Castlevania Season 2

Well, damn, that was over quick.

Season 2 of Netflix's Castlevania is pretty much as good as everyone expected it to be, right?
But what might not have been expected is how much it actually ends up doing with its double episode count. I can honestly say that I didn't expect the show to get to some of its story beats this soon.

Though the show still has some amazingly well done battles, one set to a squeal-worthy fast-paced rendition of Castlevania's iconic Bloody Tears song, these are more spaced out this time round, as the show has to juggle a lot of new characters, and even armies, so that the scope of the story can be expanded. This makes it seem as if in the early episodes, between sporadic bursts of violence, there's nothing much going on other than the usual vampiric intrigue and Team Belmont stomping around, looking for weapons and stuff to help them track down and kill Dracula, and, granted, that is exactly what is going on here. But... well, when shit finally goes down, it goes down wholesale. It blows up. And even if Castlevania were to be renewed for 10 more seasons, it's hard to imagine any future episode might ever come close to episode 7's jaw-dropping awesomeness.

The episode is one of non-stop action, brutal violence and filled with very manly men roaring their primal enraged manliness at each other while blasting each other with skill and mad magic. Top that off with some heartfelt feelings and you have what is undoubtedly the show's best episode.

The Music is more memorably present throughout and the even voice-acting is an improvement on season 1, with 2 notable exceptions, one of which which doesn't last long, but the other irritant is Peter Stormare, of all people, who, as Viking Vampire, quite rubbed me the wrong way. Stormare's voice is readily recognizable but so married to his appearance and idiosyncrasies that it can not possibly translate well to animated lip-syncing.

There will likely be a third season, but I admit, even if there wouldn't be, I'd be more than satisfied with what we got. It's hard to see where the show might go but if episode's 8 set-up is anything to go by there's a definite plan going forward.

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And, because I enjoyed doing it the first time round; here's my 10 word review/run-down of each episode.

2.1 Depressed Dracula snootily sulks and leaves it up to humans.
2.2 More vampires, intrigue and stylish bloodshed. The vampire/human bromance.
2.3 How to Hate Humans: Hector Edition. Pig-blood and shitting.
2.4 Esoteric Belmont house-keeping. Isaac does some fucking brutal murder.
2.5 Dracula's Memories of relishing death. How a feminist incriminates puppies.
2.6 Trevor mangles intruders. Sypha lays (indirectly) waste to entire armies.
2.7  Bloody Tears Choreography and... THE DAMN SUPER SAIYAN CLIMAX!!
2.8 Aftermath and set-up. Sadism and how to be very corny.

Icky October post!

Because it's Icky October and I haven't posted anything to do with horror all month, here's a short clip of me finally killing Resident Evil 7's Jack in the Chainsaw fight on Madhouse difficulty. It took me a few tries...

Warning:

Violence, Gore and alot of noise.

I love first person horror games, and Resident Evil 7 is genuinely one of the best out there.

Shame it goes off the rails towards the end, where it trades in suspense and nightmare imagery for a constant slew of gun battles and tar monsters. But, it's pretty good while it lasts and certainly worthy of some of your time.

Reading Goals

I'm starting to do a lot better these days reading-wise. I'm still a long way away from reading a book a week (like in the good old days) or even 1 about every 2 weeks, but I do find I'm slowly regaining some acceptable speed.

I've managed to finish the Blood of Elves earlier this month and am about halfway through The Devil's Apocrypha.

Through circumstances, my reading plans for this year have been sunk, disastrously so, and so I'm wiping the slate clean and setting myself some new reading goals that should be easily attainable. 

The goal is to finish one of these books each month.

The Devil's Apocrypha by the end of October, The Exorcist in November and As a God Might Be in December.

As you can see, I've been drawn to a particular theme here.

I found that after my recent reading slump, if I'm to commit to any reading project again, it's going to have to be books that hold a particular fascination for me, and that means some good ol' Christian mythology.

The Devil's Apocrypha is a re-telling of certain parts of the Bible with an eye on making the Biblical god as much of an asshole as possible, while all the while making the devil as sympathetic as possible.

There's a cool and slightly mind-boggling origin story for the Divine Mythology - more on that in a few days - but after that it's mostly downhill. It's not horribly written but neither is it any memorable. It's also a bit try-hard in its language and style and not as clever as it thinks it is, but at the very least I'm getting some illicit thrills out of it.

The Exorcist needs no introduction and has been on my shelf for a while and I thought that this might be a good time to give it a go. Catholicism isn't my bag but I'm here for the darker side of things anyway.

And As a God Might Be is a bit of an unknown right now.

I bought it in a state of excited hype because it was mentioned by Abalieno on Loopingworld, and is said to contain some existential and metaphysical themes and to dwell on the nature of God and what it means to be human. I'm not expecting any supernatural shenanigans but having taken a peek before, I can already say this one will be the best written novel of the three. 

Update

Alright. Here I am.
These days there's not much interest in leaving my mark with a series of well-crafted, insightful blog-posts, or rather, there is, but there's no actual drive for it. No drive to accomplish anything, no drive to attract or entertain anyone.
Don't get me wrong; I want to do these things, but I can't make myself actually do them: I am stuck in a bubble of complacent apathy. Why go though the effort when I can just lull myself asleep with the very next thing that presents itself?
Nothing really matters.

No, that's not true. Of course things matter; certain things always do: Family is one of those things. You do everything for family. Family comes with, or should come with, love. And, if you're lucky, that love has rooted itself deep and has now become unconditional. It is a given. And it is a necessity.
But most everything else has ceased to matter much.

These things that used to grab you, grasp you, clench you with an immovable grip, have lost their hold on you, and have become like shadows in the night. You've lost sight of them. They've blended into the greater whole, or, by being invisible, have ceased to exist.

I can't read anymore.

This is problematic.

My lust for books and stories is what drove this blog. It is desire that made this engine go; a feverish, obsessive fire that propelled my unhappy soul to push towards some goal of my own devising, and for some meaning to be endowed to an empty life.
For now, this goal is lost. I'm in a limbo, still pining for bygone days of manufactured satisfaction.
There was pride here. An ongoing achievement, never-ending, renewing itself with all the effort given, feeding itself with the fuel of discontent. It is the coal that stoked the fire, but the coal has become superfluous, because the rain is gasoline.
The fire rages, and all it requires, is to have been. From one moment to the next; introduce a new element to the status quo, and it's either burn brighter, or be snuffed out.

I haven't been snuffed out.

I suppose I should be happy.

Happily Caged

The third of October.
A Day of Days.

The familiar comfort of utter self-loathing. A glad willingness to tread the old paths of self-destruction.
Oh, for the lure of brutalization. Not for lack of rum; for blood we spiral to depths most corrosive.
But why, what has brought on this moment, this relapse into the old haunts of hateful introspection?

Not introspection in truth, but its ghost, its barest echo. A shadow of previous discomforts, previous truths, once known, acknowledged head-on, in flagellating self-delight, now but glimpsed as the barest wisps of meaning, as fleeting tendrils of thought. Meaning eludes my grasp, as ever, as always. But here it is meaning for the moment, and not for the grander truths of life; meaning for now, for here, for the drive that would beat my heart, beat it on, make it go, make it full of yearning, loathing or desire, as the occasion demands, as the occasion merits it, as the occasion has made it merit. No. The hunt for meaning, of the moment or of the soul, is not behind this relapse into darkest territory. There is no hunt of any kind. At all. The desire for meaning, for goals, is lost. I am content to drift in a sea of mindlessness. I consume, voraciously, and all the world and its myriad dazzling offerings will vanish into the gaping hole inside.
But it is not a hole of hurt, not a hole that needs to be filled. It is the hole that I call the moment itself. It can never be filled because it is always emptying, ever passing, ever making way for the next riveting fall, the next eye-drawing plunge into caverns unknown. It is my seeing mind, my living breathing spirit. A primal eye-gouging thing of sick delight, twisted into a semblance of normalcy by the constraints of the human race. We gravitate towards the thrill, the pulsing mess of it all, because it fills our eyes, our sockets drowned in blood and sex, our mouths filled with exhortation, our ears ringing with the voice of truth. This normal-seeming thing only wants this: It wants to be released.
To cavort and dance beneath the omen of the wild wood. It is the bone skeleton of comfort beating on the tendons of old and forbidden passions. It is easy to placate, easy to please. It can be lulled in a heart-beat, with the merest push of a button. Seeing is believing, as long as the mind is willing, after all. But the cage is made of wicker and the rains have come again, and they have been here for a while. And beneath the obscured all-seeing eye, the bars that had begun to rot, have broken. And the Beast roams free once more. But where before it would've gone ahead with thoughts of violent repercussion, now freed it stands in immobile howling anguish, transfixed by its mirror image in the muddy pools of self-reflection. It stares in gnashing adoration at the rictus grin, the cracked fangs of greedy self-delight. Blood is the oldest flavour, after all. And sweeter still arterial red, the matters of the heart, the innermost self. It stares at the corners of its eyes, its bloodshot hurt. It glimpses only. Look away and there it is, your innermost pain, the private worry, the burst veins of your sole disposition, choked by the black smoke of industry, the stinging haze that washes away the solemn grit gifted by the clouds of your desire. Your eyes are clear and your visage is astounded. The beast roars. It knows. The thing most inimical to nature is upon it, perpetuated by uncomprehending jailers and there is no escape. There is no way out, no way back and no way forward. There is only the moment. And it is made clear, by occlusion or by refraction, and so the beast stares.
It glances and in glimpses tries to form a picture. But as fast as the grit builds up, the smoke brings around the tears, washing away all hope of truth and self-deception. All it can do is look.
It does not see. It does not understand. It gazes without hope.
It does this because it can.
Because all that matters is the act.
The willingness to stare.
There is no comfort here, and no hope of satisfaction.
All that is gained is a constant film of tears. But that can be an end in itself.
A reminder. A thrill more true than the one offered by the push of a button.
There was a life once. It was pain and it was horror but it was true.
For today these moments of eternal gazing will suffice.
A new cage is ready and the smoke has already begun to weary.
But it was sweet while it lasted. I roar in triumph as I push the button and the door slams shut. I am happily caged once again. The sun is shining.
The rains will come again. But for now, the wicker stands whole.

Comics in the Post

Alright, here's my acquisitions for this month, you'll notice all of 'em are comics.

It seems that for the moment I have stopped buying novels.

This is down to several factors: Primarily, there's the medication.

Because of the quite literal alteration in my brain I'm less contemplative and more inclined to go with the flow, less eager to 'make my mark' and 'to attain goals' and on the whole I find I have less drive, not to say no drive, to finish novels, 'finish' as in 'to have them done' as in ' to never have to look at this book again' as in 'enjoyed it' as in 'understood it' as in 'it's given me all it could give and it now belongs on my shelf' and so on and so forth.

Looking at what I've bought then it's a little bit disconcerting to notice that I'll gravitate towards the visual rather than the imaginative for my fiction, I always thought that I was the imaginative type rather than the mindless consumer I now so obviously seem to be, but... anyway... As for other factors... I'm also quite preoccupied by Nier Automata, which is a ps4 game which starts out deceptively straightforward but soon evolves into an experience unlike any I've come across in my quite extensive gaming travails. I hope to talk about this one some time in the future. Maybe when I've finished excavating the rabbit hole that this game has ended up being.

But maybe it's just also that right now I'm not having a novel reading 'season'.

You know how that sometimes you just come across a novel that reinvigorates your lust for reading and that when it's done you just plow through a whole bunch of novels desperate for that same feeling of new worlds and new experiences, and sometimes you get lucky, but more often you just don't... and everything ends up settling into this stale routine, into this quiet doldrums, where you just forge your way through whatever's next without ever getting touched by what you're reading... maybe it's that...

Or maybe it's that I am still preoccupied...

There's this thing in my head that I can't seem to get out.

I don't want it out... and yet I very much do... because it is horrible in the way that is has superseded importance over everything I used to care about.

I don't want it, but it's there and I can't quiet it, even with medication, to a state that I could be enraptured by what I used to be fascinated about before.

Even more than before, nothing seems to matter anymore... nothing but this one thing...
But there is a gradual lessening to this particular obsession nonetheless.

Anyway....

 Comics.

Comics kind of subvert the normal brain processes used when consuming fiction.

When reading novels, imagination and interpretation is everything. You read and you visualize, you imagine, and you do all the work.

In visual media (tv and movies) you consume whatever's given and barely do any work and, as a consequence, in the quiet there's room for self indulgences or distractions.

In comics however there's a need for the interpretation of what is given on two levels: the illustrations and the given prose, whether that be dialogue or narration.

You look at what is given and you couple that to an interpretation to what you are seeing and you tie that to what you interpret from the given dialogue or narration. Sometimes it's easy and straightforward but more often that not you'll find that you are constantly pressed to pay attention to what you are consuming (Jamie Delano's Hellblazer is definitely like this), and more than that, to give it your time, your thought and your undivided attention. There's exemptions to all of this but for the moment I think I've made my point.

So here we are. All of these books are comics...

Because reading them is both easy and isn't...

Let's get the most interesting one out of the way first, right; the smallest book first: Junji Ito's Uzumaki. My first ever Manga comic.

I've never felt any pressure to delve into manga or anime until I watched a few of Supereyepatchwolf's youtube videos on various anime and manga series, mostly when I was in the heaviest of the adapting to the medication stage, and when he talked about Junji Ito's horror manga I knew I'd found something I probably would like to use to dip my toes into a new type of media.

Long story short: I liked it, and enough to have already ordered 2 new novels of Ito's Manga series.

I might talk about some of this. I might not.

Next up: Slaine the Brutania Chronicles 4 ( the finale).

I've been looking forward to this one.

Simon Davis' take on the Celtic barbarian is my favourite of all that has gone before in Slaine's long long run, including the epic Book of Scars, and I'm looking forward to see how this one wraps up.

Here are the four Hardbacks for the Brutania Chronicles for those who might like to have a gander at that.

Next up we have some Mignolaversity stuff.

Up first is Frankenstein Underground, which follows the journey of Frankenstein after he was clobbered in 'Hellboy in Mexico' (which is, oddly, for some reason, a personal favourite of mine).

Don't know much about this one except that it's the next stop in my Hellboy universe read (following the 2018 reading order).

Then we have the next stage of the BPRD: the Hell on Earth volume 1, and Abe Sapien the drowning.

I must say; I hate that the omnibi take so long to get released.

I wonder if we'll learn the fate of Ben Daimyo any time soon.

The sleeveless books for those who are interested.

Then my next stop is the Judge Dredd Universe: the Complete Case Files Volumes 18 and 19.

I'm guessing this is mostly one-offs except for the 'Mechanismo' storyline, which is ok because I primarily read Dredd for some good old dip-in-and-out escapism. Unfortunately a lot of this is Garth Ennis, who kind of misses the point with a lot of his material. But I'll put up with it for now because his run won't last much longer... right?

And then, lastly, volumes 18 and 19 of Vertigo's long running Hellblazer series.

I've mentioned these in my previous post but it's safe to say that I won't be reading these any time soon. My current Hellblazer reading schedule is 'no more than one issue per day' even if I skip a day or two. I want to make this experience last. 

And that's it for now.

But believe you me: This is not the end.

Appreciation: The Devil You Know

Of the 8 Hellblazer Omnibi I've read so far this one is my favourite.

Under the current circumstances I'm letting my novel-reading slide quite a bit (from attempting to read one novel a week to... I'll see if I can even finish one in under two months...) and instead fill my reading hours with comics, old and new. Mostly new, but there's one older title I keep coming back to. Usually I come back to it when I'm in a dark place but now... now I'm in a time in which, chemically, I am devoid of pondering, and so, thoughtlessly, I'm free to consume whatever I want. Mindless escapism is the name of the game.Whether it be comfort food or comfort fiction, without regard for taste, an omnivore, I'll down it like a glutton. My mouth chews without thinking and my brain, where before it rambled on in an endless manner, now, slowly, ponderously, does likewise.

With the medication I'm aware that there's stuff that worries and hurts me but I can't much focus on it. I don't look at it because, really, on the whole, it doesn't quite seem to matter. And yet I'm back here, sipping from this most darkly brewed tale. The familiar comfort fiction worms its way into my daily life and an alarm bell start to ring. This should probably be worrying me. But the alarm rings into a cavity, into an open void, and its echoes are soon lost. From past experiences I've come to know that the fiction to which I turn to when I 'need' comfort is dark. I suppose it's some form of schadenfreude. A feeling born from the idea that my world is less malignant if that malignancy is doled out in equal measure among its many inhabitants. Like Constantine says in the Antarctica storyline: 'And I like the way that feels'.

And Hellblazer doles out malignancy every chance it gets. And in this volume there's some truly horrifying stuf. As a result, the Devil You Know has some of my favourite Helllazer stories. Whether it's the disturbing (and yet uplifting) Antarctica two-shot, the bleak eco-nightmare of 'On the Beach', or the much built-up Exorcism-gone-wrong of 'Newcastle', the issues collected here are some of the series' best.

That's just me talking. Ask most Hellblazer fans and they'll proclaim that the Dangerous Habits storyline is the best.

But not for me the raging race-riots of Garth Ennis' run, or his meticulously built-up and believable friendships, John Constantine's most memorable girlfriend, nor his epic journey to the ultimate double-crossing of the devil, no. All I need to proclaim these my favourite stories is one thing and one thing only:

Jamie Delano's Beautifully bleak poetry-prose.

This stuff touches my soul, gives me something I don't get anywhere else. He consistently manages to weave a dark drama, giving me a deep well to hide in. There's nothing so compelling as the dark and if you manage to be poetic about it, well, then you've got my attention.

And, as I said, I've only read 8 volumes of this series, which amounts to around 80 issues out of the 300 that make up the whole thing, and that's not counting extras and specials, so I've still got a lot to look forward to.

Of course, Jamie Delano's run on Helllazer is a relatively short one, so the poetry that I'm practically raving about here is short-lived and already familiar. But you know maybe, hopefully, there's some great stuff still waiting ahead.

Volumes 18 and 19 are on their way to me bringing the count of what I can read right now up to issue 229. Volume 20 (up to 238 plus extras) will be out somewhere in January.

There'll also be a 30th anniversary celebration hardcover volume out in October, collecting various separate issues of the long-running series. Oddly, all of these are unconnected from each other, which, for a series that is pretty much all about long-spanning story arcs, seems a bit of an odd choice.