Watching, Playing, Reading Pre Summer Fiery Inferno 2021 Edition

Been awhile since we did one of these!  Not that I'm even sure if you enjoy them.  Also still not sure if giving opinions on other creator's work is ever a good idea, especially big, powerful production studios, but...like my books are ever going to be movies anyway, right?  😢

Spoilers, probably?

==WATCHING==

Invincible:  WATCH IT NOW!!!  The only part better than watching Invincible is going on YouTube and watching everyone freak the fuck out in reaction videos to Invincible.  It's up there with the first season of The Boys as my favorite superhero show ever.  Six season and a movie, please!  One of the few experiences that was so good I don't even want to read the original comic, just give me more of this so I can be surprised again and again!

The Mitchells vs the Machines:  A great, enjoyable CGI animated movie from Netflix, how is this possible?  Well, it's by the same Sony animation group that did Spiderverse, that helps, and it shows.  The animation alone has so much style and interesting background detail stuff going on that you could probably be entertained watching it on mute, but the story is sweet, heartwarming, and if you have children you should probably watch it with them and then hug/cry/repress emotions with them afterwards.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier:  You're a fucking mess, Marvel.  Get your shit together!

There's a lot going on here, I think.  For one, I think it's obvious that the herculean task of building everything towards Infinity War and Endgame has emotionally sapped the entire studio of its creative juices.  Especially if you look at the whole MCU up to this point as "book 1" or "story 1", it really feels like we're in sophomore slump territory where they are struggling to get to the next big thing.

And of course:  pandemic!

But...my hope for these DisneyPlus shows was that they would be on the same shared universe interconnectedness that we saw with season 2 of the Mandalorian.  Actually, I'd want more, but that should have been the minimum threshold in this day and age.  Instead we aren't even reaching the same level as Season 1 of the Mando.  We're barely over Agents of SHIELD or Netflix Daredevil interconnectedness in that it's kind of following up and we see SOME characters but not the ones we really want and...

Even if we ignore expectations and just focus on what is actually there, what's there is a ton of scared writing.  Lazy writing too.  Or...fast writing at least.  They're handwaving A LOT.  Ankle is in the water but they never jump in for a swim.  US Agent could've been been really complex, but...he's redeemed now everyone, just like that!  And hey, he's not crazy from the super soldier serum any more, we only needed that to happen for a few episodes anyway!

Ignoring the fact that killing the terrorist guy was actually not completely unjustified and the idea that the United States Senate (have you ever listened to any of these people in real life!?!?!?!) would even scolded him for that or especially gone so far as to strip him of the shield was laughable.  Oh and we're probably supposed to support Karli and ignore all the murder?  Sure got a speech about it.  Are the Flag Smashers wrong?  Or right?  What are they even really trying to accomplish?  No, no, don't think about that, don't look into that, don't build a plot around that, have cake and eat too, whatever we need for the next scene!  We call it...Schrodinger's Freedom Terrorist!

You can make a villain that's complicated AND evil, Marvel.  You did it with Thanos and Zemo...who's in this very series dancing the night away!  So why are you freaking out about it now?  Or that horse crap they pulled the end of WandaVision.  They'll never know what you sacrificed for them, Wanda!  I know Wanda mentally abused about a thousand innocent people and maybe we might want to deal with that, since, ya know...its conflicted and dirty and fun.  Don't fucking handwave.  Steer into the storm!

I rant because I know they can do better and have done better.  Get over the slump.  X Men.  Fantastic Four.  Crazy Nimrod Sentinel Shit?  Galactus that's not a fucking space cloud?

Please?

More complaints too, but I fail to recall all of them at the moment.  Oh, the Sharon Carter thing, or that we're supposed to believe Steve Rogers just left her to rot for years.  Fuck that!

Attack on Titan Final Season Part 1:  It's Attack on Titan time and that means I'm in an anime binge mood!  Hey, Marvel, this, this right here.  This is what it looks like when you fucking go for it.  I hope all my foreshadowing and plans in the King Henry Tapes come out as well as what's been pulled off with Attack on Titan.  It really is a masterpiece of onion layers.  Bleeding, skull crushing, everyone is dying onion layers.

I have read ahead in the manga I am aware they rushed...just a tad...with some things, but here's hoping when we get Part 2 in the anime they tinker a bit?

If you ever watch one anime, this is one of the handful you should pick from.

Haikyuu!!! Season 4:  I don't know why I care about a Japanese high school boys volleyball team, but I really do...

ReZero S1 Rewatch and S2:  Great, but...I'd forgotten how much crying there was...do still love a good death loop though!

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1:  Distilled Shonen that I binged yet never loved.  Kind of like they went for a solid bronze medal, nothing more, nothing less, and accomplished just that.  Hey, it's a medal. It's snazzy.  But I seen those handstands done better...

Justice League Snyder Cut:  Actually watchable.  Somehow.  The fact the execs managed to fuck this whole thing up even more than Lucasfilm did with the Star Wars sequels is an amazing feat of maleficence. 

Other HBO Max Junk Movies:  You're allowed to release good movies, Warner Bros, really.  You can do it!  (In the Heights isn't out yet as I write this).  Judas and the Messiah was about the only one I've liked so far.  Please let Dune be good, please please please!

Jupiter's Legacy:  Glad it got cancelled before I watched more than two episodes because I was really not looking forward to watching any more of it.

Mare of Eastown:  Just a great, condensed, seven episode mini-series and I'm sure Kate Winslet will get tons of award nods.  Jean Smart was fantastic as well.  Depressing, I suppose.  I don't know, anxiety and horror and awkward humor freaks me out a lot more than any of the depressing stuff does.  It'll probably get a second season they weren't planning on that goes totally batshit crazy...

LOKI Episode 1:  That's more fucking like it, Marvel!!!!!

==PLAYING==

I've actually not been gaming much.  Been suffering from a lot of joint pain related to the weight loss as my joints and ligaments acclimate to the new normal, so I've been saving my wrists and elbows for writing and especially staying away from console controllers (tiny PS4 controller is absolutely the worse).  Also when I'm writing I have less time for other pursuits and as you'll see in the next section when I write I'd rather be reading anyway, so...no pressy pressy the butty buttons!

Ori and the Blind Forest:  Finally played this on the Switch and it was magical and beautiful and the perfect amount of difficult with every death and triumph feeling earned and satisfying.  Though I will say the water temple escape made me start screaming curse words at my TV.  Still, very much worth the journey and I already bought Ori and the Will of the Wisps and should get to it eventually I hope.

Crash Bandicoot 4:  Fuck you depth perception!  Why is it that out of all the characters in this game that Crash somehow controls the worse?  Or maybe I suck, I mean I probably suck, platformers have never been my thing and its not like I ever beat the original Crash games as a kid anyway.  

Civilization 6:  The final update to my surprise, kind of ruined the game for me.  Man at Arms and the way the AI rushes that tech already for industrial zones has just made for a generally miserable Deity experience.  Not that Deity isn't half bullshit anyway, but it feels a lot worse.

Football Manager 2021:  Less of a game and more of a lifestyle choice at this point.  It's just kind of always on in the laptop background...not interrupting my writing though and don't seem to be addicted to it now, so...that's an improvement!  And it's so low impact it doesn't hurt my wrists or fingers at all, so it's the one game I can relax with without worrying about tiring out.

Hearts of Iron 4:  So there was a huge Paradox sale on Steam and I grabbed a few dlcs I haven't bothered with over the last couple years and HOI4 is first up.  Feels very much the same, just with boats and spies to play with that might or might not actually do anything.  I never feel like there's replay value with HOI4 and still it feels like only the major players are worth bothering with.  Also a lot of the "skill" is just knowing the most effective Focus Tree path and build order.  Plus, the best HOI4 experience still remains a mod and not the official game, so...not sure how long I'm going to be at this one before moving down the next on my list.

==READING==

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe:  Quite the crime novel and history on the Troubles.  Engaging and thought provoking from beginning to end.

Clanlands by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish:  I have vast amounts of Scottish DNA and was a Ron Moore fan from DS9 and BSG and had obviously heard of the Outlander books, but when Starz started the TV series I jumped on board.  Yes, I just admitted I'm a man that reads and watches Outlander (though I need to catch up on season 5 and I'm not looking forward to it knowing what will happen to Claire from the books...) No, I do not own a kilt, no I do not have abs of any sort...

Anyway, this specifically is just a Scotland travel novel chaotically told by two actors and probably double that many ghost writers and double that many editors.  Unless you're a huge fan I wouldn't bother, might not even bother anyway, quite a bit of it is just shilling various commercial endeavors.

Premonition by Michael Lewis:  I read everything by Lewis.  This is up there with his best.  The CDC probably comes off the worst.  Also, if you're a 30-40 something actress in Hollywood right now and you haven't told your agent you want to play Charity Dean, you are throwing away the role of a lifetime.  Not saying there weren't biases in the book, but...what a character that woman is!

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir:  Liked the Martian more...this was one of those odd cases where I felt like the choice the author made with the main character to try to show growth actually completely did the opposite.  I realize I'm probably the extreme minority opinion here and I don't want to spoil what is one of the most popular books of the year, but...I suppose I will say that we didn't get to see what I thought of as the interesting stuff at the end of the novel.

I mean, we're VERY different writers so not surprising.  Weir likes survival, science, and math problems, what I want is interpersonal communication and political strife.  And curse words!

He also like....makes money at this and I...don't...

The Assassins of Thasalon by Lois McMaster Bujold:  I've mentioned Bujold's semi-retirement project and she's now kind of unretired and released a full novel in the series.  On the shorter side, but still, more Penric!  Still very much recommend these!

And next, oh fuck me, I have so many authors I need to catch up on!!!  Much less trying new ones!

Should probably keep writing my own stuff too...