I’ve been following the controversy over sales rankings, and I have to say that I’m appalled by the double standard at work here. (See http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/12203.html and http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html for more information, if you’re unfamiliar with this issue.)
Why can I find sales rankings for a book of Playboy centerfolds and not for the autobiographies of gay men and lesbians? Or “The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students”? I’d love to give you the benefit of the doubt and say this was an honest mistake, not blatant homophobia, but you’re making it extremely difficult to do so.
I’ve always looked to Amazon as my first choice when buying books: the low prices, wide selection, and Super Saver Shipping made it easy for me to get whatever I needed delivered. Since I don’t own a car, Amazon was an invaluable resource for me.
Unfortunately, I can’t in good conscience continue to give you my business while this is going on. From now on, I’ll be going to the local bookstore, despite the added cost and inconvenience.
I’ll get my girlfriend to drive me.
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The other piece of Old Shit I’m reviewing is The Crow: City of Angels. I’d started looking into the Crow franchise again after Beka admitted to never even having heard of The Crow, which struck me as deeply wrong. The original Crow movie was something I watched when I was an impressionable little teenygoth, and years later, I still find it powerful and moving.
The sequel, though… Just because I found a Crow: City of Angels shirt on sale one day when I was in high school and wore it religiously didn’t make me a fan. Far from it, in fact — it was a beautiful image on the shirt (Vincent Perez in Crow makeup with the crow silhouette superimposed on it), and I loved the mythology of the series, but plot-wise, I was unimpressed. Oh, the movie had style — it oozed style out of every pore, but it was completely lacking in substance, leaving me with the distinct impression that it was just a tired old retread of familiar ground.
Still, I’ve decided to give it a rewatch, just for the sake of finding out just how crappy it really is, over ten years later. The rest of this post is part review and part running commentary, written as I watch.
Right, so I fail at updating anything — I need to get into the habit of writing more. Funny how being in a relationship cuts into blogging time.
Today was interesting, for two things: first, I came home to find a present from Beka on my desk: the first issue of the Devil May Cry comic book, which basically retells the first game, with somewhat better dialogue and a bit more backstory. While not sterling writing, by any means, it was nice to get some actual interaction between Sparda and Mundus, and a bit of character development for Dante.
Dante comes off as flippant and driven by turns, and it’s a well done, thoughtful portrayal. The first issue takes us up to the first boss fight of the game, glossing over most of the tedious running around and getting straight to the meat of the story… Though I was sorry to see the scene in which Dante acquires Alastor get cut. Devil Arms are more than cool weapons — they’re living things with their own personalities and desires, and they can be damned picky about who’s wielding them. One of the things I liked most about the original DMC is that, unlike the Devil Arms in the sequels, obtained through defeating demons and taking their power, these aren’t gifts, or things taken by right of conquest. They’re pure demonic power in weapon form, just waiting for someone stupid enough to try and pick them up. When Dante does, he’s obviously in agony as they test him, and only through withstanding the test of pain does he earn the right to use them. And that hits all sorts of fiction-kinks for me. I like living (and sentient) weapons. I like the idea that just because a powerful weapon is there, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for you. And to see that test, to see Dante’s reactions as he has to fight for every bit of power he gains… That would’ve been lovely.
Still, this isn’t without gleeful moments for me. Dante walking into the castle and being overwhelmed with memories of his father’s fight with Mundus, as well as memories of Vergil and his mother… That alone would be worth the price of admission. And when he actually has to fight to keep his own demonic nature from surfacing? All I can say to that is YES. Strong, capable characters who can destroy anything they come against having to fight to control themselves — and winning — well, that’s a fiction-kink right there. I have a thing for weird power dynamics, and when the dynamic involves two sides of someone’s nature, it’s all the better.
And really, that’s one of the reasons I love Dante so much: he’s an insanely powerful half-demon, son of the demon knight who took on the armies of hell single-handedly and won, and yet it seems like his biggest struggle is against his own demonic nature. For all his swaggering bravado, for all that everything about him is designed to scream BADASS to anyone who’s listening, he’s a great big softy underneath it all, and I’ve always had the feeling that’s a part of himself he fights to keep alive. Yeah, being a sap (even secretly) leads to doing really stupid things now and then, but it’s what makes him different from what he fights, and there’s no way he’d ever allow himself to be as indifferent to others as he pretends to be.
To stop caring is to stop being human. And when he stops being human, he becomes one of them, one of the creatures that killed his mother and destroyed his life. (This is also why his rivalry with Vergil is as bitter as it is — Vergil’s everything Dante’s most afraid of becoming, with his contempt for humanity, and how he whole-heartedly embraces all things demonic.)
Brad Mick’s writing brings out parts of the characters that I’d always suspected were there, but were only hinted at in the games. And Pat Lee’s art more than does Dante justice… Though somehow Trish just ends up looking weird, as her proportions seem slightly off more often than not. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess. Back to the positive, major props for showing Sparda as the Big Damn Demon I always suspected he was, when seen with Mundus for comparison. (There are two instances in which “Sparda” appears roughly human-sized in the games — the first is the Legendary Dark Knight costume for Dante, which lets you appear to play as Sparda — but really, animating a lot of additional mass would be annoying when it’s just a bonus costume. The other instance is Arkham taking on Sparda’s form as he takes his power — and since it’s not really Sparda, we have no idea if that’s an accurate depiction, size-wise, or if Arkham just shapeshifted without considering scale. Personally, I think Sparda was powerful enough to be whatever damn size he wanted to be.)
All in all, it was a wonderful (and completely unexpected!) gift, and I’m absolutely delighted with it. Yeah, it’s cheesy at times, but that’s the beauty of a character like Dante: he’s a nigh-invincible badass in a longcoat. He knows damn well he’s a huge dork, but when he do things like toss you into the air with his sword and then keep you aloft on a cushion of bullets, are you really going to call him on it?
Now here’s hoping I can keep all my bloggish things relatively well-updated.
No, there’s not a point to this post, except to get me in the habit of updating, and to wish everyone out there all the best in 2009.
Wiping the slate clean one more time…
See, here’s the deal. Once upon a time, I had five or six different sites. I ran a mailing list, a couple of webrings, my vanity page, and so on and so forth. So the main page of MtM was a pretty, splashy portal page type of thing, where I showed off my amazing web design abilities and kept a list of sites. If something happened, then I had all the files backed up. No big deal, right?
And then I decided it would be easier to keep all my sites updated if I installed some kind of blog software. I started out with Movable Type, which had a fairly easy template system. I still had pretty sites, and a way of keeping my updates intact. All was good.
And then Movable Type started sucking, and I went over to WordPress. I love WordPress, don’t get me wrong, but I had neither the time nor the patience to learn how to make templates.
In short, I got lazy. (Something very similar happened when LJ switched to the S2 style system.)
And because the site was ugly, I didn’t do so much with it. So my main update blog wasted away, my personal site wasted away, and I really wasn’t doing that much with my webspace.
And here is where we get to the crucial bit. See, a couple of times I’ve tried to do something more public than my LiveJournal, which worked with… Varying levels of success. But I’ve started thinking of… Lots of things, really, like how every other site you sign up for has a blog feature, and what to do with all those blogs. Also relevant is the fact that I’m roleplaying a lot these days, which means that I don’t spend as much time logged into my LiveJournal account.
Also, I really miss having a pretty site to show off.
So here’s how it goes. I’m not doing that much with the main MtM page. This annoys me. And if I’m going to have a self-hosted blog, it shouldn’t be consigned to a subdomain while the main page is just rotting away. So the old vanity page is redirecting here now, the old site update blog (for sites I never updated in the first place!) is going away, and I’m making a fresh start. I’m going to try to get a decent design for once, make this place actually worth visiting, and then… We’ll see.
I’m also setting Thorn Garden up again, and I may even try to revive the Neitherland project. Neitherland, for those of you who don’t know, was my attempt at a webcomic, which died in infancy because I can’t draw. What I’m thinking of doing now is doing a set of short stories and seeing if I might lure in an artist this way. I stumbled across some (really horrible) drawings I did for the Neitherland Tarot — I could do the Major Arcana as flash fiction, which would give people a feel for the world without actually giving away any vital plot. (Yes, Neitherland insists on having its story told in comic form. I’ve learned not to argue with my own stories — it never ends well.)
Anyway. New version coming soon. Wish me luck.