Did Marvel Go Woke Go Broke With Its Last Three Movies?

I’ve watched enough rugby to get excited whenever the ref reaches for that yellow card — it really changes the whole feel of a game. In simple terms, a player goes to the sin bin when the referee decides the offence deserves a temporary suspension rather than a full sending-off. In 15s rugby (union) that suspension is normally 10 minutes, which in real time can feel like an eternity because your team must play a man down and the opposition often smell blood. The common triggers are cynical or deliberate acts that stop a clear scoring opportunity, repeated technical infringements (like persistent offside or continual holding on at the breakdown), and dangerous play such as high tackles, stamping, or reckless contact with the head. The idea is punishment and deterrent without ending the player’s whole match. I’ll get into specifics because those concrete examples stick with me: deliberate knock-ons to stop a certain try, pulling someone back without the ball, collapsing a maul or scrum on purpose, and repeat offending at set pieces all frequently earn a yellow. Referees also use the sin bin for clear professional fouls — for instance, if a player cynically stops an opponent from scoring by illegal means but the act wasn’t judged to be violent enough for a red. There are shades of grey, and that’s why you hear debates after every big fixture; the ref’s angle, speed of play, and safety considerations all matter. Also remember that in rugby sevens a yellow card is only 2 minutes because the halves are so short, while in many rugby league competitions the sin bin is typically 10 minutes as well. So context matters. The mechanics are straightforward: yellow card shown, player leaves the field immediately and the team plays a man short until the time expires and the referee permits the return. A yellow can later be upgraded after review if citing commissioners find the act worse than seen in real time, which adds another layer of consequence. For fans and players alike the sin bin is fascinating — it’s tactical theatre: teams rearrange, kickers may be targeted, and momentum swings wildly. I love how a well-drilled side can weather the storm and how an underdog moment can erupt when the extra space is used — always makes for great matches and even better pub debates afterward.

I get picky about covers in a way that's almost embarrassing—I'm the friend who shushes people in playlists when a cover just doesn't land. For me the litmus test for whether a cover of 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' (or any iconic track) should stay or should go is simple: does it bring something honest and new, or is it just a note-for-note rerun? If a band or singer flips the mood entirely—say they take that punchy punk guitar and turn it into a fragile acoustic prayer, or they pump it full of synth and turn it cinematic—I'm instantly interested. Those reinterpretations make the song feel alive again, and those are the covers I want in my library and on repeat. On the flip side, I drop covers that feel like karaoke with a studio budget. When the artist copies phrasing and production slavishly without adding character, it comes across as a tribute without heart. Also, painfully generic genre-swaps where you could swap in any other hit and get the same arrangement—those covers get the boot. Live versions, though, deserve a different lens: if a live cover improves on the original energy or gives a raw moment of vulnerability, it earns a stay. If a live cut is sloppy purely for shock value, then it goes. I love imagining alternate covers: a slow, nearby-mic folk take on 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' that makes the chorus feel like a conversation; an unexpected jazz trio version that plays with rhythm and harmony; or a dramatic orchestral rework that turns the song into a mini-movie. Those creative gambits show respect and curiosity about the song's core. Meanwhile, the covers that try to mimic the original just to bank on nostalgia? They rarely survive more than one listen for me. So my rule of thumb: keep the covers that risk something and reveal a new facet of the melody or lyrics, and ditch the ones that simply copy. I keep my playlists full of daring reworks and heartfelt live twists, and I enjoy culling the rest—makes me feel like a curator, honestly.

That phrase 'woke up like this' used to be a light caption on a selfie, but these days it wears a dozen hats and I love poking at each one. A friend of mine posted a glamorous selfie with the caption and everyone knew she’d actually spent an hour with a ring light and a contour palette — we all laughed, tagged a filter, and moved on. I always think of Beyoncé's line from 'Flawless' — that lyric turbocharged the meme into mainstream language, giving it a wink of confidence and a little bit of celebrity swagger. Beyond the joke, I also read it as a tiny rebellion: claiming you look effortlessly great, even if the reality is staged. It can be sincere — a no-makeup confidence post — or performative, where the caption is a deliberate irony that says, "I know this is curated." Marketers and influencers leaned into it fast, so now it's a shorthand for beauty standards, self-branding, and the modern bargain of authenticity versus production. Personally, I like that it can be both empowering and playful; it’s a snapshot of how we negotiate image and truth online, and that mix fascinates me.

That chorus still grabs me — two words, a whole argument in one shout: 'Should I Stay or Should I Go'. The song itself is officially credited to Mick Jones, and from everything I've read and felt listening to it a hundred times, he wrote it out of that classic rock-and-roll pressure cooker: romantic push-and-pull mixed with band friction and the desire to make something irresistibly simple and loud. The lyrics are deliciously plain on purpose. On one level it reads like a breakup spat — the cycle of clinging and wanting freedom — and that kind of immediacy was basically a strength for the band. On another level, you can hear it as a joke or an argument about loyalty and lifestyle: stay loyal to the group, stay in a relationship, or blow everything up and leave. Musically it’s built to be a stadium chant, with that back-and-forth punchy chorus meant to be sung by everyone. That mix of intimacy and shout-along pop is why the song cut through; Jones layered personal emotion with the kind of archetypal, one-line dilemma everyone recognizes. Recording-wise, 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' came out of the 'Combat Rock' era when the band was stretched thin by touring, creative differences, and the general exhaustion of having been huge in different ways. The track’s directness worked as both a statement and entertainment — a little raw, a little radio-ready. People also point to the duality in vocals and mixes as part of the story: you can feel different personalities in the delivery, and that underlines the idea that it’s not just about one relationship, but a pattern of back-and-forth decisions in life and music. What I'm left with, decades later, is a weird affection for how the song wears its indecision like armor. It’s catchy precisely because it’s honest and small in wording but huge in emotional scope. Every time it comes on I find myself debating the chorus with whoever’s in the room, which feels exactly like what the writers intended — to spark that immediate, messy conversation. I still smile when the first guitar hits.

Wild setup, right? I dove into 'Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies' because the title itself is a dare, and the story pays it off with a weird, emotionally messy mystery. It follows Elliot, who notices a freak pattern: every trip he takes, someone connected to him dies shortly after or during the vacation. At first it’s small — an ex’s dad has a heart attack in a hotel pool, a barista collapses after a late-night street fight — and Elliot treats them like tragic coincidences. So the novel splits between the outward sleuthing and Elliot’s inward unraveling. He tries to prove it’s coincidence, then that he’s being targeted, then that he’s somehow the cause. Friends drift away, police start asking questions, and a nosy journalist digs up ties that look damning. The structure bounces between present-day investigations, candid journal entries Elliot keeps on flights, and quick, bruising flashbacks that reveal his past traumas and secrets. By the climax the reader isn’t sure if this is supernatural horror or a very human tragedy about guilt and unintended harm. There’s a reveal — either a psychological explanation where Elliot has blackout episodes and unintentionally sets events in motion, or an ambiguous supernatural touch that hints at a curse passed down through his family. The ending refuses tidy closure: some things are explained, some stay eerie. I loved how it balanced dread with a real ache for Elliot; it left me thinking about luck and responsibility long after closing the book.

The sequel doesn't sprint off in the direction everyone expects; it sidesteps into the messy middle where consequences live. I picture her unravelling the prophecy and finding that the map people loved was only the margin notes — the grand destiny was a social contract, not a destiny fixed in stone. The first act of the follow-up becomes less about ticking epic boxes and more about dealing with broken institutions, the cost of myth on communities, and the ways ordinary folks try to rewrite a story that once controlled them. Plot-wise, this means the narrative shifts to a quieter, almost surgical pace. There's political fallout (cults spring up, opportunists claim fragments of the prophecy as new mandates), moral ambiguity (was the 'villain' shaped by prophecy or by the response to it?), and a lot of reconstructing: libraries burned, genealogies questioned, magic backfiring, treaties unravelled. The heroine spends as much time negotiating peace councils and nursing wounded economies as she does in sword fights, which makes the sequel feel richer — it explores restoration as heroism. My favourite part would be the personal consequences; she learns that failing or succeeding at prophecy has collateral damage. Families divided over belief must reconcile, and she must choose whether to become a figurehead or a facilitator. That decision—whether to let people have agency or to carry the weight of decisions for them—carries the emotional heft. I love that kind of storytelling where after the prophecy is unraveled, the story becomes about repair and messy humanity; it feels honest and oddly hopeful to me.

My hunt for 'Divorced But Never Letting Go' turned into one of those little internet mysteries I actually enjoyed getting into. I dug through library catalogs, checked Goodreads, peeked at indie publisher listings and marketplace pages, and still didn’t find a single, authoritative record tying that exact title to a mainstream publisher or a widely recognized author. That usually means one of three things: it’s self-published under a pen name, it’s been published under an alternate title or translation, or it’s a short-form piece (like a novella or serialized web story) that hasn’t made it into library databases. If you want certainty, the fastest route is ISBN or publisher metadata — those are the keys that resolve ambiguous titles. For now, I can’t point to a confirmed author or a solid publication date for 'Divorced But Never Letting Go'; it behaves like a niche or indie release. Kind of intriguing, really — I like the idea that the internet still hides a few books like scavenger-hunt gems.

Okay, here’s the short, friendly breakdown that I’d give a buddy over coffee: DocuSign sends reminders only if the sender has turned them on for that envelope or template. When you’re creating an envelope, there’s an option called Reminders (or Reminders and Expirations) where you can choose when the first reminder should go out and how often it repeats — like start after X days and repeat every Y days. If reminders aren’t set, nothing automatic will be sent. I also keep an eye on a few gotchas: reminders only go to recipients who are still outstanding (so no reminders for someone who already signed, declined, or if the envelope expired). If the recipient’s email bounced, they won’t get the reminder either. Templates can have preset reminders, and account admins can force default reminder/expiration settings or even disable them, so behavior can change between teams. You can always manually nudge someone by opening the envelope and hitting Remind/Resend, and the envelope’s audit trail shows every scheduled and sent reminder. If you want a simple step: when sending click Advanced Options > Reminders and Expirations, set your start and repeat intervals, or use the Remind button later if you forgot to set it — that usually fixes the awkward follow-up moment.