Talking about whatever

Like, yeah, figures that magic can become a weapon of mass destruction again and it's why it's so aggressively regulated. It can also just misfire really badly.

IE: if Coco had written a fire sigil and it misfired like her water spell in ep 2, that'd still lead to injury even without being on the "most likely will be misused" list.

Still, what the hell did healing do to deserve its ban? Considering the ban was caused by humanity basically just using magic to make infinite nukes, I'm guessing some torturer got very creative or something.

But fr, I Love Boosters is going to live rent free in my head like Sorry to Bother You.

It's just as absurd and funny and it all actually makes sense with the themes he's eyeing.

Like, everyone died laughing when that nepo baby's leaning apartment showed up. But also, she's just choosing to live in a building that's clearly not up to code bc she's rich, in some kind of old money WASP way. But she'd call Corvette's friend "urban" for squatting in a chicken shop.

Like, she's just such an effective villain bc she's selling pointless status symbols by excluding large chunks of the population. The scene where she's having a breakdown bc velvet gang is reselling her stuff cheaply, which lessens the brand's exclusivity? There's a story of rich brits treating Burberry as chav/gopnik trash in early 2000s bc Danniella Westbrook was photographed wearing it.

But also that nepo is racist af. Like, between using terminology like "ghetto" to describe Corvette's gang and straight up stealing her work at multiple points while publicly hating her guts. But then again, isn't the fashion industry always like this?

Coraline and Kyra's relationship in particular is getting a pretty interesting reframing. In book 1, yeah, they were part of the club that transmutes campus bunnies into the Platonic Ideal of Boyfriends that simultaneously feels weirdly "frustrated" and also like a product of purity culture.

So of course at least one might be working through very complicated thoughts on women that she wasn't raised to consider. Coraline's mom feels like an old money type that makes her issues into her daughter's issues. Like, she tells her own daughter that she's screwing the gardener and then mocks her lack of a love life at one point. Same mom also tells her daughter that lipstick is for sluts. Combine with a kid who's obsessed with 50's movies (to the point of having a James Dean poster in this day and age) for a combo from hell.

So, does she like Kyra? Well, in a way. Seems that Coraline is kind of ticked off that she's not unique. But also, those two want to hold hands so bad that they bruise each other's hands (yeah, that last part is actually from the text).

"So, logistically, how did no one get suspicious that only one guy at this one newspaper interviews superman?"

"You told me there's a whole order of space cops. Wouldn't the portals that can turn a planet into a black hole be a problem for them? Where are the bowlcut's coworkers?"

Kory went through hell, so I'm unsurprised that she has a rather instinctive response to someone from a group that tortured her. She's smart and emotionally intelligent, so obviously she's not going to intentionally burn a forest in pursuit of that guy. He just jumped out and the trauma came back.

Also, I feel like she's much less moved on than she says bc of the scene at the spaceship. She hasn't yet seen that the message is now stuck in a loop, but she already wants to wipe the ghost in the machine. Even before it's clear that the device was damaged.

Technically, this is named after the villain(?) but tbh, who cares about the evil tech and pharma bros? The serial killer is just a symptom of a justice system that allows the likes of Sacklers to not face any significant jail time. Maybe he could have been prevented if the feds in this story actually punished people like the not-Robin Hood app cofounder that preyed on little girls.

Unfortunately, these are the people holding Dinah's dad's healthcare hostage. Actually, the scene where that Sackler type cancelled her dad's insurance scared me more than the serial killer's appearance. So yeah, I get why she's stuck working for objectively evil people (who have no sense of self-preservation bc do you really want your bodyguard to hate you).

Yeah, ok, I'm fully expecting Scarecrow to be working with Joker. There's a whole running theme of old money profiting on the military-industrial complex while selling psychological relief to the public. So, Scarecrow's speech about the farmer now having to deal with dread regarding the world's breakdown sealed the deal for me. Engineer a boogeyman, then sell militarization with some bright-eyed youths that view you as the one who gave them the world.

I'm not expecting anything good to happen here. Bruce is at his most psychologically unstable, so I'm not sure he can convince them to stop (and I don't think a footballer-sized dude can handle several cutting-edge weapons). And these kids all seem to have imprinted on Joker to the point where he convinced a paramedic to take up weapons.

Is it insane to take over your estranged twin's life after finding her dead in her luxury apartment bc well, the world already mistakes you for her anyway? Yeah, a bit. But also, her sister seems to be a rather unpleasant type (put mildly bc spoilers), so it feels like a victimless crime. Or maybe I'm falling for the very compelling excuses Julie makes!

Like, Andy and Miranda spend a decent chunk of the movie trying not to get robbed by private equity bros. There's also a trashy divorced tech bro who took the reddit advice of "divorce, then gym" to heart. He's not as much of a visible threat as I'd have liked, even though I think AI bros are just as threatening for quality journalism as the debt addicts.

Overall, I think it's a 7/10. Spoilers