Do you ever react so poorly to certain characters that they kinda ruin the shows/films you're watching? (Rhetorical question; I don't expect anyone will ever see this here. XD) I imagine so -- that seems an obvious and common occurrence -- but sometimes it feels like creators go so far out of their way to feature characters I find deeply and viscerally unpleasant that it can't be *that* common a thing at the extremes.

Like I'd been meaning to write about Hazbin Hotel S2 (I might still, someday), which on the whole I didn't particularly enjoy because it had SO MUCH Vox and Vox is a character I don't at all like. (By the end of the season I was also there with Alastor, sigh. I know the show is set in Hell, but Hazbin increasingly feels like a show where the things everyone else loves and wants to see more of are things that turn me off and make me need to stop watching.) And I keep seeing ads for Spartacus: House of Ashur, which is a show I have negative interest in watching. I loved the original Spartacus series -- a line I say fairly routinely is actually paraphrased from that show -- but I despised Ashur. And not in a "great villain, love to hate" kind of way; in a "this character is thoroughly awful and a waste of time and focus" sort of way. Why is *Ashur* the character getting the spinoff? We spend too much time fixated on and bludgeoned by awful people in real life for them to be the stars of the show we watch in our downtime.

I'm reminded that I'd meant to say something about Marvel Zombies and Eyes of Wakanda, two of animated Marvel D+ shows that I watched a little while back. (I mean to say something about pretty much everything I watch -- though I might entertain other distractions and ultimately forget, my impulse after I view most movies/episodes is to sit down and write a 600-1200 or longer post about said program.) Both were definitely watchable. (more...)

Welp, I finished watching Wicked Part 1. I hated that movie like few things I watch, though admittedly part of what earns media this degree of hatred is the overwhelming degree of love that everyone else seems to hold for it? (Stop reading now if you haven't seen it yet and care about spoilers -- I don't go into depth but you'll definitely walk away knowing a few reveals.)

I imagine most of the viewers singing this film's praises see themselves as Elphaba and revel in her triumph of self-actualization: whereas my strongest connection in this film was to the increasingly silenced animals.** Therefore, what I saw is a protagonist rejecting self-advancement and taking a stand -- good! -- and then nevertheless spinning that off into a prolonged musical number about her own greatness and strength in defying gravity with nary a mention of the noble cause that animated her, because it wasn't *actually* that cause that moved her. (more...)

I have viewed the first of the anime movies I queued up on Tubi! I started with Hells (2008), which actually began quite promisingly before devolving into characters screaming nonsense exposition (major characters were revealed to be Cain and Abel, also the talking cat was God) and optimistic bullshit ("I'll never give up!" "You can do anything if you just believe!") at each other around the 20-minute mark, which they energetically kept up for the remainder of the nearly 2-hour film. It was deeply stupid and kinda exhausting to watch.

BUT I did like many of the character designs... which nagged at me, since I found some of them *incredibly* familiar. Googling confirmed that this anime was based on a 2002-2004 manga that featured character designs also utilized in the 1998-2001 toyline Resurrection of Monstress.

I'd actually picked up one at Otakon in my late teenage years -- the pink/purple repaint of the witch character Noctilca -- and I've got another one from a friend in a random fodder lot. (If I haven't already dismembered her, she may be rescued for the collection.) So as much as I ultimately did not enjoy Hells, I appreciated the unexpected callback to my convention days and figures of yesteryear? Anime conventions were great places to find toys before ticket prices ballooned and shipping fees dropped, and I really did enjoy wandering the dealer's rooms in search of neat new figures from lines I'd never encountered before. Ah well -- nothing good lasts forever. And fortunately, while Hells was decidedly not good, it did not last forever either.

(Plastic endures for a good long while, though. <3)

What a goofy and groanworthy post title. 😀

So you know the drill -- I mostly do my posting on Facebook these days given that at least there (mostly) the people who see my posts know me in some capacity, which I hope means they'll be more inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt than try to have me crucified/cancelled for voicing unpopular/unsanctioned sentiments. (It sure as hell does not always play out that way, but that is my hope.) But also -- I remember when I appreciated that random folks might see things I've written and have things to say, which is to say that I remember being a whole hell of a lot more optimistic about the motivations of strangers on the internet. Indeed, I made and have even retained a number of rl friends whom I first encountered through this very blog, nor was that unsurprising to me: that's how the internet worked. But things work differently today -- on the internet and in vampire fiction.

So that was a weird segue to justify reposting an essay I just shared on FB. 😛

I really do not care for this Interview with the Vampire TV show. I imagine it's excellent for folks who aren't familiar with the source material, and I imagine even a number of folks who *are* acquainted with Anne Rice's original novel (and the 1994 film, since she also wrote the screenplay) find it compelling to the extent that they prefer more recent vampire media for its focus on gore and nonchalance and cruelty -- and sex. (more...)