#and only watched the brazilian adaptation btw

[lullybaju]

Oh, Monte Cristo...

The french prince of Machiavelli

The pride and joy of Foucalt

The apple of Catholic's Church eye

The talented Ripley of 19th century

The master of narration

The king of metamorphosis

The romantic version of architecht archetype of mbti

The most controversial of them all

Alright. Focus.

Here we are in June and I'm proud - almost in tears - to say that I've finally  managed to finish The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my favorite books since childhood and the longest book I've ever read (!)

Although i enjoyed the experience of reading an over 1000 page book, I still think their final stretch wasn't that exciting. The last chapters were saved from boredom by the ko of the big four and the rising from the ashes of Benedetto. This corsican boy deserved to live in freedom and the knockout of Gerard de Villefort and Baron Danglars were those great epic revenges I was counting on and the epitome of violence I had been waiting for!

Despite the ease of reading that dynamic side, the most special moment of the final stretch was Dantés return to If as Monte Cristo. Ok, I'm very aware that I said the merciful version of the count drove the story right to the end, but the door stopper built a new turning point for us to enjoy and it was not a cheesy one this time.

Monte Cristo visit to If was a visit to his past and it radically changed his goals and his plans as it made him remember that his true wish was only not to get his memory taken away. Actually, his reflection carried something deeper than that: he could understand that his revenge succeed from the moment he managed to make people know and let people know about him and all the ordeal he went through - not just his traitors, but all those tourists who will carefully listen to the tour guide and wonder about what happened to prisoner number 34 and will talk about that history with many people. After all of that, he realized that memory is power and memory is justice.

Can you feel?

THERE'S LIFE IN MY EYES!

The Count of Monte Cristo will always be one of my favorite books because it gives me life. This novel will remain extraordinary for eternity because it has the power to give life to any reader.

Why?

This amazing novel keep us informed of many tragedies with many gossip about many (aristocratic) people while let us know about a very methodical vengeance that is being carried out by a man who is experiencing the extremes of human being, but, although he was facing such hell-heaven condition, he didn't feel satisfied by just living in peace with the paradise side benefits of that situation and decided to fulfill our fantasies of power by using his lucky to bring justice by promoting violence against social structures and institutions of oppression, such as the judiciary, the capital and the army, through the people who represent them.

In addition to that, the so-called man is superhumanly smart and focused on achieving his own personal goals, that is to say, as a rule, a role model for everybody living under capitalism and economic liberalism. Actually, a hero, but not any kind of hero: he isn't naive and break the rules without thinking twice to fuck his way to the top everytime he realizes this kind of cheating is social acceptable and the key to succeed, and he also goes through many mood swings to the point of bring his love to someone especial in a middle of some of his authoritarians states of mind.

Imperfectly human, the count seems to be a relief as he shows himself as a big guide of pros and cons of what even a hero is forced to do to have a decent life in times of great pressure.

Long life to the count of Monte Cristo.

Supporting text I used, but it's in portuguese

[ben-talks-art]

Let's talk about entitlement

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that a voice actor from my country, an incredibly popular figure that is known for voicing super big roles such as Superman, Samurai Jack, Optimus Prime, Coop from Megas XLR (my favorite dub from the dude btw, he absolutely kills it!), and also acting as the voice for many popular actors such as Jim Carrey, was cast to play the role of Future Devil in the Brazillian dub of Chainsaw Man.

Now... I myself have not watched anything dubbed in my home country in eons, in fact, the Puss in Boots 2 movie was the first time in a while where I saw any form of media dubbed with Brazillian voice actors, if only because I wanted to see this thing as soon as possible so I just rushed to the nearest cinema I could find, and sadly Brazillian cinema doesn't show animated movies in their original dub...

So anyway, I wasn't exactly going "OMG!! Superman is gonna voice the "the future rules!" guy!!!" or anything like that. I was mostly just going "Oh, neat!", but after watching Puss I was kinda curious to find out how the whole Brazilian Future Devil thing went and... Ugh...

Apparently, the voice actor got a lot of hate on Twitter because they didn't adapt the line from the manga in the same way it was done by the fan translations... I repeat, people got angry at the actor because the line was different from the FAN TRANSLATIONS! And he received so much backlash from the watchers that he decided to drop out of the show and thus won't be returning for a future season.

Cool...

So... Let's talk about entitlement a little bit

Let's just assume for a moment that there is a girl you really, really like (I'm using "girl" but just replace it with whatever works for you), but she couldn't care less about you, so you try to make yourself look better, more desirable, more "worthy" of her by, let's say... Having a very well-paid job, or being someone who donates a lot to charity, or paying for the surgery of her grandma, or finding the cure for cancer, or ending world hunger... Let's just assume you did everything you could to be considered the most perfect person ever...

You're still not entitled to that girl's affection, appreciation, or even attention if she doesn't want to give you that.

Entitlement is the mentality of "I earned this, so I deserved it!"

But the fact of the matter is, unless you're paying someone for a job, and they agree to it, nobody really owes you anything.

(Although I guess one could argue that you're also owed your parents' support in order to survive since they're the reason you're here at all but... I'm not sure I have enough knowledge to talk about this so casually.)

But long story short, entitlement is this idea that you should have things done in the way you want them to be, just because you convinced yourself that this is how it should be.

I mentioned before in my Makima post that I really don't like this mentality because it works to make people think they have power over something they have nothing to do with.

This happens a lot with fanbases. Sonic, Kingdom Hearts, Chainsaw Man, Star wars... There are so many pieces of media where the public will go "this isn't how I wanted" or even worse "this isn't how it is supposed to go!" as if they were the creators or something.

They use arguments like "I complain because I care!" but in reality, it isn't about caring. This isn't about displaying your love for an IP you care about, it's about you not being able to handle a reality different from what you wanted.

It's basically the premise of the movie "Misery" where this one fan wants to act like she knows the story better than the actual author.

Now... Thinking that you deserve something even though there is nothing that says you technically do aside from your own belief is already bad enough, but it gets even worse when people use it as an excuse to act violently.

Harassing a voice actor and making him give up on his job just because a line was changed is just beyond silly. It's not the fans' duty to tell how a story should be told, same way it isn't right for fans to harass an actor just because they played an unpopular character in a live-action performance like it Happened with Rose in Star Wars, or telling someone they should kill themselves just because they made a joke about an infamous ship in Chainsawman.

It's even weirder in Chainsawman's case because part 2 literally starts with someone getting so much harassment by their classmates that it makes her want to die, which just makes me wonder if people are even trying to pick the messages of the story they are consuming.

Bottom line, entitlement is ugly. It is in my opinion THE ugliest mindset anyone could have.

It makes people perform actions out of selfishness, arrogance, anger, and it only works to spread pain and misery. It makes you look at other people as objects that only exist to satisfy your desires and makes you forget they have feelings and that they can get hurt, all because they happen to want to do something you disagree with.

If someone writes a story in a way you don't like it, you're not entitled to attack that writer. If someone performs the role of a character in a way you don't like it, you're not entitled to attack that actor. And if someone has an opinion about a piece of media that you disagree with, you're not entitled to attack that commenter.

You NEVER have a reason to attack anyone. Trying to put others down just to make yourself look big, ironically, doesn't make you look big! It just makes it look like you don't have enough faith in what you stand for and are too afraid that someone might prove you wrong.

Entitlement and aggressiveness are huge symbols of insecurity, cowardice, and immaturity, because people who truly believe in what they believe in, don't resort to harassment so fast just because a different point of view showed up.

We only attack when we feel threatened, when we feel someone is trying to hurt us or trying to take something important from us.

Attacking should only be reserved for self-defense, or the defense of someone who can't defend themselves (and even then I feel like there is a whole other grey area of debate on how to know who needs and should be defended and from whom, which I really don't feel I have the skills or maturity to properly talk about myself).

A random line on a fan translation of a popular manga that got changed when the official dub came out... Is just not a good enough reason to feel threatened, and not a good enough reason to attack someone, even if it's just an online attack.

We all know the line, "If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything!"

Unless someone is asking for your opinion, unless someone is paying you to speak and make a criticism or provide some sort of honest feedback, or unless you're being harassed first, you are NEVER entitled to use your words or body to try to harm someone!

You are free to live your life in any possible way you want, as long as no one is getting hurt from it.

...

At least in my opinion...

I am not a psychologist, or psychiatrist, or a psychic, or any form of expert in the field of the human mind.

These are just my casual thoughts about a... Not so casual topic, but I feel it's important to be talked about nonetheless because I feel not many people seem to realize how big of a problem entitlement really is, and how it seems to be getting worse as the years go by as the media and internet keeps making us feel like we have more power over other people's lives than we actually have.

Just... Try to think twice before you get that sudden urge to want to complain about the way something is or how someone is acting just because you don't agree with it. Think a little about who might be getting hurt from it and if it's truly worth it getting so upset about it.

...

Anyways, this was a downer talk... Anyone seen Puss in Boots 2 yet?