#what if not being able to write isn’t a fun joke it is honestly detrimental to my brain!!!

[vacantgodling]

ngl i get that people hype up hating writing for the bit but like. idk. yall i Do actually really like writing. it is so satisfying and fun and rewarding and i get to look back what i made over and over again and get joy every single time.

yes writing is hard but if you hate it more than you love it im kinda like. idk. find another hobby?

[almasexya]

What Came First, The Interstellar Space Chicken or the Egg (The X From Outer Space, 1967)

I really don't envy the poor Criterion employee who had to write out a whole five paragraph essay on how The X From Outer Space, a kaiju movie that makes even the shittiest Gamera vehicles look inspiring, is actually good, interesting, and worth your time as a viewer. This film's 88-minute runtime drags on so agonizingly that March of 2020 could have honestly turned to it for a few pointers. The X From Outer Space is straight up unabashedly bad, and in a way that leaves me absolutely no way to be able to recommend it.

See like Battle of Dragons, The X From Outer Space is neither a Toho nor a Daiei production, but that is where any similarities between the two films end. Battle of Dragons is an absolutely ludicrous thrill ride for children that have just eaten a bag of sugar, while The X From Outer Space is the kind of exercise in misery that would have drying paint running for the exits.

So how did we get here? Well, this film was made by Shochiku, Japan's second-oldest production company, and one that hadn't previously thrown its proverbial hat into the kaiju arena. However, there was money to be had in the genre, and Shochiku, having recently fallen on hard times, wasn't about to let the opportunity pass by. And while Schochiku clearly cribbed plenty of ideas from the competition (the film begins, nonchalantly, with a manned expedition to Mars) they absolutely didn't take enough to measure up to the likes of what Toho or even Daiei were doing.

The plot is, in a word, dull as fucking dirt. The film begins with a strange little helicopter landing, dropping off dangerous nuclear fuel for humanity's next manned mission to Mars. We then meet what passes for our protagonists, a team of astronauts assigned to the mission, though we only really give a shit about two of them, Captain Sano (Toshiya Wazaki) and Lisa (Peggy Neal) the American looker the Captain has a bit of a thing for. The team is being sent to Mars because none of the other missions have made it all the way to the red planet, citing some kind of extraterrestrial interference, though the bouncy, painfully 60s score suggests none of this is really a big deal, and the astronauts themselves don't seem the last bit concerned.

Within minutes of the film starting, the team is off to Mars on a sleek 60s era spaceship christened the Astro Boat. And then... nothing really happens. The film slogs along, following the astronauts and mission control just kind of doing their day jobs, with very little in the way of conflict driving things forward. They run into a UFO at one point, with zero fanfare (on of the astronauts makes fun of it, saying it looks kind of like an omelette, which to be fair it does) but otherwise the plot just fucks about for a solid 40 minutes of runtime. One of the team gets sick, there's an interminable detour on a moon base where we meet Captain Sano's old flame Michiko (Itoko Harada) but any real conflict doesn't kick in until the halfway point, where the UFO sprays the Astro Boat with spores, one of which Lisa collects and brings back to earth. Only about 40 minutes in does anything resembling a threat to the main cast occur, and even then they don’t really give much of a shit about it.

The spores, of course, grow into a big giant monster, which is quickly christened "Guilala" (I yearn for the explanation of monster names in something like Gamera vs. Gyaos, which was unabashedly the product of a child for no better reason than "it sounded neat"). Guilala goes off stomping buildings and kicking tanks as is his duty, while the protagonists fuck around doing something or other until they come up with a magic bullet, an element they name "Guilalanium" which will coat the monster in snot and shrink him back down into a spore. So that happens, Sano and Michiko kiss, and then, sometime after the sun swallows up the earth, you see the end title.

Because my reviews are all about big monsters, I have to give some space to Guilala and the effects in general. Unlike a Gamera picture, where you can tell the budget was mostly theoretical, the effects are competent here, on par with a lower-end Godzilla offering, though mercifully lacking the stock footage common to those. The tanks, buildings, and spaceships at least look like what they're supposed to, if a little uninspired, and Guilala isn't a bad suit, despite looking dumb as all hell.

There’s honestly a lot to unpack with Guilala, so let’s do that right now. First off, he looks like this:

With his big google eyes, wiggly antennae, and bulky arms and legs, Guilala is hardly scary or even really threatening. He has a ridiculous, gurgling roar that he emits at every possible moment, along with a raft of bizarre abilities, such as shooting fireballs, absorbing energy to grow, and turning into a giant sun and flying around. All of this never really amounts to anything more than just a weird trick for Guilala to pull out during the ever-present military fights, and there’s no real effort given to circumventing his abilities before they start dumping bombs full of shaving cream on him.

So, how did this movie happen? How did we end up with one of the most boring kaiju movies I have ever seen, rivaling shit like Godzilla vs. Gigan and Gamera vs. Guiron? Looking into Shochiku’s history, it seems their prime ballpark in the 50s and 60s was romance and melodrama, with a lot of low-key romantic angst, something I’m guessing their production team and regular actors were familiar with. The X From Outer Space feels, painfully, like a family-friendly romance someone dropped a monster into. Captain Sano has a low-stakes love triangle with Lisa and Michiko while the rest of the cast just kind of jokes around until the final minutes, and even when things seem dire, they never really feel that way, as if the team didn’t really understand how to convey mortal peril. Meanwhile, the jazzy, new age score does absolutely nothing to ratchet up tension, rather acting as a straight up retardant for it, and you’ll grow to pick out the themes almost instantly. Based on what I’ve seen and read, Shochiku was seemingly unwilling to really step out of its wheelhouse, refusing to create a true kaiju movie and instead creating a mixture of both, to the detriment of the final product.

Unless you’re a hardcore fan, skip this one.

[monkey-network]

An Unfortunate Critique of Spiderverse - Part 1 (of 3)

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse was a fun award-winning 2018 animated film with a basically unanimously positive fandom, regarded generally as both a masterpiece Spider-Man film and a remarkable animated film overall. And while I do not disagree with that, it definitely earned its spoils, it pains me a bit to bring up the reason(s) why I can’t call it the masterpiece that many claim. I like this film, but I don’t love it as much as others and I wanted to express why. And I will see to be critical, not cynical. Fair enough? Spoilers ahead for this... 2018 film that you should’ve seen already.

Part 1 ~ The Spiderverse Squad

Now believe me when I say that I enjoyed this trio. Spider-Ham wasn’t as funny as I figured, but he still stood out like Peni and Spider-Noir in a respectable way. I especially loved the fandom’s reaction to them with fanart and jokes galore. But on a look back, it dawned on me that while their presence was welcome, our writers blew the load too soon and wasted these characters. Roll with me, will ya?

If you come to know me, you’ll figure that characters are the element I find the most crucial of your story; you mentally can’t just throw in random heroes into the story unless they’re significant to the protag, story, or world as a whole. It’ll feel weird, like you have no coordination. And yeah, the B team adds to Spider-verse’s worldbuilding mechanic that is the multiple universes; it thematically makes sense that more than one Spidermun can exist. And additionally kicks ass, no objections here. The problem I argue comes when while they add to the world building, it honestly added little to our boy Miles’ story, and it’s that disconnect that makes the characters feel more unnecessary than before. This doesn’t help when things could’ve worked far better if it only involved Gwen and Beter. To explain this better, I wanna bring up a couple films that are similar to Spider-verse yet knew how to use their secondary characters, the first one being...

Kung Fu Panda, baby!

The furious five sans Tigress is about the same as Spider-verse’s B-Team where Po really doesn’t rely on them to both unleash his inner strength and face the final boss in the end. They’re his muse for enjoying martial arts. Po interacts with them a little more than Miles does with the others, but we still have that disconnect between the upcoming novice and the experienced. That disconnect however is counter-balanced by their significance in the story, not only in certifying the stakes that come with Tai Lung, but being the necessary crew to another important character: Tigress.

Tigress is not only a character that Po looks up to, she’s a character with something to prove herself. She puts down Po because she’s envious of the special treatment he’s involuntarily receiving and mirrors the villain Tai Lung before his descent to villainy. The movie would’ve probably been fine if the Furious Five didn’t exist and it was just Shifu and Po training together, but having the five, and Tigress especially, in the story adds a great triangle of interaction between Po and Shifu, Shifu and Tigress, and Tigress and Po. Which makes it all the more poignant when she runs away to face Tai Lung herself, stern in proving herself to both Shifu and Po. We know that she wouldn’t win against him, but that loss is added two-fold when the other four were there to support her. The others aren’t as cynical towards Po, but it’s understandable that they sided with Tigress, thinking their experience together will help them succeed. It makes sense that the four willingly fight with Tigress, and it’s reasonably daunting when Tai Lung is able to tower all of them by himself. Compare this to Spiderverse where we kinda don’t get see our heroes and villains, excluding Miles, stack up that well until the 3rd act; it’s hard to wonder if who’s evenly matched and who can overpower whom. It doesn’t help that Peter, Gwen, and Miles are all isolated from the other three during the final fight in the warp terminal. 

It’s in the end where Po proves himself the Dragon Warrior, he not only earned that respect from the five but feels more complete knowing he and his idols look up to each other in a way. We really don’t get that interpersonal synergy with Miles and the B team beyond the moment of them together post Aaron’s death and their initial meeting, the best we get is that Miles knows he isn’t the only Spider-man but even that doesn’t feel as personal as his relationships with Gwen and Peter. Plus while Gwen and Peter are important characters, we don’t see much of a personal connection between the five Spidermun, it mostly comes off as an obligation that they’re together. Now I won’t lie, this is a pretty unfair comparison. The B-team came together on the fly, and it’s not like Miles, Gwen, and Peter knew who they were in the first place. But remember when I said a couple of films in the beginning? This leads to an ironic situation, coming from one of my other favorite movies about being special...

Been a while since I talked ‘bout this beauty

I think it’s safe to say Spiderverse and The Lego Movie have a kindred story beat where our hero meet some tagalongs that have their own thing but nonetheless contribute as supporting characters. But unlike Spiderverse, the Lego Movie showed something I never figured about characters until I saw it once again last year. The other characters have their stake in the plot, but they are also relative features of our main character Emmett. Unikitty resembles his boundless optimism, Benny his excitability, Batman his emotional conviction, and so on. It’s a stretch, but it is possible to note supporting/secondary characters as facets of who our main character is, what they lack or what’s the most prominent idea of them. In Steven Universe, the crystal gems are separate elements of who Steven is at his best or wants to be. Beastars has Legosi, Louis, and Haru have differing aspects of growing up that blend well when united. It’s essentially the braincells meme, the parts make up the whole. Gwen and Peter fill those parts exponentially for Miles, with Peter’s experience and Gwen’s finesse in her skill, to show him the work that goes in being a hero. Same goes for Aaron and Jefferson on a more personal level, being the ones to give Miles the necessary conviction to become the hero. All I gotta ask is: Can ya say the same for Peni, Noir, or Porker?

Again, not that they’re bad characters, but they mostly felt detached from the story in multiple angles

Now at this point you’ll probably say, “Monkey, we get it, where are you going with this?” Well, I can’t help but feel the B-team, while alright on their own, unfortunately feel like cameos that overstayed their welcome. Beyond the initial meetup, the interactions we get with them are second to none, there is no significant dynamic between the B-team and the two spidermun that are more significant to the story. I feel a little less charitable for media wasting potential and it doesn’t help that writing them out until the final fight is very easy. “Peni and Sp//dr were responsible for repairing the flash drive?” Well, I can say a few hints in the movie can point to Aunt May, Peter, and/or Gwen doing it instead. It’s hard to come back to this film compared to the others I’ve exampled when the back of my mind is going “Why are ya’ll here?” I say it would’ve been surprisingly cathartic if the B-team came near the end where they helped out and met up with the trio before bouncing back to their dimensions. As such, we could put more time in for Miles and Gwen together at Aunt May’s house the same way Peter and Miles got earlier before the plot generally runs the same, we have less voices but we build on those character dynamics for more than that bus ride they share. Add to that character theme of Miles, Gwen, and Peter B. being the different generations of Spider-man or something. Overall, I love them, and they feel wasted in this film.

I just can’t see Spiderverse where the focus of these three subsides the interest for the other three

I wanted to discuss this particularly because as much I can say that much detail in the film fundamentally works, which I will discuss later in this analysis, it stands to say that not every ambition in this undoubtedly ambitious movie was added well. It’s honestly how i feel with randomness humor, it’s fun at first but you gotta do more than enough to make it timeless while keeping the surprise of it intact. Or else you just wish they just replaced that joke with something more constructed. Said before, they don’t or weren’t able to utilize these characters beyond their cameo level moments, and it is not a good thing that they’re potentially saved for the sequel because I hate the idea of depending on a sequel to fix the 1st movie’s issues. I gotta wait to 2022 for a potentially better management of characters and that bothers me. I appreciate what I got, but I unfortunately can’t say that appreciation equates to a free pass of what’s detrimental to my love for this film. Now, I tagged this as part one for a reason, because this is only a symptom, a fun size piece to a bigger story problem I have.

Next time. Otherwise, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy your day.

[ofkenneths]

OKAY so i actually have some info on my dumbfuck boy ken, so i’m way more prepared for this intro in comparison to the absolute serving of dust i gave y’all with winona... yikes. anyways ! once again feel free to lms for plots or w/e cos im open to anything and everything ~

ken’s pinterest: here !

content warnings: alcoholism, death, headassery

holy crap, is that THOMAS DOHERTY over there ? nevermind, it must be KENNETH FRASER, that COMMENTARY & COMEDY youtuber. isn’t it crazy that they’re TWENTY-FIVE and already have 3m subscribers? i heard that they’re known to be DETACHED, but also pretty MAGNETIC, just like a typical SCORPIO. ( lazy smiles hidden behind the glint of a silver flask, outlandish stories that you’re never sure are true or not & the longest day of the year )

OK so ! a little disclaimer first: i don’t know SHIT about scotland / scottish accents beyond what i’ve seen in outlander ok ! i really just be faking it til i make it so ! @ me if u want ~

moving on.. im gonna go off my previous setup and start with his personality cos lbr that’s what y’all really care abt ~ he’s a little shit ! a gd moron ! really goes out of his way to be obnoxious & charming UGH id like to strangle him.. think joey tribbiani mixed with cody ko… but with a horrendously unintelligible scottish accent (: he really be like that All The Time smh

not the smartest ?? your boy actually graduated from harvard with honors and yet ?? yeah he’s a little dumb but it’s chill cos he’s p much got .. no sense of embarrassment ? cannot recall a single moment of his life when he felt embarrassed or regretted doing/saying something so .. catch him making self-depreciating jokes on the daily. on the flip side tho .. if someone was gonna like constantly get on him abt it he might 100% get in his feelings and uhhh when he do.. that’s when fists start flying ? most cos he’s always on his way to a blackout binge ;)

on top of that he also has .. little to no sense of self-preservation .. will p much do absolutely anything even if it’s detrimental to his physical, mental or emotional health ! love that for him ! Makes Bad Choices, essentially ( makes rash & not-thought-out choices ). never says no to a dare, p much always dtf cos lbr his libido is .. out of control and i hate him ??? & ALWAYS willing to break a rule or twelve

& now for the fun part … he’s a functioning alcoholic ! Big Time ! at his happiest when intoxicated and will p much always have alcohol on him somehow ? he’s usually got a flask plus a buzz throughout the day sighs so smh ! honest to god he probably can’t remember the last time he was completely sober so uhhh that’s fun ig ?? the big thing is that it’s been going on for so long that his tolerance is so high he keeps needing more and more to stay buzzed .. so it’ll likely eventually … start to cause some real problems ……. would be wild if his subscribers found out *wink wink*

a phat hypocrite tho ! love it ! will literally get annoyed with people who lie and play games when thats .. all he do .. god he’s actually the spawn of the devil i want him dead

SHEW OK onto a little background ! grew up in edinburgh ( obvs, sighs ) with his parents who were both school teachers so his upbringing was p modest ?? p normal ??? honestly .. his life was super normal til he was twelve & his parents died in a hit & run when they were crossing the street :/ from then he had to live with his uncle who was … uhhh.. a Garbage Human Being lmao ! Basic rich businessman on his bullshit .. thinking he’s the absolute god of gods reincarnate.. manipulating women .. talking down to ken .. treating everyone like he was better than them .. yeah, just a general piece of shit tbh. definitely not happy to have a preteen suddenly in his charge so ken was like .. Fine ? i’ll do whatever the fuck i want then ? & basically … did everything he knew he shouldnt have done lol

the only thing he really stayed on top of was his grades in school cos it was his best chance of getting the absolute fuck away from his uncle for good and doing it without having to rely on the bastard’s money/connections blah blah whatever so even as he was acting like a fuckin’ fool, he was getting straight a’s & p much being on a first name basis with all his teachers BJOVN we love duality

it was all fun and reckless until he had a real brush with death when he was seventeen. he was fooling around with his buddies, drunk right off his ass, acting like a piece of shit & making a complete ass of himself when he found himself underneath the motorcycle he was driving so.. he ended up spending a good amount of time in the hospital & came out of it with a nasty scar through his left brow & three shattered fingers that wouldn’t ever heal properly ( he’s left handed but had to relearn how to write and do everything with his right hand after it all ).

after that he decided to get the hell out of dodge ( .. scotland ) and move to the states & honestly thank the lord he got accepted into harvard cos otherwise he’d have had to choose between cambridge and oxford, neither far enough away from his uncle & his past as he wanted to be so ((: my mans lucky ig !

in college he got rly close with the guys in his dorm + rushed a fraternity ( a BUSINESS one, not a fun one so he was not up in there partying and hazing poor, unsuspecting scholarship kids ) & that’s when he rly started to feel content with his life ?? all it took was a move to a foreign country and the power of brotherhood *rock n roll emoji* and yk.. booze !

anyways ~ he started his channel in college as a way to let out the absolute dumbass in himself in a constructive way that didn’t involve getting into fights or doing hard drugs lol it started out as a sort of vlog channel until he got tired of carrying a camera around all day and it just kinda naturally progressed into a commentary & comedy channel as he found sitting in front of a camera and talking absolute nonsense about other nonsense was kinda like his calling, even if he has to write a transcript for subtitles cos everyone complains abt not being able to understand him.. it’s fine don’t worry about it

he’s uhh p much having the time of his life, tho he uhh Does miss home something fierce ( but no worries he just drowns all that shit out with some aged whisky lol ! ) & lowkey wishes he didnt have to continuously drink himself into a stupor to get thru the day but here we are ;)

anyways im super tired of this intro lmao so just mssg me if u want any specific details ONFIJC & i dont have any specific wanted connections ? cos being unprepared is My Brand, so i’m down to brainstorm w/ everyone who wants a crack at my mans kenny ~

[thawedpatriot]

okay, my e.ndgame thoughts are below the cut. beware, they’re somewhat incoherent at times mainly just because my brain is still trying to wrap my head around some stuff. also it’s really really long. like 3k words long. major spoilers ahead!

-okay so the whole beginning felt. really rushed, if that makes sense? like, i’m glad that tony got back to earth fairly early on but that was very sudden, having carol show up and carry the ship to the compound. however, i can’t complain too much because watching steve book it to tony’s side as he was coming off the ship gave me life. the fact that he just hovered the whole time and was there to support him and show he cares just. pleased me.

- tony had every right to blow up at steve. i mean, god, the man’s been through so much. he’s lost so much and is still recovering from everything that happened. he’s frustrated and angry and hurting and steve pressed for information too callously too soon, and it set an exhausted tony off. totally valid. and tony was right, he saw all this coming and no one listened to him, even though half of that was just bc aou was a fucking mess writing wise. but steve told him ‘together’ and because they weren’t together when shit went down, they all lost. would it have killed either of them to call during the two years they had to do so? no, probably not. that probably would’ve been a step towards working back to that ‘together’ thing. because there’s years of unresolved tension and conflict between them at this point, none of it ever got resolved between them, so it’s finally coming to a head now that they’re properly in the same room again.

- that said, the ‘you weren’t there when i needed you’ bit rubbed me the wrong way. because it was bruce who ended up calling. tony never made a call, never asked for steve’s help. never let him know he needed him, even though he had that ability to. so yes, steve is at fault here too, but it’s not 100% on him that things went down the way they did, if that makes sense.

- tony shoving the arc reactor into steve’s hand???? killed me on the spot, thanks.

- the devastation steve must be feeling when they figure out the stones are gone??? gutting. he was so sure they would be able to bring everyone back wit the stones once they’d taken care of thanos. he was so ready for a fight, so ready to get his revenge and make things right, and there just. was no fight, no way to bring his friends back. he’d lost bucky all over again, and now he’s lost sam, too. sam, who he dragged into all this. that kind of guilt festers in him for those five years, no doubt.

- i wanna know what steve did for those five years. because, yes, we see him talking in that small therapy group, but not only is he giving advice he’s not taking himself, but he’s just not shown doing much of anything else. he’s holding on to all his trauma and grief and not dealing with it, just like he’s been doing since he left the ice. so what is he doing all that time??? but also seeing him in a therapy group setting made my heart swell a little bit because you know he did that for sam. he misses his friend and is doing that for him, i will not believe anything otherwise. sam was and is so important to him.

- this is unrelated to steve but is important to me as a bi: carol’s hair looked so good i made a noise when i saw it and my friend hit me in the arm 

- god i wish we saw more of steve and nat interact. because clearly they’ve been in contact with one another for the past 5 years and that’s probably the longest running friendship he’s had going besides bucky so. it’s nice to know he didn’t lose everyone in one way or another for those 5 years. they just know each other so well and recognize the similarities between one another and i’m just really glad he wasn’t all alone all that time.

- steve is so done with everyone throughout this movie, including himself. it’s beautiful.

- sidenote, i could not take bruce seriously as a character the way he was and i don’t know why. also they did thor dirty. they did thor so dirty. he was a joke until they needed him to fight. the level of guilt and trauma thor is dealing with is immeasurable and they turned it into comic relief by leaning into fat-shaming and joking about alcoholism???? nah man, that’s not okay. not at all. address that he’s dealing with ptsd, show that he’s using unhealthy coping mechanisms, and help him. don’t make fun of him, don’t just let him keep doing that to himself, help him. the only scene in the whole movie i genuinely liked with him in it was his scene with frigga. because she took him seriously, she was willing to listen and offer advice and tell him what he needed to hear. that scene was so important.

- another sidenote, as much as i disliked p.epperony in the past, this movie made me appreciate them more. because i’ve always loved them both as individual characters, pepper potts owns my whole soul, but as a couple they were just written in a way that made me not love it as the movies went on. however, this movie really showed growth in their development as a couple, in pepper accepting tony for who he is and the needs he has to do good. also tony is an amazing father and it’s just so validating to see a character who grew up with an abusive parent break the cycle and become soft and kind in any interactions he has with his daughter. you can tell how much he loves his family, and it’s what he deserved.

- okay so i hope we can all agree the time travel science in this movie was fucked and they did a really bad job at explaining how it works. it was not clear, did not make sense, and following standard time travel laws there were a million paradoxes happening and it makes me angry. nebula killing her past self? bullshit bc she should not exist after that. steve’s whole ending??? also bullshit but i’ll get to that later because that’s an essay in itself.

- tony giving steve the shield back was such a big deal okay. the fact that tony has acknowledged that holding onto the resentment was detrimental to his own health and being was so important. we got a handshake and i really thought they were gonna go for a hug but noooo that’d be too much to ask for i guess. but steve hasn’t seen or held that thing in like 7 years it has to be nice to have it in his hands again, seeing as he always refers to it as an extension of his arm and all. and to be getting it back, nice and polished, from tony probably means a great deal to him as well.

- okay now let’s get to the actual time travel bit. steve and tony being the ones to zap back to 2012???? my god its like everything i ever wanted was handed to me on a platter. that movie was what got me on this marvel train and as even with its issues, it holds such a dear place in my heart. so you know the second that ‘2012′ popped onto the screen i was ready to combust. and then it just got better because it felt like an extension of the movie, like we were seeing deleted scenes, which was just. really nice?? 

- god okay “america’s ass” gave me so much life as dumb as the whole joke was. because tony blatantly checking out steve’s ass?? my dude thats the gayest thing i’ve ever seen with my own two eyes. but then tony commenting on how his ass looks in the suit???? i was living, okay. living. and the fact that he checked out his past self’s ass and was like ‘yeah, damn straight’ amused me greatly.

- ngl the ‘hail hydra’ bit made me uncomfy initially, but honestly i’m just gonna appreciate how clever my boy is and how stupid hydra is. his ‘i’m clever and i know it and i just outsmarted piece of shit nazis’ smile as he walked away from the elevator with the case???? priceless. i was half expecting another elevator fight but i guess that wouldn’t really make sense sfdghj

- steve fighting himself? past steve reacting to the compass appearing and getting super fucking pissed over the concept that someone might’ve taken it or something??? the fact that it was ‘bucky is alive’ that had him going full stop???? oof. also, the ‘i can do this all day’ and ‘yeah, i know’ was funny initially but oh my god is my boy exhausted. he’s so tired. he’s been fighting for decades. someone let him rest. please. 

- also unrelated, i wanna know where the fuck loki fucked off to when he grabbed the tessaract. like is this where the concept for his spinoff show comes from???? what did he do????

- steve and tony being on the same wavelength and trusting each other??? steve trusting tony wholeheartedly even if he didn’t fully know what it was tony was planning?? important. so, so important.

- steve in camp lehigh. oh my god. why did no one recognize captain america???? it’s been twenty years, sure, but y’all slapped ‘birthplace of captain america’ on your sign and there’s probably pictures of his face around in more places than peggy’s desk. you’re telling me no one would recognize him standing in the middle of the military camp??? nah, i don’t buy it. y’all had poor disguises and didn’t even get him sunglasses or anything. c’mon guys, you’re better than this.

- okay look this isn’t a tony blog but what the fuck was that scene with howard,, i understand it in terms of why they included it when looking at the narrative. because of tony’s whole ‘resentment is corrosive, didn’t like it’ thing and the need for closure on that front before his story ends, but he didn’t owe howard jack shit, let alone a ‘thank you’. that man, even if he had the best intentions and wanted tony to succeed in the future because he knew he had potential, was neglectful and abusive. he was not affectionate, he did not make tony feel as though he were loved, and it deeply affected tony as a person. the fact that he doesn’t know how far along his own wife is with their firstborn child??? big red flag right there, friends. sure, it’s good to show kids with bad relationships with their parents that its possible to work through negative emotions and resentment and move on with their lives but this was not the example to give. tony did not owe his father anything at that point. he’d moved on, made himself better, became a better father than howard was to him. i’m just. so angry about it okay.

- steve looking through the glass of peggy’s office at her, believing this was the last time he was going to see her again??? broke my heart but i called it as soon as i knew time travel was involved in this movie. i knew they’d throw a ‘steve sees her while traveling and is really sad about it’ bit in there somewhere. and i would have been content if that was it, if that was all he got. if that was the closure he got, one last glimpse of her. the fact that twenty years later she still has the picture of him, before he was captain america, on her desk??? erases any of the development and growth we know she went through in her series and whatnot, but it’s a good reminder that peggy carter was one of the few people that saw steve for who he was. she saw the skinny kid from brooklyn and knew he had what it took to be a hero, she saw him for the good man he was. she loved him for who he was. that means a great deal to steve, who no doubt struggles with the line between steve and cap a lot. but by this point, peggy would have moved on. in the series, she had moved on. erasing all of that development is detrimental to her character and i refuse it.

- seeing jarvis again was a treat. i squeaked.

- what the fuck was that with natasha??? what kind of man-pain fuel was that??? and why didn’t she get the proper funeral/mourning she deserved??? she’s been around since im2, she was the one who united the avengers, she was the first female avenger (bc they swept janet van dyne under the rug but thats a whole other rant), and that’s the end of her arc??? as soon as i saw where her and hawkeye were headed i just knew. i knew what was gonna happen and i was hissing internally. because i knew there was no way she’d be like ‘yeah you’re my best friend, you have a family, you go ahead and jump’ and on behalf of all the mcu writers i wanna apologize to all c.lint.asha shippers for the mess the mcu gave y’all. i’m so sorry j*ss fucked it up for y’all bc he wanted something for two characters no one else wanted. she deserved to be mourned. she didn’t deserve to be forgotten for like the rest of the film after that initial ‘she’s gone’. she deserved a funeral, too. steve just lost one of his closest friends???? on top of everything else he’s lost, let him express that. please.

- so back on my s.tony shit, the ‘that’s my man’ when tony nudged steve awake to hand him back his shield after the compound blew up??? not heterosexual at all. y’all aren’t even trying to hide it anymore u bastards

- STEVE ROGERS USING THE HAMMER. Y’ALL. Y’ALL. MY BOY IS WORTHY AND I KNEW IT AND THIS MEANS HE SPARED THOR IN AOU BC HE’S A COMPASSIONATE LOSER WHO DIDN’T WANT TO HURT HIS FRIEND’S PRIDE AND FEELINGS. BUT GOD THAT WAS THE COOLEST GODDAMN THING I’VE SEEN ON SCREEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. HIM USING BOTH HIS SHIELD AND THE HAMMER AT THE SAME TIME, MAKING COMBO STRIKE OUT OF IT??? USING THE LIGHTING???? MAN I CAN TELL YOU WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT I HAVE NOT SCREAMED SO LOUD IN A MOVIE THEATER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. GOD I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.

- all the ladies fighting together?? shielding peter???? kicking ass together??? gave me life. that was the most beautiful scene in the entire mcu,,, it made my bi heart burst,, all it was missing was nat, but it was a nice way to be like ‘this is what she started’. and seeing pepper out there as rescue was just the cherry on top okay i love her sm she’s so cool and finally fighting out there alongside tony and rhodey. my wife carol danvers is also the coolest??? not even flinching when thanos does whatever head-butt thing he was going for??? god i love my wives.

- ‘on your left’ god damn yes let sam wilson be the one to announce that they’re all back my boy deserves it. i wanted a proper reunion between steve and sam and/or bucky. we didn’t get that. we didn’t get that!!!!!! we didn’t get anything like that!!!!! steve was primarily on his own for 5 years because he lost his two best friends and we don’t get a reunion scene??? i call bullshit, marvel

- also rocket trying to shield groot with his own little body during the aerial attack??? broke my little heart??? like he just got him back and is terrified that he’ll lose him again,,,

- no one talk to me about tony stark i can’t handle it, he deserved to be happy and live a long life with his family. he deserved that happy ending, but i’m so grateful that pepper just. understood what he needed. she knew what he needed to hear and was there for him and could just ‘we’ll be okay, you can rest’. and give him that peace of mind. he did it, he saved the universe, he brought everyone back, he can rest. but god he really deserved to be able to rest with his family, happy and alive, okay.

- steve’s small exchange with bucky was like a nice reference to the first cap movie, but that was all we got. steve has spent multiple movies trying to get bucky back and help him, and we don’t even get a reunion scene and then just this one little bit of back and forth. a soft ‘i’ll miss you’, even though its technically only supposed to be seconds for them?? like,,, does that means bucky knows??? like, he has a feeling he knows what steve’s gonna do??? idk man, idk. all i do know is that they deserved better in this movie. i’m also summing up bucky’s telling sam to go talk to steve as bucky’s ‘i don’t know if i can handle that’ admission tbh.

- god bless sam wilson. between being the one to be like ‘bring him back. where is he? get him back.’ the second something seemed to go wrong with the time travel was,,, really nice. like, thank you for caring about my boy. thank you for always having his back. i love you so much sam wilson. and anyone who thinks sam shouldn’t be the one to get the shield can meet me in a back alley okay, this man has earned it, he’s the right pick for the cap mantle. the cap theme playing when he was given the shield? Iconic. did i cry whenever the cap theme played during this movie?? Absolutely.

- time travel in this movie is a fucking joke but i wanna know if steve had to see the red skull when he returned the soul stone because can you imagine??? that interaction??? like, did anyone warn him??? did anyone tell him the red skull was there or was it only implied when clint said something about a red man or whatever after coming back and being upset about natasha???? but also where did steve travel back to in order to start his new life??? were there just two caps in the universe??? one in the ice and one living his life w/ peggy???? none of it makes sense. none of it. where does the shield go/come from???? guys??? guys.

-okay now we address the end of steve’s arc. i’m gonna start by saying i see both sides of the discourse it’s stirred up. i understand the intention behind it, not wanting steve’s story to just be one big tragedy. because that’s where it was headed. if they killed him, he would have been fighting for decades on end without rest, without knowing peace, and that would’ve been it. that’s not the end people want to see for their heroes. he deserves to be able to put down the shield and rest. he deserves that ending for himself after fighting his whole life. However, the way they did it not only flattened his entire arc, but it flattened peggy’s entire character as well. she built a life in his absence, she moved on, and he knows this. he knew this, and i refuse to believe that steve would selfishly go back and disrupt that, take that away from her for the sake of his own personal happiness. that’s not steve rogers, a good and compassionate man. because think about the life he’d have to lead, knowing all he does. because if he isn’t supposed to disrupt the timeline, he has to let everything with hydra happen and infiltrate shield, something he knows peggy’s dedicated to, he has to let everything with bucky happen and be okay with not stepping in and rescuing his best friend from that horrific life/killing tony’s parents, he has to watch both tony and sharon grow up knowing everything about their lives??? (not to mention how fucking weird everything with sharon would be  considering the mcu just forgot about her after they made out in the parking lot???? sharon deserved better.) 

- this wasn’t an end of an arc, it was the flattening of an arc. he didn’t actually deal with anything that he’d been through. tws was all about how he needed to move on, peggy herself told him that the world was changing and he had to move with it instead of lingering in the past and what he lost. he was supposed to be building himself a new life, addressing what he lost and the trauma he’s been through and work through it all to push onward. that’s development. he got away with not working on himself or anything he went through, the group therapy was never actually beneficial because he didn’t take any of his advice, he clung to his emotions and grief and wasn’t able to move on and says as much. giving him this easy way out just feels lazy in my opinion. like they didn’t know what to do with him, wanted him to end up happy, and this was the only way they saw that happening because he wasn’t properly developed over the course of the mcu. i’m happy my boy ended up happy, don’t get me wrong, i was very close to sobbing over him finally getting that dance, but it was highly unsatisfactory in terms of a story and character arc.

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff: Meta Runner

WARNING: Unplug your stuff before you head out on vacation. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy. * - to be expressed in a later review

Take the controller of your life

In a world where gamers have truly risen and control the many facets of life (no joke), one woman surfaces from a waking nightmare to dive into this gaming crazed land and understand the powers she holds within with no knowledge how she got them.... or who she really is. If that sounds cheesy enough for you, then welcome aboard. From the bros behind the mayhem meme series, SMG4, comes a more pressing story about identity* and video games.

Talk ‘bout coming a long way

I’ll be one to admit that there isn’t much to say on this series other than what it provides upfront. The neon Silica City looks cool from what we get to see, a reasonable mix between Times Square and what I’d typically call an 80s cityscape. The video game worlds we’ve seen so far look just as good if pretty simple and generic. And the 3D animation fluctuates between being pretty stiff to having some smooth moments here and there. This isn’t to say it’s a whole detriment; this is honestly amazing for the team’s 1st outing. Reminds me a lot of RWBY where the designs leans towards its later seasons while the animation feels like its earlier seasons. It looks good but you’ll probably notice some awkward things every now and then.

I’ll definitely give ‘em points tho that it looks fresh in HD

But that is just the look of Meta Runner, what of the writing? We~~~ll, it’s not too much to write home about *BUHDUM TSS* There are some neat ideas like the gaming tech we’ve seen. I’d say the dialogue is this series’ weak point as it ranges from cliched to kinda cringe; Theo and Sofia are the outliers among the cast that don’t just say lines you might find from what many consider a by the book Hollywood YA film. Lucks is the worst example of this where it’s only until episode 6 that he doesn’t sound like the obvious cold and menacing villain that has manipulative machinations literally under his sleeve. It’s not annoying, but you’ll feel like things have been done before in other media if you think about it. Not to mention some of the things they don’t care to explain like Theo’s awareness of being a game character or why video games became the all encompassing market though the latter might be explained later.

Then again, I say the pacing is what kept me coming back. Every episode lasts less than 20 minutes and each episode plays a necessary part to an overall 10 episode story. While there is some down time here and there, no episode so far felt like it was wasting time, every moment mattered. It also helps that Tari herself is a solid character, one who has both wonder and understandable concerns in her eyes without ever coming off as incompetent or weak-willed. I harped on the dialogue but like with SMG4, character is what makes Meta Runner as engaging as it is. Aside from Lucks, each character has a charm to them that not only makes you want to see more of who they are, but more dynamics between the other characters.

The inclusion of the characters in the intro makes this point ring home in a neat way

All in all, I am really impressed with this series and I’d say this is as much of a passion project from the brothers as SMG4 is a casual series where they just have fun with memes and shit. I love that this series was able to be constructed as time went on, if you compare the promotional material to the final product, and it shows that this is their project. When I said “their efforts are truly coming together”, I wasn’t lying and my hopes weren’t dashed as I’d call this a series worth the wait and one I hope gets even better over time.

3.5 Out of 5. A captivating animated let’s play