Avengers 3

Just got back from seeing it. Pretty good. Above average Marvel movie. That’s about it in my opinion. Does everything the other Marvel movies so, just moreso. Some good action scenes, some good serious moments, a few nice humor moments. One completely unnecessary cameo that was more or less pointless. At no point did I feel any tension and the only surprise was at the end, and even that was only a small one.

My thoughts afterward were mostly about how disappointed I am that the magic stuff doesn’t actually get used. There is no functional difference between Iron Man tech and Doctor Strange magic. Both are whatever this moment in the scene needs and neither make a big difference because a movie fight has to take a certain amount of time, no more and no less. Whereas the magic stuff could have been so cool and seeing the alien tech/magic mix could have been jaw dropping amazing. Oh well. Generic special effects action scenes are the way to success apparently.

Also, captain America doesn’t get his proper shield for the big fight. In fact, they didn’t do much with Vision either. Or the cool energy shields of the Wakandan warriors. Also, Thanos had a stupid plan. I wish they had gone with the original comic motivation of trying to romance death. Or even just mentioned the biggest flaw in his plan that it was a fucking stop-gap measure and someone would have to do it all over again later.

I liked the first trailer more than I did the movie, honestly. I want to see that version of it.

 

Books: Union Station 4 / Sunstone

Today is going to be two wildly different stories I finished semi-recently. The family friendly one above the fold. The non prude friendly one below the fold. The fold, in this case, is metaphorical as the read later divisor for the blog post. Anyway, they are pretty much as different as one can get. One is a light-hearted to the point of being shallow scifi comedy. The other is a BDSM romance comic. Let’s start with scifi space amusement, shall we?

Spy Night on Union Station is the fourth story of the series. I’ve been enjoying the first three. As mentioned in previous mentions, they aren’t very deep or even well written. Despite that I’ve enjoyed them quite a bit. Just fun popcorn fiction with a few interesting ideas tucked sort of behind the edges. This fourth one was the first that I didn’t like much. Which is weird because it’s one where the author actually tries to tell a story and maybe even put tension and stakes in the story. Which is part of the problem I think. No tension works fine in silly slice of life stuff. If you try to add it in, but keep everything else the same, it just doesn’t fit. I almost decided to give up on the series but figured I would give it another shot. Mostly since I was paying 3 bucks a piece for them and as usual my budget is a tad tight these days. Anyway, I have started the fifth story in the series as of writing this and it is very much the same as the first three. Silly slice of life fluff. So if you liked the stories up to now and didn’t like this one, don’t worry about it.

 

Pony Stories 854

Ugh. Problem with online friends is that occasionally they just poof and there is literally no way to say goodbye. Even worse when they don’t give any reason for the poof. On a site I do a decent amount of chatting I have been trying to build some actual friendships rather than just roleplay partners. One of them just deleted their account (I just get a notification) and… that’s it. Can’t find out why they did it. No way to ask for explanation. Sucks. Timing even worse since I’m juuuuust barely starting to pull out of the major depression I’ve been in for two weeks.

• The New Life of a Winning Pony by Chengar Qordath

 

Hardcopy: Time Loop Triolgy

I got one of my two copies of The Time Loop Trilogy (Hard Reset, Stitch In Time, You Can Fight Fate) today. It got delivered two days ago but apparently nobody was around to sign for it so I had to go pick it up at my local post office today. Anyway! It’s here now and looks pretty good. My only complain is that the inside cover tabs of the dust jacket are about half the size they should be. I get he didn’t put anything on them (in standard bookstore books there is story info and author info on the front and back flaps) but they are still much too short.

Still! The actual book is very nice. A dust jacket is not as nice as the cover it, well, covers. Smartphone pictures below. It also came with some kind of secret code. I’m not sure if that was something I should know about and just missed, or a special treat the publisher person snuck in. Still pondering if I should translate it or not. It even has my name and # of 126 inside the front cover. Which is cool, no doubt about it. If the second one has my name that’s gonna impact me selling my extra copy though. Not sure if I could use a sticker or just go with whiteout to cover up the name.

 

Pony Stories 853

Beep boop.

• Her Royal Morning Coffee by Georg
• Watch! Watch! by horizon