Abuse in the Loki Show

* Physical and sexual abuse: The main male character was stripped without his consent after being violently subdued, kidnapped and imprisoned. He got bent over a table by a physically stronger female character (B-15) making it look like he was about to be sexually assaulted. He was repeatedly kicked whilst already down, thrown around into things, knocked around and strangled by a much larger and stronger male. There was also a scene where a female character stood over his unconscious body looking like she was going to take advantage of him (Sylvie) who also bit, kneed and elbowed him causing him to clutch himself in pain. He was repeatedly hit, punched and kicked in the balls by another female character (Sif) and lastly he was kissed without giving consent (Sylvie). Another male character (Mobius) was pushed violently onto the ground by his female ‘superior’ (Ravonna.) There was also blatant violence against women such as B-15 punching Sylvie into the ground making her clutch herself and gasp in extreme pain. In the second season, Sylvie blasts the main male character into the ground quite brutally in the third episode. She also brutally hits another female character (Ravonna) in the stomach and kicks her through a time door in the same episode. Sylvie physically assaults the main male character in the final episode of season 2, two of the main male characters exploit a female character Sylvie in the final episode of season 2.

* Bullying, mental and psychological abuse: The main male character (Loki) is shown traumatising footage of events that happened in his life while his captor (Mobius) tells him how bad he is and brings up MORE abusive events and tells him how unimportant he is.

* He was put into a ‘torture time loop’ by his captor (Mobius) where he repeatedly got physically and verbally abused (kicking in the balls, hitting, punching and bullying about ‘deserving to be alone’) by not ‘staying in line’ by the organisation. A female character (Sylvie) leads on the main male character and manipulates him, sexually abuses him, blames and bullies him for all the issues that SHE created and stops him from trying to do the right thing!

* Nazi Symbolism:

- Stripped prisoners without consent.

- Force them to work for you or kill and torture them. Some of the torture methods include being ‘subdued’ and ‘gassed’ inside of a cube.

- Subdue, abuse, restrain, strip and beat them into submission in order to brainwash them, erase their memories and give them ‘Stockholm syndrome’ and ‘befriend’ their abusers (Mobius, B-15)

*Part Two: https://www.tumblr.com/zylice/733670791922778112/abuse-in-the-loki-show-pt-2

Jilian Kirby, Jack Kirby's granddaughter, posted this writing by Neil Kirby (father/son respectively) in which he responds to the new Stan Lee documentary currently available to view on Disney+:

"The 13th century Islamic poet/scholar Rumi said, "The Ego is a veil between humans and God." In the Disney+ documentary bio of Stan Lee, the veil is lifted. Presented in the first person with Lee's voice providing a running narrative, it is Stan Lee's greatest tribute to himself. The literary expression of ego is the personal pronoun "I." Any decent English or Journalism teacher would admonish their students not to overuse it. So, the challenge is extended to anyone who wishes to count the number of "I's" during the 86-minute running time of Stan Lee.

I (oooops!) understand that, as a "documentary about Stan Lee," most of the narrative is in his voice, literally and figuratively. It's not any big secret that there has always been controversy over the parts that were played in the creation and success of Marvel's characters. Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon. He made himself the voice of Marvel. So, for several decades he was the "only" man standing, and blessed with a long life, the last man standing (my father died in 1994). It should also be noted and is generally accepted that Stan Lee had a limited knowledge of history, mythology, or science. On the other hand, my father's knowledge of these subjects, to which I and many others can personally attest, was extensive, was extensive. Einstein summed it up better; "More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego."

If you were to look at a list and timeline of Marvel's characters from 1960 through 1966, the period in which the vast majority of Marvel's major characters were created during Lee's tenure, you will see Lee's named as a co-creator on every character, with the exception of the Silver Surfer, solely created by my father. Are we to assume Lee had a hand in creating every Marvel character? Are we to assume that it was never the other co-creator that walked into Lee's office and said, "Stan, I have a great idea for a character!" According to Lee, it was always his idea. Lee spends a fair amount of time talking about how and why he created the Fantastic Four, with only one fleeting reference to my father. Indeed, most comics historians recognize that my father based the Fantastic Four on a 1957 comic he created for DC, "Challengers of the Unknown," even naming Ben Grimm (The Thing) after his father Benjamin, and Sue Storm after my older sister Susan.

Through the conflict between Lee and my father concerning creator credit gets glanced over with little mention, there is more attention paid to the strife between Lee and Steve Ditko, with Lee's voice proclaiming, "it was my idea*, therefore I created the character," Spiderman [sic]. In 1501, the Opera del Duomo commissioned a 26-year-old Michelangelo to sculpt a statue of David for the Cathedral of Florence - their idea, their money. The statue is called Michelangelo's David - his genius, his vision, his creativity.

I was very fortunate. My father worked at home in his Long Island basement studio we referred to as "The Dungeon," usually 14 - 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Most of the artists, writers, inkers, etc. worked at home, not in the Marvel offices as depicted in the program. Through middle and high school, I was able to stand at my father's left shoulder, peer through a cloud of cigar smoke, and witness the Marvel Universe being created. I am by no means a comics historian, but there are few, if any, that have personally seen or experienced what I have, and know the truth with first-hand knowledge.

My father retired from comic books in the early 1980's, and of course passed away in 1994. Lee had over 35 years of uncontested publicity, much, naturally, with the backing and blessing of Marvel as he boosted the Marvel brand as a side effect of boosting himself. The decades of Lee's self-promotion culminated with his cameo appearances in over 35 Marvel films starting with "X-Men" in 2000, thus cementing his status as the creator of all things Marvel to an otherwise unknowing movie audience of millions, unfamiliar with the true history of Marvel comics. My father's first screen credit didn't appear until the closing crawl at the end of the film adaptation of Iron Man in 2008**, after Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Larry Lieber. The battle for creator's rights has been around since the first inscribed Babylonian tablet. It's way past time to at least get this one chapter of literary/art history right. 'Nuff said.

Comparison of the origins for The Challengers of The Unknown and The Fantastic Four, both involving the teams coming together in an altruistic fashion after a near death experience in a plane/ship crash, as presented in Showcase #6 (1957) and The Fantastic Four #1 (1961) respectively:

*Spider-Man is a Jack Kirby concept that originated between Joe Simon and C.C. Beck named "Silver Spider." Ditko has commonly stated that it bared too much similarity to The Fly, a character Kirby previously worked on at Archie, hence the change of hands on the project to Ditko. So far the presentation page and six page story Kirby did have been hidden by Marvel, with this Ditko drawing being our closest approximate:

**Kirby is credited in X-Men (2000) under "The Producers wish to thank the following for their assistance:"

The Bezzle excerpt (Part II)

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me next in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

Today, I'm bringing you part two of this week's serialized excerpt from The Bezzle, my new Martin Hench high-tech crime revenge thriller:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Though most of the scams that Hench – a two-fisted forensic accountant specializing in Silicon Valley skullduggery – goes after in The Bezzle have a strong tech component, this excerpt concerns a pre-digital scam: music royalty theft.

This is a subject that I got really deep into when researching and writing 2022's Chokepoint Capitalism – a manifesto for fixing creative labor markets:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

My co-author on that book is Rebecca Giblin, who also happens to be one of the world's leading experts in "copyright termination" – the legal right of creative workers to claw back any rights they signed over after 35 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

This was enshrined in the 1976 Copyright Act, and has largely languished in obscurity since then, though recent years have seen creators of all kinds getting their rights back through termination – the authors of The Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High Books, Stephen King, and George Clinton, to name a few. The estates of the core team at Marvel Comics, including Stan Lee, just settled a case that might have let them take the rights to all those characters back from Disney:

https://www.thewrap.com/marvel-settles-spiderman-lawsuit-steve-ditko/

Copyright termination is a powerful tonic to the bargaining disparities between creative workers. A creative worker who signs a bad contract at the start of their career can – if they choose – tear that contract up 35 years later and demand a better one.

Turning this into a plot-point in The Bezzle is the kind of thing that I love about this series – the ability to take important, obscure, technical aspects of how the world works and turn them into high-stakes technothriller storylines that bring them to the audience they deserve.

If you signed something away 35 years ago and you want to get it back, try Rights Back, an automated termination of tranfer tool co-developed by Creative Commons and Authors Alliance (whose advisory board I volunteer on):

https://rightsback.org/

All right, onto today's installment. Here's part one, published on Saturday:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

It was on one of those drives where Stefon learned about copyright termination. It was 2011, and NPR was doing a story on the 1976 Copyright Act, passed the same year that was on the bottom of the document Chuy forged.

Under the ’76 act, artists acquired a “termination right”—­ that is, the power to cancel any copyright assignment after thirty-­five years, even if they signed a contract promising to sign away their rights forever and a day (or until the copyright ran out, which was nearly the same thing).

Listening to a smart, assured lady law professor from UC Berkeley explaining how this termination thing worked, Stefon got a wild idea. He pulled over and found a stub of a pencil and the back of a parking-­ticket envelope and wrote down the professor’s name when it was repeated at the end of the program. The next day he went to the Inglewood Public Library and got a reference librarian to teach him how to look up a UC Berkeley email address and he sent an email to the professor asking how he could terminate his copyright assignment.

He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to answer him, but she did, in less than a day. He got the email on his son’s smartphone and the boy helped him send a reply asking if he could call her. One thing led to another and two weeks later, he’d filed the paperwork with the U.S. Copyright Office, along with a check for one hundred dollars.

Time passed, and Stefon mostly forgot about his paperwork adventure with the Copyright Office, though every now and again he’d remember, think about that hundred dollars, and shake his head. Then, nearly a year later, there it was, in his mailbox: a letter saying that his copyright assignment had been canceled and his copyrights were his again. There was also a copy of a letter that had been sent to Chuy, explaining the same thing.

Stefon knew a lawyer—­well, almost a lawyer, an ex–­trumpet player who became a paralegal after one time subbing for Sly Stone’s usual guy, and then never getting another gig that good. He invited Jamal over for dinner and cooked his best pot roast and served it with good whiskey and then Jamal agreed to send a letter to Inglewood Jams, informing them that Chuy no longer controlled his copyrights and they had to deal with him direct from now on.

Stefon hand-­delivered the letter the next day, wearing his good suit for reasons he couldn’t explain. The receptionist took it without a blink. He waited.

“Thank you,” she said, pointedly, glancing at the door.

“I can wait,” he said.

“For what?” She reminded him of his boy’s girlfriend, a sophomore a year younger than him. Both women projected a fierce message that they were done with everyone’s shit, especially shit from men, especially old men. He chose his words carefully.

“I don’t know, honestly.” He smiled shyly. He was a good-­looking man, still. That smile had once beamed out of televisions all over America, from the Soul Train stage. “But ma’am, begging your pardon, that letter is about my music, which you all sell here. You sell a lot of it, and I want to talk that over with whoever is in charge of that business.”

She let down her guard by one minute increment. “You’ll want Mr. Gounder,” she said. “He’s not in today. Give me your phone number, I’ll have him call.”

He did, but Mr. Gounder didn’t call. He called back two days later, and the day after that, and the following Monday, and then he went back to the office. The receptionist who reminded him of his son’s girlfriend gave him a shocked look.

“Hello,” he said, and tried out that shy smile. “I wonder if I might see that Mr. Gounder.”

She grew visibly uncomfortable. “Mr. Gounder isn’t in today,” she lied. “I see,” he said. “Will he be in tomorrow?”

“No,” she said.

“The day after?”

“No.” Softer.

“Is that Mr. Gounder of yours ever coming in?”

She sighed. “Mr. Gounder doesn’t want to speak with you, I’m sorry.”

The smile hadn’t worked, so he switched to the look he used to give his bandmates when they wouldn’t cooperate. “Maybe someone can tell me why?”

A door behind her had been open a crack; now it swung wide and a young man came out. He looked Hispanic, with a sharp fade and flashy sneakers, but he didn’t talk like a club kid or a hood rat—­he sounded like a USC law student.

“Sir, if you have a claim you’d like Mr. Gounder to engage with, please have your attorney contact him directly.”

Stefon looked this kid up and down and up, tried and failed to catch the receptionist’s eye, and said, “Maybe I can talk this over with you. Are you someone in charge around here?”

“I’m Xavier Perez. I’m vice president for catalog development here. I don’t deal with legal claims, though. That’s strictly Mr. Gounder’s job. Please have your attorney put your query in writing and Mr. Gounder will be in touch as soon as is ­feasible.”

“I did have a lawyer write him a letter,” Stefon said. “I gave it to this young woman. Mr. Gounder hasn’t been in touch.”

Perez looked at the receptionist. “Did you receive a letter from this gentleman?”

She nodded, still not meeting Stefon’s eye. “I gave it to Mr. Gounder last week.”

Perez grinned, showing a gold tooth, and then, in his white, white voice, said, “There you have it. I’m sure Mr. Gounder will get back in touch with your counsel soon. Thank you for coming in today, Mr.—­”

“Stefon Magner.” Stefon waited a moment, then said, for the first time in many years, “I used to perform under Steve Soul, though.”

Perez nodded briskly. He’d known that. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Magner.” Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared back into his office.

ETA: Here's part three!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#copyright-termination

Statement by Neal Kirby on the recent Disney+ Stan Lee documentary.

Full transcript below:

The 13th-century Islamic poet/scholar Rumi said, "The Ego is a veil between humans and God." In the Disney+ documentary bio of Stan Lee, the veil is lifted. Presented in the first person with Lee's voice providing a running narrative, it is Stan Lee's greatest tribute to himself. The literary expression of ego is the personal pronoun "I." Any decent English or Journalism teacher would admonish their students not to overuse it. So, the challenge is extended to anyone who wishes to count the number of "I's" during the 86-minute running time of Stan Lee.

I (000ps!) understand that, as a "documentary about Stan Lee," most of the narrative is in his voice, literally and figuratively. It's not any big secret that there has always been controversy over the parts that were played in the creation and success of Marvel's characters. Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon. He made himself the voice of Marvel. So, for several decades he was the "only" man standing, and blessed with a long life, the last man standing (my father died in 1994). It should also be noted and is generally accepted that Stan Lee had a limited knowledge of history, mythology, or science.

On the other hand, my father's knowledge of these subjects, to which I and many others can personally attest, was extensive. Einstein summed it up better; "More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego."

If you were to look at a list and timeline of Marvel's characters from 1960 through 1966, the period in which the vast majority of Marvel's major characters were created during Lee's tenure, you will see Lee's name as a co-creator on every character, with the exception of the Silver Surfer, solely created by my father. Are we to assume Lee had a hand in creating every Marvel character? Are we to assume that the other co-creator never walked into Lee's office and said, "Stan, I have a great idea for a character!" According to Lee, it was always his idea. Lee spends a fair amount of time talking about how and why he created the Fantastic Four, with only one fleeting reference to my father. Indeed, most comics historians recognize that my father based the Fantastic Four on a 1957 comic he created for DC, "Challengers of the Unknown," even naming Ben Grimm (The Thing) after his father Benjamin, and Sue Storm after my older sister Susan.

Though the conflict between Lee and my father concerning creator credit gets glanced over with little mention, there is more attention paid to the strife between Lee and Steve Ditko, with Lee's voice proclaiming, "It was my idea, therefore I created the character," Ditko's rebuttal being that his art and storyline is what brought life to Spiderman. In 1501, the Opera del Duomo commissioned a 26-year-old Michelangelo to sculpt a statue of David for the Cathedral of Florence – their idea, their money. The statue is called Michelangelo's David – his genius, his vision, his creativity.

I was very fortunate. My father worked at home in his Long Island basement studio we referred to as "The Dungeon," usually 14 – 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Most of the artists, writers, inkers, etc. worked at home, not in the Marvel offices as depicted in the program. Through middle and high school, I was able to stand at my father's left shoulder, peer through a cloud of cigar smoke, and witness the Marvel Universe being created. I am by no means a comics historian, but there are few, if any, that have personally seen or experienced what I have, and know the truth with first-hand knowledge.

My father retired from comic books in the early 1980s and of course, passed away in 1994. Lee had over 35 years of uncontested publicity, much naturally, with the backing and blessing of Marvel as he boosted the Marvel brand as a side effect of boosting himself. The decades of Lee's self-promotion culminated with his cameo appearances in over 35 Marvel films starting with "X-Men" in 2000, thus cementing his status as the creator of all things Marvel to an otherwise unknowing movie audience of millions, unfamiliar with the true history of Marvel comics. My father's first screen credit didn't appear until the closing crawl at the end of the film adaptation of Iron Man in 2008, after Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Larry Lieber. The battle for creator's rights has been around since the first inscribed Babylonian tablet. It's way past time to at least get this one chapter of literary/art history right. 'Nuff said.

A mischievous god, a reverend and a newly engaged man: Tom Hiddleston has been busy

by Bob Strauss. Photos: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

It hardly needs saying, but Tom Hiddleston is a much nicer guy than Loki, the supervillain he’s played in six Marvel movies and an acclaimed Disney+ series, which just started shooting its second season in England.

And despite the Norse God of Mischief’s ubiquity, the Cambridge and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-educated actor does have other interests. His stage résumé is as impressive as the array of auteurs he’s made movies with: Joanna Hogg, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Terence Davies, Jim Jarmusch, Guillermo del Toro, Ben Wheatley. There’s also prestige TV such as “The Night Manager” and now “The Essex Serpent,” which launched in May on Apple TV+.

Still, “‘Loki,’ ‘Essex Serpent,’ they have occupied the last two years of my life,” Hiddleston notes on a warm afternoon in an L.A. hotel garden.

Of course, there was more to the last several years than “Essex” and the first season of “Loki.” Hiddleston found time in March to propose to Zawe Ashton, his co-star in a 2019 West End revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal.”

“I’m very happy” is all he wants to say about that, perhaps gun-shy regarding personal matters since a super-scrutinized 2016 romance with Taylor Swift. But just get him started on the latest shows ....

“I love playing Loki, have loved playing him every time,” the actor says about Thor’s shape-and-loyalty-shifting brother. “In every story, there’s been a different iteration, a different director, a different spin on the ball, if you like.”

The “Loki” series takes place in a divergent timeline before/after he was killed in the last two “Avengers” movies. This trickster version is detained by a kind of cosmic bureaucracy, the Time Variance Authority, and stripped of his powers if not his arrogance.

“If you take away everything that the character knows and understands, what remains?” Hiddleston submits. “Something will be revealed to us and to Loki about who he is. This idea of him undergoing an almost psychoanalytical interrogation with the TVA’s Mobius, played by Owen Wilson, and being confronted with repetitive patterns of destructive behavior, which only resulted in his loss and loneliness, I found to be extremely exciting.”

Another first, for Marvel and Loki: He came out as bisexual to the series’ other key frenemy, Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie, a female variant of himself.

“In my research into the character and the ancient stories, Loki’s identity has always been fluid in his gender and sexuality,” Hiddleston notes. “It was a privilege to touch on it this time. I’m aware it’s a small step and there’s further to go, but I hope that people felt represented by it.”

Contemporary concerns are also represented in Sarah Perry’s bestselling historical novel “The Essex Serpent.” It’s set in a scientifically advancing 1893, while superstitions still haunt the Blackwater Estuary on England’s eastern coast. People go missing, a big underwater thing is bumping into fishermen’s boats, and some believe a folklore dragon has returned.

Claire Danes plays Cora Seaborne, recently widowed from an abusive marriage and an amateur paleontologist, who comes up from London to investigate. An attraction grows between her and the local, married vicar, Hiddleston’s Will Ransome. All six episodes were directed by another of the actor’s admired auteurs, Clio Barnard (“The Arbor,” “Dark River”).

“I loved this combination of her and the story,” Hiddleston says. “It deals with some very resonant themes: uncertainty, fear and how fear of what we don’t understand can sometimes collectively distort reality. There’s an ideological debate between science and religion that’s staged in the dynamic between Cora and my character, the very progressive but nevertheless faithful reverend of the community.

“In my research into the character and the ancient stories, Loki’s identity has always been fluid in his gender and sexuality,” Hiddleston notes. “It was a privilege to touch on it this time. I’m aware it’s a small step and there’s further to go, but I hope that people felt represented by it.”

“It felt like with the pandemic, we all had to manage so much uncertainty,” he continues. “It’s about that, but of course there’s a very psychological metaphor about the serpent, things that lie beneath the surface.”

Hiddleston tried to be a gracious host to his American co-star when they filmed in the Essex salt marshes 13 months ago but fears he might have gone too far.

“It’s windy and it’s muddy and it’s wet,” he says of the shoot. “Claire was incredibly game about all of that. I became a kind of cliché Englishman, endlessly promising that the weather would improve. Every day I’d be like, ‘It’s going to get better, Claire! Just you wait, the spring in England is lovely!’”

Cliché, or in actuality a particularly nice chap?

“I was very lucky when I was younger,” Hiddleston reckons, regarding his reputation. “I worked with some great actors, and I could see that they were very committed to the work and very kind, inspiring in that way. I was junior to Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench and Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor; these are the best of guys doing it.

“I try to put my best foot forward,” he concludes, then adds with a sheepish grin, “It’s hard to address that.”

“The Labors of Magik Goes Out with a Whimper”

Body of a letter-to-the-editor I emailed to Marvel after reading New Mutants #28.  Spoilers for that issue.

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

/

The promotional material before New Mutants #25 led us to believe "The Labors of Magik" would be a war between Illyana and Madelyne for the throne of Limbo.  How I wish that had been the case.   Writer Vita Ayala had some great ideas:  

An Illyana-centric story:  Great idea!

Illyana, Rahne, and Dani team up:  Great idea!  (A Magik/Wolfsbane team-up would also be fun, but I have to accept the fact that Marvel does not now have, never has, or ever will have any interest in doing that.  But I can still lodge the complaint [again].)

Magik v. the Golbin Queen for the Throne of Limbo:  Great idea!

The Labors of Magik:  Where great idea went to die.  And #28 was the story's underwhelming conclusion.   We began #28 by learning a future/alternate version of Illyana was S'Ym's benefactor.  I suspected that from the start.  Although the silhouette in #25 was drawn to look like Belasco, S'Ym's ally had two arms whereas Belasco has one.  Vita managed to muddy the water by having Belasco generate a false energy arm in #27 (something he has never done in any other comic appearance and certainly not in the Magik limited series written by Chris Claremont), and I briefly hoped for something more creative than another version of Illyana, but alas, that was not to be.

Other than expressing their concerns about Illyana turning Limbo over to the Goblin Queen, Dani and Rahne have almost nothing to do in "The Labors of Magik."  There's hardly any chemistry between these three young women even though they have known each other, lived together, and fought side-by-side for roughly a decade.  (I'm assuming that the O. G. New Mutants are all in their mid-twenties during the Krakoa era.)  It could have been any two characters.  It could have been Storm and Wolverine.   It could have been Captain America and Hulk.  It could have been Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano.  Or just Illyana and her brother for all four issues.  Absolutely anyone Marvel has the publishing rights for given the lack of chemistry.  Dani and Rahne were completely unnecessary to the story.  Why were they there?  

After Queen Illyana is, well, dispatched just when she gets interesting, Regular Illyana gets her magical power back, and a text page explains what has happened to her.  These feel like afterthoughts, last minute changes to a story designed to either write Illyana out of existence or regress her to an unpowered child (again).  I have a very easy time envisioning someone from Disney HQ going to Marvel's editorial offices to lay down the law in person:  "Magik is a major character!  She's all over the comics lines except for the Star Wars Line, she's in the video games, and she was the breakout star of a movie that otherwise tanked.   We're already having discussions about casting her for the MCU; I've had three calls from Taylor-Joy this week.  You will NOT get rid of her, Ayala!  If you do, we will get rid of you!  And the next very next New Mutants writer brings Magik back as soon as possible and we forget this ever happened!  Capiche!?"   I do not doubt that the writer and editors will completely deny anything like that this happened, but the fact that a knucklehead like me could envision that shows my lack of trust in the writer in this case.

We end on a late-night heart-to-heart between Illyana and her brother in which Illyana explains she was tired of being angry.  Oh, please.   Illyana was never just angry.  3/5 of her soul had been consecrated to evil via the creation of the bloodstones, and the demonic side of being expressed itself through her being a bad attitude.  That's something you can't wish away.  Or shouldn't be able to.  And Illyana's motivation that she was tired of being angry was weak, especially given that everybody she knows is used to it by now.  Why the rush to change?  I couldn't see a pressing reason for it.  

The flashback reveals that child Illyana defied Belasco because of a book created a time-traveling demon she had once shown kindness.  Excuse me? The little sister of Colossus, who was pretty much being raised by the X-Men and who wanted to be a superhero like her big brother, was going to give up all hope and knuckle under to Belasco if not for the book this demon had somehow caused to write?  Seriously?  

(BTW, what happened to Squidge?  He was a little critter who came and went on the first pages of Magik #3.  I had assumed/hoped if we saw more of Illyana's time as Belasco's apprentice, we would see more of Squidge.   Guess not.)

And to top it all off, the introductory text said one of Illyana's duties was being the leader of the New Mutants.  SAY WHAT!?  For four decades, I thought DANI was and is the leader of the New Mutants.  No wonder Magik was burning out!  This begs the question, could the whole mess have been avoided if 'Yana had just given Dani her old job back?  Or maybe Illyana, Dani, and Rahne could have taken time off and gone on vacation?  That would have been more fun than "Labors of Magik" turned out to be...unless Vita wrote that, too...then...well...  

We're left with the Goblin Queen on the throne of Limbo, and I suppose that's got some story potential in it.  There's also the mystery of where Illyana's stepping disks now take people.  And what her place in the mystical world is now that she's no longer the sorceress supreme of Limbo.  Ok.  But that potential came at the cost of changing Illyana in fundamental ways.  Magik's story was always more than just an allegory for child abuse.  Being angry and being the queen of Limbo were central to her character for 40 years.  Remove those things and we're left with...what?  I can't relate to the character who was having a heart-to-heart with her older brother in #28.  I don't know how to relate to her, and I'm not sure I want to.  The "old Magik" had an edge.  Vita's "New Magik" has the cutting edge of a whiffle ball.  To be blunt:  A happy Magik is boring Magik.  

I can't see any reason for the changes to Magik's character, or who beyond Vita Ayala could have possibly wanted them.  "Because no one demanded it, we did it anyway because...well, just because!  Vita's tired of writing 'Yana in a bad mood all the time.  What do you care?   You're going to buy the BLEEP book anyway, so BLEEP you!"  Sadly, I did buy the BLEEP book, and I will probably buy the BLEEP trade paperback, but sales receipts do not indicate quality.  

So much potential, and all to nothing.  What a waste.

Better luck next time?

I really like your meta about Wanda. So this isn't a criticism, more a question. When you talk about emotional and irrational female leads, I wonder if the reason it doesn't bother me as much is that when infinity war came out, Quill and Thor (not killing Thanos straight away at Wakanda) kind of both did a similar thing. I don't see that being attributed to them being men. Hope that makes sense. Or is it you are more concerned that this will be attributed to them being women?

It’s not so much that as...well, it’s partly that. But it’s mostly about numbers and patterns, the things that turn one-off plotlines into tropes and trends. In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with this type of storyline going to a female character, where grief and power combine to make her increasingly and dangerously unstable to the point where she either becomes a villain or can only find redemption through sacrificing herself. But nothing exists in a vacuum, and the actual context is that I’m having a hard time thinking of any male characters who get this type of storyline. Instead it tends to be a thing that’s written for female characters, the implication—whether it’s deliberate or not—being that women are too emotional to handle power past a certain point. Off the top of my head, comics Wanda, MCU Wanda, comics Dark Phoenix, definitely the first Dark Phoenix film (as I understand it, the more recent one was somewhat better this way), and Aida in Agents of SHIELD fit into this trope, and then you have even dumber stuff like Oz the Great and Powerful where the Wicked Witch of the West used to be good actually until she had her heart broken by a dude and then she just...kinda...turned evil?

In the context of the MCU specifically, it’s...kind of worse, although not quite as much as it would have been a few years ago, but—well, I mentioned numbers. In MCU canon at this point, only looking at what’s actually been released so far or will be released within the next month or so (and assuming I’m counting and adding right), we have:

22 movies named after one or two title characters

7 movies named after an ensemble and therefore not relevant to this discussion

6 Disney+ shows named for 1-2 title characters

What If, which I’m counting as an ensemble show, so it’s also not relevant

7 non-Disney+ shows with 1-2 title characters, and

4 non-Disney+ shows named after an ensemble.

Again assuming I'm counting right (although if I'm not, I don't think I'm off by enough to change my point), that leaves us with 39 movies or shows named after 1-2 characters each. (I’m only counting “the Winter Soldier” as a title character in his show, not in Cap 2, and I’m not counting Ultron at all.) Because a disproportionate number of those movies are about the same handful of dudes, I think it actually ends up being 30 different title characters, even if they shared billing with someone else. Of those title characters, only 8 or maybe 9 are female: Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Wanda, Wasp, Agent Carter, Dagger, Jessica Jones, Ms. Marvel, and arguably Hawkeye, although Kate’s kind of a stretch. (It’s also fair to note that only half of these characters get to be title characters by themselves rather than sharing the title with a guy, but since I’m trying to be fair, I will also note that only Ant-Man has been a title character by himself, and the others seem to have equal billing in their respective pairings. But honestly, that doesn’t make it much better.)

Want to guess how many other title characters get a storyline like Wanda’s, where they maybe start out with the bad guys (although for understandable reasons, if you’re not dead set on hating them from the jump), firmly establish themselves as good guys for multiple entries, and then spiral so far into villainy that apparently they just have to go the redemption = death route to finish things off, with absolutely no guarantees they're coming back from it?

Um…none! None characters! Bucky kind of does something similar, but I really don’t think that counts because it wasn’t his choice at all, and Loki’s arc is more the reverse of that than anything. I never watched The Punisher but I’m pretty sure Frank was an antihero from his introduction so I don’t think that counts either. Supreme Strange in What If is also sort of similar, except he gets a chance to redeem himself after his episode despite destroying—I’m pretty sure—a lot more than Wanda did. Come to think of it, Vision in the zombies What If episode is also pretty similar in that he’s a card-carrying Good Guy who ends up doing some awful, selfish things out of love and eventually sacrifices himself in an attempt to make things right, which is honestly kind of funny in terms of any WandaVision discourse about how she didn’t deserve him or whatever, but just like with Supreme Strange, that’s not the main-timeline version of the character…and it was in a one-off episode that didn’t matter that much because a lot of people didn’t even see it. Plus there’s nothing ickily gendered about it with Vision, because you’re not presented with a multiverse of possibilities where the only sane, stable version of the character is—just as a random example—the relatively low-powered suburban one who’s perfectly content having not come into his full power. Probably the closest any of our many male title characters came to Wanda’s arc was just…the glimpses of alternate-timeline Stranges in Multiverse of Madness. Which, again, were not the main-timeline version of the character like Wanda is.

The MCU has had so few female title characters to begin with. One of them was already dead before she ever got her movie, for fuck's sake. Making Wanda a major character, letting her be so incredibly powerful, and then doing this with her is just—

Again, in a vacuum, it wouldn't be such a huge deal. In a vacuum, or in a world where we've had a roughly equal number of male and female title characters in the MCU, with comparable levels of agency, it could be a compelling storyline, at least if you find a way to do it without sacrificing existing characterization. In a world where the MCU has at least experimented more with morally gray protagonists outside of Netflix, it would still bug me but it wouldn't be so bad, because there would be precedent, and there would probably be more of an attempt from the editing and directing--rather than just from Elizabeth Olsen's acting, by all accounts--to make sure the character stays sympathetic. In the context of the numbers and storylines we actually have so far, it’s...really kind of gross!

And actually if you consider a handful of additional major characters who haven’t been title characters, it gets a little worse, because still the only marginally relevant dudes I can think of were relatively minor SHIELD agents (well, and Ward) that we assumed were good guys who were later revealed to be HYDRA, and...Sharon Carter making herself the Power Broker because of reasons, which isn’t really relevant to the whole “women are too emotional for power” trope but is pretty weird in terms of “all the card-carrying Good Guys in this franchise who kinda decide to switch sides have something in common”. So there's that, too.

hmmmm, I wonder about the wider and long term impact of Harry Potter on YA and middle grades books.

I mean hers was really the first such book to make all the money in the known universe, gain mega super unstoppable popularity, that lasted for years and years and years, everyone from age 8 to 80 read them, my grandma read them (she was a big reader and was thrilled her grandkids were reading and wanted to be able to talk to us about it) did that have the effect of focusing more punishing attention on YA? did its cross over adult appeal as well as long term cultural staying power cause more people who are adults now to feel comfortable staying in YA?

I mean, yeah, at least to a certain extent?

Plus, like with the Marvel movies (but done, to a certain extent, less blatantly, at least initially, in the HP case), there's that continued and built-in buy-in that makes you keep coming back because you have to know what happens next and you have to take advantage of the latest offering. But it was executed and done more creatively and, dare I say, enjoyably.

Plus there was the same phenomenon where it went from being kind of a niche underdog thing (you're reading a book about magic? from britain?) to this mega mainstream popular thing but a lot of people didn't accept or see how it had shifted and so it became totemic, on top of the appeal it already had (like in the Christopher Hitchens review I shared last night).

But because it hit in the right sweet spot both developmentally for a lot of people but culturally (the late 90s into early-to-mid-2000s) it took advantage of (and helped create) shifts in pop culture and media consumption (plus at one point it was the progressive/liberal option since it was targeted for promoting witchcraft and satanism by a lot of the Concerned Parents and right-wing groups, so it was able to coast on that cachet for a while). I could also argue that in a post-9/11 world there was the ongoing appeal of a relatively simple message about generic good triumphing over generic evil which cuts across age groups and ideologies and which was an element of stability - yes there are individual (sometimes lots of individual) pains and suffering but the overall arc goes to a positive result.

The thing is, YA (or books that would be considered YA) have always been popular - it's never not been a profitable genre. What HP and all that did was do, in a lot of cases, what Marvel/Disney did to movies, and sort of fundamentally reshape much of how it operates and what it promotes, and the specific type of book or book series matters less as long as it can follow the general path and rules that have been laid down.

Plus, nostalgia is also always profitable (it's why a lot of trends never go away and just get cycled back - it's one of the reasons why Barbie, to use a particular example, really kind of took off in the late 80s into the 90s, because the kids who had grown up playing with those dolls in the 60s and 70s were now old enough to both have kids of their own to introduce Barbie to but also had the money and ability to indulge themselves and start collecting) and HP has that mixture of general ("timeless" I guess could be a better word) and specific appeal which continues to carry forward in a way that other stuff doesn't.

I’m so fucking sick of this pattern of bullshit every time I go into these goddamn fucking tags:

I’m so fucking sick of all these bizarro unhinged Vivziepop Fanti Fandom Centrist “Critical Accounts” invading the tags to finger wag at people while they cry about abuse and hypocrisy as they, ~in all seriousness~ try to convince us how Viv Medrano is simply too young to be a critically acclaimed animation juggernaut and instead, just needs to have her pencil taken away from her and should like, probably be placed under a conservatorship of some sort and have her babies be placed into the hands of a more capable man, or should be institutionalized for the good of her own health for being naïve enough to hold the notion that her tiny teeny jelly beanie brain could possibly hold enough power in it to run two shows at once and she should just like, you know... Stay out of sight in the psych ward until she can learn to let go of her crazy dreams because clearly she’s killing herself and her own fanbase are the ones who keep feeding off of, and abusing that numbing drug that is her bruised ego. 

The antis who kept wishing death on her and accusing her of being a racist, pedo zoophile have absolutely nothing to do with wether she’s actually depressed or not (not that that’s any of this blogs business) but how DARE you think I endorse those behaviors! Shame on YOU Vivziepop Standom! 

Breaking the bit now though I knew this was a bullshit post the second they started rambling about “both shows slowly declining”.... Hazbin Hotel isn’t even out yet what the fuck are these people on about?! Sounds like someone’s more than a bit angry about Angel Dust’s Boob Floof Angle. 

A. Once more, the absolute eeriness of misogynists concern trolling over this women’s health by instructing her what to do. So like, another example of the disturbing implications of behaving like you’d rather have this women be placed under a conservatorship than be her own Show Creator..

B. Who the fuck even talks like this anymore? I sense that squeecore is more your thing, but I thought you of all people would know better that we are in fact in The Owl House generation of Yuri themed Harry Potter rip offs now. Not *Actual* Harry Potter. Get a life. 

Once again this shit has absolutely fuck all to do to with Anti Culture screaming and creaming over Viv Medrano allegedly loving blackface and raping children and dogs and hitting the ground running with this narrative the second the pilot premiered and before the show even got any breathing room as this backlash to her very existence only worsened as time went on and her work got green-lit by this major Hollywood studio only to be immediately protested after by the same rabid hive mind who triggered all this shit happening in the first place. Nope. It’s exclusively Vivziepops own fanbase that’s to blame. Nothing else.

....Why is this dude talking about Viv as if she’s been placed on suicide watch and he’s the medic responsible for bringing her in? Jesus. The woman making a tweet a week ago about taking a break from socials proves to be the exact opposite of “hurting herself”.

The ones who are trying to act as her personal policers obsessing over every breath she takes and every move she makes are the only ones contributing to any hurt and suffering here. Including mine. Quit being a creep and get a life!

 Disney Adult Blog

Bright Blue Color Scheme

Marvel Blog 

“Just A Little Critique blog”

“DNI if anti hazbin (with a few exceptions if ur one of da good ones ... UWU)”

oh-god-dude , THANK YOU for being yet another shining example of how all Hazbin Fanti Discourse blogs have shit taste, no space for their centrist bullshit opinions within the genuine fandom, and continue to be the most insidious frickers alive for enabling the very Anti Culture that causes so much harm to come invade our spaces and then turn around and act as though the only ones who are responsible for Viv’s own personal experiences with pain and suffering that you couldn’t possibly know of, is all inflicted by her own fans and absolutely no one else as if you think you’re not contributing just as much to our problems .  We hate you!

Like, the absolute gall and irony of modding an Anti Friendly “VivziePop Criticism” blog, acting like you’re not an Anti while you’re using a reaction gif of one of Britney Spear’s abusive ex boyfriends to snidely “critique” Viv Medrano’s work while you put your little fanti cult on a pedestal as you essentially treat Vivienne Medrano as the Britney Spears of modern animation (in the negative context here) constantly posturing over Medrano’s health and wellness and questioning Viv’s own agency to be in control because you’re just as bitter and misogynistic and resentful towards Viv as the ones who ruined Britney’s life and then act like they did nothing wrong? Delicious.

Well, Owl House ain’t going back to you, that’s for sure!

For me Hazbin is just catered to be the perfect treat for a specific kind of adult Animation nerd to indulge and I’m only saying this now because I’ve come reconcile with the fact that Viv Medrano’s work will most like be the only sets of Western Cartoons that I’ll ever care about again in my Adult Life after Hazbin Hotel is finished as a series.

But hey, if you wanna still choose Disney Cartoons that were canceled for being too gay over an enriching indie adult animation..... Be my guest.

If an Adult Cis Man posted this I’m kind of disappointed and squicked out.

If a kid posted this then they need to stay out of these tags!

The rest of you need to stop mixing your children’s media in with my Animated Adult Horror Musical!

But yes, everyone needs to stop hate humping on Viv Medrano’s leg and just leave her alone.

Need A Sensual Movie To Watch During Quarantine?

WATCH TWOGETHER ON TUBI FOR FREE!

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: January 10, 2022 (ReportWire.org). FreeStyle Digital Media recently announced the re-release of the summer classic “TWOGETHER” for high definition streaming and download on all the major online digital streaming platforms. In 1995 Sony Pictures Entertainment initially distributed “TWOGETHER,” which took the entire world by storm one kiss at a time. Starring Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”) as Arnie, “TWOGETHER” follows the story of a sultry duo of lovers who lose themselves in a weekend of wild, adventurous, exciting, naughty love-making. “In many ways, “TWOGETHER” is timelier today than when it was first released,” comments Writer/Director Andrew Chiaramonte. “Casual sex leading nowhere is a sign of the time; another 'drug' of sorts to help distance oneself from the harsh reality of today's world.” Produced by Emmett Alston and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the film stars Nick Cassavetes (“Hangover II,” director of “Notebook”), Brenda Bakke (“Hot Shots! Part Deux”), Jeremy Piven (“Mr Selfridge”) and Jim Beaver (“Supernatural”). "The performances were very wonderful. Nick cassavetes reminds me of Sam Shepard. Brenda Blake is wonderful." - RENFREU NEFF, FOREIGN PRESS John Madler (Nick Cassavetes) is an ambitious, unstable, hungry artist who believes in the freedoms of artistic expression who creates a magnetic attraction to Allison McKenzie (Brenda Bakke) a snobby young woman from Bel Air who happens to be seeking to a get away from her personal life. When the couple meet up at an artwork convention, they have lust instantly, and not a single thing can possibly keep them from leaving for Vegas alongside one another for what becomes an erotic period of time of kinky sexual intimacy and intoxication - a spent holiday weekend where they gave into their own lust for each other and their affections devoid of restraint. Nevertheless love become involved, their relationship crafted solely on lovemaking proceeds to evolve towards something out of the blue. “TWOGETHER” is about a picture of the true love concerning two lovers; a good example showing how people can potentially fall for one another even if they should not, however, they can make it succeed regardless if the relationship is simply not worthy it.

“TWOGETHER” is now available for rent or purchase - instant download on:

iTunes

Amazon Prime Video

Google Play

YouTube

Microsoft Movies & TV (including Xbox)

  OR…

WATCH IT NOW FOR FREE ON TubiTV!

  The film is distributed by FreeStyle Digital Media and is unrated. For More Information please visit:

Twogether Website

Twogether YouTube Channel

Twitter

Facebook

Getting My World-wide Box Office To Work A Wrinkle in Time bought out the gate somewhat more slowly but surely than hoped for this weekend, and Disney is projecting a gap weekend of $33.3 million, as of Sunday morning. That’s basically in line with our prediction on Thursday of just under $35 million, but nicely down below what pre-release interest while in the movie might have created look achievable. Our DVD and Blu-ray product sales estimates are dependant on weekly retail surveys, which we use to develop a weekly market place share estimate for every title we have been monitoring. The marketplace share is transformed into a weekly income estimate dependant on field stories on the overall sizing of the industry, like experiences posted in Media Engage in Information. For instance, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a selected title offered 1% of all models that 7 days, as well as business experiences profits of one,five hundred,000 units in whole, We're going to estimate fifteen,000 models were sold of that title. Easter weekend gave box office watchers a few causes to rejoice. The Curse of La Llorona topped anticipations and acquired 1st position with $26.35 million around the weekend. That’s an exceedingly potent debut for this time of year. Additionally, each Shazam and Captain Marvel held on astonishingly properly, which bodes perfectly for their chances against Avengers: Endgame. Over-all, the box office rose 1% from past weekend to $108 million. This was fourteen% reduce than exactly the same weekend previous year, and it wasn’t Easter weekend past yr. On the aspect note, I’ve witnessed some stories call this past weekend the worst Easter weekend in over a decade. As a franchise, Quick plus the Furious appeared burnt out in 2009. Tokyo Drift bombed failing to match its creation finances domestically and certain getting rid of a ton throughout the world. Fast and Furious saw the return of the first Forged, which assisted it return to past heights in terms of box office bucks, but critics eviscerated it. It is additionally the 1st movie to open up with a lot more than $500 million throughout the world and it is simply a make any difference of when, not if, it'll leading $one billion globally. The only real draw back is the number of marketplaces it's but to open in, that's a person. It debuts in Japan in August and it'd be the most important world wide hit with the year before it even will get there. Far more... Oct was a much better than predicted thirty day period with the overall box office holding speed with October of 2013, for the most part. (The last weekend will probably be awful, but that's on account of Halloween.) We ended up able to shut the gap fairly within the 12 months-above-year comparison, a minimum of by a bit. So how will November do in comparison to Oct. Let's put it by doing this. There are only 7 films opening large this month. Of those, Past the Lights will possible not make an affect for the box office. Just about every other movie has not less than an affordable shot at $a hundred million. A lot more than 50 percent the with the films opening this thirty day period could hit $two hundred million. Leading the way will be The Hunger Online games: Mockingjay, Section one, which could hit $400 million. The Lion King was broadly anticipated to get a monster strike; nonetheless, this year there are countless opportunity monster hits that have missed expectations. There have been a great number of that I deemed it a good idea to be a bit more pessimistic in my predictions to stop becoming let down another time. Seems I didn’t require to worry, since the film earned $seventy eight million on Friday. It wasn’t in a position to match the report for biggest July day; nonetheless, Harry Potter plus the Deathly Hallows, Component II was the epitome of the Fanboy Film and experienced incredibly shorter legs in theaters. You can find a few other telling figures that expose just how strongly the movie is doing… Ant-Guy as well as the Wasp is the second movie while in the Ant-Person franchise along with the twentieth film within the MCU. I favored the primary movie more than the normal critic, for the reason that I’m a big supporter of heist films. This movie won’t contain the exact same heist angle, so will it not perform with me as much? A lot more... It isn't a particularly sturdy week on the house market place. Cars and trucks three is the largest new launch, but it is far from the top. A spirited opening by Tomb Raider won’t be very plenty of to knock Black Panther off its perch at the very best in the domestic box office chart this weekend. The final quantities might be shut: Raider is predicted to generate $23. As envisioned, Furious seven effortlessly received the race for leading spot within the weekend box office chart. Even so, it did so in an unexpectedly sturdy way, destroying a variety of data alongside the way. This aided the overall box office expand 49% from final weekend to $224 million. In the very first part of this month’s preview, we think about the films which are lined up to open up in August. Tomorrow, we’ll review what it’ll just take to receive box office earnings near usual, and how much time we can anticipate that to acquire, no less than in international locations which are bringing the pandemic below Command. Extra... All the most up-to-date gaming news, match evaluations and trailers The go-to supply for comic book and superhero Film followers. A just one-halt shop for all matters video clip game titles. Much more The Greatest Guide To Film Entertainment has an abundance of murder and mystery. You'll need to wait and find out who's guiding the Ghostface mask in this frightening (but sharply intelligent) Tale a couple of mysterious killer who terrorizes a gaggle of high school pupils. Alleged victims contain a 19-12 months-aged female who was raped in the course of a photo shoot from the San Fernando Valley; a 26-calendar year-previous female who was raped at a party in a very nightclub; a 38-yr-previous who was sexually assaulted in a West Hollywood bar in which Jeremy was a daily; a woman who was sexually assaulted at Jeremy’s dwelling and a girl who was assaulted at a strip club. Senate Bill 1124 will help narrow the very affordable housing hole and positively influence Arizona communities Monarch Personal Money, a nationally acknowledged tax-advantaged expenditure firm that develops, funds and manages a […] CAMERA - Here is the camera We've got used to film ninety+% of our interviews (over two hundred interviews and counting) It proceeds to become our workhorse - LENS - Plenty of people question us what digital camera we use, not a soul at any time asks with regards to the lens which filmmakers constantly convey to us is much more essential. This lens was an enormous investment for us and a person we wish we might have produced sooner. Commenced making use of this lens at the conclusion of 2013 - AUDIO Rode VideoMic Pro - The Rode mic can help us seize our backup audio. Furthermore, it will help us sync up our audio in put up Audio Recorder - If we experienced to do it all once again, this might be the main item we would have bought - LIGHTS - Even though we choose to use just as much purely natural light as we could, we often improve the lighting using this type of tiny moveable light. En path to fulfill his estranged daughter and aiming to revive his dwindling vocation, a broken, Center-aged comic plays a string of dead-conclude exhibits in the Mojave desert. PEAK Relatives TIME Kick back with the whole loved ones to soak up the perfect animated collection & films, or Allow the minor types stream with our child-helpful profiles. Test It Free of charge You might be employing a browser that isn't supported by Fb, so we've redirected you to definitely an easier Variation to supply you with the best encounter. Cinemark Coming Quickly We received’t have the capacity to validate your ticket right now, nevertheless it’s wonderful to be aware of for the long run. The true-lifestyle siblings will star in and govt make two films that may be highlighted as A part of the Hallmark Channel's "Countdown to Xmas" programming A director is frequently the unifying Resourceful power of the film. They will often be also the Producer, which has eroded the comprehension of their core tasks and hierarchical place on established. ════════════════════════════════ List of Summit Entertainment motion pictures, ranked from best to worst, together with trailers, genres, and release dates. Summit Entertainment produced and/or dispersed these films, which happen to be detailed in alphabetical order and sortable by any column. This can be a list of all noteworthy and many famed Summit Entertainment films, which includes movie posters when accessible. It responses the questions, "What motion pictures did Summit Entertainment make? The Blue Lenses There's a stylish emptiness to "Entertainment," definitely, and anti-comedy constructs that may rub the incorrect way, but you will find also a spiky intelligence at function way too, one which engages through the artifice of disengagement and the illusion of "efficiency." November 19, 2015 So... what do Directors even do? That is not a simple dilemma to reply but now Lily will do her ideal. Generally, directors tend to be the driving creative drive guiding a Motion picture, determining what type of cinematic planet the Tale will take place in, how the performances will in shape into that, And just how the digicam will seize that entire world. A film director is often a one who directs the generating of the film. Typically, a film director controls a film's inventive and dramatic factors, and visualizes the script even though guiding the specialized crew and actors while in the fulfillment of that eyesight. The Fact About Online Movies That No One Is Suggesting This web site offers a large number of documentary movies based upon a vast range of topics and matters and genres. The location is really well intended and supplies a properly-sorted listing of the documentaries. Inspite of many of the content getting Indian and in Hindi, it does supply information from Hollywood and various Motion picture industries in addition. If You aren't positive Should the Film is truly worth seeing, you'll be able to view its trailer and then decide if you must Select that movie. SpaceMov is yet another website that hosts video clips in 1080p for a Significant Definition knowledge. It has an incredible main menu with the choice to search by Genre, Nation, plus more. My only trouble? It’s overloaded with adverts. If you can bear closing a different tab each few seconds, This really is for you. The one disadvantage would be that the web-site is often a fresh 1 and thereby vintage titles are hard to find. The location has a very user-welcoming navigation enabling them to settle on what they would like to check out. The easiest way to protect oneself is to employ a support which you understand to become 100% lawful. Amazon Primary is one particular these System. It costs under Rs. 130/thirty day period. When you are a supporter of tv collection too, You'll be able to observe the absolutely free television exhibits right here as well totally free. The episodes of those television sequence also are accessible in a very very well sorted fashion. Do try out This page if you want to watch free of charge movies online with out downloading. After productively developing an account, you will have entry to Many movies furnished by Kanopy within various groups. We are just verifying you're a true human rather than a bot. Just after a number of seconds, our web site will routinely load and the remainder of your visit might be pleasant and fast. We apologize with the inconvenience. You should refresh if the thing is this concept for lengthier than 5 seconds Movies are one of the better ways of passing time and refreshing moods Primarily throughout weekends and holidays. It really is virtually unattainable to observe all movies by intending to Motion picture theaters and that's why the necessity to observe them by streaming them online or by downloading and seeing them offline. The location is available in hardly any nations around the world that come with United states, British isles, Canada and India. The location provides a no cost signup but you’ll have confined use of some premium quality content devoid of membership to look at movies online. Everytime you opt for any movies to observe online, you are able to constantly look for the small print about movies like its star Solid, style, user rankings and various particulars which enable you decide if the Motion picture is really worth offering a look at or not. Plex originally became well known because of Torrenting, but now is accessed by hundreds for your totally free on-demand from customers movies.

What If...? (Big Hero 6 Edition)

So the next Marvel series set to release is What If...?, a series of nine episodes that will focus on alternate events and timelines that occur within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The series, based off of the comic series of the same name, will premiere on August 11th, running straight through October 6th. The show was suppose to have ten episodes in both Season 1 and 2 (which is already being worked on), but producer Brad Winderbaum mentions in an interview that they had to push an episode back because of, you guessed it, the pandemic:

"We had to push an episode into Season 2. It was just, honestly, like everything else, that was a COVID impact," Winderbaum told Collider. "There was an episode that just wouldn't hit the completion date, but luckily we do get to see it in the second season of the show."

Judging by both the poster and the trailer, we know of a few scenarios: Peggy Carter becoming Captain America, an alternate Avengers lineup battling at New York, Black Panther as Star Lord, Marvel Zombies (of course there’s zombies), and Spider-Man as the Sorcerer Supreme.  Inverse has an article breaking all of the possibilities down.

A lot of the actors who portray their characters in live action will reprise their roles for the animated series, including the late Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther/Star Lord.  Star...Panther?  Black Lord? That last one sounds wrong. Among those not coming back are Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, and Dave Bautista as Drax.  Bautista was, according to the man himself, wasn’t even asked to come back to voice Drax.  Others include Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Tom Holland as Spider-Man, James Spader as Ultron, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Elizabeth Olson as the Scarlet Witch, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Gweneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and various members of the Dora Milaje.  They have all apparently been confirmed to be appearing in What If...? in some form or another, but voiced by different people.

It will certainly be an interesting show, but I hope you can see where I’m going with this.

The Big Hero 6 fanbase has a lot of burning questions for the show and movie, and it’s not all just unanswered ones about what happens after the show ended.  I think collectively there are a few common “what-ifs” that we have in our minds about the team.  I think the most obvious one involves one of the Hamada brothers, and that branches off into other what-ifs as well.

Granted, not all of these are reality-altering hypotheticals like there are in the show or comics, but they can still change the course of the movie or show in a huge way.

1.) What if...Tadashi had survived the fire?

Tadashi being a survivor of the fire that takes down the exhibition hall brings up a few interesting conundrums.  Would he be scarred for life?  Would he even be able to complete school?

And if Hiro still made the team, would he end up becoming Sunfire like a lot of fans theorize?

The thing is that Callaghan knows that Tadashi died in the fire.  If he knew that he didn’t, would that change his motivations?  Would he still be using the Microbots knowing that the person that was trying to “stop” him was still alive? Alternatively, you also have...

2.) What if...Hiro had died instead of Tadashi?

Hiro was probably about two seconds away from being fully engulfed in that giant fireball.  It’s entirely plausible that he (or possibly both Hamadas) could have perished in the fire instead of his brother, which sort of leads to the same circumstances as the first question, just with different powersets.  Tadashi would no longer be tied to fire-based powers but the magnetic equipment that that Hiro currently uses.

But one has to think about whether Tadashi would be in the right state of mind to be a hero long term.  Seeing his kid brother perish in the accident would probably cause him to go insane, and perhaps the rest of the team would have to reel him in.

3.) What if...Baymax had killed Callaghan?

It’s worth noting that if Honey Lemon had been about three seconds later on getting the healthcare chip back into Baymax, this wouldn’t have been a “What If?” question.

And sure, the team would have saved the day, but at what cost?  The permanent scarring of a fourteen-year-old?  And what would have come of the major revelations after that fight concerning Project Silent Sparrow and Abigail?

Maybe they would have been the ones to build the portal to the other dimension to try to save her.  That would similar to what happened in the original manga (where Tadashi actually helps with the construction of the original portal and got sucked in as a result). 4.) What if...Baymax had saved Obake in “Countdown to Catastrophe”?

Obake dismissed Baymax after his hideout started collapsing near the end of Part 2, and you could tell that Baymax was seriously considering rescuing him before leaving him in his chair amongst the rubble.  Ultimately, however, he did leave him behind after Obake’s insistence.

Imagine what would have happened if he had gone against his programming and saved his life.

The relieved group hug on the beach would have been replaced with a disheveled (and probably a little damp) Obake.  Hiro would have been staring hiim down in disbelief.  Perhaps there would even be another fight, or at least the makings of one.

And then Obake would give himself up for arrest.

Maybe that’s where Chief Cruz could have been introduced.  It would have given a good lead into the next season, and it would give Megan’s meeting with Hiro in Season 2 a little bit more meaning.

And finally, because I’m a shipper and we have to go there:

5.) What if...Karmi had never left SFIT at the end of “City of Monsters”?

We know from the boards that Bob Schooley posted that “City of Monsters” was originally going to end very differently than what actually made the final cut.  It seemed that Karmi, in addition to getting a nonsensical boyfriend named “Flammarion”, was not suppose to leave SFIT in the early draft.

So what if Hiro had shown up to her lab, and instead of seeing this...

He saw this?

Or...something a little less dramatic?  Maybe just her packing up stuff because she’s in the process of leaving?  And Hiro had to say something in order for her to stop what she was doing? And how exactly would you achieve that? See, if that scenario happened, I think that this particular point would be where Hiro told her about being in Big Hero 6.  And of course Karmi wouldn’t believe him, even though she’s now in love with him crushing on him.

Then, he takes her to the base.

And she turns back to him with an incredulous look.

And roll credits.  What a cliffhanger to go into Season 3 with. I vaguely remember fanart depicting that exact scene (Hiro taking Karmi to the base), but I don’t remember who did it.  I would like to give them the proper credit. Season 3 would have looked totally different if that took place.  Maybe it would have been an actual season and not a bunch of mini stories.  Also...perhaps Karmi would have joined the team proper.

And maybe we would have finally had a giant canonical Karmiro moment.

...Now that is a big “What if?”.

(Marvel’s What If...? premieres on Wednesday, August 11th on Disney+.)

Some meandering thoughts about jokes about rape and cultural changes in the last decade and a half

Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad we’re in a place now where we DO question rape jokes and it would be much harder to get away with “raping Jonah Hill is incredibly amusing” as the center of a scene the way that you could in 2007-2013 but I do kind of feel like we don’t talk about how sudden that change was enough.

People talk about how you should have always known that awful things are awful but if you’re surrounded by rape jokes and pedophilia jokes all the time and that’s what’s funny to the other kids around you and the adults in your lives and what makes up the jokes in the movies you watch then it’s hard to act like you always knew it was wrong.

Dead baby jokes were a HUGE thing when I was a teen and in my early twenties and sitting around swapping dead baby jokes was just a thing we did, and tossed in among them were things like:

A joke about incest with the punchline “Get off me pa, you’re crushing my smokes.”

This joke about a pedophile murdering a child.

Let’s not turn this rape into a murder.

And hell, look at the activity graph for “soap on a rope” on urban dictionary:

2014 starts a significant taper.

Letterboxd has their “sexual assault against men played for comedy page” and if you sort by release date there’s a downward trend with 2014 as a really stand-out year for rape jokes about men in popular movies:

2010 - 10

2011 - 12

2012 - 14

2013 - 12

2014 - 18 (jesus, which includes a prison rape joke in “Paddington”)

2015 - 9

2016 - 9

2017 - 11

2018 - 15

2019 - 4

2020 - 1

(this is of course with the caveat that this is only what has been documented so far)

Shock porn sites used to be a thing and they used to be a COMMON thing. A thing that would get remixed and have late night hosts make jokes about them and that got parody music videos.

So on the one hand I was really glad that in 2010 the hacker conference WASN’T asking me to make a rape joke on their tee shirt, but since Pool 2 Girl came up at every single “this is what defcon is about” discussion and some of the guys from the con had printed up “lemonparty.org” stickers to slap up around town it wouldn’t have been *surprising* if they’d been asking for that.

If you were a teenager in 2005 would you have known how much of a dick move goatse-ing people was? We didn’t have the same culture of trigger warnings (not that I disapprove of trigger warnings, they are good and I like them) and there was very much an attitude online at the time of “if you can’t handle it log off.”

I think the fappening was the turning point for a lot of this stuff - I think that was a big cultural moment that changed a lot of people’s attitudes really quickly and I’m seeing echos of that with what Chris Evans is dealing with right now: people are a lot faster to say “oh, that sucks, don’t be an asshole, report people for posting the pics” while I remember sitting and arguing in an imgur thread because there were a bunch of people saying “if you don’t like it don’t take nudes” about the celebrities who got caught in the icloud leak.

People look at Shane Dawson’s (admittedly gross and incredibly inappropriate) behavior with a poster of Willow Smith and act like it’s unprecedented***** but as someone who remembers not only Olsen Eighteenth Birthday countdowns but ALSO the jokes about fucking the Olsen twins that came BEFORE they were legal that’s just bizarre. Seeing people my age and older react to James Gunn’s pedophilic twitter jokes like they’re worse than Jay Leno’s jokes about Michael Jackson (which were made on TV! Across America! On a major network!) is just. It’s bizarre.

I’m glad we are where we are now, I’m glad that making rape jokes in public or jokes about incest or pedophilia (or murder or abortion) is less common and less okay (especially in children’s media, jesus fuck) and more likely to get criticized.

But I’m also pretty sure I’m going to get called a rape apologist by *someone* for saying “2010 was a different time, rape jokes were more common and we didn’t realize how shitty it was” when it really was a different time and rape jokes were more common and most people didn’t realize how shitty it was. I sure didn’t. I do now, and I’m glad I do now. But pretending that we should have ALWAYS known this, pretending that this was NEVER acceptable, pretending that it WASN’T a different time is ignoring the fact that for over a decade there was an entire genre of pedophilic rape jokes (that were frequently also racist) centered around one celebrity and that people told these jokes in public and in pop culture *all the time.*

Does that make it right? Fuck, I don’t know, shit is relative. It was still largely acceptable to electrocute gay kids and people tossed around the word “faggot” pretty freely. Mean Girls is full of jokes about how awful it is for people to think you’re a lesbian and Superbad is full of jokes about getting people shitfaced so they’ll sleep with you (so date rape) and there’s an entire “cute comedy” from the 80s starring Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn that’s an extended rape-by-fraud joke. I think that as a whole we’re better now as people than we were in 2010 and the 90s and the 80s and the 50s and I don’t think that someone who made a sexist joke in the 80s is irredeemably evil and I don’t think people making rape jokes in the 2010s are rape apologists in 2020 and I wish there was a lot more understanding of both history and nuance in these conversations.

*****to be very, very clear Shane Dawson has been filmed kissing underage fans on the mouth and having explicit sexual conversations with his very young cousin - Dawson has done things that go beyond “inappropriate” and fall clearly into “wrong” “bad” “dangerous” “illegal” etc, which is all the more reason that it’s so strange to see people focusing on him fake masturbating on a poster of Willow Smith. YES doing that was gross but why is it even being compared to the way he’s been filmed interacting with fans? The lack of nuance, making “fake masturbating at a poster” and “creating a sexually abused puppet character” the same as “inappropriately touched and kissed minor fans and engaged a young child in explicit sexual conversations” is NOT GOOD. That is a bad thing. Two of those things are tasteless and two of those things are actively harmful and it’s the actively harmful stuff that we should be focusing on and part of why it’s really weird to see shit like “pizzagate conspiracist accuses James Gunn of making inappropriate jokes” like yes Gunn please don’t but can we maybe refocus and talk about the dude who can be pretty significantly assigned blame for a fucking shooting? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/01/james-gunn-alt-right-marvel-film-director-tweets

Actually, you know what, I thought I was done ranting, I’m not.

It’s purity culture.

YES you should attempt to do less harm with your language, YES you should attempt to not use slurs, YES you should try to avoid making rape jokes. But there’s an entire huge group of people who are willing to drag up rape jokes from a decade when rape jokes were REALLY REALLY common in order to say that nothing you say or do today matters.

And that same group is ALSO really interested in expanding the concept of what pedophilia is to include age differences in adults or liking the wrong style of drawing and it’s a purity culture silencing tactic and can we PLEASE stop pretending that gross, tasteless jokes are the same thing as actually sexually abusing people? Can we stop pretending that pointing out “rape jokes were more common fifteen years ago and I feel bad about it but that’s just the way it was and I don’t make jokes like that anymore” is the same as saying “rape isn’t bad and you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.”

It’s always good to try to be a less shitty human but if you’re only allowed to grow and improve and be less shitty if you never fucked up in the first place then it’s all just calvinist bullshit and none of us could ever really be saved in the first place.

I dunno, dudes. We got so careful about disapproving of the wrong kind of language that we let a white supremacist concern troll Disney into firing a director who caught the attention of the alt right by shit-talking the president.

I think perhaps we need to reexamine some strategy here.

***SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF WANDAVISION***

HOLY SHITE MY MIND IS BLOWN

TOMMY AND BILLY CRYING

“Do you want me to take that again?” “Take it from the top?”

Agnes knows ! Tiger - Ralph

“Dark liquor” Vision being concerned

Billy and Tommy aged up?!

I DO NOT TRUST HAYWARD

SCARLET WITCH - TALKING ABOUT HOW WANDA DOESN’T HAVE A CODENAME

SIS STRAIGHT UP TOOK VISIONS CORPSE

HEX — HER POWERS GET REFERRED TO AS HEX POWERS SOMETIMES IN THE COMICS

CAPTAIN MARVEL REFERENCE

NORM SAYING NONE OF IT IS REAL

SPARKY THE DOG - VISION HAD A STAND ALONE AND STOLE A DOG

HER ACCENT

LAGOS

SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW ANY OF THIS STARTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

EVAN PETERS AS QUICKSILVER

DARCY GOING “SHE RECAST PIETRO?” MOOOD

X-MEN, START TO THE MULTIVERSE?!

WANDA CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE CONTROLLING IT

IS MONICA MAD AT CAROL???

MONICA X DARCY?! WHAT A POWER COUPLE THAT WOULD BE

SIS REALLY ENDGAME - ENDGAME ENDED WITH TONY’S FUNERAL AND WANDA PROBS WENT STRAIGHT FROM THERE AND STOLE HER DEAD BF’S CORPSE (can’t really blame her, it looked like they were trying to experiment on Vis and could it be Hayward behind it?)

WHO WAS THAT ENGINEER THAT MONICA WAS GOING TO CONTACT?

BABY VISION

AND AGNES DEFINITELY KNOWS SOMETHING

DARCY FINALLY GOT HER COFFEE

SO VIS SAID THAT WANDA COULD’VE MADE EVERYTHING SUBCONSCIOUSLY AND THAT OVER TIME SHE BECAME AWARE OF IT, AND SIS DEFO HAS SOME CONTROL BUT IT’S NOT ALL HER. I THINK AGNES IS AGATHA HARKNESS AND EITHER MEPHISTO IS BEHIND IT OR IT’S NIGHTMARE AND THEY’VE MAYBE POWERED UP NIGHTMARE

***FURTHER UPDATES AND EASTER EGGS***

Auntie Agnes and Agnes saying she has a few tricks up her sleeve - we should definitely take note of that seeing as Agnes definitely has something to do with the whole situation

Wanda and Vision’s house changed again, being inspired by Family Ties, possibly Full House and Growing Pains

“Do you want me to take it from the top?” It seems as though when someone, this time Vision, steers away from the script, things either reset themselves or people become aware to some capacity, although Agnes probably already knows

Speaking of Growing Pains - It had a spin off called “Just the 10 of Us” in which the director for Wandavision, Matt Shakman, was apart of the cast - and seemingly also inspired the theme song for this week

We should definitely keep an eye on Monica and her potential for powers. With Maria last episode revealed to have gone by the name ‘Photon’ (which is a name that Monica uses as one of her aliases in the comics) and could inspire Monica’s name as she develops her powers - those scans didn’t look 100% normal. Monica has also used the Captain Marvel monicker in the comics

Wanda’s energy field and such being referred to as “Hex” short for Hexagon, could be a little nod to the comics where Wanda’s powers are sometimes called Hex powers

She’s never been referred to as the Scarlet Witch on the big screen - and it seems as though she soon may earn that code name

So we now know that Wanda stole Vision’s corpse from S.W.O.R.D, but did she actually re animate him fully? He’s still got the gem in the centre of his forehead, but the last time he had it was in Infinity War where it promptly got ripped out by Thanos - so has Wanda found her own way of reanimating him and he’s alive or is he dead and just a trick of the mind - though from other trailers/previews, Vis is seen trying to and looks successful at leaving Wanda’s barrier

They had a little call back to Captain America: Civil War with the Sokovia Accords, which were targeting the Avengers in general but were created when Wanda lost control of her powers and killed civilians

A little joke towards Vis as playing “Father Knows Best” in their little suburbia - Which was a sitcom that ran for 200 episodes in the 50’s

Sparky ! A little nod to the little green dog from the Walta and King comics run for Vision and unfortunately soon meets the same fate 💔

A little nod to Endgame when we hear from Monica that Wanda definitely could’ve taken down Thanos by herself had Thanos not rained fire - and Jimmy arguing that Captain Marvel could’ve just as easily done it - which leaves Monica with an angry look on her face

Good ol’ dial up internet

Can Vis “save” the residents of Westview? He can still seemingly interact with people’s minds, with or without the mind stone - Norm soon comes out of his trance as Vis snaps him out of it and asks to call his sister and that he has to save them all from “her” - now this “her” could be Wanda...but it could also be Agnes and then Vis shuts him down soon enough again and Norm goes back to his sit com self

Billy and Tommy are fully aware, or at least suspect Wanda’s abilities - after asking her to bring back Sparky from the dead and speaking of Billy and Tommy - could they be semi permanent fixtures in the MCU, it would help to introduce the Young Avengers eventually. They'll do Young Avengers at some point since Kang is supposed to be a thing in the third Ant-Man.

Teddy, unfortunately, I don't think will be here for a bit (I really hope he is though!). I think the guy they hired that everyone is rumoring to be Teddy might just be an episode about Billy coming to terms with his sexuality and Wanda and Vis learning to accept it in the way that era of tv they're in would go about with that kind of episode and the dude is just a dude - but again, I really hope it’s Teddy 😭

Wanda leaves the hex after a mini missile/plane tries to shoot at her - and she’s in her Scarlet Witch costume and is seemingly mostly back to her “normal self”, which includes her accent !

Lagos brand paper towels - “For when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” - a nod to Civil War again in which Wanda accidentally blew up a building in Lagos and caused the Sokovian accords to come to fruition

The mail man again - I also think he was in the commercial but anywho - “Your mom won’t let him go far” similar to “Much like she won’t let anyone leave” a potential nod to Wanda or Agnes not letting anyone leave?

“We can’t reverse death” and yet she brought Vision back - keeping in mind that he’s an android but still a little foreshadow to what happened at the end of the ep? Better yet, could Pietro coming back be a distraction for Wanda? Agnes or whoever introducing someone that Wanda lives in hopes that she won’t go full on breakdown superpowers or just to give her an attachment to Westview even more and make her not want to leave at all

“She recasted Pietro” EVAN ! I’m so pumped for this - it seems this could turn into the X-Men making their debut earlier than expected possibly? In any case, it’s a nice little Easter Egg to the previous Fox franchise of X-Men movies where Evan played Peter Maximoff “Quicksilver” alongside James McAvoy as Prof X, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and so many others - and with Deadpool being confirmed as Disney’s first R rated film, it seems Mutants are definitely on their way to the MCU

Agnes is definitely Agatha or a gender bent Nightmare

The way Billy shed himself and Tommy up was scary - definitely a little nod to his powers coming in

Multiple different perspectives of Wanda saying that Monica left

Red Hex dialled up to around light sources (computer, window, etc.)

Vision mentions reading Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man - which could refer to Mutants entering the MCU, Mutants being superior to humans

Agnes calls herself Auntie Agnes - in episode 2 during the title sequence in the grocery store there’s a product called ‘Auntie A’s Kitty Litter’

Agnes refers to herself as a Tiger and in the episode, there’s a Tiger on the dining table in the kitchen - could that be a listening device, her eyes and ears?

There are no other children in Westview - Billy and Tommy are immune because they have no prior trauma

Elizabeth Olsen’s photos are real and slightly altered with Sokovian flags in the background

In the birthday shot of Billy and Tommy, they have ‘1,2,3,4,5’ candles all on one cake

In the holiday photos, Vision goes from Turkey to Easter Bunny, to Santa and progressively gets more unhappy - realising he no longer wants to play along in Wanda’s Hex

During Monica’s callbacks to seeing Wanda’s pain inside her head, we see a new shot of Wanda crying - it looks like it’s around the time she stole Vision’s corpse, as the outfit she’s wearing is very similar, if not the same - could this be an after shot of when she’s trying to bring Vision back?

During the scene where we see the footage of Wanda stealing Vision’s corpse, the S.W.O.R.D logo that appears on the table has 8 stars around the rim of the logo but then has a 9th one in the middle - could this be a little Easter Egg to the nine realms of the Cosmos? And there’s also a map showing Cape Canaveral, could that be where S.W.O.R.D’s headquarters are?

Wanda and Pietro were born in 1989 to Irina and Oleg Maximoff - who were killed in an air raid when the twins were 10. In the comics, Wanda and Pietro were raised by Django and Maria Maximoff, before their true parentage was revealed as being the children of Magneto, however, in the comics this has been retconned so that Wanda and Pietro are no longer Mutants and the High Evolutionary had just disguised them as Mutants (something I think they should undo tbh - MARVEL, PLEASE MAKE WANDA AND PIETRO MUTANTS AGAIN!!!)

Speaking of the air raid, that was also referenced in Age of Ultron by Pietro and Wanda - “We were 10 years old, having dinner the four of us. And the first shell hits 2 floors below, makes a hole in the floor” - was the beeping Stark toaster be what that was referring to?

WHIH reappears for a brief cameo as the news service in the MCU - and Hayward cuts off Jimmy as he was trying to defend Wanda’s reputation, in which Jimmy then turns to Darcy and says “I try not to speak ill of people” Darcy then follows up with “Then allow me, Hayward’s a-“ and then she’s cut off by a shot back to Hayward saying the word “Terrorist” which would make sense as it seems with Vision’s corpse, he may have been trying to make sentient weapons and by subverting Vision’s will and blaming Wanda of doing the same. In the footage shown of Wanda stealing Vision’s remains, we see Vision broken up into parts and S.W.O.R.D seems to be experimenting on him and this seems to be the robotics/nanotech project that Hayward was referring to. Monica asks Hayward about the footage saying “When was this?” to which Hayward replies saying “9 days ago. Maximoff stormed our facility, stole Vision’s body and resurrected him” - this would mean that Wanda took Vision 2 weeks after the events of Endgame, about a week before Monica returned to S.W.O.R.D and Hayward didn’t tell her any of this and when he sent her in there, he knew exactly what he was doing - with her reputation after Civil War, this makes it easier for Hayward to paint her as the villain.

Back in Westview, Tommy wears red and Billy wears green - which are the colours that Wiccan and Speed wear in the comics, respectively. And it’s also the colours that Wanda and Vision are known for and appears quite a lot in their wardrobes

More in regards to Sparky, he was the synthezoid dog in Tom King’s run of Vision - the story being that he was originally a dog named Zeke who unfortunately passed away after digging up the Grim Reaper’s corpse and getting zapped. The Grim Reaper’s helmet appears during the title sequence of Episode 2 in the floorboards. Could Sparky have been trying to dig up a similar thing when he was caught by Agnes and consequently killed?

Monica mentions that she knows this aerospace engineer, they’re never shown but she is seen texting them. Could it be Reed Richards a.k.a Mr Fantastic? Hayward did mention that some astronauts used to work for S.W.O.R.D before a mission went haywire - though it seems a bit lacklustre to introduce such highly anticipated characters this way. Could it instead be the Skrull daughter of Talos that Monica befriended at the end of Captain Marvel? She mentioned that they had extraterrestrial allies in episode 4 working with her and Fury as apart of S.W.O.R.D - in the Spanish subtitles they use the feminine articles for this engineer - so I think it’s more likely to be Talos’s daughter

The board that we saw in Episode 4 now includes the mailman, drivers license and all - could he be Jimmy’s missing witness?

The tension in the room after Jimmy references Carol is similarly seen when in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter asks Skrull Fury/Talos “How about Captain Marvel?” To which Talos replies “Don’t involve her name”. Fury, Monica and Talos were all on the side of the Skrulls by then end of Captain Marvel and the space station that Fury was on maybe apart of S.W.O.R.D. So did Carol betray them?

A slight reference to Captain America: The First Avenger is made when Monica pulls a Peggy Carter and shoots at something to see if it’s bulletproof, in Peggy’s case it was the iconic Captain America shield and in the case of Monica, it was her clothes that she was wearing after Wanda threw her out of the Hex

Abilash (Norm) never states that Wanda is the one that Vision has to save them from, it’s just “her” - could this instead be Agnes?

When Billy is training Sparky to sit, he puts the treat by his ear up to his temple - a future reference that Billy will one day share the same powers as his mum?

During the scene in which Wanda leaves the Hex briefly, she turns the guns onto Hayward but none are trained on Monica - she may still trust Monica slightly, whereas with Hayward, she slightly more pissed off because of what he was doing to Vision’s remains. And turning a bunch of guns on the people you don’t trust? Like father, like daughter as Magneto pulls a similar move in one of the X-Men films - Hopefully, the big cameo they keep teasing will be Ian McKellan as Magneto or the Magnus of this House of M adaptation

During when Agnes “found” Sparky, she says he died from eating too many leaves from her plants - in the Tom King Vision run, one of Vision’s kids ends up killing Sparky and sees inside his stomach that there’s a plant that Agatha Harkness grows in her garden

All the names that appear during the credits that Wanda tries to run to end the show and to stop Vision from talking are names of people who work on the actual Wandavision show itself

When Evan Peter’s version of Quicksilver shows up, he says “Does a long lost bro get to squeeze his sister to death or what?” I DO NOT TRUST THIS PIETRO - Similar to Wandavision, the Fox X-Men movies moved up decade by decade - First Class was in the 1960s, Days of Future Past was in the 1970s, Apocalypse was in the 1980s and Dark Phoenix was in the 1990’s - which would make even more sense as MCU! Pietro wasn’t born until 1989, whereas Peter was active during the 1980s. I reckon that this Pietro is Jimmy’s missing witness, Agnes’s husband Ralph and is disguising itself as a comforting presence to Wanda as Vision no longer brings comfort and is trying to bring Wanda back to reality - and when he shows up, the mirror in the background behind Wanda is slightly distorted but his hand looks red and in the shot as well, there seems to be a grey arm reaching towards Pietro - in the shot itself behind and in front of Wanda, there’s nothing there but in the mirror, there is! Either way, I do not trust this Pietro and it’s just an entity trying to give Wanda the last thing that could make her happy - but it won’t last, as everything is already breaking down around her.

I seriously seriously love this show so much 💙

she’s not afraid of scary movies, she likes the way we kiss in the dark.

ೃ pairing: (uni student! izuku midoriya x fem! reader)

ೃ  warnings: slightly suggestive content

ೃ genre: fluff overload

ೃ word count: 1,059 words

ೃ  my nav  →  my mha writing masterlist  → my katsuki bakugo x reader smau

ೃ bakugo’s valentines fic (nsfw!)  → shoto’s valentines fic  → virtual valentines hcs

ೃ  please reblog, reply or leave like if you enjoyed! it means a lot! c:

ೃ song inspo: she’s not afraid by one direction

ೃ it is your weekly movie night with Izuku and co, but whilst waiting for your other friends, you and your boyfriend had the most wonderful idea of watching a gory horror movie.

“I’m not sure about this.”

Izuku says nervously as the credits of the horror film you’re watching starts to roll.

“Izuuu-kun.” You put a hand on his knee and pat it. “It’s okay. You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Your freckled boyfriend laughs nervously. “I know but… still.”

This was his idea after all.

Izuku had wanted to face his fears and watch this gory horror movie with you.

 It’s not that he wasn’t fond of the entire genre, he was just as much as a movie buff as you were! It’s just that he wasn’t used to very graphic terror and always preferred the psychological horror movies or thrillers. Which was fitting for him as he was very inquisitive and always loved mysteries.

Every week, you would have movie nights with him after long and intense university lectures.

Sometimes, you would be watching with the Dekusquad and sometimes it would just be the two of you.

All of you even take turns in choosing movie genres. Izuku always opted for Marvel or DC movies, Ochaco loved to watch low budget Hallmark movies ironically, Aoyama preferred Rom-coms, Shoto was very much interested in Disney Pixar movies, Tsuyu loved Coming of Age films and Tenya was all for True Crime documentaries.

  Whenever it was your turn to pick, you were the one who always chose Horror Movies.

Not that you loved them per se, but it’s fun to see your friends laughing, screaming and making fun of low budget cheap jumpscares.

  When your friends said they would be coming late for this week’s film night, Izuku asked you if the two of you could watch a gory horror movie before your friends arrived.

You agreed, of course.

It just caught you off guard that Izuku would suddenly want to watch a horror movie after he has heavily expressed time and time again how much he disliked very graphic films.

The two of you were snuggled together. Comfort was bountiful between the two of you as you were very affectionate with each other. It was very sweet.

  You were holding a bag of microwaved popcorn when you notice Izuku slightly quivering in fear as the opening credits start to roll.

  The very intense opening scene comes in and Izuku tenses up.

  You stifle in a laugh as you watch Midoriya squirm in his seat.

  Blood and a horrific scream can be seen and heard on the screen as Izuku jumps out of his seat and yelps.

  He blindingly grabs your hand and squeezes it hard. You stifle in a laugh again.

“(Y/N)-chan…” He says shakily.

“Yeah?” You turn to him, hoping your calm façade won’t break.

Izuku looks at your calm face and shakes his head. Oh, how looking at you brought him comfort and peace even for just a moment. “Never m-mind.”

You look away from him and smile. Holding his hand even more tightly than he already was doing with yours. You rub his thumb affectionately trying your best to calm him down.

  Another blood-curling scream and very graphic imagery of a character meeting their demise is heard and seen as Izuku jerks backwards.

A few more screams and jumps later, you put your hand again on his knee, almost feeling the shivers running down his spine and circulating all over his body. You knew that you had to stop the movie.

  “S-sorry Izu-kun.” You say, a look of concern on your face. “Do you want me to stop the movie?”

“I-it’s, ha, okay.” He says shakily.

“Izu-kun, love, it’s okay. If you can’t take the movie anymore, I’ll pop the DVD out.” He starts protesting until he sees the look in your eyes. “Yes, please. Dear god, please.”

You chuckle and get up to remove the disk. But, only before Izuku grabs your hand rather carelessly.

You feel your body bounce back safely on the couch as your seaweed-haired boyfriend topples over you. Pinning down your wrist, with you lying down on the couch as passion and love begin to spark in his eyes.

“I’m sorry if we had to stop the movie.” His breath hitches and tickles your face, “How can I make it up to you?”

“You can make it up to me now.” You wink seductively as the both of you lean in for a heated kiss until…

“INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!” An all too familiar voice speaking in a thick French accent echoed around your apartment.

“INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOOOOOWN! OOOOOH OOOOH!” A squeaky feminine voice followed.

The door pushes open as your friends barge in so hastily without a text message to notify any of you. Your eyes twitch to the side, glancing at your friends who were talking animatedly with each other.  

How amazing besties they were for barging into the two of you like this and for ruining the atmosphere!

“Aaaaah~ Look at you two looking like a Disney couple-“ Ochaco hums instinctively. She was facing backwards whilst entering the room so it was only when she turned around that she saw what position you and Izuku were in. “Oooooooooooh.”

Ilda clears his voice, glaring at your other friends for failing to be normal people that knock on doors before entering another home. (Even though he was one of them.) “Let’s come back tomorrow. I think we interrupted them building a snowman.”  He continues the reference of Disney Frozen songs, earning snickers and giggles from your other friends.

“Guess we’ll come back when they’ve built the ice castle.” Shoto jokes in a very deadpan tone. Your friends crack up even more as they continue to tease you.

“See you at tomorrow’s movie night instead (Y/N)-chan and Midoriya-chan!” Tsuyu waves goodbye in unison with the others as they drop the snacks they bought in preparation for tomorrow. They leave the apartment as if nothing happened.

“T-that was kind of embarrassing.” Izuku says, flustered. A blush ever so prominent on his face.

“What can we do? They’re our friends after all.” You try to shrug off the very weird situation you were just in right now.

Izuku chuckles, standing up to walk towards the bathroom. You grin slyly and tiptoe after him.

“(Y/N)-chan?” He calls out to you. He looks out the bathroom into the direction of the living room, and you jump out and scream “Boo!”

He screams and jumps back and cowers on the floor. You laugh and help him get up.

-Fin.

Love is a Beautiful Thing - Ethan x F!MC

Authors Note:  HI! I’m back (finally) with another prompt ask fic! I know it’s taken too long for this to happen but my laptop battery decided to shit itself and I needed to send it away to get it fixed and now it’s back and here it is! lol. I’m sorry for my mediocre writing with this one but I hope you enjoy, anyway! I apologise for any spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. Prompt is in bold.

AO3 WORK

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC [Nicolette Valentine]

Word Count: 2, 075 (who allows me to write? Oh, me... damnit.)

Prompt: “Not only am I deeply in love with you, you’re my best friend.”

Rating: G

Warnings: Fluff and Ethan and Nic being cute. 

Tag list at the bottom of this post.

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Pixelberry and all characters belong to them.

*** 

LOVE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

Ethan knew the exact moment that he fell in love with Nicolette. It was on a Sunday, their first weekend off in two months and Nicolette was staying over, her hair up in a messy bun, red hair slipping out of its hold and framing her face in the most delicate way that made her more ethereal when the sun shone on her hair, making it glow like a warm fire. 

He knew he was in love when she smiles, her cheeks and all of her smattered with freckles that Ethan found himself tracing with his fingers at night, following them like a map as they trailed from her nose, down her cheeks to the lower parts of her chest and shoulders and Ethan marvels each time he gets to see them, touch them...kiss them. 

His chest warms with love when she comes home from grocery shopping in an oversized Columbia University jumper that she got at a conference in her second year of medical school, her Adidas stretch leggings that hugged her legs in the most enticing and her long hair a mess around her shoulders, not caring about her appearance in the slightest. It reiterates how comfortable she was with him. This is Nicolette in her purest form and a smile lifts his lips at the thought that Nicolette, the most gentle, kind-hearted and compassionate woman was able to be herself with him in whatever capacity.

Ethan knew he was in love when he finds Nicolette on his couch, tears tracking down her face and a pile of tissues surrounding her, her eyes glued to the television. One glance at the TV and Ethan realises it’s a Disney movie. He should be amazed and somewhat turned off by the fact that a twenty-eight-year-old cries at a Disney movie but in this particular case, a fond smile raises his lips at the sight even when his heart drops at seeing her crying. He never likes to see her cry. He always admires Nicolette when she doesn’t hide behind a facade of what she should be. If she wants to watch a movie from her childhood then she is going to watch it, if she cries then she’ll do it. She is real. She is her authentic self and Ethan has never been more in love. 

Ethan’s in love when he finds Nicolette, sitting in front of his laptop, researching a case they’ve been trying to diagnose one night, her glasses perched on her face, her nose scrunched up in concentration, the light of the screen emphasising the bags under those beautiful blue eyes. She doesn’t know he’s there, himself tucked behind an alcove out of sight. So now, he just watches her do her thing, sift through notes, type on the keyboard. A silent chuckle escapes him when he sees her tongue poking out of her lips, a sure sign that she was in the deepest trance of her concentration. Nicolette pushes back some of the hair that had fallen in her face and Ethan’s fingers twitch to do the same but he forces himself to resist and stay put. He’s more than content just to watch her. 

It’s then that he really knows it. He could watch her do that for the rest of his life if he wanted to and he’d never get sick of it. Pure happiness and joy settle around him like a warm blanket on a cold night and he sighs at the euphoric feeling. He loves Nicolette and he’ll love her for the rest of his days on this earth. 

“I know you’re there, Ethan so you can come out of your creepy hideaway and come sit with me. I need your brain for a minute.” 

Ethan jolts out of his own trance (or perhaps he should say his Nicolette trance) and pads over to the couch, laughing as he does so. 

“‘You need my brain’? That’s a creative and articulate way of saying you need me.” 

Nicolette glances over to him, giving him a flat look before she smiles and shrugs at his words. “It’s true though, I need you for your brain and nothing else right now.” 

Ethan chuckles, his hand coming up to wrap around the back of her neck as he begins gently kneading it, finding a cord of tension there. Nicolette melts into his touch but her eyes are still focused on the notes in front of her. 

“What a shame. I would have been happy to oblige in whatever else you needed from me.” 

Nicolette scoffs. “Please, Ethan. Maybe go grab some water for yourself because I am sure as hell ain’t thirsty right now. I’m researching this case and I need to study for my boards.” 

Ethan ignores the implication of those words (he did know what it meant, he wasn’t a complete tragic) and focuses on what Nicolette was viewing.

“Practice exam questions for IMCs?” 

Nicolette signs, removing her glasses to rub at her eyes. She had been staring at the laptop screen for too long and they were starting to hurt. She sighs as she puts her glasses back on and turns to her boyfriend. “Yes, they are. It’s the third time I’m going to study it today. Can you please help me through them? I need a sounding board right now. I’m sick and tired of hearing the voice inside my head read questions back at me.” 

Ethan’s eyebrows furrow in concern at the lethargy he can hear in her voice and the small droop of her shoulders. He doesn’t want her to burn out but he figures that she’ll continue anyway. She’s as stubborn as him. 

“Okay, I’ll help. What do you need?” 

Nicolette claps and sits back from him, pulling her knees up underneath her and turns so that she’s face to face with him. “Run through some practice questions with me and then we can get some takeaway and watch a trashy movie or something.” 

Ethan chuckles, a fond smile lighting up his face. He finds where Nicolette was up to and begins reciting the question. “Okay. Here we go… A 23-year-old woman with bone marrow failure is treated with a large dose of rabbit anti-thymocyte globulin. Ten days later, she develops fever, lymphadenopathy, arthralgias, and erythema on her hands and feet. Which of the following is the most likely cause of these symptoms?” 

Ethan already knew the answer but he allows Nicolette the time to answer herself. He sees the clocks working in her mind and her eyes light up as she finds the answer. “Is it immune complex deposition in tissues?” 

Ethan flips back to the practice test answers and he gives a nod and an answering smile at her when he finds that she was correct. He would have told her yes straight away but he knew Nicolette enough that she would have appreciated that he goes to the answered section to make sure that she’s correct. 

“Yes, you’re right! Good work!” 

Nicolette cheers with a resounding ‘yay’ as she claps her hands, her face alight with relief. Ethan grins at her enthusiasm because he knows how much succeeding at this means to her. So, it’s there, in the middle of Ethan’s living room, the sun already on its decline where Ethan and Nicolette sit and work through each question of her board exam practice test. 

It's a few hours after that, the inky black night piercing the living room, both of them leaning up against the couch with Ethan chuckling at a particular answer that Nicolette got wrong (and a particularly hard one at that, he wasn’t going to lie) that he realises he’s having the time of his life. It’s these little moments that set his heart aflame, that bring him a sense of contentment. Rightness.  

Ethan can’t fathom a time where he wasn’t having fun with Nicolette and he is so glad that he is in a position to be here with her. She is his closest confidant, a person with whom he can be himself, his best self, opinions, objections and all. A warm smile lifts the corners of his mouth and he says the next words with an air of reverence, of truth and certainty for they were the truest words to ever leave his lips. 

Ethan grabs her hand, his face serious for a moment and Nicolette stops and stares at the utter warmth of his eyes, the blue of them liquid cyan and the admiration on his face makes her breath hitch in her throat.

“You are amazing, Nicolette. You make every day brighter and I can’t honestly imagine walking through life without you. I can honestly, without any reservation, say that not only am I deeply in love with you, you’re my best friend.” 

Nicolette is frozen, her mouth popped open in evident shock but Ethan sees the effect his words have had on her. Her crystal blue eyes shine like diamonds as tears well up in them and he resists the urge to pull her to him. He needs to say this otherwise he was going to burst. 

“I realise it’s not the best time but I just had to say it. I needed to otherwise—” 

Nicolette cuts him off with a kiss, the kiss so strong that he loses his balance against the suddenness of it and falls backwards, both of them sprawled on the plush area rug. 

Nicolette breaks the kiss after a while and just looks at him, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. Her eyes are shiny and tears are slowly making their way down her cheeks as she whispers, her forehead coming to rest upon his gently, her lips mere inches away from his.

“I can’t study for my boards now since you’ve said that so we’re going to get takeaway. Call for Chinese and I’ll put on a movie.” 

There is a pang in his chest as he hears her words and he can’t help but be disappointed. A part of him was hoping for reciprocation or at least something remotely related to his words. And yet, Nicolette’s mind is different from his, no less fantastically intelligent but different and he realises that she processes things differently from him. Whether it takes her a few seconds, minutes or days, it won’t matter to him. He would wait for her forever. 

He nods, trying to not let the disappointment show on his face and plucks his phone out of his pocket and press speed dial to call his favourite Chinese restaurant just down the main street, a few metres from his condo. 

He’s just staring out at the horizon, his eyes scanning the twinkling skyline of Boston when he freezes as he feels Nicolette behind him hugging him, her head on his back and her arms tight around his torso. He shivers when he feels Nicolette kiss his shoulder, her face buried into him, almost like she wanted to melt into him completely. 

“I love you too, Ethan. I know I don’t say it enough but you’re my best friend and I thank the stars every day that we met.” She squeezes him once more before letting go. “Oh, and don’t forget the Kung pao chicken.” 

Ethan grins and his heart flies out of his chest. God, he loves this woman so much. 

“I would never forget the Kung pao chicken, Nicolette.” 

Nicolette turns to him and gives him a soft smile, her eyes shining with deep affection. “Good. I knew I loved you for a reason.”  

“Oh? Is that the only reason?” 

Nicolette smirks as she makes her way to the cabinet next to the stove where they kept the wine, her eyes alight with mischief as she gives Ethan a wink. 

“A woman never reveals her secrets, Ethan.” 

Ethan laughs, the sound light and happy, a smile on his lips as he orders them dinner. Love is a beautiful thing, Ethan thinks, and he again berates himself for resisting this wonderful feeling for so long. He marvels silently as he stares out at the Boston skyline again, the sounds of domesticity surround him as Nicolette gets ready for dinner and he’s never felt so safe, so calm...so at ease.

Ethan lets out a sigh of contentment. Love is beautiful and if he could have a beautiful life with Nicolette? Well, then... he can call himself the luckiest man on earth.

***

OH TAG LIST:  @senseofduties @polishchoicesfan @princess-geek @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @binny1985 @fanficnewbie @x-kyne-x  @thecordoniandiaries @rainbowsinthestorm @jens-diamondchoices @hopelessly-shipper @my-heart-beats-for-ya @landofenchantedwonder​ @flyawayboo​ @stanathanxoox​ @oofchoices​ @thequeenofcronuts​ @heauxplesslydevoted​ @trappedinfandoms​  @perriewinklenerdie​ @riverrune​ @caseyvalentineramsey @nithya @kaavyaethanramsey @whippedforethanfreakingramsey​ @theeccentricbiblophile @maurine07​ @openheartthot​ @takemyopenheart​ @queencarb​ @drariellevalentine​ @drakewalkerfantasy​ @pixelberrychoicesaddict-blog @starrystarrytrouble​ @buzz-bee-buzz @anything-but-reality​ @doilooklikeiknow​ @mvalentine​ @jamespotterthefirst​ @anntoldst0ries​  @nishas-paradise  @tenaciousdeputydreamfriend @choicesaddict5​  @fireycookie @thegreentwin​

Dumb Details From the Loki Trailer I noticed but then got too serious about

First - apparently it’s not a trailer, so I guess we’ll get ‘Trailer 1′ later? ‘Exclusive Clip’ hardly seems accurate, but hey, I’m not Disney’s marketing division. I wouldn’t live in a shoebox if I was.

Dumb detail no. 1:

Owen Wilson’s jacket is...weird. Look closely.

And another shot:

Yeah...his jacket has a ‘reversed collar’. It’s a cut-out rather than cloth folding on top. Huh. What a strange design choice. What could it mean?

I’ve no idea, but that I watched the trailer enough times to notice this should concern you.

Detail No. 2

In this scene, we see what we can presume to be President Loki’s ‘Throne’. Notice the candy-canes. This is a Santa Claus throne, presumably from some mall Santa. This whole place might be in a mall, judging by the stuff in it.

But the Loki in this shot is not President Loki. Notice that he’s wearing brown pants, a thin brown tie, and the beige shirt he’s seen wearing in other parts of the trailer after he's apparently joined the TVA. President Loki wears black pants, a green vest and a wide green tie with a golden clip that resembles Loki’s little chevron he always has (more on that later).

So it would seem that Loki might meet President Loki here. President Loki might even be addressing him at the end of the trailer. It’s possible that his minions turn on him because there’s two Lokis and they don’t know which is the ‘imposter’. 

Speaking of, there’s a minion with bicycle handlebars grafted to a football helmet here, likely meant to resemble Loki. I dig it. There’s also cans of food scattered among the rubbish here. Makes sense that food production is non-existent since everyone has resorted to wearing license plates and spoons. Love how tattered the whole aesthetic is.

This reminds me of the opening Michael Waldron’s script ‘Worst Guy of All Time’, which featured a similar post-apocalyptic setting after the ‘worst guy’ ruins everything and makes himself king of the ashes. That’s likely what’s happened here, but I hope that Loki isn’t anything like Logan Paul, who was the inspiration for that title character.

Ah, the mysterious female character watching a meteor shower WAY TOO CLOSE UP. But my eyes are drawn to one thing...

What is that oblong object with a shiny handle? Could it be...

A sword? I do love swords. Did you know there’s a bunch of pictures of me in the stock photos for ‘Fencing?’ That’s my cred for loving swords.

I suspect that this female character will be an amalgamation of Amora (shudder) and Sylvie and an alternate Loki of some kind. This sword is currently in her possession, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it or another timeline version of it becomes the Loki Show’s Loki′s weapon. 

Loki has lacked a ‘weapon of his own’ in the MCU for quite some time. I mean, yes, he has his little knives, but they are many and disposable and something he chose for himself, rather than the two legendary weapons wielded by Odin and Thor, Gungnir and Mjolnir. In fact, throughout his appearances, Loki has seemed to want such a thing of his own - he briefly had Gungnir, and then the Gungnir-like scepter, and even tried to lift Mjolnir.

One might ask why Odin would’ve overlooked such an obvious show of favouritism. Why give Thor a storied weapon and leave Loki empty-handed? Heck, even Hela had the Necroblade.

In Thor 1, we might’ve assumed that the Casket of Ancient Winters was perhaps intended one day to be given to Loki, as it is shown with Mjolnir in the Vault and thus connected to it and the children who would inherit it.  But in the comics, Odin did have another weapon of storied history put away for his second son: Gram the Sword.

It was locked for eons by Odin in a special vault which required five keys to be opened, and it was meant to be for Loki if he be worthy.[2] The five keys were infused by Odin with the powers of "journeys", "endurance", "secrets", "new beginnings", and "brotherhood", respectively.[3]

The sword, like everything else in comics, has a complicated history full of take-backs and twists, but let’s just leave it at ‘it’s a representation of Loki’s worthiness and belonging in the trifecta with Odin and Thor as a King of Asgard’. It gives him ‘equality’.

In the original mythology, it’s wielded by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir, and the only relation it has to Loki is that Loki is partially responsible for Fafnir existing in the first place (my username is nod to this myth by the by. Sorry Ottär.) But hey, maybe that means we’re getting a dragon? The Fafnir would be very cool.

Or it could just be a bit of rebar in this mining quarry.

Then again...it appears somewhere else...

It’s easier to see in motion, but that’s a sword swinging on this person’s back.

So the hooded figure is this lady...shall we call her Amylkie? Does that mean she’s the antagonist of this show? Well...maybe, but I suspect the true antagonist is foreshadowed here  -

So, what’s going on here? A young girl (Young Amylkie? Some other TVA prisoner that the guard is watching over? An oracle, A Norn, or a kid who wandered off from the tour group in a basilica somewhere?) She’s giving Mobius M. Mobius a...piece of chocolate. Maybe he saw a Dementor, I dunno. I suspect it’ll be a MacGuffin of some kind later. He looks pretty concerned here, which contrasts with his ‘another day at the office’ blaséness when dealing with Loki. But of course this is the eye-catcher:

So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.

Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and black.

So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.

...Dammit; I live there.

So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?

But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?

It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.

Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there. 

So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.

This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.

So, we see Amylkie literally start a fire in the trailer -

- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -

It’s fire, fire everywhere and she’s setting them!

It’s possible Amylkie’s our big bad, but I think there’s a chance she’s either a red herring, or, much like how Loki ‘worked’ with Thanos in The Avengers, she is the pawn of a greater foe -

  - a Loki bent on destruction, for some reason or other. The TVA is obviously aware that this is the case, and it seems like they might be trying to ‘fight fire with fire’ by enlisting one Loki to combat another. The villain could be President Loki, since there's evidence of 2 Lokis in that scene - or maybe that's one of many Lokis, and the Big Bad Loki is being played by Hugh Grant as Old Loki. In any case, it would appear that Loki will be coming face-to-face with the worst versions of himself, and many of them. And, if I’m right about this scene:

...Loki will likely eventually discover that even his ‘good’ timeline ended in the destruction of his people and home, plus his own gruesome and torturous death. Although I think the TVA will keep that from him, and just show him the happy parts in an effort to inspire ‘good behaviour’. Until Loki inevitably discovers the rest of how that timeline played out and realize he’s been lied to. I don’t imagine he’ll take that very well...

Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?

Well...let’s go back to that stained glass.

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.

What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too...

Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.

That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?

Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?

ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ -

And ENHANCE on that third letter!

This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:

Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?

Primarly, it means ‘torch’.

And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’

...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.

More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.

There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -

Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.

(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)

Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.

So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...

...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.

Merry Christmas, everybody.