Tobey Maguire back in costume. But bringing back beloved actors, and occasionally listening to fan castings, seems to be the extent of what the movies are doing. The Deadpool Corps are also wasted. The idea of dozens of alternate Deadpools coming together should be cinematic gold. Instead they're mostly treated as cannon fodder.

Now the good. The titular duo are amazing together. Reynolds and Jackman know how to bounce off each other. Both are in perfect form, showing the kind of rapport that's straight out of the comics. This is a team up that's been fifteen years in the making, and it doesn't disappoint in that regard. Though it's definitely more Wolverine's movie. It acknowledges how terrific Logan is, but gives this new Wolverine plenty of depth in what might be the best example of having its cake and eating it too.

The movie does for the X-Men movies what No Way Home did for Spider-Man. It expertly includes the previous movie into the MCU while making a great case for their continuation. The X-Men and Spider-Man movies are the reason the MCU even exists so it's nice to see them treated so lovingly.

Just like the original Deadpool did, the movie expertly brings the R rating to the MCU. In fact, there's more blood, swearing, and carnage than the other Deadpool movies. The only thing I know they couldn't do is hardcore drug use, and this makes for some fun scenes with Blind Al. This may be under the family friendly Disney banner, but Marvel seems to realize it's best for some franchises do their own thing.

Deadpool has always had fun with Easter eggs, cameos, and references. This one more than most. The fight at the 20th Century Fox logo being a big one. It brings back a lot of characters from the franchise, and some from others like the Russian guy from the Thomas Jane Punisher movie. It may be more in-your-face than the previous two, but it's a lot of fun for the hardcore fans.

This one feels like Avengers: Endgame. Too many problems to really match up to the previous entries, but too much good stuff to be bad. The MCU has been in a rough spot, but if anything this movie proves that Marvel can acknowledge that and work to fix it. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of Deadpool and Wolverine.

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: The Marvels

This is Ms. Marvel’s house, and everyone else is just a tenant. The latest MCU outing is the lowest point of the franchise to date, with a muddled and poorly-explained plot, two wooden leads, an underutilized villain, and entirely too much MCU advertising. At a brisk 105 minutes, it is somehow both overstuffed and rushed. So how, then, can I say you should see it? Two words: Kamala Khan.

It is thirty years after the original Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) lives on a spaceship and seems to hold down a job as a galactic peacekeeper-ambassador, though how this keeps food on the table is unclear. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), also residing in space but on a massive station, sends Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) out on missions to investigate…something. This something, which looks kind of like the way movies always portray event horizons, is a strange disturbance in space that can A: cause wormholes, B: be used as a source of power for the villain and C: make it so that the movie’s three heroines swap places whenever they use their powers. It’s a cosmic maguffin working overtime.

This plot is, to be kind, a mess. The Space Something causes Danvers and Rambeau to swap places with each other and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), lead hero in the Disney+ show Ms. Marvel. As the characters swap powers, they shift between Kamala’s home, Danvers’ spaceship, Fury’s space-station and various other planets, including an intriguing one where everyone speaks in song. None of these feel like any more than pit-stops for the plot, and we constantly wish the film would pick one or two and focus on those. So, too, does Zawe Ashton’s villain get slighted. Superhero movies usually deal in uncomplicated maniacs, and Ashton’s Dar-Benn bucks that trend, with a legitimate reason to be pissed off at the hero. This reason is done away with in a flashback and never explored as a deeper part of the character. Like Thor: Love & Thunder, the movie could have benefited from slowing down and taking more time to establish its villain as a person.

Let’s leave aside the plot for a moment, though, and discuss the young woman named Kamala. For those who watched the show Ms. Marvel, no introduction is necessary. For those who didn’t, she’s a teenager in Jersey City who inherits light-bending properties from a time-traveling gauntlet inherited from her grandmother. Her powers are less important than her personality, for she ends up being the glue that barely holds a confused and dull film together. Played by newcomer Iman Vellani, she has that Spider-Man energy, bringing an enthusiasm and seemingly effortless charm to every scene she steals.

She also happens to be a massive fan of Danvers, yet Vellani knows how to hold back and let her enthusiasm build rather than just running up and spouting a one-liner. Her expressions, body language and every line of dialogue are perfect for the character, which is good, because the film desperately needs her. Larson and Parris never manage to generate any individual sympathy from the audience, and spend all their non-Kamala time dryly reciting details of the impossible-to-follow plot or making bland promises of heroism. At one point, when CM must reduce herself to tears over having accidentally done a very bad thing, it’s obvious Larson is forcing the waterworks, and when Parris must confront a vision of her deceased mother (Lashana Lynch), her reactions are right out of summer stock.

Vellani’s only credits so far are all playing Ms. Marvel, but if the universe loves us, she will be a star long after the MCU has finally crumbled to dust. She and Jackson are the only ones on screen who seem even dimly aware of how silly this all is, and they treat it all like a game. You can’t say the movie doesn’t have some clue what the audience wants, because in the best non-Kamala moment it multiplies the previous film’s mutant alien cat into dozens. I won’t tell you why the film needs these cats, but does it matter? An alien mutant kitten is its own reward. To get that reward, you need to have watched several TV shows and movies (I won’t say which ones, to avoid spoilers), and the film often feels like homework that most people forgot to do.

Once we’re done with the nonsense plot, the rolled-over-and-died dialogue, the emotionally hollow acting and constant pushy references to the larger MCU, we know only one thing: Ms. Marvel needs her own movie. She’s already left this one in the dust.

Verdict: Average

Note: I don’t use star ratings. Here are my possible verdicts:

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid Like the Plague

[looz-y]

the hobbit book update review so far:

got to the wood elfs after the absolute stressful events of the previous chapters regarding giant spiders (this is coming from a spider liker). i'm glad bilbo is still a mood with everything going wrong and being like "man i wish i was back home AGAIN" after like a total of 7 times he's said it in the book. i've...not kept track of it tho

i'm happy to be half way thru the book now <3

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

So yeah... That totally unnecessary Nelson Peltz proxy fight saga of current-day Disney is finally over.

Thank goodness. Peltz seemed like he was acting on behalf of former Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, another guy who is bad news bears to say the least. Peltz just looked like another old man who plays to the crowd that loves to call everything "woke". While it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that The Walt Disney Company is having some trouble across various divisions, their solution wasn't even a solution. Nothing remotely near that.

Interestingly, Disney finally released their first *new* theatrical movie this year, a $30m prequel to THE OMEN that got solid reviews but struggled on opening weekend for whatever reason. It's looking to perform more like last year's new EXORCIST movie than 2018 HALLOWEEN (both films directed by David Gordon Green), I guess not all horror legacy sequels (lega-sequels) are destined to make coin. No matter, $30m isn't steep, it should make it back eventually if not in theaters. It's a 20th Century Studios movie, so it's no big deal really.

Weirdly, POOR THINGS is one of their few box office successes released over the past 12 or so months, outside of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 and - by a hair - ELEMENTAL. 20th kinda came to the rescue there, too: A HAUNTING IN VENICE doubled its budget, THE BOOGEYMAN did pretty good.

All I know is, Disney's probably never going to relive 2019 again... And I feel like they keep trying to make that year happen again... But it won't, because that was a case of the planets freakin' aligning...

I extend that to the 2010s in general, honestly, but I'll focus on 2019...

That year saw the billion-dollar releases of - in order: CAPTAIN MARVEL, AVENGERS: ENDGAME, ALADDIN, TOY STORY 4, THE LION KING, FROZEN II, and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER... They got a moderate success out of the MALEFICENT sequel that year, too, while the live-action DUMBO didn't recoup its - ironically - massive budget. (The original 1941 DUMBO was a low-budget picture belted out during the war.) Some 20th titles came out that year, too, most of them not doing great, like the X-Men movie DARK PHOENIX and Blue Sky's penultimate SPIES IN DISGUISE (I call it penultimate because I consider NIMONA a partial Blue Sky movie, their swan song).

Even then, that was a year to die for. But that's the rub... ENDGAME was the culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's whole Infinity Saga. 11 years in the making, it's astounding it was able to have juice for that long! Yes, yes, I know, SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME was the *actual* end of Phase 3... That functions more like an epilogue, while ENDGAME was the big finale event everyone waited for... and of course, CAPTAIN MARVEL benefited greatly from being the movie that preceded ENDGAME. By less than two months... TOY STORY 4 was locked to be big, because TOY STORY 3 made a billion nine years earlier. ALADDIN and THE LION KING were remakes of some of Disney's biggest animated movies, and FROZEN II was a sequel to another one of Disney's biggest animated movies. RISE OF SKYWALKER ended the entire Skywalker Saga... And ending the main story of one of the biggest franchises- You get the idea!

Suffice to say, Disney's not going to have that year again. They'd have to acquire like another 2-3 franchises, and release their finales all during the same year in addition to two other favorites. The MCU isn't the must-see event with each and every film anymore post-ENDGAME, Star Wars' future is probably in serialized shows still, the remake well has run dry and all the biggest Disney animated movies were pretty much covered (SNOW WHITE - from the one that started everything - is on its way, but I see that performing more similarly to DUMBO and not LITTLE MERMAID), and... Well, animated movies that aren't sequels are more of a gamble nowadays.

But it seems like in 2025 and 2026, Disney's looking to keep trying this usual platter of movies that would've been a killer line-up in 2017. Not today. That's how I felt about their offering last year, too.

It's a lot of reliance on the brands. New Star Wars sounds like box office gold, right? Well, two new Star Wars movies in 2026 after all those movies Disney did from 2015-2019 in addition to what seems like a ton of Disney+ shows... And Grogu was super-popular back when he first appeared in THE MANDALORIAN back in 2019... Yeah, like, who knows how those will do... In addition to all the Marvel movies planned, not all of them are gonna get everyone packing the auditoriums - as we saw with QUANTUMANIA and THE MARVELS. (And on the Warner Bros./DC end, SHAZAM! 2 and BLUE BEETLE, even AQUAMAN 2 didn't make half of what the first one made, THE FLASH fell sharply after its opening.)

And then you have the animated sequels, which seem like safe bets. Disney only missed with Pixar's LIGHTYEAR, which was a spin-off that went a totally different direction that seemed to have alienated the audiences that made all the TOY STORY movies the big hits that they were. TOY STORY 5 likely does way better than that, but I expect it to be a box office come down from the last two. It would have to have a real banger story, I feel, to get people to keep coming. I think MOANA 2, ZOOTOPIA 2, and FROZEN III - all from Disney Animation - are locked to at least open big. If they're very unsatisfactory movies to the public - like STRANGE WORLD and WISH were, then they have weak legs... And smackdab between this sequel-frenzy is one original Pixar movie: Space adventure ELIO.... Which got delayed, supposedly because it was a big mess and it needed another year and a half to be reconfigured. Not that that really means anything, but it's sure to balloon its probably already-big budget. ELEMENTAL had to climb and climb to somewhat eke out a profit, ELIO might have even more trouble as an original movie. It's also not known what Pixar's other 2026 movie is opposite TOY STORY 5, though I suspect it is another original, which will make it stick out as well. WDAS' original movies seem missing in action at the moment.

20th Century Studios and Searchlight continue to have the interesting stuff, which I think will last longer than more Marvel and Star Wars movies. Both studios really did become a replacement for Disney's former adult movie label Touchstone, didn't they? And they too have their franchise biggies, more for Disney, with the likes of PLANET OF THE APES and ALIEN... Whose new installments come out this year and are sure to do okay. Plus, more AVATAR... And yet those franchise don't feel - to me - as overdone as Star Wars and the MCU. It's been 7 years since the last APES and ALIEN movies, weirdly enough (WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES and ALIEN: COVENANT), and AVATAR took a long break before returning with a cluster sequels all reasonably spaced out from one another. PREDATOR/PREY looks to keep going. I also wonder if future KINGSMAN movies are still in play.

Again, it's the little stuff that matters, because wells always run dry... And I think that's Disney's problem at the moment, ditto them playing things way too safe in other areas... I've said that before, but they - specifically on the "Walt Disney Pictures" end - need to just let loose and let a filmmaker just make something dynamic and cool and new. Something that takes the audience completely by surprise, not just another "Disney movie". Something like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN or WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. And make more smaller movies, too, and not relegate them to streaming. Little movies like THE PRINCESS DIARIES, HOLES, etc. We're in that scene in RATATOUILLE again where the patrons of Gusteau's ask if there's anything *new* on the menu...

The time is now, Disney. With a new head of your live-action division, let's see what you've got. We're past calendar years locked and loaded with 8 tentpole movies...

[ao3feed-irondadspiderson]

Jealousy Jealousy

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50948647 by Redhead_12 When reviewing her fathers notes and past work, seventeen year old Morgan finds certain information that leads her to the doorstep of someone who was more connected than she ever could be to the late genius. Desperate to have any and all things related to her father for her experiment, she goes to someone who wishes to have stayed forgotten. Words: 1269, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Categories: F/M, Multi Characters: Peter Parker, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Gwen Stacy, Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Happy Hogan, Other Avengers, Original Characters, Harley Keener, Stephen Strange Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker and the Avengers, Peter Parker & Tony Stark Additional Tags: Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark are Siblings (Marvel Cinematic Universe), peter and Gwen are together, Gwen is played by Sabrina Carpenter in this, Everything is canon except minor things, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Movie: Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), it's going to be really sad, Jealousy, Hurt, Grief read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50948647

[unforeseen-idiot]

Shovelwarewolf Season 2 Review

Shovelwarewolf Season 2 Electric boogaloo, or the season where stuff finally goes down. I love that the story and production value jump in quality with each other in this season.

Sonic 06: Great episode to open with, we meet Susan (who definitely knows more than they're letting on), a cool season theme, acknowledgement (however brief) of the whole arm thing, and an Escape From the City parody, what's not to love.

Goldeneye: Solid episode, I think it has some of SWW's best one liners (Hell's Angels, The Mafia, GAMESTOP!). I learned to never insult Judy Dench, and that I should probably watch a James Bond movie.

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Another fine episode, Ivan mimicking the glitch was pretty funny. I don't have a whole lot to say about this episode so I'll just write here that Ivan and Susan have a great banter, and that Susan was just a great addition to begin with, but I'll get to that later. Oh and Test Your Patience was a good capper on the episode.

Duke Nukem: Just getting this out of the way, this game is pure trash but SWW's reactions are too funny. I also like the character development at the beginning with Ivan and Susan, she really was just the only one who was nice to him. Also I don't know why this occurs to me, but the company described the next game as, "A console with a Zelda game" I just remembered that the Switch came out with Breath of the Wild in the same year as this season, I don't know how that's relevant, I just thought it was cool.

Legend of Zelda Wand of Gamelon: Oho what an episode, great gameplay, great story, and great one liners. Susan got to be really cool in this episode, which leads me to believe that she definitely planned this in advance and the therapist bit was an act (she went from running from the room during a transformation to bursting in and rescuing Ivan/SWW without batting an eye in the same day, no way that just happened). I also just love this game's stupid clips and the SWW one liners to go with them: "(Recorder noise) THANKS, (same recorder noise) THANKS...FOR NOTHING" "You've killed me, GOOD. Dang, that's savage, who knew Zelda was such an OG" and "Link gave them to me. GASP! YOU KNOW LINK, LIKE OMG" such good writing. and The Shovelwarewolf's a Running is amazing.

Home Alone: Finally we've reached the finale, pretty great all things considered. First I just want to acknowledge this little scene from Death's narration, "With the help of his therapist" while panning on cool bada** Susan, just funny to me. I'd also like to acknowledge Ivan's TV playing AJ and Nate's weird Spider-Man and Batman Save Christmas Movie, wish they'd finish that someday it looked cool. I love the Home Alone parody for the cool ways it adapts the theme, like the Gamecube trap. Santa just having 180 in terms of character and going on a full fledged villain arc is so hilarious. The game itself is weirdly a cool take on a Home Alone game, like most licensed games at the time would take tons of liberties with the source material but this one was pretty accurate, even if it still sucked. Susan got to be cool again, but at the cost of a very forlorn scene. Oh boy now we get to meet our dude Biffalo Bub, simultaneously RE's most stupid but also most realistically scary villain. That silent clip montage at the end still unsettles me.

Music Rating:

Season 2 Opening: One of the best, that opening bass riff is still so mesmerizing. And the violins, and the soft piano, and the synth, oh so good. This opening feels a lot like a triumphant return for the character.

Season 2 Transformation: Conversely this variation of the transformation doesn't really do it for me. I like the way it closes I guess, but I just don't love it. It also has this weird repeating note that just bores into my skull.

SHOVELWAREWOLF! (Test Your Patience): Pretty good parody, I love the recap of the games he's played so far (except Goldeneye for some reason).

Shovelwarewolf's a-Runnin': Great parody, it introduced me to the Werewolves of London. I love it's use in the show and the vocals.

This is My Safehouse: Great composition for the Home Alone episode. Seriously AJ really flexed his composing powers here. The synth is really great, I love the little incorporation of the transformation theme.

Sleigh-Riding Sleazebag: Not much to say on the song other than the title, and it's use of random Christmas carols, but evil.

Couch Gag: I love this gag, Ivan dubbing over game footage is so funny. Like the last one it makes me think of him being so bored he just does stuff like this to pass the time. This time I'm happy he didn't have one for Wand of Gamelon, I feel like the dialogue in that game stand on its own.

The season is so good. It gave us a great SWW mask, a great character in the form of Susan, and excellent story development. And it only gets better from here. In addition, while others have described it better than me, this season has interesting symbolism in obsession and trauma.