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shadowkatSomewhat depressed today, been feeling lonely and depressed lately - kind of like that Adele song? My Little Love? Except I don't have kids. (Nor regret not having kids for that matter, really no regrets on that front. Having a child is no guarantee, you won't be lonely. Case in point? My entire family lives across the US. Niece is in California, her parents in upstate NY, my Mother is currently visiting her sister in Michigan, and then on to Seattle to visit her cousin.) Meditation does help - I've learned how to let the dark clouds or thoughts in my head float on by and not hold on to them. Yes, that's an interesting thought, noted, but it's a temporary situation and I'm not going to dwell, float on by.
Random tidbits:
1. Kevin Feige announced today that yes, the MCU plans on recasting all of the X-men, and Tony Stark and Steve Rogers down the road. Probably around 2027, after Secret Wars.
He made some good points. Why not? It's not like they haven't recast James Bond, Doctor Who, Captain Kirk, Spock, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman - multiple times.
Superhero films/comics have a lot in common daytime soap operas and insanely long-running television serials/film franchises - in that the following often happens, and their audience/readers are used to it and tend to shrug it off or hand-wave it:
* The retcon or reboot - basically rewrite a story to make it work with new characters or bringing back characters they either wrote into a corner, or beyond redemption, or killed off and want to bring back from the dead.
* Reset - also enables bringing back characters from the dead, and recasting them.
* Recasting characters - actors do not own their characters nor do artists or writers in comics and daytime serials. Which means that the characters can be recast, they can be made to look different, and they can be written a different way without much notice.
* Expect insane plots, often that make no sense whatesover or take weird uturns.
* Tend to be more character driven than plot driven, although often characters will be the pawns of a plot, depends on the writer
* Have a great deal in common with fanfiction. This may be why fanfic has never bothered me all that much? And I don't care whether it is canon or not? I am a fan of superhero comics and daytime serials, I'm used to it, and actually enjoy seeing different takes on the same character and story. The more the merrier.
That said... I find this disconcerting: "The decision echoes changes in the composition of the Marvel comics following the 2015 “Secret Wars” storyline, which involved multiple timelines collapsing and re-converging, mixing up the characters of the main Marvel timeline in the process.
“We’re utilizing that [story] not just to round out the stories we’ve been telling post-‘Endgame,’ just as importantly — and you can look at the at the ‘Secret Wars’ comics for where that takes you — it very, very much sets us up for the future,” Feige said. “‘Endgame,’ literally, was about endings. ‘Secret Wars’ is about is about beginnings.”
I've mixed feelings? I did not like the Secret Wars storyline in 2015, it gave me a headache. It also gave me a headache the previous time they did it. I found it difficult to follow, way too busy, and it catered a bit too much to the video game players, who wanted to fight it out between superheroes, as opposed to telling a story that furthered character arcs.
Not helped by the fact that they kept killing off all my favorite characters. Then resurrecting them somewhere else.
On the other hand - I'm admittedly curious how they are going to make a film out of that?
What do you think? Assuming there's anyone out there reading this that's still into the MCU films and the Marvel comics. I honestly can't tell. [Note: If you aren't into it? Or it's not your thing? I really don't need to know, silence remains golden on that front.]
2. Malcolm Jamal-Warner, who played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died at the age of 54.
"Per The Associated Press, Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation Department confirmed that Warner died on Sunday in a drowning accident while on vacation with his family at a beach along the country's Caribbean coast. He was pulled into a current. Fellow beachgoers tried to rescue him, but first responders from Costa Rica's Red Cross were unable to revive him."
Go Here
I'm thrown by the folks who are dying that are younger than me. This is the second one in a few weeks. The first was Julian McMahon of cancer.
3. On a more positive note? I attended a Zoom presentation of my agency's new climate protection toy today. It's a Climate Resiliency Mapping Project - this is an electronic data gatherer of data regarding flooding potential, early warning of flooding, and various measures of preventing it in the area.
Measures taken to date? They've installed sea walls along the edges of Manhattan and Brooklyn, along with Tunnel Gates that prevent water from entering. And gates preventing water from entering stations and tracks.
They also have been able to determine where the flood plain is, how it will change over time with rising sea levels, and how to prepare for future flooding. The tool is open to all relevant employees to use, and to add relevant data as needed.
Here's a link to the MTA's Climate Resilience Program
And a link to the newly proposed high speed train: GO HERE.
4. Went on a walk around Battery Park at lunch today, and saw a man holding a large yellow python, also a man playing a kind of old style string instrument (he was playing AULD LANG SYNE) and took pictures of flowers and buildings.
Man holding huge python - behind the cut for the snake adverse:
Man playing weird instrument:
Slabs of a WWII War Memorial amid the greenery.
And finally...a field of corn flowers in NYC:
Random tidbits:
1. Kevin Feige announced today that yes, the MCU plans on recasting all of the X-men, and Tony Stark and Steve Rogers down the road. Probably around 2027, after Secret Wars.
He made some good points. Why not? It's not like they haven't recast James Bond, Doctor Who, Captain Kirk, Spock, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman - multiple times.
Superhero films/comics have a lot in common daytime soap operas and insanely long-running television serials/film franchises - in that the following often happens, and their audience/readers are used to it and tend to shrug it off or hand-wave it:
* The retcon or reboot - basically rewrite a story to make it work with new characters or bringing back characters they either wrote into a corner, or beyond redemption, or killed off and want to bring back from the dead.
* Reset - also enables bringing back characters from the dead, and recasting them.
* Recasting characters - actors do not own their characters nor do artists or writers in comics and daytime serials. Which means that the characters can be recast, they can be made to look different, and they can be written a different way without much notice.
* Expect insane plots, often that make no sense whatesover or take weird uturns.
* Tend to be more character driven than plot driven, although often characters will be the pawns of a plot, depends on the writer
* Have a great deal in common with fanfiction. This may be why fanfic has never bothered me all that much? And I don't care whether it is canon or not? I am a fan of superhero comics and daytime serials, I'm used to it, and actually enjoy seeing different takes on the same character and story. The more the merrier.
That said... I find this disconcerting: "The decision echoes changes in the composition of the Marvel comics following the 2015 “Secret Wars” storyline, which involved multiple timelines collapsing and re-converging, mixing up the characters of the main Marvel timeline in the process.
“We’re utilizing that [story] not just to round out the stories we’ve been telling post-‘Endgame,’ just as importantly — and you can look at the at the ‘Secret Wars’ comics for where that takes you — it very, very much sets us up for the future,” Feige said. “‘Endgame,’ literally, was about endings. ‘Secret Wars’ is about is about beginnings.”
I've mixed feelings? I did not like the Secret Wars storyline in 2015, it gave me a headache. It also gave me a headache the previous time they did it. I found it difficult to follow, way too busy, and it catered a bit too much to the video game players, who wanted to fight it out between superheroes, as opposed to telling a story that furthered character arcs.
Not helped by the fact that they kept killing off all my favorite characters. Then resurrecting them somewhere else.
On the other hand - I'm admittedly curious how they are going to make a film out of that?
What do you think? Assuming there's anyone out there reading this that's still into the MCU films and the Marvel comics. I honestly can't tell. [Note: If you aren't into it? Or it's not your thing? I really don't need to know, silence remains golden on that front.]
2. Malcolm Jamal-Warner, who played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died at the age of 54.
"Per The Associated Press, Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation Department confirmed that Warner died on Sunday in a drowning accident while on vacation with his family at a beach along the country's Caribbean coast. He was pulled into a current. Fellow beachgoers tried to rescue him, but first responders from Costa Rica's Red Cross were unable to revive him."
Go Here
I'm thrown by the folks who are dying that are younger than me. This is the second one in a few weeks. The first was Julian McMahon of cancer.
3. On a more positive note? I attended a Zoom presentation of my agency's new climate protection toy today. It's a Climate Resiliency Mapping Project - this is an electronic data gatherer of data regarding flooding potential, early warning of flooding, and various measures of preventing it in the area.
Measures taken to date? They've installed sea walls along the edges of Manhattan and Brooklyn, along with Tunnel Gates that prevent water from entering. And gates preventing water from entering stations and tracks.
They also have been able to determine where the flood plain is, how it will change over time with rising sea levels, and how to prepare for future flooding. The tool is open to all relevant employees to use, and to add relevant data as needed.
Here's a link to the MTA's Climate Resilience Program
And a link to the newly proposed high speed train: GO HERE.
4. Went on a walk around Battery Park at lunch today, and saw a man holding a large yellow python, also a man playing a kind of old style string instrument (he was playing AULD LANG SYNE) and took pictures of flowers and buildings.
Man holding huge python - behind the cut for the snake adverse:
Man playing weird instrument:
Slabs of a WWII War Memorial amid the greenery.
And finally...a field of corn flowers in NYC:
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 10:43 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about those younger than you. I didn't recognize Julian's name but did his face when I searched him. You know there's no justice when Warner dies before Cosby.
I agree about the recasting, and it would be so easy with the multiverse storyline to have a different Steve, Tony etc. There's always an actor that will be your Character Name Here but that doesn't mean the character should never be portrayed again. It's more in the writing than the casting.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 10:50 pm (UTC)She was only 31.
I'd only ever seen her in clips and fanvids for the series but, coupled with the suicide of Kim Sae-ron back in February; fanvid for a character she played led me to a whole world of Korean dramas and movies, has made this last few months somber to say the least.
Not forgetting the death of Michelle Trachtenberg.
With all my issues with suicidal thoughts and my refusal to look after myself; how am I still alive and these talented people not?
It seems insane.
That instrument looks familiar; brain is thinking Chinese or Vietnamese, but I have seen a video of someone playing rock or metal music using one of them; last year, or maybe 2023.
kerk
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 11:37 pm (UTC)Absolutely. The only upside is there is more time to continue to hate him.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 11:46 pm (UTC)I'm glad to hear NYC is taking some measures.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 07:46 am (UTC)I'm not bothered about the reboots since they brought in the multiverse; anything goes, really. I enjoyed the Spider-Man crossovers in the last Tom Holland film, and we like the animated 'What If' series. Like you say - so many different actors and different timelines/eras mean lots of different actors playing a role anyway.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 10:09 pm (UTC)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhu
Sounded like bagpipes in a way - which is odd. Kind of like a violin mixed with bagpipes. It was haunting.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 10:13 pm (UTC)Not helped by the fact that the more recent entries aren't quite as good as the previous films.
That could change going forward.
It's always subjective. And the superhero franchise is kind of like the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises in this respect...a mixed bag, some films/shows are better than others?
no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 10:33 pm (UTC)If it's any consolation, I'm betting Cosby feels the same way. I think sometimes people who are nasty live a long time - to give them time to learn from their mistakes? I don't know, life is horribly unfair.
Agree - it is definitely more about writing than casting - although casting can be a big part of it. But no actor can save a film from bad writing and direction. There's a lot of folks who can play Stark and Rogers. There's been more than one Doctor Doom after all. And certainly more than one Fantastic Four - with that it wasn't the acting but the script. Iron Man had a good script and a good director, as did the Captain American films.
All we need to do is look at the Batman and Superman films - it's all about the writing, I think?
no subject
Date: 2025-07-23 12:02 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOm1-PFsLv0
The Sound Of Silence | NiNi Music + Joy (Asian Folk Cover)
First encountered her a couple of years ago; plays a style she calls Taiwanese Folk Metal. This is definitely not what she was playing when I saw her playing the Erhu, but it's very beautiful nonetheless.
kerk
ps. And after written all that what should I find when I hankered after listening to that first track?
*feels like an idiot. Powers of observation, not Holmesian for sure ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn7uCux0uc
Nini Music - LongMa (Taiwanese Folk Metal)