Coyotes and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

My wife and I were walking our small dog at night this week around our complex, and a pretty big coyote lurked towards us. It was the first time that I saw one in our complex in the two years that I lived here, and it was close to us. Thankfully, we got away from it. The next morning, my wife walked our dog, and another coyote approached. This time, she came prepared with a weapon and managed to get away from it. However, one coyote encounter was already uncommon, but two on consecutive days is unheard of. We are just more cautious during certain times of the day walking our dog now.

We also watched Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in theaters this past week, and I thought that it was very good. It is a sequel to the 2018 movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The different comic book style animation was a nice touch, and the focus on the personal worked. It was different from the MCU superhero offerings as it did not have that trademark MCU humor, it had darker themes, and it felt closer to a comic book. It was a bit long, and the way that it ends left a lot to be desired. Overall, I would recommend it.

Watching Spider-Man in the theaters, it made me think about how iconic and original characters are created. There is the origin story, rogue’s gallery, and whatnot, but also, the little things matter as well. With my own characters, that’s something that I’m still working on. I started out having characters being blank slates, but that made my characters quite bland. Having learned, I am trying to make my characters deeper and have more substance, which has helped my writing especially in figuring ways in which characters will react to certain situations.