Sexualized Saturdays: Queerness Is for Grownups (or at Least Teenagers)

If there’s one thing Tumblr (or at least the people I follow) is obsessed with, it’s making fun of the deeply ingrained heteronormativity that people force on their children from a young age. I’m sure that at some point in your life you’ve heard someone refer to a male two year old as a future ladies’ man for smiling at his female babysitter, or another female two year old close by, or some similar nonsense. This is so problematic because it teaches children from before the time they can form words that boys are supposed to marry girls, girls are supposed to marry boys, and that’s all there is to gender and romance.

Life goals?? (via)

Bad Moon Rising: Wolf Girl is Less of a Horror, More of a Tearjerker

This, too, is false advertising.

In celebration of the week of Halloween finally arriving, I decided that my last review in this month of my Tim Curry film exploration would be a horror film. Now, I could have easily picked something from his stint on Tales from the Crypt, but another film caught my eye. Labeled as a horror-comedy, 2001’s Wolf Girl (alternately named Blood Moon) sounded interesting due in part to the popularity of the recent fourth season of American Horror Story. I don’t follow AHS, but the “freak show” set-up is certainly one that works as well in horror as it does at presenting sympathetic character studies of the people behind the acts. However, don’t be fooled by the labels I listed earlier: I wasn’t prepared at all going into this film. Wolf Girl is a hefty dose of character study, a little bit of horror, and none of the comedy. This doesn’t make the film bad per sé, but by no means would I call watching it a comfortable experience.

Theatre Thursdays: The LotR musical lives again!

Today I have exciting news! The musical adaptation of The Lord of the Rings will soon play again! If you haven’t heard of this musical, I understand. It premiered for previews in Toronto in 2007, was edited and moved to London where it ran for a shaky year, and hasn’t really been talked about since then.

I was very interested in seeing this show, but since it never came to America I was unable to do so. As such, I was ecstatic when playbill.com broke the news that the show will be launching a world tour in 2015!

There aren’t many details just yet, but according to the article, the show will be re-worked to accommodate various theaters. This is somewhat disappointing because the incredible stagecraft of the original was one of the main draws for me.

Manga Mondays: Trigun

Coming off the high that is Anime Boston, I’ve gotten a refresher of sorts of why I enjoy anime—also why I dislike it and the culture that comes along with it, but mostly why I like it. Reminders of the anime that started this long-lived affair (it was Panda! Go Panda, by the way), and the anime and manga that have kept these fires stoked. One such anime/manga also started my adoration for complicated villains. I’m honestly surprised that no one has tackled this behemoth of a story yet. So, today let’s take this opportunity to look at my favorite swirling vortex of feels, The Humanoid Typhoon, and his life as told through Trigun.

Manga Mondays: Lament of the Lamb

This is one of those series that I forgot existed, until, at a loss for what to write, I went scrounging around my house for ideas, and lo and behold, there it was shoved into the back of my closet. I wouldn’t say Lament of the Lamb by Kei Toume is entirely forgettable, but it’s been nearly ten years since its debut and it’s not particularly memorable in terms of plot. What initially drew me to it is its art—which is probably the most notable part of the series. It has a very distinctive style, especially on the covers, and even after coming across my forgotten collection, while just one look at the cover wasn’t enough to make me remember the story and characters—except in the most basic sense—my thoughts were immediately flooded with the visuals before even turning the first page.

Downton Abbey

There are a lot of characters.

I had been hearing about Downton Abbey, a British period drama television series created by Julian Fellowes, for a while now, and last week I finally broke down and watched the first episode. Several hours later I was lamenting the fact that Netflix only has the first season available while the third season is currently running. Regardless! For those who have not seen it, I am your Downton Abbey sensei and shall show you the way.

Switched at Birth

Switched at Birth is one of those shows that I initially wrote off but ended up loving once I gave it a chance. As you can probably guess from the title, the show is about characters who were switched at birth. Of course, the characters find out about their switch and drama ensues. This show airs on ABC Family, which hasn’t produced entertainment of particularly high quality as of late, so I was very skeptical when this show premiered.  I know the ~drama~ this channel likes to pump into its shows at the expense of character and story development, and the premise of this show set itself up for dramatic dramatized drama in spades.

I am glad to report that this show is actually fantastically written and, while it does dip itself into soap opera territory with certain plot elements, it is overall a very smart show.

The two girls switched are named Daphne and Bay. Bay (the brunette in the above image) is raised by the wealthy Kennish family consisting of Kathryn, John, and older brother Toby while Daphne (the redhead) loses her hearing as a child and is raised by a single mother named Regina Vasquez, whose estranged husband Angelo was absent for most of Daphne’s adolescence. The show explores some really intricate themes but especially the ideas of who these girls are, who they would have been, and which (if either) is who they are supposed to be.

Trailer Tuesdays: Snow White and the Huntsman… Again.

I am both excited and nervous about this movie. While it looks good exciting and action packed, I’m still worried about Kirsten Stewart’s performance. I know Chris Hemsworth will be excellent as the Huntsman, but the thing I’m most disappointed about is the evil queen. She seems thoroughly evil in this movie and I’m starting to get a little bored with it.

When are we going to add depth to the stepmother? I wouldn’t even mind if she was the bad guy if they just gave her some depth to make her character a bit more interesting.

Overall though I am looking forward to Snow White and the Huntsman, and I’m looking forward to see where they will go with it, especially with the lack of a prince charming.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Choice of Family (And Its Sequels) by Silver Spider

Sometimes comic books don’t do what I want them to do (see: DC Comics Reboot). Comics for the most part tend to be more concerned about the action that is occurring in the story than the relationships between the characters. There are notable exceptions of course, but for the most part comics are focused more on action and fighting. For those of you that long for some more character and relationship building I suggest you turn to your favorite fanfiction site.

I love all things Batman and I love the Bat Family. The dynamic in that family is fantastic, interesting, and multilayered, but because many of the characters in the Bat Family are emotionally stunted, and because comic writers aren’t often going to create a series simply to explore characters’ relationships, the dynamics of this family are often not explored.

Silver Spider’s fanfiction, The Choice of Family and its subsequent sequels, fills this gap in the comics to explore the familial relationships in the Bat Family.

Silver Spider wrote a series of one-shot fanfics that focus primarily on the relationships between Batman and the various Robins. The Choice of Family is the first in the series and begins in a hospital with Damian Wayne (Robin) and Tim Drake (Red Robin) watching over an injured Dick Grayson (Nightwing). As the story progresses the reader learns that Dick was injured in a gang altercation involving Jason Todd.

Jason, for those maybe less familiar with Batman, is a former Robin who was murdered by the Joker and later resurrected. Jason is the estranged son of the Bat Family, angry with his father and his siblings for not avenging his death by killing the Joker. The Jason Todd of the comics often struggles with his own anger toward his family, but occasionally the fact that he still cares about them is made known.

Silver Spider shows this amazingly well. In The Choice of Family, Jason feeling guilty, shows up at the hospital to check on Dick and even attempts to apologize for his actions, though he doesn’t take full responsibility for what happened at the time.

I might be a bit bias, but Jason’s journey throughout the series is arguably the most compelling. Jason begins by being angry and vengeful, blaming everybody but himself for his problems, but starting with Antidote for the Poison and climaxing in In Father’s Honor, Jason changes and grows. Jason becomes more mature and learns to turn to his family with his problems, which then allows him to begin to overcome his past and start on a better path.

As a Jason Todd fan girl this is kind of my wildest dream.

But perhaps the thing I like most about this series is that the familial relationships are stressed far more than in the comics.

In the Batman comics, the only one of Bruce’s children that calls him father is Damian, and the Robins never really refer to each other as brothers, but in Silver Spider’s series the Robins often refer to each other as brothers and refer to Bruce as their father.

Simply by using names like father and brother, Silver Spider takes the Bat Family to a whole new emotional level than the comics really have. It’s a nice and much needed change.

This is an amazing fanfic that I would highly recommend to anyone. For those interested in a good fanfic that doesn’t focus on pairings (though there are a few het pairings, they aren’t usually the main focus) and really deals with interesting canon relationships between the characters, Silver Spider’s The Choice of Family and it’s sequels are few you. Check it out!

I Guess Whitewashing is Okay Again

There have been many issues around race and comic book movies over the years. Marvel I feel has been the most notable with casting black actors in typically white roles. Alicia in Fantastic Four was black instead of the usual blonde-haired, blue-eyed character she is in the comics. Nick Fury, now played by Samuel L. Jackson is black, and perhaps the most controversial, Idris Elba played the Norse god Heimdall in Thor.