farrellyh

[farrellyh]

my thoughts on The Banshees of Inisherin

While more a tragedy with funny moments than a back comedy, the movie shows deep insight into the importance of friendship through its absence, while also looking into how conflict can escalate, the harm caused by loneliness, and in my mind, depression. All while having amazing cinematography that shows the beautiful Irish landscape.

[farrellyh]

my thoughts on Everything everywhere at once

While its surreal tone and intense pacing can make it hard to follow at times, and there are parts of the third act that are just too long. It is one of the most creative movie ever made, with a profound theme on find meaning in life through the joys in the little things.

[farrellyh]

Some thoughts on Stranger Things season 4

I think The Hopper Russian could have been one episode, it was feeling a lot like filler. Some great character moments for Hopper though.

Not loving the will, they won’t they vibe between Steve and Nancy can’t we just move on?

The Will, Mike, and Johnathan is the weakest storyline, but some of Will’s moments make it worth it though.

The horror is on top form, Venca has rapidly becoming my favourite stranger Things villain.

Max has VASTLY improved as a character.  For a character I didn’t really care for before she became one of my favourites.

Eddie is a great addiction to the cast,

The direction is the best it’s ever been. It’s visually stunning.

All in all, I think this is the best season since the first one.

[farrellyh]

Sights of sorrow and untold tales. A Horror Short Story

the first body was found 2 miles away of the tribe. I was not the one to find the man. It was a group of misbehaving boys. I only discovered the dead man while I was hunting. I heard the children’s screams and came running to help. It was a white man. An alarmingly tall white man. Enough for the children to believe him to be a giant. He was skeletal in frame, with the oddest of clothes. They were made from some sort of very thin fabric and no furs.  Do white men have some other way of protecting them from the cold? Thicker skin? I know so little about the white men or their journey here. Only the chief of the tribe has ever seen a living white man in person. The chief told us how these men come from a world where there is little snow and plentiful food. It is hard to imagine a place like that. Their tribes I am told are called ‘cities’ that have thousands of people and all with full bellies. What a wonderous world these white men must live in.

I found the second body a further mile ahead. Curled up like a child. Just as tall and thin as the first one.  His arms holding a book in a protective manner. The writing inside the book I could not understand. I placed it back with him. it seemed to hold value for the man.

As I return to the tribe, I talked to the chief. He was not surprised, he told me that the white men. About how strange they are, and they are often ill-suited for this land. I talked about the possibility of saviours. The chief merely shook his head. But I was determined to help and to discover.

It took many days travel. Finding many strange finds. Made with precious metals, something the white men have in plentiful supply. A metal box with papers that had the same strange writing as the book. A device that makes things in the distance appear closeup, and countless other things, The most astonishing discovery I found was the boats. There were two of them. Two of the most startlingly large boats I have ever seen in my life. My entire tribe could easily fit into just one of them.  

As I saw it for the first time, I was both terrified of it and in all of it. The two ships were like two colossal creatures emerging out of the ice, off in the distance, party hidden by the fog I could not help but admire be in at the white men for creating such vessels.  Along with the sadness that such a creation falling victim to the hash mistress of winter. It was trapped in the ice, slowly being crushed by the massive force of the ice. The white men must not have known how the sea can turn against them, turning into ice and trapping them.  

I climb on to the boat’s main surface. It had a towering pole with white wings of fabric attached, to catch the wind. I ventured inside, it was almost completely black, only enough light to see the creature. It was thankfully dead. this monstrous giant still loomed over me with a terrifying glare. Its teeth are rat-like, that could have torn me apart. I left with great haste.

That night I didn’t sleep. My mind was filled with question, question of how the white men built those two leviathans, and yet my confusion at how they were so ill prepared for our land constantly attacked my mind. Along with questions what sort of creature that giant was? Is it something from their land? How did they create such vessels?  These white men were something truly unknowable.

The more I search, the more bodies I find. No more of strange devices and incredible inventions. Just dead men. The cold had killed them if the starvation did not take them first. Some were in groups, some alone. Some seemed to have killed each other, with their strange weapons. The chief referred to them as ‘guns.    My wonder became frustration, but after finding the camp my frustration became melancholy.

Tents with piles upon piles of bodies. All clubbed together in one last desperate fight against the cold. these Frozen skeletal-like men, all died together. Rotting dismembered body parts in cooking pots. They must have eaten their dead in a last attempt to avoid starvation. But it was the man that was alone that has haunted me. That frequents my nightmare. He must have chosen to die alone. He had pieced his skin with golden chains. Covering his face. I had never seen such a sight, and to this day I have no answers as to why. This morbid sight marks the end of my quest of discovery. These sights of sorrows and untold tales had left me with a heavy heart and nightmares that still haunt my sleep. Dreams of giant men with rat-like teeth tearing themselves apart, ripping out their own skin, muscles, and blood vessels. Some with knives, some with their bare hands. they would then start eating the flesh they had ripped from their bodies. The look of desperation and hopelessness on their faces. Then the ice would engulf them. Freezing them in place, dooming them to remain in that moment in time forever. Forever feeling that pain, desperation, and hopelessness. I knew that I had to stop the search.  

I have now return to the comfort of my tribe and the arms of the family and I am better for it. But sometimes my mind wonders back to all mysteries left by the white men and feel the need to solve them. Who were those men? Why did they come here? Why were they seem so ill prepared for their journey? So many tales must have died with those men, and I will never know any of them.    

[farrellyh]

Mina Harker syndrome

All girls want bad boys. At least that what we’ve been told. Personally, I don’t think you put half the planet population taste in one category

By sexy bad boys I mean the draco in leather pants trope, where a male villain gets sexualise and looked on as more sympathetic by the female fandom, often with a demand for a redemption romance.

In my mind there are two sides when it comes to the whole draco in leather pants thing for feminists. One school of thought is that it is an outlet, a harmless fantasy. Like how fantasizing about being James Bond doesn’t mean you actually want a licence to kill to shoot people. The other school of thought is that it is an enabler. Conditioning women to think that they can ‘change’ abusive men into good if they are ‘special’ enough.  For me I don’t it’s as simple as one side being completely right and one side being completely wrong.

Because of this I have always be conflicted by draco in leather pants trope. One the one hand I would by lying if I said that I haven’t fangirl over certain villains  (Zemo rules)  on the other side I can’t say reylo doesn’t make me more than a little uncomfortable

So, what the hell does any of this have to do with Mina Harker?  The character from the novel Dracula, well what most people think Mina Harker character is, isn’t true. At least not in the original novel. In the book Mina is NOT in love with Dracula, not surprising since Dracula is described as a middle-aged man with a large, white moustache. Not exactly the sort of person to end up on People magazine’s sexist men list.

She’s basically the protagonist of a huge chunk of the story. With far more agency than what you would expect from a Victorian era book. She’s smart, got a job that she has no intention of leaving after she’s married, she has way more agency and is vital in stopping Dracula.  

But then Dracula got sexualised, and someone needed to be the self-insert. With adaptions, Reimagining and so forth, mina lost all her personality and became Dracula’s love interest.

This is what concerns most about the Draco in leather pants trope. Not sexualising the bad boy but strong female characters devolving into these love interests to fit the fantasy, losing all their strength.