#phase4

at least it used to be. the house is in bad shape since the last time i was here. her lawn is overgrown, her white paint is tarnished with dirt and grime, and the mailbox has fallen over.

she looks neglected. is that how she feels too?

she had no reaction when i showed up. when i entered the yard, nothing. i was trying to be cautious, but i stooped at the entrance of the porch and reached down to gently rest my hand upon one of the stairs. still, no sound.

having cleared my head before coming here, i could easily sense that i had to play this carefully. the house may be quiet but i knew she was watching me closely. its like a pressing weight.

"im sorry i left," i said, speaking sincerely to the plank of wood under my palm, "you were right. there was nothing out there for me."

the door ahead of me creaks open with hesitation. i smile as i look up at dark sliver revealing the house's interior.

"right! yeah, you want me to come back inside, but-"

the door goes silent, unmoving. i also go silent, regretting the 'but' word immensely. my nerves make me chuckle. "uh, heh, dont worry. i just want us to have an understanding about whats happening next, is that okay?"

the house shut her front door, soundless. then the shutters on the top floor windows flew open and slammed shut hard on their panes. two for yes, one for no. the shutters answered: BANG.

"no?" i questioned, standing up to watch the windows, "fine, you dont have to agree before hearing what i have to say first - i get it. allow me to explain then?"

BANG BANG.

"thanks."

i took a deep breath. here we go...

"i know how badly you want to keep me here, okay? if i walk through your door right now theres a high chance that door wont be there when i look back. you'll get rid of it, change your entire structure just to keep me in, isnt that right?"

BANG BANG.

"right. but i take issue with this, because habit is still out there somewhere and he will come back. you know that, dont you?"

...BANG BANG.

"when he comes back, he will try to kill me. if im dead he's free to torment you again. i dont blame you for wanting to lock me up where he cant get me, but in return i cant do anything about habit either."

the house is silent, listening...thinking. i made my way up onto the porch, stopping just short of the front door. determination in my eyes, i spoke to the glass panes - to the house and my own reflection. "i am going to kill habit. and when i do...ill come back to you. i promise. will you help me?"

and the door opened immediately, the shutters swiveled shut without another sound.

im home.

here i am...standing in front of the house again.

i havent been here in months. i didnt exactly intend on coming back but it turns out theres some things i may have missed. information i didnt know i needed until very recently.

however, im not ready to go back in there just yet.

first id like to back track a little to what happened after i got that safe open, and how this has led me to returning to the house. ive summarized my conclusions in the previous entry...this is the full scoop. buckle in.

so, i went dark for a while after finding the safe. i wandered from abandoned house to abandoned house, mulling over my situation all the while. i kept an eye out for anything suspicious or interesting, but there was nothing. no ghost jeff, no cat, even the empty apparitions populating the stores in town seemed to be getting bored somehow. and neither evan nor habit showed up, of course.

i didnt stop posting because i was sad and giving up; instead, more so than anything else...i was becoming very, very angry.

at first i didnt fully understand why i was so mad, just that i no longer felt like crying over everything i'd already cried about. that well was drying up fast. i knew i had plenty of reasons to be angry, but each of them on their own couldnt truly encapsulate the raging flame of fury that was growing within me.

the thing is, i decided to leave the house to be better than the vinny i saw in the mirror, to find the answers for myself instead of waiting around for habit to finalize my fate for me. i wanted to take my control back because another version of me never did.

instead, i spent so long just...staring at that gun. i wondered what it could be used for, besides killing myself anyways. i read the papers about the house about a hundred times over and still, none of it was particularly relevant to me. it wouldnt have been relevant to anyone else either, which is why i decided not to share it - riveting, right? and the fireworks? i simply left them with the safe. what else was i supposed to do with those?

all of that was pretty useless shit on its own, shit a more depressed and inattentive me from a few months ago simply accepted. the real spit in the face came from the symbol on the bullets.

habit wanted me to see it, but why? it doesnt mean anything to me, to my knowledge. it probably should though, and theres some reason why i cant pick up on its power. its just another cruel reminder of how little i actually know about anything, despite this "true sight" i have.

why was no progress being made? because these tid-bits of information habit left behind arent puzzles, they are just crumbs to keep me distracted while hes perfecting his own plans. and all this time ive been thinking i was the one who was going to get ahead in the game.

i am furious, because i let him distract me again.

i let him waste my time, again.

i let him have months and months to plan my demise while ive been stuck on one stupid clue, again.

i let him scare me.

hurt me.

kill me.

even lose to me in another life. and in his own defeat, habit still won in a way. he gave up and i let him off scot free, just like that. im humiliated by it.

...

my plan begins at the house. habit's shit is probably still inside - i mean his actual belongings, not whatever he's been feeding me. im going to go through his stuff as well as check out the library. theres gotta be something more to find there.

i am ending this the way i want to.

Okay. I couldn't sum up my thoughts about Wakanda Forever into a one-minute Tik-Tok video. So, now you have to read them. 

After seeing this movie, I think I understand why some people are having a problem with MCU Phase 4.

When the MCU got started, all of its movies were basically the same. 

Good Iron Man fought evil Iron Man. 

Good Thor fought Evil Thor (Robot).  

Good Captain America fought Captain Nazi.

It was so obvious it became a trope. But, as the MCU grew and matured, it began to evolve. 

We complained all of the movies were the same and they started making changes. 

We started to see a superhero movie that was also a spy thriller.

A superhero movie that was also about PTSD. 

A superhero movie that was also a midlife crisis movie. 

At some point,  the meter of superhero movie to other genre passed the threshold of no return.

Wakanda Forever sold that to me. 

This is a beautiful, well-written, well-acted drama about dealing with grief, pain, loss that happens to have superheroes in it. 

She-Hulk is a legal comedy that also has superheroes in it. 

 Multiverse of Madness is a Sam  Rainey classic B-horror that also has superheroes in it.

Ms. Marvel is just My So-Called Life…. That also has superheroes in it. 

These are not superhero movies with a taste of second genre.  

These are other genres with a taste of superheroes.

This is what I love about comic books in general. It is what people outside of this fandom have never understood. 

It is why the DCEU is so bad compared to the MCU. 

Comic tell stories of every kind. That is their power. It is why we love them.

They are targeted at children and that means they keep the stories themselves fairly simple and straightforward.

Early Marvel movies did the same thing. 

But, the main audience for movies is not children.  

It is the people who love these stories but are adults. I rarely see anyone under the age of 20 in the theater with me when I go to a superhero movie anymore. 

What Marvel did was take those stories and add nuance and complexity to the story themselves. It made more mature versions of superhero films that are actually more mature versions of superhero films.

DC's mistake was making grim and gritty superhero movies and thinking that made them more mature. It just made gritty movies with simple plots that no one enjoys. 

Marvel has evolved so each movie is its own thing as part of a universe. 

They no longer need every movie in the universe to appeal to every audience and they shouldn't make them that way. 

This is what people hate. They don't get it.