#horrible woman. awful. no redeeming qualities

[queen0fm0nsterz]

YOU

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 3 (1/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

GREGORY HOUSE

He’s the medical malpractice doctor from the medical malpractice show. Man has never had a healthy relationship in his life and isn’t about to start now and by god he will break any law. Loyal but super weird about it, and makes everyone around him worse but also more interesting. He’s insufferable and I love him.

The show is regularly called the medical malpractice show. Everything he does is either questionable, illegal, dangerous, or all of the above. He’s said countless racist/sexist/homophobic things at any given opportunity, even to his friends. He has exactly one friend who is a thrice-divorced loser oncologist who only really stays with House because he's afraid of who would get hurt if he didn't. House will do anything to solve a puzzle or — God forbid — prove a point. He regularly puts people in danger to prove points of figure things out. His only morally redeeming quality is that he’s turned this obsession onto medical cases, and so usually the patients live. The show acknowledges multiple times that the only reason anyone tolerates his constant abuse is that he's a good doctor.

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

[xenodile]

I'm getting the impression that you like Ryoshu

Ryoshu is so fucking funny; terrible woman with no redeeming qualities, awful personality, horrible poetry, but damn she can use a sword. I got the Kurokumo identity for her out of my starter pull, so she's also been my workhorse for my early game.

[letstrywritingmaybe]

Hopefully I’ll get some writing done since I’m at the tire shop again for work today. I read all of my library books and I’ve started reading a random book I got and it’s awful. I’m six chapters in and I hate it. I hate first person, especially written like this and the main character is so annoying. She tries too hard to be not like the other girls, and she’s a grown woman doing this? Missed me with that. But I’m stuck with it unless I write *sigh

But I did finish Sad Cypress by Queen Agatha Christie and it gave me a sorta vibe for a fic that I won’t write, but we’ll see!

Update: I am absolutely hating this stupid book. It’s so horribly written and the romance is complete bullshit. Literally giving me cliche vibes, the main character is awkward and likes to eat unlike other girls and is pathetic and has a cat and likes a guy way out of her league. Give me a fucking break, I’m so over this bullshit. I’m literally almost done with the book cause I just keep hoping there’s some redeeming quality but there is none. I fucking hate books that use stereotypes and pit girls against each other cause of a guy. Missed me with that bullshit. I’m just glad it’s football season again so I can go all in on my team and favorite sport to watch. Fandom makes me sad, I’m way too picky but eh whatever. In writing news though I did make progress, so that counts for something

[teenageread]

Review: Layla

Synopsis:

When Leeds meets Layla, he’s convinced he’ll spend the rest of his life with her—until an unexpected attack leaves Layla fighting for her life. After weeks in the hospital, Layla recovers physically, but the emotional and mental scarring has altered the woman Leeds fell in love with. In order to put their relationship back on track, Leeds whisks Layla away to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met. Once they arrive, Layla’s behavior takes a bizarre turn. And that’s just one of many inexplicable occurrences.

Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow—another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being. Leeds soon realizes he has to make a choice because he can’t help both of them. But if he makes the wrong choice, it could be detrimental for all of them.

Plot:

Leeds wants to be a musician, but currently hates his life of playing bass guitar for this awful wedding band. He was dying inside at this bed-and-breakfast wedding when one of the bridesmaids started dancing to their music. This dancing was horrific, and Leeds could not take his eyes off of her the entire set. Meeting up by the pool, the horrible dancer was Layla, sister to the bride, and the love of Leeds’s life. Staying at the B&B 3 extra days after the wedding, he convinces Layla to visit him in Nashville instead of her heading back to her parents in Chicago. For 8 months Layla and Leeds lived in harmony, that was until Sable entered their lives. Nicknamed Unstable Sable, she was Leeds’s ex-girlfriend who was obsessed with him. When Sable got wind of Layla and Leed, she went nuts and tried to kill Layla. Surviving, but barely, Layla has PTSD, anxiety, depression, and more; completely changing her from the girl Leeds fell in love with. Desperate to get her back, Leeds takes her on a vacation back to the B&B they fell in love at. Yet something is strange, now on the market for sale, the B&B has a haunting element to it. As the spirit in the walls tries to talk to Leeds, Leeds learns more about this world than he ever wanted and finds a deadly way to bring his Layla back to before the incident.  

Thoughts:

Colleen Hoover tries their hand at adding a little spook in their normal romance writing. Taking only from the perspective of Leeds, we watch him fall in love, and then out of love with Layla. See the Layla he loved from the B&B and those fast-forwarded eight months in Nashville died the night Sable tried to kill her. Thus Layla is currently not the fun-loving girl Leeds originally met. This Layla is moody, social media obsessed, eating little, and sleeping lots. I really wish Hoover gave us more time with the old Layla so we could understand how different Layla was acting. For items like Layla eats a lot less now, was not as big of a trigger Hoover wanted it to be, because she did not express how early on Layla did not care what she ate. Still, Layla is a sympathetic character, one Hoover makes you feel bad for throughout the novel. Leeds is a decent guy, honestly a standard male with no incredibly redeeming qualities, although he did take a downturn near the end where he exploits Layla to the ghost. Yes, I told you Hoover got spooky and in the themes of paranormal, we have a ghost or spirit in the B&B. I loved this element, as it became the main plot driver and introduced us to a third character to focus on. Hoover worked hard to build a connection between Leeds and the ghost and added to the paranormal element by making the ghost confused as to how they became a ghost and ended up at the B&B. With a shocking climax, Hoover works hard to make it spooky, and dramatic, and leave you on the edge of your seat. Some parts were iffy, like the majority of the B&B days could have been cut out, and Leeds's relationship with Layla could have been filled out more, similar to how Hoover worked hard to build Leeds and the ghost connection. Yet this is the spooky season, and I am proud of Hoover for getting out of their comfort zone, and honestly, even without the Hoover name attached to the novel, it is still a decent story with a shocking ending that leaves you questioning the entire story.  

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[sevicia]

This may sound horrible but i feel like its a Thing and i never see it bwing talked about as you know, a Thing, but i feel like the portrayal of rape in horror is so incredibly rampant cause no one knows how to portray it the way it deserves to be portrayed, which is respectfully and with focus on the victim & their life. And then it's easier to stomach (and therefore this portrayal is used more often) because its not taken SERIOUSLY, directors and authors dont dive into the aftermath for the victim, they dont give it any emotional weight besides "this woman was raped and its awful but lets move on anyways" (saying woman cause cmon this happens almost exclusively to women on film/lit). But when you see a story that CENTERS around rape, and what it does to the victim (most poignant example i can think of is American Mary), it is so much more difficult to get through. Maybe this is a me thing, but thats how it works for me. I say this cause ive read a Number of books that make it into most "disturbing lit" lists and there's rape aspects sometimes, but i am able to keep reading because they are not portrayed adequately. The worst offender i can think of is Dead inside by Chandler Morrison (horrible book btw. Horribly written and has no redeeming qualities). Meanwhile i cant read memoirs or nonfiction about the subject cause it pains me so much and brings me close to a breakdown. Again maybe this is a horrible thing to say (that rape is more """palatable""" when not taken seriously) but i feel like its true.

Obviously nothing will ever change the fact that its awful in every way, and that the fact that i (and many other people in the horror community) have become desensitized to it is horrible. i shouldnt even have to say this but i dont want anyone to misunderstand me.

Theres also the fact that its used as, i dont know how to say it but it links to the "not portrayed properly" thing, just a thing that happens sometimes. no empathy or care shown for the victims, which is crushing really when you think about the fact that Yes, rape victims very much exist in real fucking life and seeing their experiences being portrayed in this way just has to be horrible.

Sorry this is an actual rant and i cant word things properly for the life of me, i know this is a serious subject and i tried to word it as best as i could and avoid typos.

[travoltacustom]

The Presentation of Hifumi’s Trauma

I’ve been thinking on how Hifumi’s trauma has been presented for years now, and with the release of Bad Ass Temple VS Matenro, I feel like now’s as good a time as any to give my thoughts on this.

Note: This is in no way a defense of KR for the presentation of Hifumi’s trauma, but it is an analysis of such. I’m open to discussion on this and you’re free to disagree with me at any point on this. Most of this was also written BEFORE the release of the album, save for the last section.

CW: Mentions of abuse, trauma and rape + spoilers of the MTR dramatrack

I hear a lot that the presentation of Hifumi’s trauma is a ‘poor attempt at humour’, but I don’t exactly think it’s that simple. It is still a presentation of trauma, but it’s not portrayed as humorous in comparison to the rest of the humour of the series.

NARRATIVE

Hifumi panics when he sees women. He is unable to do anything until women are removed from the scene - but these instances are hardly ever the focus of the scene. It’s mostly used as a scene cutter to progress the story. When Chuo enters, Hifumi’s panic cuts off the situation and the focus shifts straight to the women. When the women find Hifumi, Doppo, Gentaro and Dice, Hifumi’s jacket is taken away to shift focus off of the women and to have Gentaro and Dice speak. Rather, Hifumi’s panic at these times are plot movers and not the focal point of the scene. Sadly, they can be seen as plot devices, but it’s not supposed to be seen as humour.

In addition to this, the ‘hysterical’ screaming (for lack of a better word) in the presence of women is limited to the dramatracks. In the manga and the anime, Hifumi runs away/removes himself from the presence of women. The purpose of Hifumi’s hysteria in the dramatracks is for visualisation purposes as there’s no visual aids - the reactions to women are toned down in the anime and manga. With this, it’s easier to believe that the anime and manga is the ‘intended’ portrayal of his reactions as the dramatrack has to make up for what isn’t seen.

PRESENTATION

The narrative is very aware that Hifumi’s trauma affects him badly. It’s a panic response. But it’s not the same as a panic attack. We know how awful the presentation of such can be, and it’s definitely something triggering for a lot of people. Personally, I would feel horrible to see him have a panic attack every time he saw a woman. KR doesn’t want to make his discomfort the focus of the scene either. Simply put, I think his trauma response is a part of the scene, but has less plot purpose than what is going on around it. 

Trauma can be presented in different ways, but it’s more controlled to see only a glimpse of how trauma has affected Hifumi. There are other ways of showing this trauma and how it’s affected Hifumi that HPMI has already covered: Hifumi being unable to take off his suit jacket, behavioural change when wearing the jacket, his extremely warped perception of danger when his life is threatened etc. He’s spent 10 years adapting to the trauma and is in a stage of recovery as he’s going to confront his said abuser. If we were compounding this plot point with an idea of a Hifumi that is always having panic attacks, then we would have a Hifumi that is clearly not ready to deal with what he wants.

COMPARISON

We know the writers can portray trauma as such from Jyushi’s backstory. If we remember the fandom response, there were people who were legitimately triggered to varying degrees by what happened to Jyushi’s grandmother and the severe bullying he suffered. Really, I believe that Hifumi’s trauma hasn’t been the forefront of scenes because narratively it’s not the time for this to happen yet.

There seems to be a ‘trauma-porn’ narrative around the need to have Hifumi’s trauma played out ‘correctly. Trauma porn is media that showcases a group’s pain and trauma in excessive amounts for the sake of entertainment. There’s no need right now to show the extent of how badly Hifumi has been affected, because his trauma isn’t the focal point of the story or his character. His past is about to be shown, but it shouldn’t be what defines Hifumi as a character. And even more importantly so, there’s no ‘right’ version of trauma to portray.

HONOBONO

[ This section is written post Bad Ass Temple VS Matenro’s dramatrack.]

There are no redeeming qualities to Honobono, the source of Hifumi’s trauma. She’s despised by Chuohku and kept around for her ‘usefulness’, and Doppo was unsure of Hifumi going to confront his own abuser. However, in the recent dramatrack, Hifumi’s power is taken away from him in Honobono forcing herself into his space. This is the first time we’ve ever seen Hifumi have an explosion of emotions; ‘a typical image of a panic attack’. It is an audibly uncomfortable scene, just as Jyushi’s backstory was to read. There are different levels to trauma responses that HPMI has shown us with the 1st season’s Hifumi with short moments, but this instance is long and drawn out with guttural screaming.

HPMI was always perfectly capable of showing trauma, but for a listener, to hear this sort of occurrence every time around a woman would be potentially harmful. At this moment, Hifumi was nearly completely paralysed, suffering a breakdown of his identity by switching pronouns and screaming (similar to Gentaro’s breakdown at the insult of his clothes). It is difficult to listen to this. I don’t believe you would’ve wanted to hear this every time Hifumi was reminded of Honobono. We’ve even learned that the abuse might not have been dealt directly to Hifumi but to his family - we see Hifumi’s love for his family here in being so torn by her actions, and how trauma does not have to deal with someone directly either.  However, the first instances of Hifumi’s trauma were more ‘digestible’ for a viewer, and they set us up for this moment. It was good that Hifumi’s panic responses were less heavy than the blow we’ve been dealt with this dramatrack.

In meeting Hifumi, Honobono greets her with “Hi-Fu-Mi”, just like how Hifumi says his own name in songs. It is most likely that Honobono said his name like this when they were in highschool; for Hifumi to use it in his songs now can be seen as a reclamation of his identity, as now Honobono can’t use his own name against him. Hifumi has spent years recovering from her, and seeing small hints of how he’s trying to move on from that time is a legitimately good way to understand the recovery from trauma.

WHAT IS IT?

The HPMI fandom seemed to have an ‘obsession’ with what exactly traumatised Hifumi up until this point. Most believed that it would have been sexual abuse/rape, given that he fears the opposite gender, and it wouldn’t have been the first time sexual themes have appeared in HPMI (the trafficked women at the start of BB/MTC’s manga). However, to think that ‘there is only one sort of trauma that can cause Hifumi’s pain’ is a dangerous idea. Almost anything can be traumatising, and almost anything can be a trigger. 

There’s no need to theorise ‘what is good enough’ to be a trauma for him. To fear women, it can simply be that a woman has done something bad to him - which we see is Honobono. When we hear women fearing men because a man did something bad to them, we don’t theorise what exactly happened to her. There’s the automatic assumption that gendered fear is the result of sexual abuse, when in reality, it can be any manner of abuse that has caused this.

OPINIONS

So I don’t think KR is portraying Hifumi’s trauma as humorous. It’s definitely awkward, but the narrative has constantly made it clear that he’s in a state of discomfort that stems from trauma and Doppo and Jakurai always do their best to move him out of those situations without drawing too much attention. Nobody in the story laughs at him, save for Asunaro, who’s an ill-mannered child without sensitivity towards both Doppo and Hifumi, and Honobono, the source of his trauma. Those who don’t understand Hifumi in the adult cast however only find confusion in him. 

There’s no ‘best’ portrayal of trauma in any media. But it’s clear that HPMI isn’t trying to be malicious or poke fun at any sort of trauma at all. If anything, I think the portrayal of it so far has been relatively ‘easy’ on common audiences that don’t explore such media, helping people to realise how trauma can manifest without forcing others who do have trauma to realise their pained experience in this media. Hifumi has been painted as someone relatable to those with trauma because he’s still a man who’s capable of doing his best while still stumbling along his way to recovery. Traumatised shouldn’t be the descriptor of Hifumi, but he is a character that has been traumatised.

While Honobono and her abuse is an integral part of Hifumi’s backstory, she does not define him as a person. To portray Hifumi as a strong character, despite moments of trauma responses, was a suitable choice in treating him respectably. 

[swanhookheart]

Angry Grishaverse book review time!

After watching and LOVING s1 of Shadow and Bone, I read the trilogy! I was not impressed. 

Spoilers incoming for Grishaverse stuff, so if you don’t want those, don’t read on!

Watching Shadow and Bone this past weekend, I was hooked : Darklina, the lore behind the amplifiers, the Aleksander backstory… I was really impressed and hoped that this was it--that at last, I’d found a fantasy series that was going somewhere big, something I could really, thoroughly sink my teeth into. 

*Sigh* 

Then I read the books.

The reader / viewer enters the Grishaverse associating darkness with pure evil. The Fold, described early on, is shown to be this bleak, awful, ruinous place where people go to be eaten alive by volcra and hope goes to die. We therefore, naturally, associate the Darkling--who possesses the power of shadow--with that evil from the off. I’m speaking as someone who only got into the Grishaverse last Saturday. My initial thoughts were, “oh, he’s being set up to be viewed as dark and scary; this is the expectation Bardugo wants us to have so that we’ll be blown away by some great twist later. Count me in!”

But that twist never came. He was set up as evil, and he stayed evil. Surprise, he’s the Black Heretic! Surprise, he’s an abomination effectively created by Morezova’s greed! Surprise, he’s ruthless and horrible and does cruel things! Except none of those things are actually surprising, given he was SET UP from the beginning to be viewed that way. He did bad things, walked a bad walk, and talked a bad talk. I kept thinking “ah, so he’s gonna get a sweeeet redemption arc,” and then he just never did. That element of the story was predictable to a nauseating degree, and that predictability made the entire universe feel a bit flat. If the reader saw more of his backstory, had more real, logical, sound justification for why he does the things he does (like in the show, where they at least tried to paint his actions as borne of some misplaced sense of servitude / protection for the Grisha or where we saw him actively struggling at points to grapple with the darkness inside him), then maybe the trilogy wouldn’t have been such a letdown. And yes, I know about his sacrifice or whatever later on. It’s not enough.

In villains, I and probably plenty of others like to see humanity. We want to empathize with our villains to a certain extent--to understand them just a little bit--so we can fully commit to hating them when they violate our trust. The Darkling didn’t have that human, redeeming quality, though--at least, not in the books. In the books, he was just a power-hungry jackass who simultaneously didn’t want to be alone and kept trying to kill his only opportunity not to be alone. His single-mindedness, his lack of human empathy, the simplicity with which he pursued this made him seem almost stupid to me as a reader. For someone who’s lived hundreds of years, he’s kind of an idiot when it comes to other people--which, itself, almost seems incongruous with his having lived for so long. If he’d maybe had more backstory or more in his story to justify his actions, maybe he’d feel like a better villain. But atm, all I’m doing is rolling my eyes with him. I couldn’t love him because he didn’t put in any work toward being a better person. Even in the end, he doesn’t actually do the work or repent. But I also can’t hate him because the source material hasn’t given me enough actual human qualities to hate or to feel betrayed. His character just… missed the mark for me. 

As did Mal’s. Fucking MAL, oh my GOD! This dude’s literal only personality trait was loving Alina. Cool, he could track--for Alina, mostly. He could fight--for Alina. “I am become a blade”? Sir, you got a whole-ass tattoo announcing that you’re an object in this woman’s service? No WAP is worth that, and I’m speaking as a very bisexual woman. My dude, it’s weird, it’s extra, it’s just too much. I’ll go back to the Darkling for two seconds to say that, ofc, his actions were painted as problematic and misogynistic and gross. But, like, the possessiveness Mal displays with Alina kinda feels on that same level? Why are we pretending he’s better when he actively tries to keep her low, keep her powerless, and keep her his? Again, dude got a tattoo of her sigil. He was fully prepared to be the leader of her guard even if she married Nikolai just for the opportunity for some sexytimes. I know that YA is about really intense emotion, the fire of teenage hormones and stuff, but that all just felt a bit toxic. The way that his entire life revolved around her while she tried to balance the role of saint, hero, orphan, and all the things she was just felt goofy and like a wildly unhealthy dynamic. 

Their whole relationship also felt really obvious, as I guess the Darkling being revealed as the trilogy’s big bad did. It was predictable, set up to be that way from the start. There were no surprises. It was Mal, and then it was still Mal, and in the end, it was also Mal. We weren’t really shown any of what made them so drawn to each other, we were just kind of told and expected to be fine with the intensity of it. But it read as being way too much for me, and god, it kept getting worse. Again, this one felt like low-hanging fruit--low effort, lazy writing. Nothing about it actually read to me as romantic, just as too much. They didn’t so much as fall in love as just start out that way, and reading that was somewhere between boring and uncomfortable. At least with the Darkling or hell--even Nikolai--we saw some of that chemistry unfold on the page. We were shown some of what made them work the way they did. There was something underpinning their relationship, and not just “oh, they’re supposed to be together”. I mean, after all JKR’s bullshit, I feel totally fine saying fuck authorial intent. If you can’t even be bothered to actually put your shit on the page, don’t ask me to blindly accept your version canon as gospel truth. 

We could have had Deckerstar vibes, Beauty and the Beast vibes, seen light and dark come together and surprise us by actually working well together. But no, we saw a special girl lose everything that made her special and settle for some mediocre fuckboy from her hometown. We get characters that actually have the potential to be dynamic and make for a good story, but she still ends up with this bland, vanilla, trick-ass bitch? It’s a major letdown when you’ve actually been exposed to decent fictional couples, tbh.

OOF! And the ending? Oh jesus fuck, that ending. Darkling just… dies. Just like that. I read three whole books for that? I know he comes back and dies again and all, but the whole trilogy felt like it was building up to something more, something deeper and greater and more profound. He was horrible for the things he did, sure, and he deserved defeat as long as he refused to waver from his power-hungry, destructive path. But his death brought about no closure. He and Alina never actually had the fight they needed to or reached an understanding with each other. Everything is left undone, unsaid, unexplored. The ending just felt super anticlimactic on the page, and so, the trilogy as a whole fell completely short of any mark I hoped it might hit.

Did I hope Darklina would be endgame? Sure. But I’d also have been A-okay with a tragic ending if it had been done right. Did I think it would have been a lot more interesting to see a redemption arc for Darkling than just… more of the same? Or maybe Mal develop a personality outside of Alina? Absolutely. There was so much potential, and it really feels like Bardugo squandered all of it. And for what? This was nearly as disappointing as the eighth season of Game of Thrones. I probably won’t be watching future seasons if they follow the books, but I guess I’m glad for the day or so of fleeting pleasure I got when I still had hope for a properly told story. 

[something-tofightfor]

why do you still consider yourself a fan of bb if you are just blasting him all the time

Why couldn't you ask this off anon if you're so curious and want to play the Ben Barnes Fan Police with someone that's been a fan of him for almost a decade?

You don't have to like or agree with all of the career or personal choices that someone you're a fan of makes. People taking on shitty, beneath them roles or making subpar music or dating sleeping with associating with vapid idiots doesn't make me any less a fan of their previous (or potential future) work.

I'm excited for this GDT show episode. I am very curious about why he needed to be cleanshaven because I think it makes him look like a child, and I'm leery because Netflix is behind it ... but I'm excited to see what he does with horror and with a script written by someone that I KNOW has some serious horror-creating talent.

I've "blasted" him for taking on a role as a manipulative villain that emotionally abuses and physically maims a teenager, and talking about it like there's any actual redeeming qualities to the character. I am too old for poorly written YA that is nothing but tropes. I am DEFINITELY too old for multiple seasons of overacting and shitty, low budget special effects.

Shadow and Bone wasn't the first of Ben's projects that I've side eyed when it comes to quality, either. Locked In was a goddamn dumpster fire. By The Gun was AWFUL. We don't need to pretend like everyone liked them.

I've blasted him about his COVID travel and his association with Julianne Hough for good reasons that I've gone into in detail before and won't do it again. But I know too many people that lost loved ones to COVID to ignore him blatantly disregarding the things that he used his IG to promote for MONTHS and to flat out deny personal involvement with another person that never once took it seriously.

If they'd admitted that they were actually together and didn't play up the "we're just friends!" angle, it would have been a different story. It's hard to fault someone for doing the types of things he did with her with someone that they're in an actual relationship with, but anyone that had fuckbuddies or hookups with strangers during COVID is going to get seriously judged by me - especially when you go out of your way to hide it by blocking people and deleting comments.

I've blasted his music, because I do not like it. I think the lyrics are juvenile for the most part, and the fact that he's spent so much time talking about how "from the heart" and "deep" and "introspective" they are ... and then he releases fucking songs about Tinkerbell and 11:11 and using word salad just to make things rhyme and then making two music videos where all he does is stare at the camera and look sad because women left him or he never even had them in the first place... I'm gonna question it.

If it's so meaningful to him and such a labor of love, give us more than thinly veiled "well it's not about anyone specific, it's about the things I've felt over the years". Don't spend 3 months as a 40 year old man playing emoji tag on IG and then get defensive when people assume that the songs are about one person - without ever outright denying that it's about them.

It's great that he was finally able to create and release music of his own. I'm happy that he's doing something that makes him happy, but when you release things like this - or take on "difficult" roles or date problematic people ... you open yourself up to criticism from the press and from fans. I've NEVER just blindly liked everything someone does because I'm overall a fan. My favorite band has made a few CDs that I don't like. I skip over a lot of songs on them and even on the albums that I love, too, but that doesn't mean that I like their other body of work any less. There are movies and shows that other actresses and actors that I follow have made that are flat out HORRIBLE, and I've never not admitted that. (We Can Be Heroes and Wonder Woman 84, I mean YOU specifically).

Ben has a great voice and some serious musical talent, but it's not showcased with this EP very well, and I prefer his covers to his original content.

You can be criticial of actors and musicians and artists and friends and family when they do things you don't like or approve of without turning away from them.

It's healthy to be critical of the things and people you enjoy. I have a lot of opinions and thoughts and if you've followed my blog for any period of time, you know that I've never been shy about that. I do not sugarcoat things unless there is an absolute NEED to do so - and Ben Barnes is a 40 year old man (and a public figure!) and should be able to handle some criticism when it's legitimate.

[corruptedbonecharm]

grim alex?

seeing an ask for hypatia pop up and then an ask for alex and then another for vasco directly after was a delight let me tell you

First impression: As mentioned in the hypatia post, i got alex's existence spoiled for me, but the initial image i saw was a screenshot of her in the hood/bandage outfit and i thought the design SLAPPED. My first in-game impression of her, however, was HOLY SHIT- as that shelf came flying at my face out of nowhere. finding that audiograph afterward did not help my impression of her either, but it was memorable in that it left me completely disgusted and stuck in my mind like a horrible leech

Impression now: I love her but like, the kind of "love" where you do awkward air quotes and go "eeehhhhhhh" with a grimacing face while saying it y’know? i'm in deep for this character but am also acutely aware of how completely awful she is so it's hard to say i love her while the woman's a disgusting serial killer-cannibal with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. all in all though, i think she's a lot more interesting than people give her credit for, despite her rather cliché status as the evil split personality of another character. they did the horror aspect really well too - she's, as the outsider puts it at one point in dh1, "exquisitely terrifying"

Favorite moment: Scene-wise, her intro probably, there’s not much else to even pick from. it's fittingly sudden and dramatic and serves as a great reveal, imo also the bg music goes hard

Idea for a story: Anything about her just running around doing her job of murder honestly. y’know, the usual

Unpopular opinion: The fact that i even like her probably BDGJFSN....

Favorite relationship: There's no such thing as a positive relationship with alex (see: vasco... euughhgh) but i do find her dynamic with hypatia to be interesting. how alex hates hypatia and partially does much of what she does in a bid to upset her, how she finds hypatia weak and timid to the point where she threatens to tear out their collective tongue, how she's happy to get injured and die because that means hypatia gets injured and dies too... it's fucked up but intriguing; they're inextricably connected, but one hates the other's guts and one isn't even properly aware of the other's existence

Favorite headcanon: When she first got control of hypatia's body, alex wasn't very good at the whole human locomotion thing and would walk around all lopsided and wobbly like a baby deer. it took a while to get a grasp on how to pilot her newfound meatsuit but she mastered it fairly quickly. and based on how she moves in-game, evidently she still doesn't know how to move like a human, but i don't think she even wants to either

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 1 Part 2 (3/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

BEN LINUS

One of my fave characters of all time! Also a prolific liar. Almost every single thing this man says is a lie. He lies, manipulates, murders, and feels very little remorse, all in the name of “protecting” the magical Island where he and his people live. Ben is fueled almost exclusively by bitterness, stemming from an entire childhood’s worth of abuse from his alcoholic father, who blamed Ben for his mother’s death in childbirth (Ben did eventually kill his father, along with the whole community he grew up in). Additionally, Ben is desperate to have some great destiny or higher purpose, and his bitterness toward the fact that he’s just an “ordinary” man and jealousy toward the man who DOES have a higher purpose drives Ben to commit various acts of cruelty and murder. Ben does act as a villain for most of the story (save for the last season, in which he’s more of an anti-villain and eventually an anti-hero), but he has two redeeming qualities: his love for the Island and his love for his adopted daughter, Alex. The latter is complicated by the fact that he kidnapped Alex as a baby from her biological mother, a woman stranded alone on the Island. However, when forced to choose between protecting the Island and saving Alex’s life, Ben ultimately chooses the island and deeply regrets this decision for the rest of his life. He’s eventually forced to reckon with his many, many mistakes and undergoes something of a redemption arc, but he spends enough of the show establishing himself as a villain that I can easily see the good denizens of Twitter attacking his fans.

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag pollrunner's note: this is the most compelling propaganda I've ever seen for a character, thank you for submitting

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

(Up to)!5 best and 5 worst types of villains in your opinion and why

Oooh this is a good one.

Top 5 best (in no particular order)

The theatrical villain. They know they’re evil (or if they do, they don’t care), they’re okay with it, and they love it. If there’s a backstory, it’s frivolous. They’re just here to have a good time and make sure you have a good time watching them. Presentation!

The angry villain. They’re the villain all right, they want to burn down the entire damn world, but it’s driven by a deep and (most crucially) understandable rage. The kind that can almost be mistaken for a power fantasy (because don’t you just want to snap sometimes?) if not for their motives often destroying themselves and innocents along with their targets. Their demise is rarely something to be celebrated, a waste of what could have been a powerful force for good. This type is most often female, but it can be pulled off by nearly anyone who’s ever been victimized by the world. Except for disability. We’ll get to that later.

The clever villain. Chessmasters, manipulators, magnificent bastards of all stripes. They’re fun to watch and fun to learn from, and exist to give our heroes a genuine challenge to their intellect, bravery, and skill. It is very easy to write this sort of a character wrong, either as a sort of masturbatory “oooh look at how smart I am and how stupid the heroes are” and/or just giving them a superpower of just knowing or predicting things incredibly precisely even when that makes no sense, but that just makes when it’s pulled off well that much more of a treat.

The complex villain. Often a tragic villain in scope, this villain could be a good person and might even do some good things, but their own flaws warp them into villains. Maybe they break out of it, maybe they don’t. They often have a tragic backstory, but that backstory is never used to excuse their actions, assuming they didn’t cause that tragic backstory themselves. They’re their own worst enemies and a reflection of the worst traits of ourselves, profoundly human, and have a deep pathos to them. In their eyes, we see a reflection of ourselves, the kind of people we could become if we give into our darker impulses.

The monster. It’s here to break shit, eat people, and look terrifying doing so. That alone would be good enough, but more often than not, the monster carries a sense of allegory with them. A monster can be an allegory for anything: the untameable power of nature, the danger of hubris, the banal evil of the rich and powerful, the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The monster is fear made manifest. Or occasional, the monster’s just here to be big and scary and smash things. Hey, not everything has to be deep.

And now Top 5 worst! (in no particular order)

The disabled villain. Not a villain with a disability, but this phenomenon where  every fucking villain has to be disabled in some way. Scarred up, mentally ill, albino, using assistive devices to live (oh the horror of the pacemaker! the terror of the wheelchair!), generally anything that can be termed as a disability is slapped onto villains to underscore just how eeevil they are while our pretty, able-bodied, neurotypical heroes sit in contrast with them. I am so, so fucking sick of this trope. The worst part is that when people bother to explain why the villains are disabled, it’s always emphasized how tragic and unfair and horrible it is that they are disabled and that’s an excuse for their villainy and also their entire personality because wouldn’t it just be so awful to be disabled? UGGGHHH KILL THIS TROPE WITH FIRE.

The stereotypical villain. But hey, disability isn’t the only way to marginalize people, so let’s throw in every type of bigotry! The racist stereotype villain! The evil woman who is evil cause woman! The incessant and sometimes literal demonization of trans people! We just fucking hate certain types of people and think they’re inhuman or inherently evil, and you should too! Commit this one to the blaze too.

The "woobie” villain. Oh yeah, they tried to do a genocide or owned slaves or were horribly abusive but they had a tragic backstory isn’t that soo saaaddd? Not that they have any redeeming or even neutral qualities, they just have feelings and that automatically makes them worthy of forgiveness for everything, usually at the expense of their victims. Sure they killed people, but they cried while they did it, they’re the real victims here! :(

The villain who gets an undue amount of fan attention. This has nothing to do with writing or the quality of the villain themselves, I just fucking hate having to endure it.

The villain with no agency. It’s all someone else’s fault, most often the heroes. Denying agency can be a key trait of angry, tragic, and complex villains, but in this case, the narrative agrees with them. You gave them that formula, you were mean that one time, and most often, the heroes simply didn’t bend over backwards enough to forgive and do all the redemption for them. Blegh.

So yeah, that’s my list of favorite and least favorite types of villains! Thank you for asking.

[el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle]

As the audience, you know she's clinging onto Armando for all the wrong reasons, yet her pain is so genuine that you can't help but sympathize for her.

Aw yes, I felt for Patricia there too. Also when she finds Mario and Aura Maria making out in his office. She wasn't a good person, but that was fucked up. I didn't expect for Patricia to have a full on evolution in the story, but she definitely had more potential than just being reduced to those petty fights with el cuartel. I mean Patricia was always childish, but the way they exploited the tension between Patricia and el cuartel to the very end was so annoying🙄. The only redeeming thing about that whole thing was what it meant for Marcela and Betty's relationship as the two main heads in the company and them developing conflict resolution skills despite their differences. Not that the animosity between Patricia and the secretaries wasn't funny (I lived for those early scenes, like when Berta bought Patricia's wardrobe 🤣🤣) but it was just so overdone and exaggerated towards the end that it lost its charm. Patricia deserved to get some sort of closure with Daniel, or at the very least, I was expecting her to become somewhat of a decent employee. I thought they were going somewhere with her when Betty decides to keep her on board and then when she offers to help her develop a financial plan for her to budget her money more efficiently, but sadly that went nowhere🤦🏽‍♀️

Michel and Alejandra's served to prove that Betty and Armando both chose each other, despite having respective love interests that were "perfect" for them. But yeah, that whole storyline with Alejandra comes across as forced and as you said, Armando's flirtatious attitude and the sexual tension between them, made the rejection less impactful . At least with Michel and Betty, we saw the relationship develop, and in what context. There's also a reference on Michel, he's a friend of Catalina whom she rates very highly and is very fond of. Betty was going through a lot when she met him, and he accompanied her, making their bond significant because he saw her broken and starting to pick up the pieces to rebuild herself. Alejandra is supposed to have the same significance in Armando's life but they don't bother to show us how it all started. Not to mention that Armando was officially still with Marcela at this point, which makes his behavior and over the top attention towards Alejandra even more irritating. He was making both Marcela and Betty uncomfortable with his attention towards Alejandra. At least Betty was single when she met Michel, she deserved to give herself another opportunity at love. That didn't take anything away from her evolution. Meanwhile Armando still had a whole relationship to resolve and attend to (he already knew at this point he didn't want to be with Marcela 🙄) and there he was parading himself with another extremely attractive woman in front of the two women he still had to make amends with (ok maybe that did bug me more than I had realized 😅🤣) In conclusion, the concept was there, but it was poorly executed and contextualize lol.

Exactly. You can really tell that by the end of the novela (or around the time Betty comes back from Cartagena) everyone qas super tired and just wanted to get ig over with. I sort of not blame them, tho, after all, the cast went through a lot during those two years of filming (harrassment, bad payments, horrible work schedules, etc.), but it’s very obvious that the quality of story decreases.

Lol sorry I awakened a new frustration with the show lol but yeah, the Alejandra part was very basly executed. The whole last part was badly executed, with the exception of some little gems like Armando and Marcela’s breakup, Marcela’s confession to Betty, Betty and Daniel’s dinner (oh, another frustration is how little interaction those two had), and the collection launch. The show just feels so rushed!

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Artemis Fowl

Since the early 2000s, Artemis Fowl has been languishing in development hell, and it really is a mystery as to why. The series has everything you could possibly want for a blockbuster young adult franchise: it’s a charming blend of science and fantasy with rich worldbuilding and mythology, it has enjoyable and even complex characters who go through great character arcs over the course of the series, it has an enjoyable major antagonist, an insufferable smug villain protagonist who goes through a stellar redemption arc over the course of the series, and tons of crazy heists that combine scheming and fairy magic. There was no reason this couldn’t have existed as a competitor to the Harry Potter series, but alas, it was not to be. The young adult fantasy franchise languished for decades in development hell, until finally Disney pulled it out and put Kenneth Branagh at the helm. Finally, we were going to get the Artemis Fowl adaptation we deserved!

Except we didn’t.

Artemis Fowl is legitimately one of the worst adaptations of any work of fiction ever. It has been held up alongside The Last Airbender and The Lightning Thief as part of the Unholy Trinity of terrible adaptations, and I’m not even going to try and pretend that this “Honor” isn’t well and truly earned. This film is an utterly abominable bastardization of the beloved franchise, to the point where this feels like an entirely different story that had familiar names slapped on it at the last second. If you want to know what horrific extents this film has butchered the story and characters, read onward, but there’s no way I’m going to pretend this film isn’t awful right off the bat.

There is literally nothing in this film that works. Nothing at all. Starting from the opening scene, the establishing shots, you can tell things are wrong – there are news people around Fowl Manor? Mulch is being interrogated? What is going on? The film from the word go is simply making one thing absolutely and abundantly clear: this is not the Artemis Fowl you know. The film goes out of its way to do the opposite of the franchise, merely using names and vague concepts in an attempt to sucker fans into watching it. Butler’s first name, an emotional reveal from the third book, is common knowledge; Opal Koboi, a cunning and threatening major villain who was the antagonist for almost every novel starting with the second, is here reduced to basically a personification of the voice on the phone from Scream; Root, once a short-tempered man who was hard on Holly as a method of tough love to push her to be the very best LEP had to offer to prove women belonged on the force, is here a woman who, while just as angry as ever, robs Holly of a major part of her arc and reduces her to plucky female sidekick. And even outside of that, as its own thing, the movie is just utterly incomprehensible. The story is rushed and confusing, with lots of exposition and action but with no context or cohesion. Things happen and things go from scene to scene, but none of it makes any sort of sense. A character will switch allegiances within a few minutes, characters will somehow find a way to survive deadly attacks offscreen… the worst offender is a character death they try to push off as emotional, despite there being no reason to care for this character, and when all hope seems lost, a deus ex machina saves the day! My wife, who is unfamiliar with the series, and I, a huge fan, both struggled to figure out what was going on at any given point; the movie is really that bad at communicating what is happening, which is even more baffling because the film is a pathetic hour and a half in length, a distressingly short amount of time to establish a new science-fantasy franchise of this scale.

The characters are almost all terrible. Artemis is the standout with how awful he is; no longer the cunning criminal masterminds of the book, Artemis here is more of a somewhat smug little brat who is overly emotional and, worst of all, NICE. He’s so nice in fact that by the end of the film he has managed to speedrun his character development and arcs with Mulch and Holly, who consider him their close friend and ally. Butler is pretty bad here as well, mostly because he is given almost nothing to do and is seemingly only there because he was in the book. In fact, his crowning moment – when he took on the troll – is instead given to Artemis and even Holly, with Butler ending up severely injured. It’s a bit nasty that they changed Butler to be black and then had his (white) master steal his greatest moment; it’s giving me flashbacks to Kazaam. Opal is hit pretty bad as well; being made the big bad of this loose adaptation of the first book’s plot – which is amusingly one of the few books she had absolutely no role in – wouldn’t be so rough if she was more of a presence and not just some vague, hooded figure who threatens Artemis over the phone and generally does nothing to warrant being an adaptation of the baddest bitch in the series. She’s rather ineffectual and they even try and give her a sort of sympathetic motivation, one where she resents humans for pushing her kind underground. It really is a disgusting waste of a character who could easily rival heavy hitters like Voldemort in the awesome and theatrically evil department.

Holly is almost okay, but her entire arc and a big chunk of her narrative purpose is robbed by making Commander Root a woman. Root, played by Judi Dench, is honestly one of the better characters since Dench has Root dropping lines like “Top o’ the morning to ya” with gravelly deadpan seriousness which makes the character unintentionally hilarious, but the cheap laughs don’t really make up for butchering the story of one of fiction’s finest ladies. As a side note, they have made Holly 100% white despite her skin being described as nut brown rather frequently in the book, and the now white Holly together with Artemis steal away Butler’s biggest moment. And that’s not even getting into how they neutered Juliet, who has also been race lifted but was turned into a child who barely appeared in the film. I’m not usually one to toss about racism accusations, but there’s a lot of red flags here that Branagh’s usual colorblind casting just doesn’t excuse.

The most consistently enjoyable performance is Josh Gad’s as Mulch. From the moment he was cast, I knew he’d do a good job and capture the spirit of the character, and he does! ...sort of. The decision to have Mulch be a giant dwarf and narrate the story in a crappy Batman impression while also violating literally the most important law of fairy culture (don’t tell the humans anything about us) by spilling the beans to M16 is unbearably stupid, and a lot of his jokes are just relentlessly unfunny. But I think that Gad does leak a bit of that Mulch charm at a few points, and it’s apparent he at least somewhat gets his character, which is not something that can be said for anyone else in this film. Sadly, much like his standout performance as Lefou in the live action Beauty and the Beast, he can’t possibly save the trainwreck of a film he’s in.

I guess I’m not entirely surprised by this film. I mean, a lot of quality young adult literature from the past two decades has been horrifically mangled in the wake of Harry Potter – Inkheart, The Golden Compass, The Lightning Thief, Ender’s Game, and Eragon – so this movie really isn’t an anomaly. But it is the culmination of a horrible trend. This is the zenith of horrible young adult adaptations, or perhaps I should say the nadir of adaptations as a whole? For all the flak I could give those other adaptations, on some fundamental level they still understood something about the source material. Ender’s Game still understood it could not erase the ending where children are revealed to be being conscripted to perform the ethnic cleansing of an alien race. Eragon couldn’t completely ruin Saphira, try as it might. The Lightning Thief… well, I mean, I guess the Medusa scene was mostly faithful. But Artemis Fowl? Artemis Fowl goes out of its way to be the opposite of its literary counterpart that there is no way to justify even saying it is based on the book by Eoin Colfer; it would be like having a movie about kids hanging out at the mall and doing mundane stuff, except they’re all named Jesus and Peter and Paul and then saying it’s based on the Bible. Just using names doesn’t mean anything, you actually have to use the themes and characterizations too, and this movie does none of that.

This movie is most comparable to The Emoji Movie. Neither of these works really deserve to be called a “Film” since they are basically whatever it is they’re trying so desperately to be stripped down to the bare essentials. The Emoji Movie is the most basic, by-the-numbers animated adventure film with a “be yourself” message you could ever hope to see, with a story so absolutely basic that just watching the trailer will allow you to predict the every motion of the plot. Artemis Fowl on the other hand is the most cliche-ridden fantasy epic franchise-starter you could imagine, and that’s if you’re able to penetrate the ridiculously dense and cluttered story and are able to make sense of what’s going on. I can think of absolutely no one this film could ever appeal to. There’s not a single redeeming thing about it. The movie is flashy, trashy junk that should never have been released, and Disney honestly did the right thing by releasing this on their streaming service because it would be outright disgusting to charge movie ticket prices for this tripe. The fact Disney has more faith in the eternally-delayed New Mutants theatrically speaks volumes about the quality of this film.

I can’t in good conscious say that this is the worst film of all time. F4ntastic is probably a much worse butchering of characters than this film; Disaster Movie is much more horrendously offensive and unfunny than this; hell, Chicken Little is probably a worse Disney movie because as awful as everyone in this film is, at least they aren’t Buck Cluck! But I don’t think there’s a single movie I hate more than this one. Lucy can finally move over and sleep easy knowing that the fact it’s not based on a pre-existing work has finally saved it from the #1 spot on my worst list; Artemis Fowl is now the reigning champ. Kenneth Branagh should be ashamed of himself for making and releasing this (and doubly ashamed for having the gall to unironically compare his slaughtering of Artemis Fowl’s character to Michael Corleone), Disney should be shamed for putting more money into this film than they did into BLM charities, and I hope that Eoin Colfer finds whatever he was paid worth it to see his greatest creation butchered and disrespected like this.

[eyreguide]

5 Things I Learned About Jane Eyre

A few years ago I was interviewed by a UK based educational company in preparation for their release of content about the Brontës aimed for teachers and students. Sadly the company, Train of Thought Productions, seems to be no more, but at the time they sent me a complimentary copy of the DVD titled “Brontës in Context”.  Unfortunately I believe it is hard to find now, but I found it a very interesting examination of the Brontës’ lives and work.

The Jane Eyre section of the DVD was especially illuminating.  I’ve never studied Jane Eyre in school, and although I've read critical texts about the story, there are schools of thoughts that I haven’t really explored.   Jane Eyre is such an intertextually rich story, that I should have anticipated that this DVD would be eye-opening in unexpected ways. So this post is about the things I learned from the "Brontës in Context" DVD. 

1st Person Narration

Okay, I do know that Jane Eyre is written in the first person. And I know that because the novel has a first person POV, the reader is drawn more into Jane's story, her spirit and her fiery nature. But one comment from a professor on the DVD really struck me - the idea that Jane addresses the reader personally (by saying "reader") more and more as the story progresses. "Reader, I married him." being the famous example. I was curious though to see if that was really true, so I went to the Gutenberg online copy and did a search - in the scroll bar, there are little yellow ticks that show where the word comes up in the text, so I took a screenshot of that bar to illustrate (I made the scroll bar horizontal).

From left to right: The beginning of Jane Eyre to the end

Again the yellow marks are every time Jane says "reader" (which is not absolutely accurate since there are like three times it's in the novel, and it's not addressing the reader of the book) But it's true that Jane does directly reach out to the reader more as the novel progresses. The professor on the DVD explains it as Jane wanting to take control of her story, and one way she does this is by correcting the reader's thoughts - by giving them the truth directly. I thought that was a fascinating and accurate explanation of the purpose of Jane addressing the reader.

Bluebeard

To me, Jane Eyre is most succinctly compared to two fairy tales - Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. I am aware of a Bluebeard connection, but I feel like the aforementioned tales encompasses the story more. But after watching this DVD I am leaning more towards seeing Jane Eyre in a "Bluebeard" light. Especially as Jane Eyre is a Gothic novel, and Bluebeard fits that genre the best of these three tales. There's a "secret at its heart" (quote from the DVD) which is a thoughtful encapsulation of both stories. And there was a comment made by one of the professors that placed the reader of the novel as the curious Bluebeard wife, reading the novel to discover the secret. Such an interesting idea! (And does that mean that Mr. Rochester is my husband??)

St. John and Helen

The role of religion is touched on in the DVD, and there was a thought that the character of St. John Rivers (who is not a bad person, but is kind of unforgivably self-righteous - oh, just me?) hearkens back to Jane's friend Helen Burns.  Helen is such a positive character and St. John considerably less so, that I initally felt it's almost a slur on Helen to link the two. But in the context of what the professor on the DVD said it makes sense -  they are similar in that they 'quash physical desires'.  And in that way I can understand why Jane would be drawn to them - they both encourage Jane to embrace a devotion to God and reason, at a time when her passionate nature is giving her the most pain. Unfortunately for St. John, his function later in the novel means he also has to show Jane that living such a cold, dispassionate life is not for her. And hey, both Helen and St. John meet untimely ends. Which to my mind is Charlotte making a harsh judgement on the idea of living just for God.

Jane and Injustice

Here's something that is hugely appealing to me about this novel. The novel can be pointed to as a feminist work, and Jane is speaking out for women everywhere, but what I love about Jane is that it's not her treatment as a woman that makes her upset. She's really angry at injustice. And the whole misogyny thing is just a part of that. It really took this DVD to drive that home to me. Jane is so passionate about what she feels is not right - the inability of Mrs. Reed to love her, the treatment of the girls at Lowood, the way Mr. Rochester speaks of Bertha, St. John Rivers not wanting to marry Rosamund Oliver. It's a glorious aspect to her character and reminds me of a line from an old sixties adaptation of the novel - Mr. Rochester calls Jane "the small crusader, pitiless with righteousness and rectitude." Rochester was a little harsh with that line, but I do like the 'small crusader' imagery. (In the 1961 adaptation he's more perturbed than happy that Jane's come back to him after he's been blinded and can not be the kind of man he wants to be for her.)

Postcolonialism

The DVD touches on three critical schools of thought in connection to Jane Eyre - Feminism, Marxism and Postcolonialism. And I learned two things in relation to the last one - what Postcolonialism is exactly, and that I really don't like seeing Jane Eyre in that context. In a nutshell, Postcolonialism is looking at the imperialist, British attitude as represented by Mr. Rochester as rich white guy, and Bertha as poor Creole woman. And Bertha's relation to Jane as a dark mirror. There's even a book written with those themes called Wide Sargasso Sea which is a prequel to Jane Eyre. It's from Bertha's viewpoint. I didn't care for the book actually. The thing with me is, I am sympathetic to Mr. Rochester. And I don't really see how you can accept the view that Mr. Rochester is a lying, manipulative scoundrel with no redeeming qualities and still like the novel or Jane. Because Jane - the character to whom the reader is intimately involved and invested in - chooses Mr. Rochester in the end, as the person who makes her the happiest. And if you love Jane because she is an intelligent, moral, capable heroine, as we have gotten to know her and rely on her throughout this story - it's silly to think she is so mistaken as to have made a horrible choice in the end. Also she is telling her story with 10 years distance, and not repenting her decision. She is happy, so what more could anyone ask for?

But back to Postcolonialism and why it does not gel with me; because I also feel like making a story called JANE EYRE, with the first person narration by said JANE EYRE, and then evaluating the story through NOT the main character is kind of ridiculous. Jane Eyre is such a personal journey, that I feel it's a big leap to talk about the novel like Charlotte Brontë was seriously examining slavery/race and British imperialism. If one chooses to see Bertha as completely innocent and horrendously mistreated, at least let it be because Mr. Rochester has misjudged her and acted unsympathetically, before saying it's obviously a master/slave dynamic. And I will just insert this excerpt of a letter that Charlottë Bronte wrote in response to some comments on Bertha:

Miss Kavanagh's view of the Maniac coincides with Leigh Hunt's. I agree with them that the character is shocking, but I know that it is but too natural. There is a phase of insanity which may be called moral madness, in which all that is good or even human seems to disappear from the mind and a fiend-nature replaces it. The sole aim and desire of the being thus possessed is to exasperate, to molest, to destroy, and preternatural ingenuity and energy are often exercised to that dreadful end. The aspect in such cases, assimilates with the disposition; all seems demonized. It is true that profound pity ought to be the only sentiment elicited by the view of such degradation, and equally true is it that I have not sufficiently dwelt on that feeling; I have erred in making horror too predominant. Mrs. Rochester indeed lived a sinful life before she was insane, but sin is itself a species of insanity: the truly good behold and compassionate it as such.

- Charlottë Bronte to W.S. Williams, written 4 January 1848

For me, the interesting points in the letter being Charlotte was (later?) more sympathetic to Bertha's plight, but not condemnatory of Mr. Rochester - she mentions that Bertha has led a sinful life before she was insane and that because of the nature of Bertha's insanity (as Charlotte wrote and understood it), it was probably too easy to 'demonize' her from the character's POV, which shouldn't happen to someone who is truly compassionate. Obviously Mr. Rochester doesn't get points in the philanthropy department which is noted by Jane early on. I understand and completely believe that Bertha's situation is awful and sad in so many ways, but I don't feel that it is important enough to the novel to base interpretations of the story on. Yet can I point out that Mr. Rochester didn't lock up Bertha for funnsies - it would have been so much easier for him if she were not mad because then he could divorce her. (The law at the time being that you could not divorce your wife if she was diagnosed insane.) If he could have let her go to have a normal life and not been responsible if she attacked people, he probably would have been all over that.

To wrap up, I am saddned that this DVD is not widely available any more (at least my google searches have not been fruitful) because it was a very well concieved educational program.  This DVD was sent to me in 2015, and I’m revisiting it, by posting this on my blog.  I orginally posted this on a former blog.  And I believe this post once featured on the Train of Thought Productions website, but sadly that site is no more.

[thefloatingstone]

i've never watched umi ga kikoeru what's wrong with it? other than the uhh guy punching the other guy

Umi ga Kikoeru/Ocean Waves was a smaller movie created by Ghibli’s B team who usually work on commercials. It was their opportunity to show their skill level working on a feature film (I can’t remember if it was a theatrical release or a TV movie and I’m on mobile so I can’t fact check too easily). Anyway, the movie is visually extremely nice. Not as “cinematic” as Ghibli’s main films but with really nice colours and atmosphere. It’s an extremely pretty movie.

The movie, being of a much smaller scale, was an adaptation of a Japanese novel of the same name, rather than a completely original story. And I don’t know if the novel is similar, but literally every single thing I hate about this movie involves its writing and characters, making it one of the most infuriating animated movies of all time and one of the very few movies where I can honestly say “I hate this movie”.

It’s about our main character, nice normal boy and his friend, glasses boy, and a new transfer student to their high school, terrible horrible bitchy girl. And the movie’s a love triangle. So... yeah immediately it’s like “ugh”. But that’s not why I hate it. I hate it because the girl both these boys are infatuated with is possibly one of the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever watched in a movie, and it’s filmed in a way that it’s clear we’re supposed to LIKE her.

She’s unhappy to have moved out of Tokyo to this island. She’s pretty intelligent but really arrogant, and she constantly leads people on to do what she wants before unceremoniously dropping them. She’s a massive maniplator who, when called out on her bullshit, starts pullying the “I’m secretly really unhappy” garbage.

I’m just gonna copy paste the plot summary from Wikipedia so you can see what I mean because I’m only on mobile and I refuse to suffer by recounting the whole thing myself:

In Kōchi, two years prior, Taku receives a call from his friend, Yutaka Matsuno, asking to meet at their high school. He finds Yutaka at a window, watching an attractive female transfer student whom Yutaka was asked to show around. The boys discuss their upcoming school trip to Hawaii. At the school gates, Taku is introduced to the new girl, Rikako Muto. She thanks Yutaka for providing directions to a bookstore. Taku teases Yutaka about his infatuation.

The school year ends, heralding the Hawaii trip. Taku, suffering from an upset stomach, is stopped in the hotel lobby by Rikako. She explains that she has lost her money and asks to borrow some. As Taku has a part-time job, he lends her ¥60,000. Promising to repay him, she warns not to tell anyone. As she departs, Taku sees a stern Yutaka and feels compelled to explain. Later, Rikako admonishes him for telling Yutaka about the money, saying that he also loaned her ¥20,000.

Back in Kōchi, the third year begins with Rikako making a friend, Yumi Kohama. Rikako hasn't returned Taku's money and he wonders if she has forgotten. Out of the blue, a distressed Yumi calls Taku, explaining that Rikako had tricked her into coming to the airport on the pretence of a concert trip, only to discover that their real destination is Tokyo, tickets paid for with Taku's money. He races to the airport, sending Yumi home, saying that he will accompany Rikako.

Upon arrival, it appears that Rikako has not forewarned her father, interrupting his planned trip with a girlfriend. Her father thanks Taku, repays the loan and arranges a room at the Hyatt Regency hotel. Later, Rikako explains that when her parents were fighting, she'd always sided with her father, but had now discovered he wasn't on her side. Comforting her, Taku offers his bed and attempts to sleep in the bathtub. The next morning, Rikako seems back to her normal self and kicks Taku out so that she can change clothes to meet a friend for lunch. Taku wanders around the city. After catching up on sleep at the hotel, Taku receives a call from Rikako asking to be rescued from former boyfriend, Okada, who is not as she remembered him.

Returning home, Rikako ignores Taku, but doesn't hide from others that they spent a night together. Taku discovers this from Yutaka, who had earlier confronted Rikako to confess his feelings toward her, but had been rebuffed. Taku confronts Rikako in class for hurting his best friend, calling her "The worst!". She responds by slapping him and he slaps her in return.

The autumn school cultural festival arrives and Rikako, who has been avoiding Yosakoi dance rehearsals, becomes more distant from the other girls, many of whom openly dislike her. Confronting her behind the school, Rikako stands firm as one girl, believing that Rikako was flirting with her boyfriend, attempts to strike her but is held back. Taku, who has seen all, approaches Rikako and comments that he is impressed with the way she handled herself. She slaps him but runs away with regret. Yutaka confronts a somewhat stunned Taku, who tries to explain. Yutaka punches him to the ground calling him an idiot before walking away. None of the three talk to each other for the rest of the year.

In the present, Taku's plane lands and he is offered a lift home by Yutaka, who explains he punched him because he'd realized Taku had held back his feelings for his sake. At a class reunion, former student president Shimizu mentions she had met Rikako earlier. She explains that as Rikako was attending Kochi University, she had flown to Tokyo for her school break, missing the reunion. Taku realizes that Rikako was the woman he'd seen at the station. Walking home, Yumi tells Taku that she too had met Rikako, explaining she couldn't make it to the reunion and that she wanted to meet someone, but wouldn't say who... just that he slept in bathtubs.

In Tokyo, Taku again sees Rikako across the platforms, but this time runs to find her. As the train pulls away, he finds Rikako and realises that he had always been in love with her.

We’re supposed to like these characters... I think??? We’re supposed to be HAPPY that this bitch and this dude end up together at the end. And no. That summary is NOT leaving out any redeeming qualities about this girl. She’s AWFUL. She’s literally one of the modt hateful characters I have EVER seen in a movie.

And we’re supposed to be HAPPY THAT THIS IS A RELATIONSHIP. THIS IS SO FUCKED UP AND TOXIC WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????

I hate this fucking movie so much.

At least it’s pretty I guess.