If you’re thinking about buying your kid their very first tablet (or tech of any sort), you’ve probably got two key concerns: durability and parental controls.

I was really nervous to buy my son his first tablet for these two reasons specifically, but I eventually settled on an Amazon Fire tablet (and this was long before I started reviewing them).

I’ve been really impressed by Amazon’s offerings for kids, and the Fire HD 8 Kids is another solid addition to the lineup. It checks the two essential boxes for a kids’ tablet: it’s pretty kid-proof (knock on wood), and it’s got some beefy parental controls to boot.

Specs

The Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids consists of the newest gen Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet housed in a protective, kid-friendly bumper case.

Compared to the previous gen Fire HD 8, this tablet features an improved 2.0 Ghz Quad core processor (previous gen: 1.3 Ghz), 2 GB of RAM (previous gen: 1.5 GB), and a standard 32 GB of storage (previous gen: 16 or 32 GB).

It also has 2 MP front and rear-facing cameras, and an 8-inch, HD display. It’s noticeably clear, bright, and vibrant (even when smudged with kid fingerprints and mystery grime).

My 6-year-old’s first tablet was the Amazon Fire 7 Kids, and this one is definitely faster. The extra inch of display also makes it seem much roomier, whereas the Fire 7 Kids has always seemed a little on the cramped side.

Performance

Within the context of Amazon Kids+ features (games, books, and videos), the tablet performed flawlessly and without a hitch.

It’s got a surprisingly long battery life, too — up to 12 hours. And although we haven’t been able to get the full 12 hours out of it, it’s great for long car rides because there’s so much offline content available, and the battery drains so slowly.

We also use the tablet for my son’s video lessons for school. The parental controls through Amazon Kids+ allow me to add this one website for him to be able to visit, while blocking all other browser functions and not allowing him to navigate to any other site.

However, the built-in Silk browser is a bit of a weak point of the Fire tablets. It’s a bit slow and clunky, but — for my son’s school videos — it gets the job done. Most of the speed issues I encounter are when navigating the website, but streaming through the browser has been fine.

Durability

The Fire HD 8 Kids comes with a rubberized bumper case that protects it on all sides from drops and bumps (and even bites). It’s bulky, but for good reason — your younger child is gonna have a really hard time damaging this tablet unless they take a baseball bat to the screen or submerge it in water.

Even then, it also comes with Amazon’s 2-year “worry free guarantee” — so you’ll be able to get a no-questions-asked replacement if it breaks within 2 years of purchase.

And your older kids and tweens can opt for the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Pro, which features a sleeker, thinner case that looks way cooler (but offers the same level of protection as the bulkier one for younger kids).

Amazon Kids+

While I love love love the case, what I really love about Fire tablets for kids is Amazon Kids+. It’s a subscription service full of curated, kid-friendly content for all ages (up to age 12).

My son has never complained about the selection on his tablet. No matter what he feels like reading, watching, or playing (lately it’s anything related to tornadoes), he’s always been able to find something on Amazon Kids to capture his attention.

BUT, where Amazon Kids+ really shines in my opinion is in the greatly expanded parental controls it offers. (You can put parental controls on a regular Fire tablet with no Amazon Kids+ subscription, but they’re pretty limited in what they can do.)

With Amazon Kids+, you can set time limits that will disable the tablet between certain hours or after your child has reached a certain screen time threshold. You can also set daily goals for educational content, and block entertainment content until all of the education goals have been met.

You can set an age range to show the best content for your child’s age, too. I’ve got it set to content for 4-8 years of age for my 6 year old, which according to Amazon includes over 23,000 unique pieces of content.

And so they can learn how to use a web browser but stay safe from the internet at large, you can also enable the browser — which offers access to websites prescreened by Amazon or sites that you’ve approved yourself. Right now, my 6 year old is only allowed to go to websites that I’ve manually added, but I think the ability to control how much or how little browser access they have is a great option for older kids.

Finally — and this is the biggie — you can completely disable in-app purchases on child profiles, too.

Your purchase will come with a free one year subscription to Amazon Kids+, and after that an individual child membership costs only $2.99 per month (for both Prime and non-Prime members).

Recommendation

At $139.99, the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids is the right price for an intro tablet for your child, and offers some serious parental controls and a curated, kid-friendly experience through Amazon Kids+ (along with a case that can take a beating).

SEE ALSO: The best Chromebooks for kids, from grade school to college.

For older kids, the Fire HD 8 Kids Plus is the same price and features a slimmer case that still offers a good deal of protection.

I can’t imagine giving my six year old a tablet without thoroughly locking it down, so Amazon Kids+ is a huge benefit. And, the price is right for a device that your child will probably try to chew on or use as a plate at some point. I also like that there’s so much room for growth in the parental controls — you can ease them up as your child gets older and learns to use their device more responsibly, but lock them down for younger kids who will click on anything and everything.

After a two-year wait, Geralt of Rivia welcomes The Witcher fans back to the Continent for the second season of Netflix’s hit fantasy series. Season 2 of The Witcher is a continuation of Season 1’s ambitious adaptation that will inevitably draw watchers further into the magical, monstrous intrigue that hooked them all the way back in 2019.

The Witcher picks up in the immediate aftermath of last season’s climactic Battle of Sodden Hill. Geralt (Henry Cavill) is newly responsible for the well-being of his child surprise Ciri (Freya Allan), who is still processing the trauma of losing her home and family to the Nilfgaardian empire. Meanwhile, reports of Yennefer of Vengerberg’s (Anya Chalotra) death are greatly exaggerated. She is alive and a prisoner of Fringilla Vigo (Mimi Ndiweni), the sorceress sworn to Nilfgaard’s mysterious emperor Emhyr. The Black Knight Cahir (Eamon Farren) is also imprisoned, this time by the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. And while all of this is going on, there’s the small issue of strange and ultra-powerful new monsters popping up all over the Continent to cause all kinds of trouble. 

The first few episodes follow the monster-of-the-week format, wherein Geralt teaches Ciri the ropes of his dangerous lifestyle. This made for some of Season 1’s more memorable episodes (Shout out to that incest princess in the spooky castle, am I right?) Once more, these one-off monsters are a highlight of the series. The premier episode features a horror-themed retelling of Beauty and the Beast with guest star Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane from Game of Thrones). Another introduces the audience to the Witcher holdfast of Kaer Morhen with an indoor hunt for a body-snatching tree. Once Geralt and Ciri are safe in Kaer Morhen, the plotlines begin to coalesce into an overarching story instead of individual adventures. 

That format makes sense, considering The Witcher Season 1 was based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s short stories, whereas Season 2 is loosely based on his first full Witcher novel Blood of Elves. However, those looking for a direct adaptation of Sapkowski’s novel should be pleasantly surprised at how the show chops and screws the plot into a surprising new remix. Characters like the brilliant Redanian spymaster Sigismund Dijkstra (Graham McTavish), the fire mage Rience (Chris Fulton), and Geralt’s mentor/papa Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) make their debuts in this season. Plus, many others who were secondary characters in Season 1 — like Tissaia de Vries (MyAnna Buring), Triss Merigold (Anna Shaffer), and Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu) — have larger roles to play this time around. 

If that sounds like a lot of characters to keep up with, it is. The Witcher Season 2 is packed with new factions, alliances, antagonists, allies, kings, witches, and elves, all of whom have complicated names and even more complicated motivations. At times, the intrigue of who’s backstabbing whom is reminiscent of the good parts of Game of Thrones. At other times, some may find it difficult to keep track of what’s going on. One recommendation would be to watch with subtitles, just to get some of the names straight. Another would be to watch The Witcher without the typical phone/laptop/tablet combo of distractions to help pay closer attention. (No shade, this reviewer made the mistake of texting during one scene and had to rewatch a whole episode). 

Part of the struggle any adaptation, and particularly fantasy adaptations, must overcome is translating the worldbuilding of a series that can take dozens of hours to read into a much shorter timeframe with more visual expression. The Witcher Season 1 got away with its expository sequences because it was most people’s first experience with the Continent and its characters. Season 2’s exposition, while necessary, makes the story drag in some lengthy sections. The ratio is skewed between kinetic scenes, where Geralt gets to kick monster-butt, and scenes where a bunch of people in a room pointedly discuss bloodlines, history, the rules of magic, or the current political situation. And it’s not in favor of the monster butts. 

Another thing The Witcher Season 2 is missing until far too late in its run is the self-aware humor that made Season 1’s more meta moments more fun. Fan-favorite Jaskier (Joey Batey) of “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher” fame doesn’t appear until several episodes in. The entire season’s vibe shifts when he strums his way back on screen with another Geralt-themed banger. (It’s a breakup song. It whips.) Jaskier’s anachronistic humor brings the best out of every character he interacts with, unveiling Geralt’s soft side, sharpening Yennefer’s insults, and driving everyone else to either drink heavily or punch him in the face. If the series follows Sapkowski’s books into their much darker storylines, it’s going to need Jaskier to keep things fun.

This season of The Witcher learned a lot from Season 1. The timeline is linear. Geralt is a much more emotive and intelligent character. Ciri shakes off the mantle of macguffin. There are significantly fewer gratuitous boob shots, and the show’s stakes are finally clear. Having a high fantasy show this good is a testament to how much television has changed in the last twenty years. The near certainty that The Witcher will continue to be one of Netflix’s tentpole productions is a net good for the genre. The Witcher isn’t afraid to be complicated, weird, violent, funny, magical, and horny in its second season. Who wouldn’t toss a coin to that?

The Witcher Season 2 is now on Netflix.

Looking for that perfect gift for a kid who loves to read? This one will definitely win you some brownie points.

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition is a simple e-reader made with kids in mind. It’s durable and water resistant, with a glare-free screen that makes it easy to read anytime, anywhere. With Amazon Kids+, it comes preloaded with a full library of age-appropriate books too.

Specs

E-readers have come so far since I owned an original Nook back in the early-aughts, with a super-delicate display that was prone to die dramatically if you so much as brushed a finger against it. (Granted, I still thought it was the coolest thing in the universe.)

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids retails for $159.99 and offers a 6.8-inch, glare-free display. That means unlike any old tablet you may be tempted to use as an e-reader, this one can be used in bright lights. The brightness is also adjustable, so it can be used at nighttime too.

I was impressed with the glare-free display. It really looks like a paper book laying open in front of you, and I had zero problems reading with it in bright sunlight or darkness.

The device is also water resistant, so an accidental drop in the pool is survivable — making it an even more solid choice for kids.

Now, what makes this the Kids Edition? First, it comes with your choice of two whimsical cases that will appeal to kids of all ages: Robot Dreams or Trees. Your child of darkness and/or avid sticker collector could also choose a plain black case if they wanted.

Your purchase also comes with one free year of Amazon Kids+ (which is otherwise $2.99/month for both Prime members and non-members), which unlocks access to 1,000s of kid-friendly books. If you have other Amazon devices, it also offers kid-friendly apps, games, and videos.

Finally, you’ll also get Amazon’s 2-year worry-free guarantee — so if the device breaks within two years of purchase, you’ll be able to get a free replacement.

Functionality

The most important thing you need to know before you purchase a Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition is that it is NOT a tablet. It’s an e-reader, and an e-reader alone. That means no games, no video, no browser, and the screen is fully black-and-white.

With an Amazon Kids+ membership, it offers access to a full library of kid-friendly books, along with a feature called Vocabulary Builder.

With Vocabulary Builder, your child can look up definitions for unfamiliar words as they read. Each time they look up a word, that word will automatically be added as a flashcard within the Vocabulary Builder tool. Then they can use the flashcards to get more comfortable with these words.

Your kid can also earn fun achievements on the Paperwhite Kids, like “On a Roll” for reading 100 pages, or “It’s Over 9000!” for reading 10,000 pages.

Without an Amazon Kids+ subscription, you will need to be a little more vigilant about providing content for your child to read.

For older children or teens you may be interested in a Kindle Unlimited subscription, which costs $9.99 per month for Prime members and non-members alike. This subscription offers access to thousands of books for no extra fee. However, you can purchase books for Kindle without a subscription as well.

And to keep anyone except you from being able to purchase books, you can set up a child profile just for the Kindle. This will allow you to assign books purchased through Kindle directly to the child’s profile. It also keeps them out of your books, and prevents them from purchasing books on their device.

Personally, I think the Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition is a solid choice for kids who are avid readers. The only minor annoyance I’ve encountered is that you can’t lock the screen in portrait mode. Some books (especially the picture books geared towards younger children) are only available in landscape.

Add to cart?

My kindergartener is just starting to read, so since it does books and books alone, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition isn’t something that he’s able to use independently right now.

However, he loves looking at picture books on his Fire tablet, and the tablet also offers more age-appropriate content (that’s still educational) like games and videos. All in full color, too.

For younger kids who aren’t independently reading yet, I honestly think the Fire tablet would be a better purchase. The Fire HD 8 Kids is a good option — with the same free year of Amazon Kids+ and a kid-friendly case for $139.99 — $20 cheaper than the Paperwhite Kids.

Although if you’re a household of travelers, the Kindle offers a convenient and lightweight way to travel with LOTS of bedtime stories.

And for kids who are a bit older (and especially if they are voracious readers) the Kindle Paperwhite Kids is a great gift — offering a full library of age-appropriate books in one sleek, durable, travel-friendly, and lightweight device.

Best of all, it’s a piece of kids’ tech that even the most anti-screen relatives at your next family get-together won’t be able to grumble about. Because, as Amazon proudly states on the sales page for the device, “It’s reading time, not screen time.”

Bradley Cooper is a dashing and talented man, who has wielded his unique charisma into a string of terrific movie performances in everything from Silver Linings Playbook to A Star Is Born to The Hangover and Guardians of the Galaxy. What the 46-year-old Hollywood hunk cannot do; however, is convincingly play a young man. Yet over the course of Nightmare Alley’s first act, Cooper’s anti-hero Stanton Carlisle is called, “kid,” “pup,” and “young buck,” as if he’s a fresh-faced farm boy. It’s not just jarring, but also telling of the blindspot Guillermo del Toro has at the center of his new star-stuffed noir.

Based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, Nightmare Alley follows a down-on-his-luck drifter, who stumbles into a carnival looking for work. Stanton (Cooper) is swiftly shown the ropes by a leering barker (Willem Dafoe). Then, he finds a job — and makeshift family — with a fortune teller (Toni Collette) and her drunkard husband (David Strathairn). But behind his pretty smile, Stanton harbors a ruthless ambition to have an act of his own, far away from the sawdust and gore of the geek show. This drive scores him a blushing bride (Rooney Mara) and an upscale gig, performing mentalism at a swanky metropolitan club. But his greed and pride could prove his ruin once he crosses paths with a seductive psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett). 

Over two-and-a-half hours, del Toro’s Nightmare Alley offers an indulgent character study to explore the question of what makes a man. Running from a dark past, Stanton is desperate for a fresh start. He strategizes and steals to build a life of his own, but he struggles to escape the long shadow of his cruel father and his neglectful mother. He’ll cling to a string of father stand-ins, seeking guidance and validation. Then, Dr. Lilith Ritter, becomes not just a lust object, but an older woman whose approval he lusts for even more than he does her body. The femme fatale doctor puts some of this into perspective during sessions in her lavish office. Of course, men in their forties have Mommy Issues and fallout from childhood trauma. So, this all could have worked even if del Toro and Kim Morgan’s script had just let Cooper’s character be middle-aged. The problem comes when we’re supposed to believe he’s some young and innocent naif.

This isn’t Simon Rex in “Red Rocket” or Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Power of the Dog.” It’s more Ben Platt in “Dear Evan Hansen.”

It’s far easier to buy a twenty-something being clueless about how the world works than it is a forty-something, much less one with the sharp glint in Cooper’s eye. It’s too against type to believe Cooper would be a rube, and it’s flat-out absurd to believe he’s as young as the characters take him to be. He’s treated as if barely out of boyhood, constantly being lectured about the ways of the wicked world. Perhaps del Toro tries to compensate by casting other characters as older too, including 33-year-old Mara, who plays the virginal ingenue of the first act. Meanwhile, Cooper gives an aw-shucks earnestness to early scenes. But this isn’t Simon Rex in Red Rocket or Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog. It’s more Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hansen. It’s a gamble that just doesn’t pay off.

Stanton is meant to be a mystery to the audience. Key details of his actions are purposefully left out of frame, so we might wonder whether he’s a victim of bad luck or a villain. If there were ambiguity in his actions, Nightmare Alley might be suspenseful. But Stanton’s facade of naivete doesn’t work in the smirking gaze of Cooper. So, we must just wait and wait and wait for Stanton’s wickedness to reveal itself, knowing all the while it’s inevitable. Along the way, del Toro will relish in painterly close-ups of his beautiful stars. He will lounge in scenes set in sumptuously art deco production designs and richly realized costumes. Such nostalgic indulgences are alluring. But without a compelling protagonist, this grandeur can’t make up for the movie being achingly boring. 

It’s a shame about Cooper, who not only stars but also produced alongside del Toro. He’s not a bad actor; he’s just a bad fit. So despite his efforts, he undermines the cast members who sink their teeth into the flesh and blood of this lifeless drama. Bemused and flirty, Collette shines. Smiling like a goblin, Dafoe is a deranged delight. Warmly paternal yet pitiful, Strathairn is engaging, while the likes of Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, and Tim Blake Nelson give spark and color. Best of all is Blanchett, who is a vision glamorous and ghoulish. Yet for all these tempting sideshow attractions, the lackluster main event of Nightmare Alley doesn’t feel worth the price of admission. 

Nightmare Alley opens in theaters on Dec. 17. 

The top-rated luxury EV goes to Porsche for its new Taycan Cross Turismo.

That’s according to auto research firm Edmunds with its Top Rated awards for 2022. This year’s top list includes three battery-powered cars: the electric Porsche, the Tesla Model 3, and Rivian R1T.

The Taycan Cross Turismo is the newest EV from Porsche. It’s part of the growing Taycan lineup, but with more of a station wagon vibe than sports car with its longer rear end. It’s touted as a tougher EV that can off-road with performance features and can go zero to 60 mph in under five seconds. Its battery maxes out at about 200 miles of range on a charge.

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Edmunds defines luxury as any vehicle over $50,000. The Cross Turismo starts at $90,900, while the standard Taycan is $79,900.

The Tesla Model 3 won the overall Top Rated EV title, while Rivian’s electric truck was dubbed “Editors’ Choice,” a new honor that Edmunds said “recognizes a vehicle that exceeds expectations and offers something genuinely new in the market.”

The R1T won MotorTrend’s coveted “Truck of the Year” award earlier this week.

The full Top Rated list, which includes gas-powered vehicles, is available on Edmunds’ website.

No matter how well-received it is at the start, the majority of fitness equipment eventually flames out hard. Shake weights, toning shoes, and vibration belts, to name just a few, were all considered must-have items at one point that are now more commonly used for comedy sketches and throwback costumes.

Foam rollers have not suffered that same fate. I came across one for the first time in the locker room of the university I ran at, thanks to an athletic trainer who showed me a thick cylinder that felt like hard styrofoam, and instructed me to roll back and forth over it to loosen up my super-tight IT bands. Nearly 15 years after that introduction, I still keep a few rollers in my recovery tool arsenal, which I’ve used on sore muscles ranging from my calves and hamstrings to shoulders and glutes. Back then, there were a small handful of brands to choose from, most of which offered one or two models (soft and firm, if anything). Since then, the tools have gained so much traction in the fitness world the market is approaching saturation. Today, you can get travel-sized ones and body-length ones; smooth ones, grooved ones, and pokey ones; soft ones, medium ones, and hard ones; and even ones that collapse for transport.

Perhaps the most innovative of the bunch are foam rollers that vibrate. I upgraded mine to a vibrating one a few years ago, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked and used it beyond a normal foam roller. When presented with the opportunity to test the next generation of that model—the Vyper 2.0 by Hyperice—I was immediately on board. After a couple weeks of testing, here are my takeaways on how well it works, how it compares to other foam rollers, and whether it’s worth the $149 price tag:

It’s nice and firm

On the soft-to-firm spectrum, the Vyper 2.0 is definitely on the firmer end, thanks to the high-density polypropylene foam it’s made out of. Some might find it too firm, but I personally like it; years of foam rolling have calloused my muscles so that anything too soft now feels ineffective. If you’ve never foam rolled before, the firmness might feel a bit harsh at first. You’ll get used to it pretty quickly though, and long-term, a harder roller will not only serve you better but it should ultimately last longer, too.

But it’s heavy

The Vyper 2.0’s firmness and vibration capabilities come with a tradeoff, and that’s its weight. At 3 pounds, it’s significantly heavier than most other foam rollers of its size. It’s not a big deal if you’re primarily using it at home, as I do. But if you want a unit that you can also travel with, this one might be more burdensome than it’s worth—although it is TSA approved for carry-on. For the best of both worlds, my recommendation is to get one of each: a vibrating roller that will cost more but also get used more, plus a light and cheap option as your dedicated on-the-road roller (such as this 0.35-pound, 12-inch-long one for $8.99).

The size is right

The Vyper 2.0 measures 19.3 x 5.8 inches, which is a nice size, in my opinion. You don’t need a ton of space to use it and it’s a breeze to move from room to room, based on where you want to roll out. While I do think there’s a time and a place for those super-long foam rollers—I have a lightweight 36-inch one that I use for loosening up my back—I find a smaller one much more handy. It can easily tackle each quad, hamstring, calf, and glute (the four body parts I use it on most), and for what it’s worth, I use my short roller about twice as often as my long one.

Its grippy texture works on any surface

Upon first inspection, it may seem like the Vyper 2.0 will be too rough, texture-wise, to be comfortable. It has a bunch of shallow striations and a coarse surface, unlike many foam rollers (and basically all of the earliest models) that are smooth to the touch. Using it, however, you’ll see that the rough surface is not only not a nuisance; it’s functional. It allows you to use the Vyper 2.0 on any surface—from carpet to gym mat to hardwood—without worrying about it sliding around. Untextured alternatives cannot claim the same.

It offers three vibration speeds

For a “high-tech” foam roller, I appreciate the simplicity of the Vyper 2.0. To get it going, all you have to do is switch it into the on position on one end, and then use the single button on the opposite end to toggle between three vibration speeds: low, medium, and high. Increasing the speed results in a more intense vibration and will probably be something you start playing with once you’ve acclimated to the lowest setting. You also may find, as I have, that some body parts respond well to higher vibration—quads and glutes, for example—while others—like calves—get all they need from lower speeds.

The battery is rechargeable

It’s a good thing the Vyper 2.0 comes with a rechargeable battery, because with just a two-hour life, you’d otherwise burn through a ton of batteries. How quickly you use up the charge depends, of course, on how frequently you use the roller and how long each session lasts. When I’m on my A foam rolling game, meaning that I use it most days for 10 minutes or so, I charge it up about every other week. During less diligent stretches, it can last a few weeks or longer. And all of that can change based on my husband’s usage, which usually requires an overnight charge about once a week when he also uses it regularly.

Go for it?

While $149 is not an insignificant amount to spend on a foam roller, which you could get for a fraction of the same price (without the vibration element), my take is that the Vyper 2.0 by Hyperice is a good investment for effective at-home body care. It’s firm and grippy, with a nice size, a rechargeable battery, and—the deal-maker—a three-speed vibrating core that puts this roller on a rung above those without. Its weight doesn’t make it the easiest to travel with, but that’s a problem easily solved with a cheaper and lighter backup roller.

As a professional athlete, I’m of the opinion that the rehab, prehab, and recovery tools that are worth splurging on are those that A) work well, and B) you’re actually inclined to use. The Vyper 2.0 hits both of those for me, which is why I’d recommend it to fellow athletes of all types and levels.

If you read tabloids or lifestyle magazines, chances are that you’ve heard at least a few horror stories about accidents and injuries linked to sex toy usage: A butt plug gets sucked up into someone’s ass, and firmly lodged in there. A cock ring gets stuck on someone’s penis, cutting off blood flow and causing “penile strangulation.” A sex swing collapses while someone’s on it, tangling them in ropes and/or chains, sending them crashing to the floor, and leaving them banged up. 

“Thankfully, these mishaps aren’t very common,” says Lisa Finn, a sex educator affiliated with the toy retail chains Babeland and Good Vibrations. The injuries sex toys cause are also usually fairly mild — think simple nicks, bruises, and skin irritation. Recent analyses of sex toy-related emergency room visits suggest that injuries have been on the rise over the last decade or so. But sexual health experts believe this just reflects fading taboos around sex and toys, which has led to a steady increase in usage, and perhaps a greater willingness to seek medical aid after mishaps.  

“We’re more likely to experience embarrassing or awkward moments with sex toys than an actual medical crisis,” argues Casey Tanner, a sex therapist who works with the toy brand LELO.  

Still, as the sex educator Martha Tara Lee points out, “any injury to an erogenous zone can be scary, even traumatic.” So, it’s certainly best to be able to avoid toy-related injuries whenever possible — and to be prepared to respond to them if and when they do occur. Fortunately, sex toy and sexual health experts have a ton of advice to offer on both matters. Mashable recently spoke to over a dozen experts on how to prevent or manage sex toy injuries. Here’s what they told us.  

The right tool for the job

Many reported “sex toy” injuries don’t actually involve sex toys at all, but instead everyday items repurposed as makeshift toys. “Sure, everyone loves a multi-functional item,” says Amy Boyajian of the sex toy retailer Wild Flower, “but I wouldn’t recommend using a household object as a sex toy,” simply because they’re not made with sexual use in mind. “I’ve heard of penis owners using key rings as cock rings only to be able to get them off once they’re erect,” Boyajian notes. “I’ve heard of people using cooking and cleaning items as lubes only to have them irritate, burn, or go rancid. I’ve heard of folks using a variety of things as dildos and vibrators, only to have them cut, scrape, or pinch them during use,” often in sensitive areas. 

Similarly, a fair number of mishaps involving actual sex toys result from people trying to use them for play they weren’t designed to facilitate or enhance. For example, Tanner notes, “folks newer to anal plugs or vibrators often utilize small, lipstick-sized vibrators as penetrative tools.” Yet most such vibes are often designed and promoted for use on external erogenous zones, precisely because they are so small that it’s easy to lose them inside of an orifice. Our anuses especially tend to clench up in a way that can suck objects inwards — and unlike a vaginal canal that ends with a cervix, the anal cavity leads up into the colon and then the intestines. That’s why well-designed anal toys always have a large handle or a flared base: it stops them from getting sucked in. Anything without that design feature risks a not-so-fantastic voyage into your innards. (Most documented toy-related ER visits involve items stuck inside people’s asses and upwards.)

Know they toy; know thyself

However, even people who use a toy on the body part(s) it was intended for can run into issues if they don’t actually know how to use it safely. Notably, wearing cock rings that are too tight, or for more than 30 minutes at a time, will often start to damage penile tissue. Using a toy that’s not waterproof in the bath or shower may lead to electric shocks. “Some toys use strong magnets,” adds Rosara Torrisi, a sex therapist and owner of toy store That Drawer, “so folks with any type of pacemakers should not use them.” Yet people, for lack of knowledge, often do all of this. 

“Most pleasure products, especially luxury products, come with incredibly detailed instructions,” Lee points out. “Read them!” Torrisi adds that, if you’re ever confused about how to use a given toy, or about possible complications or restrictions related to your health or anatomy, you should get in touch with the toy maker or retailer. They’ll usually be able to offer you solid information, or at least point you towards medical resources, to best inform you on how to enjoy your toy(s) safely.

But even people who use toys as intended, with full knowledge of how they work, still face some risk of injury — often when they rush into using new toys, or go too hard or fast even with a toy they’ve used in the past. Using a new toy that’s bigger than you’re used to, or an old toy in ways you’re not used to, may abrade or tear sensitive tissue. Tears are especially common during anal play using bigger toys or more speed than a person’s used to, as our asses aren’t self-lubricating, or as elastic and resilient as most vaginas, and the tissue of the anal cavity is especially thin.

“Lubricant can prevent the friction that causes chafing, abrasions, tears, or fissures,” says Finn. But Tanner cautions against relying too heavily on lube if you want to use a bigger toy, or to go faster and harder with a toy than usual. “When using a strap-on, anal plug, or dildo during penetration, too much lube can cause slippage to occur. The toy can then hit up against the vulva or tailbone, potentially bruising sensitive outer layers of skin, such as the labia.” 

Diving headfirst and full-tilt into the world of BDSM toys is also liable to earn folks a few rope burns or nicks and cuts, especially if they’re using toys meant to inflict pleasurable pain or even injuries, Finn points out. Overusing a suction device, like a clitoral, nipple, or penis pump, can also lead to bruising, or even burst blood vessels in very sensitive body parts, Lee adds. 

“If you’re unfamiliar with a sex toy, get to know how it functions and the correct way to use it before you put it in or on your body,” Boyajian recommends. “Never surprise someone with a sex toy in the bedroom, especially without consent,” they added. It may seem like a good way to spice up your sex life, but it’s really a fast track to confusion and potentially mishaps and injury. 

“Start slow and soft, then slowly build up over time, as you explore your limits.”

“Start slow and soft, then slowly build up over time, as you explore your limits,” adds Finn. “If you’re exploring toys with a partner, communicate throughout and have a safe word in place.” 

“With anal toys especially, one solution is to train to safely, and comfortably, use larger sized toys,” a representative from retailer Peepshow Toys suggested. “Start small. Work up gradually.” 

Tanner adds that alcohol and drug use may increase the risk of sex toy mishaps or injuries overall — at least in part because these substances can cloud our judgment, or limit our ability to recall and put into practice what we know about our own bodies or a given toy. So, it’s often a good idea to experiment with new toys, either alone or with a partner, while stone-cold sober. 

Get dirty, but stay clean

Although good sex is often messy and exploratory, sexual health experts stress that if we want to avoid complications we all need to be fastidious about our toys. Moving a toy from an anus to a vagina to a mouth without cleaning it thoroughly in between each use is a good way of transferring bacteria, fungi, and more all around your body. Sharing a toy with a partner with whom you’d usually use barrier protection also poses a risk of sexually transmitted infection transmission. And just throwing a toy to the floor after usage and failing to properly clean it may allow germs or irritants to build up on it, increasing the risk of irritation or infection the next time you use it on sensitive tissue, or around an abrasion or tear. 

Improper cleaning and storage also risks damaging a toy. That’s potentially a bummer from a purely economic standpoint; ideally, you want to get as much literal bang out of your bucks as possible. But it also creates a risk of, for example, a tiny crack or chip forming in a wood, stone, or glass toy, which may end up causing abrasions, cuts, or pinches during later usage. (Some toy materials are incompatible with certain types of lube as well. So, always make sure you know what kind of lube you’re using and what your toy’s made of to avoid device degradation woes.) 

“Toys should be washed with warm soap and water” after every usage, Torrisi says. “Usually, hand soap is fine.” However, again, always read your toy’s instructions to check what works best for it. Some companies make their own quick-and-easy, bespoke-to-the-toy wipes or washes. 

It’s easy to forget to clean your toys if, say, you only use them at the start of partnered sex, put them to the side, and then get wrapped up in the rest of your experience. Or if you masturbate with a toy just before falling asleep. If you struggle with this — or just with motivation to clean in general  — Tanner recommends putting a condom over your toy before usage, if its shape allows that, then simply stripping it off afterwards. You may be able to figure out similar solutions for non-phallic toys — perhaps through the cunning use of the chronically neglected dental dam.

Materials matter

No matter how thoroughly you wash them, some toys — especially those made of cheap jelly-like materials — are so porous that it’s nigh on impossible to get all the germs and grime out of them. 

Common, cheap toy materials may also contain irritants — as do many ill-conceived lubes, oils, or other items. Far too many toys even use known toxins like phthalates, an additive that gives rubber and rubberlike materials more flexibility, but that’s banned in children’s toys in many nations due to its clear health risks. There is not a lot of robust or reliable research on the short- or long-term effects of using iffy-to-outright toxic materials in sex toys, Natasha Marie of the sex toy company MysteryVibe points out. So, while people have anecdotally attempted to connect dubious toy materials to any number of health issues, it’s hard to make categorical statements about risks. But Felicity of the body safe toy focused site Phallophile Reviews notes that she often hears people complain that toys made with clearly toxic materials cause itching or burning. (Felicity only uses her first name when she writes about sex toys in public venues.)  

To avoid any potential risks, most experts recommend people only buy toys made with known body-safe materials, like ABS plastic, ceramics, medical-grade stainless steel, pure silicone, Pyrex, stone, or wood. Most of these are also non-porous — an added safety bonus. Felicity notes that toys made of these materials are far easier to find now than they were even five years ago. 

However, even though reputable sex toy makers are far more conscious of material safety issues than they were in the past, and oversight bodies have started to create safety standards for the field, the adult products industry is still largely unregulated. The U.S. government notably does not really police the use of terms like “body-safe” or “phthalate-free.” It will only crack down on a company over safety issues if enough people report adverse effects — a tall order when people may not connect a health issue to toy materials, or feel comfortable logging a health claim with a federal agency. And it doesn’t require toy makers to clearly and consistently list their materials. So, consumers may have a hard time finding toys that they can be sure are actually body-safe. 

Many slapdash sex toys are also poorly designed, notes Epiphora, another veteran reviewer. (Epiphora uses her adopted mononym when she writes about or speaks on sex toys and related issues.) “Some have shapes, movements, or types of stimulation that simply hurt,” she explains. “I’ve heard of cheap suction toys latching onto the skin and never letting go. Not ideal for a product used directly on some of the most sensitive parts of the body.” Others are just so shoddily built that they fall apart rapidly, or their motors overheat while charging, or while in use, sometimes towards disastrous ends. “We’ve heard of this causing burns in-use, or explosions or fires when charging,” says Finn. 

In theory, consumers should be able to check product descriptions and independent reviews to make sure that a given toy meets their safe materials, design, and craftsmanship standards, then just go out and buy it. However, knock-off products are unfortunately common on major retail platforms — lookalike but inferior and often less safe versions of popular toys sold for a slight discount. Most retailers do not accept toy returns; if you buy a cheap, crappy toy, you’re often stuck with that loss. So, in practice it’s just as important to find a retailer who you trust to vet their toys as it is to find a specific toy type or brand that works for your body, needs, and safety concerns. Then, stick with that reliable retailer as long as they continue to maintain your trust through quality.  

In case of emergency

Even if you try to follow all of the advice in this guide, you may still fumble your way into a sex toy accident or mishap. If you do, don’t beat yourself up over it. Accidents are just a part of any realm of human existence. So sayeth the law of large numbers, and of inevitable human error. 

If you start to notice that something feels off when using a toy, for any reason, Megan Fleming, a sexual health expert who works with the toy retail giant Lovehoney, suggests viewing that as a yellow light. Slow down and assess the situation; see if you can make an adjustment. But if you start to feel any unexpected pain, then she says “that’s a red light, and you want to stop immediately.” 

“Don’t try to push through discomfort, or an injury, for the sake of finishing play,” stresses Finn, whether it’s a solo session or a partnered romp. “You can just make any issue worse.” 

If, after stopping whatever you’re doing, you find that you’ve just sustained a small, external injury, like a nick on the penis or the vulva, then the health experts Mashable spoke to all say you should just treat it like any other simple wound: Wash it with unscented soap and water, ice it if needed, the just allow it to heal. “For internal injuries, consult a doctor to ensure that any measures you’re taking are safe for your body,” cautions Finn. Fleming adds that you should avoid inserting anything into your anus or vagina until that internal injury is fully healed as well. 

If you experience burning or irritation, then Epiphora suggests “taking a shower ASAP and rinsing the inflamed area with water.” If you were using the toy near your urethra, try to pee to flush it out. Allow the area to breathe. “Finally,” she added, get rid of “the offending toy.”

“If a toy gets stuck in the vaginal canal, don’t panic.”

 

“If a toy gets stuck in the vaginal canal, don’t panic,” says Alexandra Fine, the founder of the toy company Dame. “You should be able to get it out if you sit and squeeze.” Fleming adds that it helps to wait a few minutes before trying, to let the engorgement that flows with arousal subside. Epiphora notes that, similarly, if you’ve got a toy stuck just a little ways up your rectum, you can often “relax, breathe deeply, and focus on pushing it out, as if having a bowel movement.” 

“For stuck penis rings, the trick is to reduce the swelling so that you can get it off,” says Lisa Lawless of Holistic Wellness, a sexual health education platform and retailer. “Elevate it while laying with a pillow under your rear. Have the heart lower than the penis. Using a cold pack on it, soaking in a warm bath to relax the tissue, and using a lubricant may also assist you.”

But if you can’t get a toy out of your rectum or vagina, or a ring off of your penis, with moderate and reasonable effort, then don’t try to force it — don’t go fishing for the lost toy with other implements, or try to cut away the ring yourself. You may just end up pushing an item further inside of yourself, or causing lacerations to your already struggling penis, making things much worse. 

In these events, or if you’re feeling notable and sustained pain or discomfort, you should go to a doctor ASAP. Sure, this may feel embarrassing, Boyajian acknowledges, but medical experts have truly seen it all and will usually treat your injury matter-of-factly. Even if you get a shitty doctor who shames you for your sexual choices, it’s still usually better to deal with that in the moment than sit on an injury, allowing it to worsen. 

If you’re deeply concerned about getting shamed during a sexual health emergency, then Torrisi suggests planning ahead: Start vetting doctors in your area now for their sex positivity and sexual health issue experience levels. Talk to friends, check reviews, do whatever you can. Then, if and when you sustain a toy injury in the future, and you don’t need emergency services, you can go straight to them or someone they trust. 

It’s also important, when dealing with an injury, great or small, to keep things in perspective. Don’t let one mishap or bad experience sour you on toys forever; you’ll close yourself off to a world of potential pleasure and exploratory fun just to avoid a relatively rare and usually minor eventuality. It may help, Boyajian suggests, in moments of pain, fear, or frustration following an accident, to “remind yourself that this will probably make for a funny story in the future!” 

Read more of our sex toy tips

• How to travel with sex toys

• What to look for when buying a sex toy

• Le Wand’s Double Vibe has two motors for double the fun

• Unbound’s Pep is a great vibrator for beginner and experienced users alike

• Where to buy sex toys online (even at Target)

It’s hard to shock Collin Williams, a volunteer moderator for r/RoastMe, a comedic insult forum with 2.3 million members. But about a year ago he was surprised by something in his own comment history. 

The ghosts of posts he had attempted to remove were still there. 

Per 2020 numbers, 52 million people visit Reddit’s site each day and peruse some three million topic-specific forums, or subreddits. Those communities are kept on-topic (and in theory, consistent with Reddit’s content policies), mostly thanks to human volunteers and automated bots, collectively referred to as moderators or “mods.”

As a moderator, Williams tends to a garden of posts and comments, a process that includes removing posts that break subreddit rules. Moderators set their own rules for what is postable in their own forums but also play a role in enforcing Reddit’s content policy. 

On r/RoastMe, those moderator-created rules outlaw posting pictures of someone without their permission or of people under 18, for instance. But even after Williams removed offending posts from his subreddit, they were, somehow, still viewable in his account’s comment history. 

The moderator’s entire history becomes this giant list … of everything they’ve removed and for what reason.”

Then, Williams had an epiphany. This probably wasn’t a problem just on his subreddit. 

Williams was right. Across Reddit, when a moderator removes a post, the post is unlisted from the subreddit’s main feed. But images or links within that post don’t actually disappear. Posts removed by moderators are still readily available to anyone on Reddit in the comment history of the moderator who flagged it—complete with an explanation of the rule it violates—or to anyone who retained a direct URL to the post. 

“The moderator’s entire history becomes this giant list—basically an index—of everything that they’ve removed and for what reason. Reddit kind of accidentally created this giant index of stuff that humans have flagged as being inappropriate on the site,” Williams said. 

This is happening across subreddits. You can still find moderator-removed video game memes or reposts (a major Reddit faux pas) of dog photos. But it also happens on subreddits dedicated to posting sexual or sexualized content. In those cases, this loophole allows posts to persist on the site, even though they violate Reddit’s content policy.

For example, the subreddit-specific rules of r/TikTokThots, a subreddit dedicated to sexualized TikTok videos, explicitly instruct users not to post videos of people presumed to be under 18, in keeping with the Reddit-wide content policy against “the posting of sexual or suggestive content involving minors.” But The Markup was still able to find removed posts in moderators’ comment histories in which certain images, flagged by moderators for depicting presumed minors, were still live and visible. 

In the more risqué subreddit r/TikTokNSFW, moderators removed at least one nude image because it “contains minors,” according to moderator judgment, yet the image is still visible on the site through the removing moderator’s comment history. 

This is thus far a huge miss by the engineering and UX team….”

“This is thus far a huge miss by the engineering and UX team and must be rectified immediately in order to prevent new or recurrent victimization of those featured in the content,” said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University.

Williams privately reached out to Reddit’s r/ModSupport, a point of contact between Reddit administrators (i.e., employees) and volunteer moderators, on Sept. 15, alerting them to this issue. He later received a DM from a Reddit administrator saying, “Thanks for sending this in. We’ll take a look!” But as of publication time, there had been no change. 

About one month later, Williams also posted publicly in Reddit’s r/ModSupport to alert other moderators to the potential problem. Reddit’s Community Team removed his post.

Reddit has not responded to multiple requests for comment for this story. 

Grappling with content removal 

Reddit has continually grappled with how to police its endless list of online communities. This has played out most publicly in Reddit’s NSFW (not safe for work) content, particularly nude or sexualized images. 

Before 2012, Reddit did not have a publicly posted policy explicitly banning content that sexualized minors, but the company did report “clear cut cases” of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. When it came to what Reddit termed “legally grey” areas surrounding CSAM, Reddit initially dealt with them on a “case by case basis.” But eventually Reddit took more sweeping action to curb CSAM on its platform. For example, Reddit administrators banned the controversial community r/jailbait after a nude picture of a 14-year-old girl was posted on the subreddit. 

By 2012, Reddit had reformed its content policy: All subreddits that focused on the sexualization of children were banned. But in 2014, The Washington Post suggested little had substantively changed, with “every kind of filth and depravity you can conceive of—and probably quite a bit that you can’t” still live on the site.

Reddit’s current policy bans any sexual or suggestive content involving minors or anyone who even appears to be under 18. Users and moderators can report images sexualizing minors to Reddit administrators, who will remove the posts themselves and then report blatant CSAM to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

However, Reddit is currently facing a class-action lawsuit related to alleged lax enforcement of CSAM policy. In a complaint filed in April 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, one woman accused the company of allowing an ex-boyfriend to repeatedly post nude videos and images of her as a teenager. 

“Reddit claims it is combating child pornography by banning certain subreddits, but only after they gain enough popularity to garner media attention,” the complaint reads. 

Reddit filed a motion to dismiss this case, citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites against liability from content posted by third parties. A court granted that motion in October, and the plaintiff has since appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

While Reddit has banned communities that violate its rules, the architecture of Reddit’s site itself allows content deemed by moderators to violate Reddit’s policies to persist in a moderator’s comment history. Hinduja said this loophole can present problems for people struggling to remove sensitive content from Reddit’s platform. 

“It clearly is problematic that sexual content or personally identifiable information which violates their policies (and in the history, clear explanation is typically provided as to why the material transgresses their platform rules) still is available to see,” he said. 

There are some cases in which removed posts don’t have accessible images. If users delete their own content (if prompted by a moderator, or of their own volition), the images seem to truly disappear from the site, including any comment history. If a user doesn’t take this action, there’s not much moderators can do to truly delete content that breaks Reddit’s rules, other than report it to Reddit. 

Reddit’s guidelines for moderators acknowledges that moderators can remove posts from subreddits but don’t have the power to truly delete posts from Reddit. Moderators, to some extent, are aware of this fact.

A moderator for six Reddit communities, u/manawesome326, told The Markup that removing posts as a moderator can prevent posts from showing up in subreddit feeds, but it “leaves the shell of the post accessible from the post’s URL,” which makes it accessible via moderator histories. 

Moderators of more risqué subreddits are also aware that they can’t truly remove content. A moderator for r/TikTokNSFW, u/LeThisLeThatLeNO, also noted to The Markup that removed posts on Reddit are still viewable and that the best a moderator can do is to “click the report button and hope the overlords notice it.”

“[The best a moderator can do is] click the report button and hope the overlords notice it.”

“In my experience (over 1 year ago) making reports almost always led to nothing, unless a whole avalanche of reports go in,” the moderator said via Reddit. 

Reddit has previously attempted to limit who can view removed content. In a post in r/changelog, a subreddit dedicated to platform updates, Reddit administrators wrote, “Stumbling across removed and deleted posts that still have titles, comments, or links visible can be a confusing and negative experience for users, particularly people who are new to Reddit.” 

The platform noted it would allow only moderators, original posters, or Reddit administrators to view posts that had been removed that would have previously been accessible from a direct URL. The limits applied only to posts with fewer than two upvotes or comments. 

Many moderators, though, had major issues with this change, because subreddits often referred to removed content in conversations and moderators have found it useful to view accounts’ past posts (even user-deleted ones) to investigate patterns of bad behavior. 

The trial was discontinued in late June. Reddit did not respond to questions asking for specifics on why the trial had been discontinued. 

Meanwhile, Williams has tried to block the route most Redditors might use to find deleted posts: his comment history. He has started to privately message users who post rule-breaking content on his subreddit to explain why it was removed rather than leaving a public comment. This method, he hopes, will make removed posts harder to find. 

If anyone had happened to squirrel away a direct link to a removed post, however, the offending images are still accessible. 

Moderation versus “platform cleanliness” 

Although Reddit does have the power to truly delete posts, it’s still the volunteer moderators, real and automated, who do the bulk of content management on Reddit. (Posts removed by bots also still contain visible images if viewed through the bot’s comment history.) 

According to Reddit’s 2020 transparency report, Reddit administrators removed 2 percent of all content added to the site in 2020, whereas moderators, including bots, removed 4 percent of content. 

Loopholes like this one create a gray area when it comes to content moderation, said Richard Rogers, the chair in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. 

While moderators are a first line of defense responsible for keeping prohibited content off of their subreddits, this loophole means they have little power to enforce what Rogers calls “platform cleanliness.” 

“Then the responsibility shifts from the individual subreddit and the moderators to the platform,” Rogers said to The Markup. “So seemingly, here, we have a disconnect between those two levels of content moderation.” 

In the meantime, images in removed posts will continue to linger in Reddit’s corners, just a click away from being discovered. 

This article was originally published on The Markup and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

It’s finally here. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the MCU’s first truly multiversal adventure, incorporating villains from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and The Amazing Spider-Man duology to fight the Avengers-adjacent Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland. From Green Goblin and Doc Ock to Electro, Sandman, and the Lizard, there’s a lot of backstories in play. 

For those who didn’t have time to watch a full Spider-Thon before seeing the new movie, here’s a refresher on who those villains are, which movies they were in, and where they left off therein.

Norman Osborn / Green Goblin

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man wasted little time in having Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) face off with his greatest enemy, the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). The Green Goblin is Norman Osborn, a billionaire scientist who owns Oscorp and is also the father of Peter’s high school BFF, Harry. In the movie, Oscorp develops a performance-enhancing serum for potential military use. But when it looks as if the contract will fall through, Norman tests the serum on himself. The experimental serum splits Norman’s personality into his affable original persona and the homicidal Green Goblin, who uses a prototype Oscorp hovercraft and orange pumpkin bombs to terrorize New York and attack Spider-Man. 

Knowing that Peter is Spider-Man, the Green Goblin personality attempts to trick him into thinking Norman Osborn is in control in their final battle. While feigning regret, the villain prepares to impale Peter with the spikes on his hovercraft. Spidey dodges the hovercraft, which sails past him and stabs Green Goblin instead. He dies in Peter Parker’s arms. 

Dr. Otto Octavius / Doc Ock

Spider-Man 2 is considered one of the greatest superhero films of all time, and Alfred Molina’s performance as Doc Ock is a huge part of its appeal. Otto is a well-intentioned scientist who desires to generate a limitless supply of energy with a new machine that can put “the power of the sun in the palm of his hand.” To manipulate the energy source, he builds a set of four metallic arms that he can control with an inhibitor chip in the back of his head. In his first demonstration, everything goes wrong when the energy source overloads. The resulting chaos kills Otto’s wife, welds the metal arms to his spine, and fries the chip, which rewires his brain.

Now operating as Doc Ock, Otto becomes obsessed with repeating his experiment. He steals, kills, and otherwise crimes his way into getting enough material for a second try. When Spider-Man tries to stop him, the machine almost overloads again and Otto’s conscience resurfaces. He recognizes Spider-Man as his friend Peter Parker. Then, Otto sacrifices himself by drowning his machine in the river. Unlike many of Spider-Man’s great villains, Otto Octavius dies a hero. 

Flint Marko / Sandman

Sandman is one of three antagonists in Spider-Man 3. At the beginning of the movie, Flint (Thomas Haden Church) is a human felon who was sent to prison for stealing money to pay for his beloved daughter’s medical treatment. After escaping from a prison transport truck, he falls into an experimental particle accelerator that scrambles his mass, transforming into a sandy shapeshifter who can absorb and control sand. 

Flint is also a bit of a retcon in the original Spider-Man series. In Spider-Man, a criminal named Dennis Carradine was found responsible for Uncle Ben’s death. Spider-Man 3 reveals that Dennis and Flint were partners in a robbery, during which Flint accidentally pulled the trigger and shot Peter’s uncle. After a climactic battle, Peter learns the truth about the accident and forgives Flint, who escapes by blowing away, never to be seen again. This makes Flint Marko the only villain to survive his original Spider-Man movie, though he’s still, you know, made of sand.

Dr. Curtis Connors / The Lizard

Honestly, what it says on the tin. He’s a doctor and a lizard, though to be fair the lizard part came after the doctor part. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) worked at Oscorp Industries as a geneticist whose specialty was researching how animal DNA could be used to improve the human genome. It’s one of his experiments with spiders that gives Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) his powers. But Connors became a bigger problem when testing one of his experimental serums on himself. 

Dr. Connors was a right arm amputee. The serum was intended to give him a reptile’s ability to regrow missing limbs, and it totally worked! Until it didn’t. The serum transformed him into an ultra-aggressive human-lizard hybrid with a British accent. The Lizard then gets the notion that all of humanity would be improved if they were lizards like him. Spider-Man has to thwart a plan to unleash an aerosolized version of his serum that would make lizards out of everybody in New York. And we thought giant alligators in the NYC sewer system were a myth.  

Max Dillon / Electro 

This is a sad one. In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) was an electrical engineer who considered himself a nobody until Spider-Man randomly saved his life. Max began to think of Spider-Man as his best friend and became obsessed with the hero. That obsession only deepened when Max fell into a vat of electric eels and transformed into a being of pure electric energy. Feeling snubbed by Spider-Man, Max threatened to take out New York’s power grid to show the people in the city how it felt to “live in my world, a world without power.” 

Spider-Man and his girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) fight Max at a power station and eventually defeat him; he explodes in a ball of electric energy and vanishes forever. Shortly afterward, Peter Parker experiences the great tragedy of Gwen Stacy’s death, when she falls from the top of a tower and Peter isn’t fast enough to catch her. 

Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Sandman, Electro, and the Lizard all appeared in the trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home, and will likely face off against Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Will MCU Spidey be able to fight off the sum total of every previous Spider-Man’s movie foes? Guess we’ll find out. See you in the multiverse.  

How to Watch: Spider-Man is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

How to Watch: Spider-Man 2 is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

How to Watch: Spider-Man 3 is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

How to Watch: The Amazing Spider-Man is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

How to Watch: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters. 

In an ideal world, we’d all get weekly massages, with bonus sessions on days we’re extra tense, tired, or sore. But with the average appointment costing $100 (and some going way higher), massages are luxuries that are hard for most people to justify on a regular basis. The total time of a session—including the drive to an office, a possible wait, the setup in the room, and the drive home—is another common barrier to in-person massages.

In my last 14 years of collegiate and professional running, I’ve experimented with different massage schedules. During some marathon build-ups, I splurged on a short (half-hour) session every week, while in others, I waited to book until I felt the need for some major TLC. I can’t say that I ever identified the perfect frequency for both my body and my wallet. I can, however, confirm that regular massages are an invaluable tool for keeping legs fresh, torsos relaxed, and whole-body tension in check. (Research confirms those benefits and more.)

SEE ALSO: The best smart scales for meeting your fitness and weight goals

My massage game took a major turn for the better about two years ago, when my husband and I were gifted a handheld percussive therapy device (a.k.a. massage gun). Our new gadget definitely didn’t take the place of a real-life, dexterous masseuse. But it was a great addition to our recovery tool collection, and it gave us an easy way to stay on top of our body maintenance in between appointments. The device turned out to be especially useful during the last year and a half of pandemic life, with practitioners less available than in ordinary times.

Having only extensively used that one device until recently, I jumped at the chance to try out a competitor: the Hypervolt by Hyperice. For the last few weeks, I’ve been testing it out, comparing it to the massages I’m used to, and honing in on my honest opinion. Keep on scrolling to see it all.

It’s small but heavy

Unboxing the Hypervolt, my first observation was the discrepancy between its size and weight. At less than 10 inches tall and 7 inches wide, it’s pretty small, relative to other (non-mini or -travel) massage guns. But at 2.5 pounds, it felt quite a bit heavier than I expected. If you’re only zapping one area for a minute or two, you probably won’t be bothered. But if you’re doing a more extensive massage on your or someone else’s body, or if you plan to travel with it in a backpack or carry-on, you’ll want to consider whether you’d get more out of a lighter device such as the Hypervolt Go.

There’s no learning involved

I appreciate that using the Hypervolt is as simple as switching the device into “on” mode on the bottom, and then pressing the single button on the back to control the speed of the percussion. There are only three speeds to choose from—levels 1, 2, and 3—and you know which one it’s on based on the number of blue dots that light up just above the speed adjustment button.

The grip isn’t very ergonomic

The Hypervolt’s grip itself is nice: smooth, comfortable, and just shy of being too wide. But it becomes apparent pretty quickly that, if you want to apply significant force into the head, you have to choke up on the handle so much that you’re basically holding the center of the unit. At that point, it doesn’t matter how nice the grip is, since you’re not really using it. Alternatively, depending on the area you’re massaging, you can apply pressure with both hands from the very back (rather than the bottom)—although I’m pretty confident that’s not how the device was designed to be used. Either way, the shape of the top-heavy Hypervolt makes it difficult to use the grip as intended, and a little awkward to hold otherwise.

It doesn’t cause a racket

Some percussive devices are so loud when kicked into high gear that they make it difficult to use while also having a conversation or watching something on tv. Not so with the Hypervolt. I don’t know exactly how it works, but the patented “QuietGlide” it’s equipped with definitely makes a difference, volume-wise. It’s not as nearly silent as the Hyperice website advertises, but it is quiet enough to be considered background noise, which plenty of competitors cannot claim.

The battery lasts a good while

Two hours may not sound like long for an electronic device, but when you consider that you’ll probably use the Hypervolt for a few minutes at a time, the battery life is actually pretty good. I wound up charging mine much less frequently than my GPS watch, and thanks to the obvious indicator halo at the bottom of the unit—green means it’s charged—I was never caught off guard by a dead battery. If two hours sounds insufficient for your needs, you can always buy a spare battery for $80, which is compatible with both the Hypervolt and Hypervolt 2, and will double your running time.

It comes with more head attachments than you’ll probably use

While the idea of different massage heads is nice, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably end up using the tip you first attach, and either forget about the others or not bother to tag them in. I spent most of my testing time with the round head—it has the look and feel of a small lacrosse ball—and found it worked well on most areas. Whether I was hitting my quads pre-run or working through a knot in my calf, as long as I kept the speed high and pressure up, it got the job done. Other options include a flat disk, a rounded double-prong, a more pointed nozzle-looking tip, and a three-tiered curved head. The Hypervolt also comes with a pouch for storing the attachments that aren’t currently in use.

Pull the Trigger?

Hyperice did a good job with the Hypervolt: it’s a powerful, quiet, easy-to-use device that makes self-massage a convenient everyday option. In general, I got what I wanted out of it, which was a strong zap on specific body parts whenever the urge struck—usually right before or right after a run.

My biggest issue with this device (beyond the price) is its shape and grip. When used as intended, the user is limited in how much pressure she’s able to apply, and ends up targeting muscles from an odd, not-very-powerful angle. Combined with the fact that the Hypervolt is heavier than its size suggests it should be, it ends up falling a little shy of the seamless massage experience I hope for in a handheld gun. That’s not to say that this is not a quality device, but rather that it’s one that nails several features and has some ground to make up for on a couple of others. For now, I’ll be sticking with the gun I own, but with an eye on developments that may make the Hypervolt more of a contender in the future.

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