Hello FINE|Line enjoyers. I’m Andrew Adjei and I’ll be covering for Owen today. They have a tummy ache, or something. Anyway, I always love a good excuse to write and talk about myself and the things I’m enjoying. To be honest I haven’t been doing as much writing, even though I did start a Substack late last year and I have not posted to it once since 2024 began. Maybe by the time this goes up I’ll have something new. Maybe not! Anyway I, like Owen, love to consume media and share my thoughts on it, so here’s everything that I have seen, played, and have thoughts on.

TELEVISION

So far 2024 has brought some pretty good shows and some unexpected surprises as well. Should I spend this entire section talking about how much I loved Shogun? Yeah, probably but instead I’ll talk about…

X-Men 97: 

Or rather, the ways in which it made me not want a live action MCU film. I feel like, 8, maybe 10, years ago the idea of Marvel bringing an iconic series to the big screen seemed great. The reason you want an MCU to take over Spider-Man over Sony is because The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a steaming pile of poo. The reason you want someone else to helm a Fantastic Four movie is because 20^th Century Fox’s attempts were poo with extra poo sprinkled on top. But in the years since we have gotten to know Marvel, or rather, Disney, and their aversion to bold interesting storytelling. They are obsessed with continuity, clean lines, and inoffensive choices. And to be fair, back when there were like 10 movies that didn’t seem so bad, nothing wrong with wolfing down a slice of inoffensive grilled cheese. Cheese on bread, you did it, complete meal. But after…25…30(?) movies the treadmill starts to get a bit exhausting. And suddenly you find yourself nodding with appreciation at Zack Snyder’s, Batman V. Superman, because while there’s a boat load of corporate branding slathered all over it, it at least feels messy, and considered, and directed, it has the stamp of an (awful) author all over it. 

That’s a long winded way of saying X-Men 97 was allowed to be interesting within the Disney framework in a way that an animated series would be allowed to. It also proves that mature superhero stories just play better in animation, you can just do more. If you watched the show then surely you must be wondering, “Andrew, dumbass, what exactly does the show do that a film can’t?” Well for starters, it can tell a story without feeling nailed down to existing established MCU lore. How the hell are you even going to wedge the origin story of nearly every character from that series into the timeline without doing some multiverse bullshit, or just some light unobtrusive retconning? Also the politics of X-Men will definitely be neoliberal-ified to death in an MCU adaptation. Not that the show is some radical text, but it’s at least more willing to justify and humanize characters like Magneto and Rogue when they get upset. Meanwhile in MCU land anyone standing up to the status quo gets gunned down by the state department while a superhero solemnly shakes their head. 

MOVIES

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

I have not watched many films as of late. I did however watch Furiosa in IMAX. It was great, but I did grapple with it during its first hour. I’ll probably write more about it in my Letterbox review, but I had to do this thing where I set aside what I thought the movie should be, and start to enjoy it as the movie it was. This movie is not Fury Road. When they say it’s a Furiosa origin story they mean it, we’re going to spend so much time placing her within this world and establishing the characters. It’s so interesting because when you hear a character from a film is getting their own film, the first thing you think is, “cash grab.” But it’s so obvious that the team involved cares so much about these characters and world, it’s so dense and detailed. I can’t wait to watch it again.

GAMING

I’m a big Destiny 2 player. I even played a few times with Owen. And as of now I’m waiting for the big expansion The Final Shape to come out. I dipped in briefly to play sort of a prologue (epilogue to the current season?) mission they put out. I really hope they stick the landing; it seems like developer Bungie has been struggling in the wake of their last expansion, so I want them to have a big win. Especially since the industry has been suffering as of late with studio closures and layoffs happening everywhere. Anyway…

Hades II

Hades II is in early access, and I’ve put about 22 hours into it so far. I won’t spoil anything, if you’re waiting for the full release. But it’s such an interesting game and an interesting approach to a sequel. For starters, it’s the kind of sequel that you could “jump into” having not played the original game. But it’s also the kind of sequel where that doesn’t make sense. As far as I can tell there aren’t that many tweaks to the gameplay itself, and the visuals are more or less doing the same thing the previous game did. But everything about the big changes seems to be in dialog with that first game. Some of the ways progress unlocked, or even how they address difficulty are all direct responses to comfort levels you may have had while playing Hades 1. And I did go soft. After about 30 hours, I knew I could reliably get to the final boss. But Hades II I was fighting for my life. You have less health, abilities are not nearly as generous, enemy types and encounters are more vicious, it has been keeping me on my toes. I am curious just how different the game will look by the time it gets closer to release, but again, I’m super impressed with how they were willing to challenge returning players. Which makes sense, you don’t want people breezing their way to the end when the game technically won’t be out for another year, maybe sooner. 

BOOK

I’m a writer, but I’m a terrible reader. I’ve been trying to correct that this year by reading more and so far I’ve finished…drum roll please…one book. I decided to rewatch The Expanse, a science fiction show that aired for three seasons on sci-fi before being canceled and resurrected by Jeff Bezos to live on Prime Video for another 3 seasons. It’s excellent, and incomplete. The books it is based on however did get a definitive ending. The final book came out as season 6 was airing. So I decided to see how the story ends by starting to read…

Leviathan Wakes

Reading Leviathan Wakes as I rewatched season 1 was interesting. One super interesting detail is that they split up the first book. Season one is only half of the first book, and the first 5 episodes of season 2 finish up the first book. But also the show changes a lot, which isn’t surprising, but the biggest change is that they decided to have the main crew hate each other. In the book they get thrown into a stressful situation and they’re ready to get the job done, and cooperate. And it works. In the show, they fucking hate each other. They’re arguing, pointing guns at each others heads, and doubting each other. For a time, they eventually get to a point where they’re willing to die for one another but the show makes them earn that. The pacing of the book wouldn’t make for interesting television, and it was fun to see the ways writers grapple with that sort of tension and pacing. Did they eventually hit all the story beats the book did, yes, but they are also making episodes of television, they don’t make it easy. At the same time I had watched Netflix’s live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it was funny to see that show try to adapt source material into something more “mature,” and missing the mark completely. The live action series is so scared of having you hate its characters, of allowing them to develop and be a little ugly to start. The Expanse knew that we’d grow to love these characters, but they made them all bastards. I don’t know how book readers reacted to those changes in the moment, but that ratcheting of tension made me enjoy the payoff even more. I’m not sure then why the version that happens in the books also works for me. Maybe I’m just a sucker for this type of sci-fi, but the world building just did it for me. I can’t wait to see what happens next and to eventually get into un-adapted territory.

MUSIC

I have no idea how to talk about music so this section won’t be as long winded. I don’t exactly have an album of the year (so far) yet. None of the 2024 releases I’ve heard have been earth shattering as of yet. 

But I’ve had Wake Up by Backxwash on repeat since it came out a few weeks ago. It’s just so energetic and larger than life. I had euphoria by Kendrick Lamar in rotation as well, I kinda want the rap beef to get restarted, I mean the beef is ongoing, but you know I thrive off negativity, and I would like the girlies to start fighting again. With that said, euphoria is just a great song even outside of the Drake hate. I do hate Drake so that was a nice bonus though. 

Also I saw one of my favorite bands, KNOWER, perform live on May 22^nd, and they were so rad. Check out their work. Their most recent album, KNOWER FOREVER is absolutely amazing, as are their previous releases.

Anyway, that about does it for me wonderful readers. Thanks for reading this far. If you’d like to follow more of my work you can check out my Linktr.ee. I also edit a literary journal called RABBLE REVIEW, give us a follow on our socials. We’re currently working on our 8^th issue as of this writing. We publish reader submitted poetry, prose, and art. And every issue is free to download, so check it out! 

Once again, thanks so much for reading, and thank you Owen for letting me drop in to blabber. I hope the pink eye you have in both eyes clears up soon, or whatever