#Deadbeats Anthology

[alexissara]

Who Do You Make Art For?

[Art by Tamra Bonvillain from our comic Play Of The Game from We're Still Here]

The modern landscape for the arts is not exactly great, every form of art is seeing further and further troubling developments from corporate giants who wish to raise the profit margins. In these stressful times I think it's important to reflect on our craft and ask, who is this for?

When I saw who is this for I don't mind your target demographic or how big you want it to be. I think most artists would love to be part of a project that is so big they could only make art that they want to. I am asking who that art is for, who are the people you really want to speak to? It's easy to get caught up on the business ends of our craft, hell I mostly post to tumblr because I want engagement to sell my projects later. So I think we should step back, take a breath and think about what it is we really crave in our pieces.

For me, who I am making the art for in particular shifts depending on the project I am making but I always have a few core goals that are the same. I want to reach queer people of some kind and make them feel seen. For me, art I made wasn't worth making if it didn't make some queer folks happy. Then the other important factor is obviously making art for me, I want to make art that I would love and enjoy. I hate so many things, a lot my favorite things I give faint praise to because for me the flaws are obvious, we could have so much better. So, I want to make art that when I see it I don't think that it could be more radical or queerer or whatever, that it was what it should have been to tell it's story.

Now let's talk about all my little individual project's I've worked on over the years.

With Wish, my first comic book that I self published and took debt into making sure the artist was paid properly for, I wanted trans fem folks like me to see it and feel like they could be super. Wish was a story I had been writing for years, I had maybe 100 issues in google docs by the time the first [and only] part released. Over that time I went from "for sure cis but I just feel the alure of womanhood, it looms over me, it calls me like a siren, it tempts me like a dark enchantress but I shall resist" to "Sure I guess I am gender fluid" to "I'm a trans woman" right around when I released it. So for me it was an important story to my own gender journey with the protag suddenly "becoming a girl" after dying to protect someone.

With Puerto Rico Strong I wanted to have a queer story inside the anthology. So I told a personal story about my own gender, sexuality and my relationship to the island. I wanted other lesbian and trans Puerto Ricans in particular to feel like there was a story about them here too. I made it more fantastical but it was a clear message through the imagery. I was glad I did too because when I read the final product I was the only one really telling a story about queerness and I think that the anthology needed it to really represent Puerto Rico.

In Deadbeats Anthology, I wanted to make transbians feel seen in particular. Horror has often left trans women as the villains, so I leaned in, a happy story of queer love featuring a transbian and a demon possessing the body of her main tormentor. The woman learning to stand up for herself and cut out terrible people from her lives as she burns her past to the ground and leaves on a new life with new love. Trans Lesbians don't get to angry enough, we need to be respectable, acceptable, we can't just bad mad and this was an anger story, something for us to feel like, fuck ya, fuck them.

Last, but in no way least from what I want to talk about today is The Matriarch playbook inside of Thirsty Sword Lesbians. For me, queer parents in general are such a huge part of my life. From my own relationship to motherhood to all the non binary moms who have given me amazing friendships to the sapphic moms that have brought light into my life. I wanted the playbook to be for everyone, obviously, in fact, I think this is the kind of playbook that can be too real for some queer parents to play. However, I wanted it to be a venue where people felt seen, like they were being reflected in the queer culture and that their experiences were worthy of being main characters, not just people on the side waving off the hero. We get so many gay parent characters with no depth or adventures from long ago they no longer go on. I wanted to say, hey you deserve adventures.

Obviously, I've worked on plenty of other projects, To Change, Hero Too, We're Still Here and lots of more. Maybe I'll talk about them in the future, I for sure have tons of words about creating Love Beyond The Holy Light I would love to write out but for now, this is it. Remember the questions up on top of this, I really would love to hear the answers to these question, so go ahead and like, reply with them or reblog with them or whatever it is your into these days.

All my posts are funded by fantastic people giving me money on https://www.patreon.com/alexissara or also like Ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/alexiss, thank you to everyone who has my back with money. I strive to keep making amazing sapphic art.

[disciple-of-owen]

I am so sick of this lingering sentiment in the fandom that Aang was a neglectful father.

Seriously. I am bone-fucking-weary of it.

I mean, wasn’t the obvious takeaway of the Civil Wars episodes that while Bumi and Kya had some lingering frustrations with their father (as most children do), they grew up in a happy, loving family?

Was this not explicitly stated at the end?

Well, if that isn’t enough for you, allow me to deal the deathblow to the ‘neglectful Aang’ theory with the following canon information (this isn’t an exhaustive list):

1)) In the post-show Korra comics, Kya fondly remembers how supportive her father was when she came out as a lesbian. 100% supportive, to be exact.

2)) In the comic anthology Patterns in Time, Bumi acknowledges the unimaginable amount of responsibility his father had on his shoulders (as the Avatar, the last airbender, a husband, a father, etc.). Furthermore, he tells Meelo:

“Here's the thing about dads like ours... They may be frustrating, they may not always have infinite time for us. But everything they do is to keep us safe.”

I think this statement speaks for itself.

3)) In the Korra DVD commentary, Bryke themselves assert that Aang was not a deadbeat dad to any of his children, and that he made extra time for Tenzin not out of favouritism, but necessity. This stands to reason, as Tenzin was the heir to the mantle of ‘The Last Airbender’. It wasn’t enough for him to simply learn about the Air Nomads; he had to embody everything they were, which obviously required intense training and study. Bumi and Kya, for better or worse, were not burdened with this responsibility.

Now, I’m not saying Aang was perfect; no parent is. I AM saying that we have ample canon evidence that he was a good, if imperfect, father who did the best he could in tough circumstances.

That’s all any of us can do.

[bambi-kinos]

After reading your view on John's treatment of Paul, I have to ask if you also have thougts on what happend between George and Paul during and after post Beatles. We know how they both treated him as the younger brother and how he tought they were to busy being John and Paul so they failed to see him though other artist saw him etc. We can also understand how he back away from John and Yoko. But what was his problems with Paul? Paul played on more George-Beatle songs than John did and George even played on John's solo record but said he would never play in a band with Paul again. Because there still seem to that he had another issue with Paul and there still seem to be tensions between them during the Anthology. Did Paul really deserved to be treated like that by both John and George. George went on a lot about his faith and spiritual seaching but not really lived up to it all the time. He played a lot about how unhappy he was in the Beatles and being famous buthe lived large with his cars and big house etc. I'm not defending Paul, well I do, but they both treated him so badly. Why, do you have any more ideas about that. Or what other artists, like ex Wings members etc who also complained about Paul's ways. I only ever see it as jealousy.

Legit had no idea how to answer this as George's dynamic with the rest of the band is opaque to me. I put the question to the McLennon server and they provided some very good answers, they have given me permission to copypaste it all here. I hope this helps Anon.

Note: I let the others talk and then I used Discord's "reply" function liberally to @ the different paragraphs. For tumblr I have rearranged the posts so that they read in order as full conversations instead of the weird mishmash that Discord produces. When you see weird timestamps, that is why.

***

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 11:00 AM received an interesting ask from an anon, its very long so i'm just copy pasting

ask

What do we think of this? my take is basically that George resented Paul because he replaced George with John and their relationship never recovered, which snowballed into these bigger issues about George's contributions to the Beatles and his growth as an artist.

I think it was amoralto who pointed out that Paul was safer for George to attack because Paul would forgive him whereas with John that wasn't the case. and yet George was able to cut John off later so what gives?

LocalGoblin — Yesterday at 1:43 PM I think there's a lot to this dynamic that we're not privvy too. What we do know, however, are things like how during the white album sessions, Paul was constantly undermining George's suggestions. I think it was George Martin who said that. We can even see it a bit in Get Back.

On top of that, even to this day, Paul calls George his little brother in interviews. He has always viewed George as the little kid of the group and that would feel incredibly patronising and demoralising. Paul is a lot more wired that John, and I think that personality trait is just something that George stuggles with. John is the 'cool/fun parent'.

I know John also viewed George as the little kid. And I think this hurt George less because 1. John WAS that older kid/parental figure for so long. 2. You can't take what John was as seriously because he changes his mind day-to-day. 3. I think George honestly (probably) secretly respected Paul's opinion more. So Paul's remarks hurt more.

John = The deadbeat Disney dad. Paul = The more serious and caring/overbearing parent You can see how he would grow to resent Paul more. And I think he also blamed Paul for the breakup too. Or at least, how messy all of that was and all the horrible legal issues that came with it

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:06 PM this one hurts. oof. when I read about the break up in excerpts I get the feeling that George thought Paul's problem was the money and the business decisions and he didn't consider (or didn't want to consider) what was driving it emotionally….after all he felt like Paul didn't consider his feelings 😬

LocalGoblin — Yesterday at 1:52 PM Anthology is interesting though. I really think George's attitude in that it partly because he needed to do it. He needed the money. I don't think he really wanted to do it. It was Paul's baby, and he also resented him for that. Hated Paul for being more comfortable financially too. Paul didn't need to do anthology. George did.

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 1:53 PM genius, you're absolutely right

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:08 PM this was also around the time that Paul's sweet new deal with Capitol became a thing, i think, because Capitol offered like a significant profit increase for Paul on Beatles royalties if he signed his next few solo albums with them. That caused a lot of upset with George and Ringo iirc, so damn :(

LocalGoblin — Yesterday at 1:55 PM (Also, Paul in a few interviews, has said that he was on good terms with John when he died - UNLIKE George. Almost rubbing it in George's face. I know he doesn't mean it. But I would be incredibly upset by that in George's position. To be constantly reminded of that.)

I think its funny that Paul is viewed as the PR savvy Beatles cause he puts his foot in his mouth all the time haha That actually might be why he's more reserved in interviews now. Sticking to a script… Who knows!

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:19 PM Ha, god, probably. Paul has his moments, there's a good 80s interview where he bemoaned Frank Sinatra attributing a George song to maccalennon, but he doesn't seem to have been humbled until the Heather Mills circus.

vanessaaa0388 — Yesterday at 1:57 PM In one of the AKOM podcasts they mentioned a George quote about how he was the closest beatle to John back when it was only them 2 taking LSD… it's my personal theory than in those months he almost felt like he was finally taking over Paul's spot in John's life…I dunno, I get very competitive vibes from George. In his mind he was competing for John with Paul. At least in certain points. And I think John took advantage of that.

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:20 PM Absolutely. Reminds me of, ha, Paul when he said that John was their personal Elvis. They all wanted his attention and approval. I also wonder if George was seeking a mentor somewhere and if he thought John was it since they dropped together.

vanessaaa0388 — Yesterday at 2:01 PM It's very complex, the Paul-George dynamic

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:02 PM Paul is the one who's always looking for a "project" and can't turn off, being with him must have been exhausting and then you add being talked down to all the time. whereas John can be fun and turn himself off and then maybe the sting of being talked down to isn't so bad. And like we saw in Get Back when John said "we need George Harrison" because he realized George was looking for reassurance, so he could also build George up when he felt like he should.

I guess with John its more like "lots of fun with a few pointed barbs thrown in" whereas with Paul he's steamrollering you constantly and will only occasionally throw in a compliment.

maybe since Paul is more consistent, it meant more to earn his respect? or something like that, like Vanessa pointed out George was competitive for John's approval and attention.

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:12 PM there's this consistent theme with George and Paul where Paul's closeness with John seems to really hurt and damage George. And its not like he could let it go easily either because Paul was also his teammate, not just John's. It was a quad act, not a double.

I think George said that being outside Lennon/Mccartney meant observing Beatlemania as a fan instead of as a bandmate. So he's getting all the trouble but very few of the benefits. And then there's the royalty issues on top of that.

Like, Paul was George's friend first, but then Paul pulped that friendship pretty much immediately when he saw John and never felt like he should do anything to fix it. And then George gets pulled into Beatlemania and then there's money problems and then Brian died.

Brian was George's big advocate I noticed, setting up a newspaper column in George's name (ghostwritten by someone else) because he wanted George to be his own brand outside the Beatles and maccalennon, so when he died a lot of that probably went down the drain too.

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 2:23 PM George seems to have been very lonely in the Beatles but due to all this:

I know John also viewed George as the little kid. And I think this hurt George less because 1. John WAS that older kid/parental figure for so long. 2. You can't take what John was as seriously because he changes his mind day-to-day. 3. I think George honestly (probably) secretly respected Paul's opinion more. So Paul's remarks hurt more.

I guess it was easier to shift some blame onto Paul. A lot of George's spiritual journey appears to be about wanting to escape like when he sings about wanting to see God but being frustrated at how long it will take him. Its real but it also seems like he was pretty weary of life by his mid20s.

LocalGoblin — Yesterday at 2:40 PM Yeah, you're so right. John was also the other Beatle who was more spiritually inclined. He was the only one besides George who was fully committed to the India trip. (At least for a time.) This was probably something they bonded over too.

There's also that quote… I can't remember what interview it's from. But George was asked what it was like being a Beatle and he says he doesn't really know. He always felt like he was on the outside looking in on Lennon/McCartney. It must've felt like a very lonely place.

vanessaaa0388 — Yesterday at 2:40 PM I'm fascinated by J&P but I give George a lot of credit for putting up with them both for so long. I would've cut them out of my life so fast 😂

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Yesterday at 4:05 PM honestly they ruined George's life in some ways!

[s10127470]

The MCU Synergy Problem

It’s been a month since X-Men ‘97 came out, and just about everyone’s has already pointed what makes it so good.

-Staying true to the spirit of the original while still striving for its own identity

-Staying true to the characterization and depiction of the characters, and in some cases, improving on their characterization such as in the case of Jean Grey and especially Morph.

-Introducing new concepts, elements and characters that haven’t been explored in other adaptations yet.

-Having so many callbacks to the original while not coming off as nostalgia pandering.

-The animation and action! MY GOD! The animation and action!

Really, the only problem people have with this show is the weird love triangle between Rogue, Gambit and Magneto.

We already had to deal with the infamous love triangle Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine in the original, we did not need this.

Not only is this just unnecessary, it’s also just weird since in the original, it was never even implied that Rogue or Magneto had any sort of history between each other at all.

But here, they met during Rogue’s days with the Brotherhood. And I think when they met, Rogue was still a teenager.

During that time, the two grew an attraction towards each other and although it’s not explicitly stated, it is implied that they did….ya know…

Man….

Although I do enjoy Magneto, unlike a lot of other people, I can acknowledge that he’s kind of an awful person.

He’s a supremacist, a terrorist, a mass murderer, a violent, abusive psychopath, and a deadbeat father (well, when he used to be a father but we’ll get to that soon).

But never though that “groomer” would be an addition to that list as well.

All I can say is that….if this show took place in the modern day, Magneto ain’t beating any allegations.

But besides all that, another major positive people have with this show is just how….comic booky it feels, which is something that’s been lacking with a lot of Marvel content for the better of a decade now.

But before we get into that, let’s take a little history lesson.

Marvel was founded all the way back in 1939 by Martin Goodman….but it wasn’t called Marvel at first, it was actually called Timely Comics. But by 1951, the name of the brand was changed to Atlas Comics. 

During this era, the comics saw the introduction of several characters include The Human Torch (the android), The Whizzer, Miss America, The Destroyer, the original Vision and The Angel. 

But the two most notable characters introduced during this time were none other than the patriotic fighter of justice Captain America and the anti-heroic aquatic incel Namor the Sub-Mariner.

But Marvel would become the comic book powerhouse we know them as today starting in April of 1961, when Altas Comics was changed to be part of the newly-named Marvel Comics brand, helmed by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

And over the course of the 1960s, Marvel would not only quickly become the biggest name in the comic industry (only being rivaled by who else, but DC), but also introduce many of their most recognizable stars.

This would include the likes of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Iron Man, The X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, The Inhumans, Black Panther, The Silver Surfer, Black Widow and Hawkeye, and of course, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

And in addition to tons of, in the words of Yogurt…..

Marvel would also see plenty of entries into the wider world of television. 

From the anthology series Marvel Super Heroes, to the acclaimed five-season run of The Incredible Hulk starring the legendary bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, to the absolute meme-fest that was the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon.

But Marvel really found their footing amongst the public consensus in the 1990s, largely thanks to their animated shows.

We had X-Men ‘92, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Fantastic Four ‘94, and The Incredible Hulk ‘96. 

What made these shows stand out from their predecessors was that they strived to actually be adaptations of their respective comics.

Yeah, prior to these shows, all of the cartoons were largely villain-of-the-week shows with little to no continuity and apart from the characters, didn’t really take a whole lot from their source material.

But these shows actually went out of their way to actually adapt storylines from the comics, had ongoing plots, and much stronger characterization than before.

And even besides that and of course, merchandising, Marvel was making quite the name for itself in the world of video games. Most notably the ones that were made by Capcom, which included the likes of The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, and most famously of all, Marvel vs. Capcom.

Their status among the public consensus became even stronger when the 21st century rolled around.

This was largely thanks to the multiple films based on Marvel Comics properties that came out during the 2000s.

This included the likes of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Ang Lee’s Hulk film, Tim Story’s Fantastic Four duology, Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil, and (Sirs whose names will not be mentioned here at all)’s X-Men series.

And apart from the merchandising (which was stronger than ever before thanks, the 2000s would also see some of the best video games based off the Marvel Comics and its IPs.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: A New Age of Heroes, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, X-Men Legends and its sequel Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Spidey himself had a multiple of great games from this era.

From ones based off his cinematic outings, to ones based off his alternate universe escapades (Ultimate Spider-Man), to ones that featured the characters’ worst voice actor to date and was responsible giving us that famous depressed Spidey walking meme (Web of Shadows).

But everything would change for Marvel in 2008 with the release of….

This film would not only serve as the invincible armored Avenger’s first outing on the big screen, but would also be the start of one of the most well-known and influential pieces of media in Marvel’s entire history…..

The Marvel….Cinematic….Universe….

Just about everyone knows about the MCU.

It only not made the characters of Marvel even bigger than before (along with introducing some of the more lesser-known characters to the general public), but also helped popularized the concept of the shared cinematic universe in general.

The franchise has gone on to become one of, if not, the biggest and most successful film franchise in history and has left a major impact on the world of cinema and even Marvel themselves.

And unfortunately, not really for the better…..

Everyone has already pointed how much of a negative influence the MCU has had on the media we consume.

From the multiple failed attempts from studios who desperately wanted to trend chase by making their own cinematic universe, only for these attempts to end up being massive failures, to a lot of writing in many films post-Avengers having this quippy and observational sort-of-write that while beloved at first, has gone on to become seen as annoying and tiresome…..

But I really want to focus on the effect it’s had on Marvel as a whole.

To start this off, let’s look the place where this MCU effect has been the biggest problem…..and it’s ironically enough, the comics.

Ever since MCU began, Marvel has been adapting elements from the MCU into the comics, which became especially more apparent after the first Avengers film.

And while Marvel is no stranger to adapting elements from Marvel media outside the comics, it’s never been to this extent.

This synergy has seen major changes in the appearances and characterization in many of its characters, including…..

-Iron Man being portrayed as far more snarky and quippy than he previously was. At first, people were on board with this change, not only because people liked Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal, but also because during the mid-2000s, Iron Man was not a popular character. Not in the frankly overused and tired “nobody knew who Iron Man was prior to the release of the first film” way. But more in the sense that everyone hated him during that time. This was largely thanks to the absolute clusterfuck known as Civil War, which turned Iron Man into a full-on villain. Plus he was indirectly responsible for One More Day, aka the worst Spider-Man story ever written.

-Loki became far more heroic and started looking and acting more like his MCU counterpart. Hell, the Loki we know today isn’t the same one introduced back in the 1960s. That Loki died all the way back in 2010, and the one we know today is essentially his reincarnation. And this reincarnation was not only introduced in the exact same year that the first Thor movie released, but in the exact same month as well!

-Thor started acting far more goofy and air-headed like his MCU counterpart following Thor: Raganrok.

-Hawkeye started giving off what could be best described as “uwu small bean tired dad” in the Matt Fraction run, which started just 4 months after the first Avengers film.

-Agatha Harkness having her appearance changed into that of a much younger woman following Wandavision.

-Introducing the Ten Rings following Shang-Chi, and having the titular hero being the user of them instead of just being Bruce Lee like he had been for last 50 years.

-Literally everything involving the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Its also led to tons of the characters getting somewhat phased out like….

-Iron Fist, due to the poor reception of his MCU show and complaints towards him being a “white savior”.

-Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, aka the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, who were also two of the five founding members of the Avengers. But despite that, neither of them appeared in the first Avengers film. And although it was a loose adaptation of The Ultimates, Hank and Janet were still present in that story as founding members of the titular team. Hell, Hank definitely has this the worst as he was killed off back in 2015, and was only recently brought back from the dead…..and he’s an old man now. I wonder why?

-Valkyrie, who was not only killed off permanently after Thor Ragnarök, but replaced with not one, but two characters very similar to the Valkyrie that appears in Ragnarök.

-The Inhumans, who had a major push in relevancy in order to promote their upcoming movie and TV show. But after the former got cancelled and the latter ended up being a massive flop, they ended up being banished to the shadow realm and barely acknowledged anymore. Also, the reason for their push plays into a later point.

-Quicksilver, which also plays into that later point I just mentioned.

-Black Panther, who Marvel seems to be somewhat edging out in the comics literally because of Chadwick Boseman’s passing.

And worse of all, retcons……such as…..

-Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch being revealed to have never been Magneto’s children nor mutants at all….shortly after the release of Age of Ultron.

-Shang Chi’s biracial heritage being rewritten to have him being fully Asian shortly after his film.

-Nebula, in addition to being made to look and act more like the movie version, also was revealed to be Thanos’ adopted daughter and Gamora’s sister….just like in the movies. 

-Ms. Marvel being revealed to have been mutant all along instead of an Inhuman…..just months before the release of The Marvels.

-Thor and the other Asgardians are not mythical beings, but actually aliens who were mistaken for gods by humanity….who just so happen to use magic (yeah this is a weird one because it constantly keeps flip-flopping between one or the other).

-Nick Fury being revealed to have had an illegitimate son who looks exactly like the MCU Nick Fury, who himself was based on the Ultimate Universe version of Nick Fury, who was African-American and modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. This is really weird because if they wanted a Samuel L. Jackson inspired Nick Fury, they could’ve easily just waited for the 2015 Secret Wars event and just had the Ultimate Nick Fury be one of the surviving inhabitants of the Ultimate Universe to be brought over to the 616 Universe along with Miles Morales, The Maker, and that son of Wolverine everyone forgot the existence of (even Marvel themselves!).

So yeah, as you can see, this is quite a problem.

Marvel has essentially been trying to make the comics resemble the movies rather than the other way around.

Which has not only gotten annoying and tiresome, but it’s also pretty disingenuous.

I mean, you’re pulling from a source material that has literal decades of content and lore to use, and now you’re actively trying change and contradict that lore just because of a series of movies adapting said source material?

This is obviously because they’re trying to appeal to new Marvel readers who came right from the movies.

But for some reason, Marvel seems to believe that general audiences have never heard the word “adaptation” before.

But this isn’t just an issue for the comics, it’s also an issue for…..pretty much every medium Marvel can be represented in.

For over a decade, Marvel has been essentially trying to push the MCU as the default everything.

Anything Marvel related: it all has to be similar to the MCU and barely anything else. And if it can, just utilize any of the comics written post 2010.

It’s pretty much the same problem that a lot of recent Spider-Man media suffers from.

When they’re adapting stuff, it’s almost always from the cartoons, Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man and Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man.

And this has often come to the detriment of many of the non-MCU projects released during the 2010s.

Three of the best examples of this I could think of were Avengers Assemble, Square Enix’s Avengers, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. 

Avengers Assemble is famous for being the Marvel cartoon that was only created just to ride on the success of the first Avengers film.

But in spite of this, it was apparent during the first two season that this show was striving to have its own identity. Specifically utilizing some of the lesser-known faces of Marvel.

But as the series went on, the MCU got bigger and bigger. And as a result, the show started to get bogged down by MCU synergy.

From having storylines that were obviously done to tie into whatever movie came out not that long ago, to even changing characters appearances in order to better reflect their MCU counterparts.

The best example of the latter was with Falcon, who was a member of the main cast.

During the first three seasons, he actually stood out from the rest of the team visually as his outfit wasn’t trying to emulate the MCU.

It wasn’t emulating the comics either because I think that outfit of his was wholly original to this show.

But during season 4, Falcon ends up going through a time warp. And when he comes out, he’s been aged up from a young college-aged man to a grown man around the Avengers’ ambiguous age range and is wearing an outfit similar to his MCU counterpart.

Now we come to Square Enix’s Avengers.

My God…..was there anything this game did remotely right?

Or at least competently?

And one of the many flaws of this game was its roster.

And this actually plays into another major point on how stifling MCU synergy is.

Ever since the first Avengers movie, whenever the titular Avengers appear in just about anything, they’re almost always shown having the same roster.

That being Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

Sometimes there will be other members like Falcon, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, Vision and Captain Marvel, but that’s because those guys are also major names in the MCU as well.

Like for God’s sake, switch it up a bit! 

For the next major thing the Avengers appear in, how about we have a roster based on like…..

The Heroes Return roster, or the Hickman roster, or the Englehart roster, or the New Avengers roster, or the Stern roster, or the West Coast roster, or even the Classic roster!

But back to the Avengers game, they didn’t even commit to that never-changing roster I just mentioned!

When the game released, the Avengers video game had Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Black Widow as the main Avengers roster until Ms. Marvel joined up.

Yeah, Hawkeye didn’t appear as a part of the roster until his own DLC with Kate Bishop!

As for the other additions to the roster, we had Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier and the Jane Foster Thor.

Yeah, when looking at this game as an adaptation of the comics (which it barely was), the roster is absolutely pathetic when you look at the INSANE amount of members the Avengers have had over the decades.

And when looking at this game as an adaptation of the MCU, it didn’t even commit to that!

This is even more of the case when you look at the list of characters they initially had planned, but they obviously had to drastically cut all that for the sake of time constraints.

Hell, if you want to see something really sad, just look at the villain roster.

Over the 3 years this game was around, it only gave us 4 (yes 4) villains.

M.O.D.O.K., Taskmaster, The Abomination and Klaw….

Yep! Just these four schmucks!

No Red Skull, no Mandarin, no Baron Zemo, no Leader, no Ultron, no Kang the Conqueror, no Absorbing Man, no Wrecking Crew, no Enchantress, no Whirlwind, no Crimson Dynamo, no Circus of Crime….

Hell, they don’t even have Loki, the most popular and well-known Avengers villain!

It’s even more sadder when you consider the DLCs, i.e Spider-Man, who despite having undoubtedly the most well-known rogues gallery in all of Marvel, not one of them appear at all in his DLC!

In the wise words of a young redheaded YouTuber who likes to talk about Spidey….

“How easily you got showed up by Fortnite!”

If you want more detail on the history of this game and what went wrong, I suggest watching Matt McMuscles’ What Happened video on the game, but basically the reason that the game was the way that it was due to the laziness and apathy of Square Enix, the inexperience and slight incompetence of Crystal Dynamics, having WAY too many cooks in the kitchen (i.e., they worked with five studios, all of which were located in different parts of the world), and most of all, the utter greed of Marvel.

And funnily enough, this game ties into my next talking point…

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite! The fourth and possibly final game in the series….and is regarded by just about everyone to be the weakest game as well.

Just like Avengers, one of (if not) the biggest criticisms of this game was the roster.

Infinite had a roster of about 36 characters, having the second smallest roster in the series’ history, only surpassing Clash of Heroes’ 15.

This was quite the surprise when compared to the previous game, 3’s 48 characters and especially 2: A New Age’s 56.

As for the roster itself, it was made up of both veteran characters and new characters.

Returning from the previous game, we had Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Ghost Rider, Nova and Rocket Raccoon.

Also returning were two faces that hadn’t been seen since 2: Venom and Thanos.

As for the new characters, we had Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Gamora and Ultron.

Yeah not exactly the most interesting roster.

And I’m sure many of you noticed by now, there’s something notable characters missing from the roster.

Namely the X-Men, their villains and Doctor Doom, all of whom have been staples of the franchise since the beginning.

And there’s a reason for that….

A very, scummy reason….

I already mentioned this in my X-Men: The Next Mutation post, but it does bare repeating her.

As the MCU became more popular, Marvel became focusing on pushing the Avengers as their premiere superhero team, with the Fantastic Four and X-Men essentially being dethroned.

Along with that, their relevance in the comics notably began to degraded, and barely began making appearances in media outside the comics.

The reason for this, apart from Marvel focusing on cashing in on the Avengers, was because despite still owning the overall rights for the FF and X-Men (which, why wouldn’t they?), their film rights were still owned by 20th Century Fox.

Since Fox was pretty much a rival company to Marvel until Disney bought them out, Marvel basically saw any form of FF and X-Men representation as free-marketing for Fox.

So they decided to essentially not to allow any FF or X-Men related characters to appear in any media outside the comics and even reduced their overall presence as well.

Which is why Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the other non X-Men mutants were retconned into not being mutants, why Quicksilver himself has been sort of been an afterthought in recent years, why the Inhumans were pushed so hard, and why the FF and X-Men characters weren’t in this game.

Plus the justifications and excuses for this from the developers are absolutely hilarious, because you can just tell that they’re lying through their teeth while being held up at gunpoint by a bunch of Marvel executives.

Oh yeah, let’s bring up the other biggest elephant in the room and want led to Square Enix developing Avengers.

After Infinite came out and got quickly abandoned by the player-base, many people at Capcom have come out to reveal just how awful it was working with Marvel and Disney.

They weren’t just pushy with who and who couldn’t be in the roster. 

They were also pushy about how the characters that would be in the roster would be portrayed (specifically wanting them to heavily resemble their MCU iterations) and even changing their themes to be exactly like the MCU ones. 

Hell, this pushiness was so bad that for the trailers, they did not want the Marvel characters to be depicted as losing!

This was also an issue back during 3 as well, but it was essentially amplified during this game.

This really shows just how petty Marvel really is….

They’re willing to ignore and downplay the existence of two major players of their brand that people have loved for decades and were created by the two men them helped make the company they are today.

They’re unwilling to compromise and it has to be their way or the highway.

And this pettiness eventually came to bite them in the ass as Capcom’s statements about working with them eventually reached many of the other big video game developers.

And soon enough, when Marvel was trying to find someone to develop Avengers, none of the big game developers wanted anything to do with it!

Eventually, they did find a developer with Square Enix, who already had experience working with Disney via Kingdom Hearts.

It’s actually ironically hilarious that the heads at Marvel believed all three of these projects would actually be successful because of the MCU synergy, but they all ended up being flops because of said MCU synergy!

But this desire for MCU synergy has not only negatively affected non-MCU project of this time, but even ones that either came out before this desire or….never came out at all.

I’m sure many of you remember The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

This show was essentially a love letter to the Silver Age comics of Marvel  and strived to be an near-faithful adaptation of many classic and even recent Avengers storylines, while also having its own unique spin on it.

Hell, in some cases, the EMH versions of these storylines are actually better than the originals, especially in the case of Secret Invasion. 

Sadly, the show got cancelled in 2012 after 2 seasons and 52 episodes…and to this day, EMH probably has one of the dumbest and scummiest reasons for cancellation in television animation history.

The reason this show was cancelled because Marvel wanted to replace with it a show that was more in-line with the MCU, aka Avengers Assemble.

Yep! Not low ratings. Not bad critical reception. Not budgetary reasons. Hell, not even bad toy sales, which was a major reason for a lot of action cartoons around this time getting the axe!

And it doesn’t get much better from here.

During the 2010s, there were a lot of promising Marvel projects that never saw the light of the day, with two of the most notable being the animated Deadpool series and Marvel Era.

Following the success of 2016 film, FX and Marvel Television decided to collaborate to created an animated series based on the merc with the mouth, with Donald Glover (yes, that Donald Glover) being one of the main showrunners, alongside his brother Stephen.

However, the series was cancelled almost a year within its development, with the main reason being that Marvel wasn't particularly big on the vision that the Glovers had for this series.

And apart Donald speculating racism on Marvel’s part (which given that Jeph Loeb was meant to be an executive producer on this series, that possibly could be the case), another possible factor for the show’s cancellation was because of Deadpool’s connection with the X-Men, and during this show’s production, Marvel was still in their “the X-Men don’t matter anymore” phase.

And it really sucks because the pitch animation for this was really good and made this seem like it was going to be a very fun show.

New we come to Marvel Era.

Out of all the cancelled projects, this was perhaps the most interesting.

Marking a first for their animated shows, this would’ve been an anthology series released in 2014 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Marvel Comics.

It was going to be produced by Powerhouse Animation (best known for Netflix’s Castlevania series) and it was gonna have 7 stories, with each one being themed around a different decade and focusing on a different character.

There would’ve been a 40s story focusing on Captain America, a 50s story focusing on either Wolverine or Namor the Sub-Mariner, a 60s story focusing on the X-Men, a 70s story focusing on The Heroes for Hire, a 80s story focusing on The Punisher, a 90s story focusing on the aforementioned Deadpool, and a 2000s story focusing on Captain Marvel.

This honestly seemed like it was going to be a really great show, which was enhanced by the absolutely gorgeous animation of the pitch trailer.

Unfortunately, Powerhouse announced that the project was cancelled because it wasn’t what Marvel Television were focusing on.

Which is code for: Marvel didn’t want it because it wasn’t MCU adjacent….

To wrap this up, I just wanted to bring up the reason I made this in the first place.

Over the last few weeks, there was a leak for a upcoming episode of X-Men ‘97, which showed a shot of Captain America’s shield.

And this led many people to somewhat groan, believing that this was yet another case of MCU synergy. 

And although this was proven to be false, it really does speak volume with how much influence the MCU has had.

Although it has brought lot of Marvel’s star characters into the mainstream, the MCU has shaped and changed them so much, that it seems like they can no longer exist as characters who have existed for literal DECADES.

They always have to be associated with a film franchise that has existed for about 1/6 of their existence in fiction.

But I think the biggest takeaway to all this is that this constant MCU synergy kinda shows a lack of reverence for Marvel’s legacy.

Look at this merchandising from the 2010s and 2020s....

In most of this merchandise, the character roster featured is almost always the same.

The Avengers, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and the Web Warriors, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Inhumans were also apart of this roster until, as I mentioned earlier, got banished to the Shadow Realm....

Occasionally you'll get some of the other cosmic characters like Nova, She-Hulk and some of the street-level heroes like Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and The Heroes for Hire.

But those are few and far between.

But other than that, it's largely the four I mentioned earlier.

Because they're the main faces of the MCU, and as we all know, everything has to be related to the MCU in some way....

But now let's compare that to some Marvel merchandising from the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s....

Upon seeing this, you can tell that there’s a far greater sense of appreciation for Marvel.

This merchandising pulls from nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe you can think off and features characters from the heavy hitters, to the borderline obscure.

Plus it still heavily features the Fantastic Four and X-Men characters, who, may I remind you, spent a good chunk of the 2010s having their presence greatly reduced and their existence constantly threatened or denied because of movie rights!

All in all, Marvel really needs to stop the MCU synergy.

In spite of what they think, it’s clearly done nothing but harm and stifle many potentially good (even great) projects.

Not only that, but it’s also gonna start harming the Marvel brand itself with how homogenized they’ve made everything and the rapidly increasing lack of interest in the MCU.

Plus its also brought out the worst in Marvel.

From cancelling projects for stupid reasons, to showing a lack of respect for the legacy they’ve build, to literally being difficult to work with because of how they want everything to be their way.

But things do seem to be looking up a bit….

There’s been the multiple of Spider-Man media of the last few years , which has been one of the few Marvel projects that aren’t bogged down by MCU synergy.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur also ended being shockingly really good, and although it does have some MCU synergy, it’s pretty minor.

And now we have X-Men ‘97.

It does appear that there’s some kind of movement in Marvel to actually start making projects again that aren’t being made to be a glorified MCU circle-jerks.

And hopefully, this could led to some really unique and interesting projects, specifically for this year.

Since remember, this year marks the 85th anniversary of Marvel Comics, so that’s pretty big!

But then again, their corporate overlord had an utter embarrassment of a year for their centennial….

And Marvel themselves also contributed to that as well….

[harrypotterhogwartshitpost]

Favorite Beach Bunny lyrics:

(In order of most to least chaotic)

---

YOURE ACTING LIKE YOUR DEADBEAT DAD!

Maybe you would know by now IM THE GREATEST THING YOU COULD HAVE

WHEN WE'RE ALL ALONE IN YOUR BEDROOM, YOU CAME LIKE A REOCCURING DREAM

can we go back to c͓̽a͓̽l͓̽i͓̽F͓̽O͓̽R͓̽N͓̽I͓̽A͓̽

you got in my pants then left my ass and made me cry

IM SORRY, IM TRYING. I HATE IT WHEN YOU CATCH ME CRYING

WAIT FOR THE PITFALL, HIT MY FACE ON A BRICK WALL

THINK OF ME! ME! ME! 

CRY! CRY! CRY!

Every moment I fall to pieces. Every moment I fall a paAaAart 

oh, but i love falling apart. i love falling apart.

WHAT ARE YOU UP TOO, HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR NUMBER! IVE BEEN TRYING TO CALL YOU, SINCE APRIL AND NOW ITS OCTOBER

BUT IF YOU WANT ME WHY CANT WE STILL BE TOGETHER? YOU'VE GOT PROBLEMS BUT I PROMISE THEYLL GET BETTER!

IVE BEEN REPLAYING THE SAME SONG FOR SIX Wᴱᴱᴷˢ TRYING TO FIND A PIECE OF YOUR HEARTBEAT. 

MAYBE LOVE IS OVERᴿᴬᵀᴱᴰ

BOYS WILL BE BOYS BUT YOURE NOT LIKE THE Oᵀᴴᴱᴿ ONES

you know, you're better than that. but you can't respond when you react

Cause I know you miss me, and I'm always on your miiiiiiind

Most nights I hardly know myself. Sometimes I feel like someone else. 

if we keep score, bet my money that i'm losing

Mostly I'm okay with, having a few bad days. lᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒcked in my bedroom with my- hᵉᵉᵉᵉᵉᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃrt out on display

you always seem closer, in the rearview

Do. I. Look. Like. Her. does she talk like me.

INSIDE THE SLEEVEOFAGREEN WIND BREAKER

need someone that isn't an equation 

who, am, I? Sometimes I get a little par-a-noid trying to figure it out. 

I-love-your-voice-but-hate-the-way you talk of her consistently 

all of your apologies are only empty calories

I miss your mom

If you're gonna love me make sure that you do it right, I'll be under your window in the moonlight. 

pressure pulsing, got to stick to routine normalcy

Why does my face turn rᵉᴱᵉᴱᵉᴱᵉd, when you look at me? 

you're just so confused

gushing eyes she replies 'you feel like summer'

haven't done much sleeping cause lately i've been dreaming you'd break, my heart.

thirty days since you left me, and it's hard to see your point of view. 

An apology anthology 

humanize your equation

and i'm tired, of the world, perceiving me

symptoms got me thinking that i'm, catching feelings

you win me like a trophy not a consolation prize

teach me how to be okay, i don't want to downplay my emotions. 

i know that sunburn goes away. the broken words i last heard still linger

rose colored lenses eventually crack

and i learn all the words to your daydreams, like i'm trying to sing karaoke

you're not sure, if gods real, but yet you say a prayer. hoping he still cares

[brazyprincess]

Summer Walker slammed for tattooing new boyfriend’s name on her face

It’s written all over her face: Summer Walker is in love. 

But the “Over It” songstress is under social media hellfire for tattooing her new boyfriend’s name next to her left eye. 

“I cant keep defending summer walker. that new tattoo … she’s so damn stupid,” a frustrated fan lamented on Twitter. “I’m disappointed in Summer Walker at this point,” tweeted another, punctuating her disapproval with the confused emoji. “Why tf would she go and tattoo that man name on her face?.”

Walker, 25, debuted her permanent ode to rapper LVRD Pharaoh, née Larry, to her 4.2 million Instagram followers Tuesday. 

In her video post — which has racked up more than 4.3 million views in 24 hours — the “Insane” chanteuse flaunts her ill-reputed ink with clips of herself kissing and licking Larry’s forehead.

Larry also demonstrated his love for the chart-topping diva by etching her name over his right eyebrow. 

Walker’s contestable tat comes just days after she released her sophomore studio album, “Still Over It.” The soulful anthology charts the R&B bombshell’s journey through heartbreak and humiliation after her public breakup with producer London on da Track, real name London Holmes, 30.  

She and Holmes — who has four kids with as many women — welcomed a daughter, known as Princess Bubblegum, in March. The pair broke up shortly after their baby’s birth. Walker has since openly bashed Holmes for cheating on her throughout their relationship and has labeled him a “deadbeat” father to their child. 

And now, disgruntled fans of the “Girls Need Love” lady songbird — who went public about her new romance with Larry over the summer — are concerned that her face tattoo is a sign that she’s foolishly rushing into a new relationship without considering the emotional repercussions. 

Summer Walker tattoo a man name on she face. How long y’all think this relationship gun last? I’m thinking no further than March 2022,” tweeted a critic, doubting the longevity of her and Larry’s budding love. 

Is Summer Walker wrong for tattooing her new boyfriends name on her face ? How long will their relationship last ?

Comment your thoughts below !

[harrypotterhogwartshitpost]

My favorite Beach Bunny lyrics

Ranked from most to least chaotic

(now including Emotional Creature)

---

YOURE ACTING LIKE YOUR DEADBEAT DAD!

IM PISSED OFF N̳O̳ ̳I̳M̳ ̳E̳N̳R̳A̳G̳E̳D̳

CAUSE IM TIRED OF GUESSING ON A BLURRED PHOTO- ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH SOMONE ł ĐØ₦₮ ₭₦Ø₩

Sometimes I just wanna **̷A̷̷A̷̷H̷̷H̷̷H̷̷H̷̷H̷̷H̷**

WHEN WE'RE ALL ALONE IN YOUR BEDROOM, YOU CAME LIKE A REOCCURING DREAM

Maybe you would know by now IM THE GREATEST THING YOU COULD HAVE

THINK OF ME! ME! ME! 

you got in my pants then left my ass and made me cry

IM SORRY, IM TRYING. I HATE IT WHEN YOU CATCH ME CRYING

DO I LOOK LIKE HER? DOES SHE TALK LIKE ME!?

CAUSE HE WOULDNT HURT ME

CRY! CRY! CRY!

IF YOU WANT TO- KNOW ME- START BY TRYNA SHOW ME- THAT YOURE- WORTHY BABY- PROOVE THAT YOU CAN EARN ME!

you put a knife through me 𐌄𐌌Ꝋ𐌕𐌉Ꝋ𐌍𐌀𐌋𐌋𐌙

🅽🅾🆃 🆈🅾🆄🆁 🅿🆁🅾🅱🅻🅴🅼 🅽🅾🆃 🅼🆈 🅿🆁🅾🅱🅻🅴🅼

Every moment I fall to pieces. Every moment I fall a paAaAart 

BUT IF YOU WANT ME WHY CANT WE STILL BE TOGETHER? YOU'VE GOT PROBLEMS BUT I PROMISE THEYLL GET BETTER!

WAIT FOR THE PITFALL, HIT MY FACE ON A BRICK WALL

WHAT ARE YOU UP TOO, HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR NUMBER! IVE BEEN TRYING TO CALL YOU, SINCE APRIL AND NOW ITS OCTOBER

IM NOT YOUR ᵖᵒˡˡʸ ᵖᵒᶜᵏᵉᵗ IN YOUR LOVERS LOCKET

oh, but i love falling apart. i love falling apart.

cause im some ᴮᴼᴼᴰᴰʸʸ'ˢˢ ᴰᴼᴼᴸᴸᴸᴸʸʸ

ʸᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵘᵘᵘᵘᵘᵘ'ᵛᵉ been such a jerk

can we go back to c͓̽a͓̽l͓̽i͓̽F͓̽O͓̽R͓̽N͓̽I͓̽A͓̽

MAYBE LOVE IS OVERᴿᴬᵀᴱᴰ

IVE BEEN REPLAYING THE SAME SONG FOR SIX Wᴱᴱᴷˢ TRYING TO FIND A PIECE OF YOUR HEARTBEAT. 

And I wonder, where's my, happy ever after

BOYS WILL BE BOYS BUT YOURE NOT LIKE THE Oᵀᴴᴱᴿ ONES

you know, you're better than that. but you can't respond when you react

Cause I know you miss me, and I'm always on your miiiiiiind

Mostly I'm okay with, having a few bad days. lᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒcked in my bedroom with my- hᵉᵉᵉᵉᵉᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃrt out on display

Most nights I hardly know myself. Sometimes I feel like someone else. 

cause i'm stressed depressed can't seem to find no closure

to feel accepted, people are bᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤᵢᵢᵢᵢᵢₗₗₗₗₗₜₜₜₜ for- acting like there's noth-ing wrong.

running away through the rain makes your socks wet

INSIDE THE SLEEVEOFAGREEN WIND BREAKER

if we keep score, bet my money that i'm losing

you always seem closer, in the rearview

need someone that isn't an equation 

I miss being certain, certainly I miss.

all of your apologies are only empty calories

I miss your mom

𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒎𝒊𝒅-𝒒𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒔

If you're gonna love me make sure that you do it right, I'll be under your window in the moonlight. 

the faster I run from the problem, the harder I fall.

teach me how to be ok. I dont wanna dₒₒₒₒₒᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥₙₙₙₙ play my emotions

Why does my face turn rᵉᴱᵉᴱᵉᴱᵉd, when you look at me? 

you're just so confused

tired of tripping on my shoes.

my body's always aching

pressure pulsing, got to stick to routine normalcy

gushing eyes she replies 'you feel like summer'

I-love-your-voice-but-hate-the-way you talk of her consistently 

haven't done much sleeping cause lately i've been dreaming you'd break, my heart.

thirty days since you left me, and it's hard to see your point of view. 

who, am, I? Sometimes I get a little par-a-noid trying to figure it out. 

the problem is you think, youre only viable for love, when someone makes you feel complete

and i'm tired, of the world, perceiving me

An apology anthology 

humanize your equation

symptoms got me thinking that i'm, catching feelings

teach me how to be okay, i don't want to downplay my emotions. 

you win me like a trophy not a consolation prize

i know that sunburn goes away. the broken words i last heard still linger

even the moon cant maintain the same phase

𝒾 𝒶𝓁𝓌𝒶𝓎𝓈 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝒹 𝓊𝓅 𝒾𝓃 𝓈𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒹 𝓅𝓁𝒶𝒸𝑒

rose colored lenses eventually crack

and i learn all the words to your daydreams, like i'm trying to sing karaoke

you're not sure, if gods real, but yet you say a prayer. hoping he still cares