52 Book Challenge. Week 4-7

It’s been an incredibly hectic few weeks for me. But no, I haven’t been neglecting my reading. I’ve just neglected to write about the books I’ve read, so here’s a quick overview of what I’ve read during my absent weeks:

Week Four: StarDust by Neil Gaiman

I absolutely love Stardust. I watched the movie years ago and totally fell in love with the way it represents fantasy. The book is essentially the same story, but it can get a little long winded at times. But its a book so it can afford to be. However, the whole story can pretty much be summed up by two chapter titles:

Week Five: Aristotle And Dante Discover the Secrets Of The Universe

I was so excited to read this one. Mainly because of the tumblr hype. Unfortunately I found the reality to be rather… disappointing. This may be because I expected the main character to be boyfriends rather early on. But instead they don’t get together until last few pages of the book and instead both experiment with heterosexual relationships for the majority of the story.

I probably would have enjoyed this one a lot more if it wasn’t for tumblr building up my expectations of it. I’ll probably give it another read in the future, just to get a more unbiased opinion on the story.

 

Week Six: The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan

I love this series. It really appeals to the Greek Mythology nerd in me. Riordan retells the myths with a remarkable accuracy. I’m used to representations in popular culture taking a lot of liberties with the myths. The main example being Disney’s Hercules. But Riordan is obviously working incredibly hard to make his facts as accurate as possible.

I love the characters in Heroes of Olympus. Even with the ones I’m not too fond of (aka Frank) I’m emotionally invested in what happens to them. This is especially true of Nico Di Angelo. And if good things don’t start happening to this poor boy in the next book I’m going to be furious.
Week Seven: ???

So I kind of cheated with Week Seven. I started with The Bane Chronicles by only got part way through it.

But during this week I also read:

So I’m not quite sure where I stand on the 52 Book thing.

And that’s you all caught up! I’m going to aim to finish Magnus Chronicles this week so hopefully I wont get distracted by any more comics.

If you want to be kept up to date with what I’m reading, check out my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellisinaj/

Have you guys read any of the books I’ve read so far? What books would you suggest I take a look at for the rest of the challenge? Let me know in the comments.

52 Book Challenge (Week 3) The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

Week Three: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury [145 Pages]

So this weeks book isn’t exactly seasonally appropriate but I’ve been excited to read this book since I bought it purely because I loved the movie so much as a child and haven’t been able to watch it since. Ever since the collapse of Cartoon Network, I’ve missed out on a lot of the shows and films I loved growing up. Even those which came out on DVD very rarely come out for the British region. Which is kind of heart-breaking.

I recently watched the Nostalgia Critic’s review of The Halloween Tree animated film and was hit by the nostalgia of it and had a quick search to see if I could get the DVD and instead ended up with the book.

Unfortunately, I think that because I loved the film so much, the book was never going to live up to my expectations. It has a very similar tone to the film, but a lot of things were better represented visually. This is one of the very rare instances where I like the film more than I like the book.

For those of you who don’t know, the story revolves around a group of boys learning the different traditions behind their costumes. It’s by no means an accurate depiction of the whole history behind the modern day Halloween but for a story aimed at kids it does a good job.

The biggest downside for me is that it’s impossible to connect with any of the characters. You don’t learn most of the boys names until half way through the book and there’s a great deal of emphasis on how fantastic one boy Pipkin is. But we don’t learn how great he is through his actions, it’s just a chapter describing how absolutely amazing this one boy is.

What really saves this book for me is the artwork. Joseph Mugnaini has done a fantastic job sticking to the tone of the story with his illustrations and the book looks absolutely beautiful.

All in all, I would only reccomend this book as a way to teach kids a simplified version of the Halloween traditions.

52 Book Challenge (Week Two): Sports Chanbara- Samurai Sports by Tetsundo Tanabe

Week Two: Sports Chanbara- Samurai Sports  by Tetsundo Tanabe [236  Pages]

So I may be cheating a little bit with this one. It’s not a fiction book like the rest of the books I intend to use for the 52 Book Challenge, but it is a really interesting book that I want to show to people.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a black belt/instructor in Freestyle Karate. My Uncle (who runs my class) was just promoted to head of chanbara by the Chief Instructor and given this book as a guide:

My uncles not a big reader, whereas I was fascinated by the book. So I volunteered to read it for him and give him the abridged version.

The first thing I noticed is the signature at the front:

But not only is it signed by the author, but the author may be visiting at some point. So we’re suddenly under a lot of pressure to get his techniques right, which is hard to do when the only visual representations you have are small black and white photos.

The books itself is beautifully laid out, I love books that have the original text on one side and the translation on the other for comparison purposes.

For those of you who don’t know chabara is kind of like fighting with swords. Except without the swords, what we use are more akin to pool-noodles on sticks. But the general principle remains the same. The book is focused on making the sport more accessible to people of all ages, genders and abilities which I really like. It also has a really iteresting history of the development of different swords for different functions.

If you can get your hands on a copy, I would definetly reccomend it.

52 Book Challenge (Week 1) ‘Too Much Information’ Dave Gorman

Week One: “Too Much Information. …Or Can Everyone Just Shut Up For A Moment Some Of Us Are Trying To Think” by Dave Gorman [332 Pages]

Dave Gorman’s is surprisingly similar to what I expected from him. I’ve read a couple of books by comedians and it’s always interesting to see how the tone of the books matched up with their personalities.  For example, Miranda Hart’s book “Is it Just me?” is exactly how you would expect her to write. But Jo Brands novels could be written by an entirely different person and I never would have guessed.

I haven’t seen much of Dave Gorman’s work, but I have watched quite a bit of his TV show “Modern Life is Good(ish)” and the book has a very similar tone to the show. Unfortunately it can be too similar at times.

Like the show, Gorman makes use of pictorial representation. In the show this is displayed on a PowerPoint. The book similarly makes use of pictures in what is sometimes a very witty way. I particularly like:

A lot of the material in the book is similar to what he has used in his shows. Which is forgivable, if it works in one format it will most likely work in another. However a few jokes fall flat in the book format. I pretty much skipped over the chapter where he discusses when newspapers use the word “matching” to discuss celebrities wearing outfits that don’t match at all. In the PowerPoints, he shows the photographs that the newspapers are using to show just how ridiculous the claims are. Whereas in the book, he just has to use words to describe them. Which doesn’t have nearly the same comedic effect.

It was still a good read nonetheless and definitely worth reading if you enjoy Dave Gormans comedic tone.

On “Dying Alone”

This post may verge on being too personal, but it’s something that I need to get off my chest (so excuse me if I post it then delete it later).

I see the phrase “die alone” a lot. It’s typically used as a way to discourage singledom. It’s a well-known fact that no-one wants to die alone. But it’s not dying alone that scares me. It’s living alone.

Let’s face it, even if you’re happily married and have been all of your adult life, you’re just as likely to die without that person by your side as you are to die with them nearby. Anyone could die alone, regardless of their relationship status. So that’s not what worries me, it could happen to anyone. Living alone however… this is where it gets personal.

So I’m in my early 20’s and I still live with my family. Not because I have to though, I’m actually looking at apartments right now. But what scares me is that when I do move out, my level of social interactions will plummet. I’ll only get sparse interactions when I manage to meet up with my friends and speaking to people in my secluded office at work.

So the answer to this would be to get a boyfriend, right? That would solve the social interaction problem and could give me someone to live with further along the line. Problem solved. However! I’ve never had a boyfriend. At high school age I pretty much hated the idea of having one. So when everyone else was doing practise runs of relationships, I was quite contently alone. But when I got a bit older and thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, I had literally no idea where to start and I’m pretty sure I blew the few opportunities I had with guys who might have been interested in me because I was scared. And the older I get, the harder it becomes to start relationships.

So there you have it.

I will not only die alone but I’ll probably go through life alone too. And I find that terrifying.

Big Bang Theory: The Detrimental Effects of “I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested.”

Some of you may know that I’ve done posts on the Big Bang Theory before, one where I used Sheldon and Amy as examples of asexual characters and another where I point out how poorly the writers dealt with Lucy’s social anxiety. This time, I’m discussing how the reoccurring punch line “I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested” fails as a joke and actually has a detrimental effect on some viewers.

The joke started as a result of the other characters judging Sheldons’ quirks and coming to the conclusion that Sheldon must have some form of autism (although they never call it that on the show). I’m guessing that this came from a lot of fan theorizing at the time and a lot of fans seeing these traits and diagnosing Sheldon as being on the autistic spectrum. The writers were quick to deny this, using the line “I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested” to establish that Sheldon has no such condition.

What bothers me so much about this is that I know young kids with mild autism who identify with Sheldon and love the character because of these traits. These people are desperate for representation and an autistic character who leads a happy, successful life would be a godsend.
The line “I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested” absolutely destroys this perfect representation. Sheldon is not only flat out denying that he has this condition but he also refers as those who do as being “crazy” (or “insane” depending on the episode) which is horrendously offensive.

Sheldon had such great potential to be a well-rounded, representational character. At its creation, the show was designed to take what was a neglected subsection of people and portray them as successful academics. The character of Sheldon embodied this the most. His repulsion of any sexual contact but still being in a happy relationship would have been fantastic representation for asexuals, but as I’ve mentioned previously this was ruined by the sudden switch of Amy’s personality and the constant hints that the couple might one day have sex. Similarly, Sheldon could have been a fantastic role model for children; a child prodigy who became a respected scientist whilst being on the autistic spectrum. But the writers go out of the way to stress that Sheldon isn’t like them. Sheldon is normal, whilst the members of their audience who also display these traits as “crazy.”

Where To Find Me

It feels like forever since I last posted on WordPress, I’ve been insanely busy with other projects but hopefully I’ll have time to start posting on here again soon.

In the meantime, you can always check me out on other sites:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KellyJinkies

Tumblr: http://kellisina.tumblr.com/

Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MyriadMarket

The Etsy store is one of my projects, I’ve been making Harry Potter themed potion bottles and jewellery for a variety of fandoms.

Like I said, I should be back to WordPress soon, I have a couple of posts planned and even a guest post planned for Friday’s Feminist, so be sure to look out for that!

Resident Evil and Representation

The Resident Evil series qualifies as a horror series, a sci fi series and an action series. Given the genre, Resident Evil is surprisingly diverse. The main character is female, the supporting cast are a mix of genders and race, men are more likely to die and there’s very little romance throughout the series. Let’s face it, even when a female is the main character in an action film, she’ll inevitably be surrounded by white male companions, one of whom she’ll fall in love with by the end of the film. So the Resident Evil films are surprisingly refreshing, which isn’t what I expected when I first came across the series.

In this post, I’ll be looking at the composition of Alices teams to demonstrate just how diverse the cast is. By Alices team, I mean anyone who Alice joins/fights with over the course of any film (in the Anderson film universe, not the games). This post contains massive spoilers, mostly regarding who dies and who survives, so make sure that you’ve seen the films first if you don’t want to ruin them for yourselves.

Resident Evil (2002)
In the first film, Alices team consists of three women:
• Alice- Caucasian
• Rain Ocampo- Hispanic American (Umbrella special forces commando unit)
• Olga Danilova- Russian (Medic)

And seven men:
• Matt Addison – Caucasian (Activist)
• Spence Parks- Caucasian (Security operative)
• James Shade- African American (Leader of the special forces unit)
• Chad Kaplan- Caucasian (Computer technician of special forces unit)
• JD Salinas- Hispanic (Special forces unit)
• Vance Drew – Caucasian (Special forces unit)
• Alfonso Warner- Caucasian (Special forces unit)

Making this the most masculine group in the series.

Olga, Vance, Alfonso and James are killed by lazers. JD is killed by zombies and Spence is killed by the licker. Chad is then killed by the mutated licker. Despite being bitten shortly after the laser room, Rain is the last to die, being shot by Matt after she turns.

In this film, only Matt and Alice survive, both being taken away to be experimented upon. So it goes from being a masculine dominant group, to an even split.

Apocalypse (2004)
The team in Resident Evil: Apocalypse consists of three women:
• Alice
• Jill Valentine- Caucasian (Police officer)
• Terri Morales- Hispanic (News reporter)

And four men:

• Peyton Wells – African American (Police Officer)
• Carlos Olivera – Caucasian (Played by an Israeli actor) (Umbrella biohazard counter measure force)
• Nicholai Ginovaef – Caucasian (Umbrella biohazard counter measure force)
• LJ (Lloud Jefferson Wayne)- African American (Former Walmart employee)

Alice meets Peyton, Jill and Terri first. LJ then joins the group, followed by Carlos and Nicholai. Another member of Carlos’ team Yuri (Caucasian, male) dies before meeting Alice. Yuri and Peyton both infected early in the film. Yuri is shot by Carlos after he turns. Peyton is killed by Nemisis. Terri is eaten by child zombies and Nicholai is killed by zombie dogs.

Interestingly, Terri and LJ are not special ops and have no combat training. (Although LJ owning customised guns suggests that he knows how to shoot.) Despite being the most inexperienced of the group, Terri dies 3rd (after the police officer and an umbrella operative) and LJ survives the film.

Similar to the last film, despite the fact that there are more men in the team, it ends with an even split of gender. Two men survive; Carlos and LJ go on to join the Nevada team. And two women survive; Jill is kidnapped and although Alice technically dies in this film, she is brought back to life by Umbrella.

Extinction (2007)
The team for Resident Evil: Extinction consists of four women:
• Alice
• Claire Redfield- Caucasian (Leader of the human convoy)
• Betty- African American (Nurse)
• K-mart- Caucasian- (Role unknown. Member of the human convoy)

And five men:
• Carlos – From the last film
• LJ- From the last film
• Mikey- Caucasian- (Electronic operative)
• Chase- Caucasian- (Police sheriff)
• Otto- Caucasian- (Bus driver)

Both Betty and Otto are killed in a raven attack. Mikey and Chase are killed in the Vegas attack, during which LJ is turned and killed. Carlos then sacrifices himself.

This leaves only three women alive: Alice, Claire and Kmart. This is the first instance of one gender completely outliving the other and from this series, it isn’t surprising that it’s the women who manage to survive.

Interestingly, this is the first film to incorporate romance, with LJ and Betty’s date and it being implied that Kmart has a crush on Carlos.

Afterlife (2010)
The team in Resident Evil: Afterlife consists of three women:
• Alice
• Claire – From last film
• Crystal Waters- Caucasian (Waitress, aspiring actress)

And six men:
• Luther West- African American (Sports personality)
• Angel Ortiz- Hispanic
• Bennet Sinclair- Caucasian (Director)
• Kim Yong- Asian (Bennets assistant)
• Wendell- Caucasian
• Chris Redfield- Caucasian (Soldier)

This is the second most masculine group and is the least trained in combat. Unlike the other teams which have comprised of Umbrella operatives or police officers, Chris is the only one with military training.

Wendell is killed by zombies after attempting to spy on Alice in the shower. Crystal proves to be one of the most useful members of the group, announcing that she is a swimming champion, she is unfortunately killed immediately after she swims to the armory. Angel is killed by Bennet during his escape (I’m still not sure why he had to kill Angel to get to the plane…). Kim is reluctant to go in the sewers and due to his hesitancy, is sliced in half. And Bennett is presumably killed by the bad guy after being locked in.

Similar to the first and second film, despite being a masculine group, two men (Luther and Chris) and two women (Alice and Claire) survive the film.

Retribution (2012)
In (what is currently) the final film in the series, we have an equal split gender wise, with five women and five men. The women consist of:
• Alice
• Suburban clone of Rain- From previous film
• Jill Valentine- From a previous film
• Becky- Caucasian (Child)
• Ada Wong- Asian

And the men are:

• Luthor- From previous film
• Barry Burton- Caucasian
• Leon Kennedy- Caucasian
• Sergei- Caucasian
• Tony Rosato- Hispanic

Despite this being the most even grouping in term of gender, it ends up being the most uneven (in favour of the women). Tony is killed by Plaga Undead in Moscow before meeting Alice. Sergei is then killed by a licker in Moscow. Suburban Rain is also killed by licker. Barry is killed by Carlos’ umbrella clone and Luthor is then killed fighting Rains umbrella clone.

This leaves Leon as the only man standing. Conversely, only one of the women died, meaning that Alice, Jill, Ada and Becky all survive.

This film is similar to Extinction in that it is one of the few that has a (albeit brief) focus on romance- Leon puts his hand on Ada’s knee and is immediately rejected. The focus is more firmly on the friendship between Alice and the members of the team such as Luthor and Jill, as well as her motherly relationship with Becky, her clone’s daughter.

Children in the series
Interestingly, the only children in the film series (ignoring the red and white queens) both look alike, and both have physical defects. Angela Ashford (Angie) has a degenerative condition which would have led to a life in a wheelchair had it not been for the T-virus and Becky was partially deaf. The part of Becky wasn’t interestingly designed to resemble Angie. The part could have easily been a boy as the casting call was for a boy or girl of around 6 years old for a character named either Ben or Becky, dependant on the gender of the actor. Becky also wasn’t designed to be deaf, Aryanna Engineer (who is partially deaf) was simply the best actress for the part, which is incredibly rare for deaf actors.

Bad Guys
The enemies throughout the film series are normally white male. Unlike Alice’s teams, there is far less representation in the Umbrella Corporation. Arguably, this is intentional and is demonstrative of the corruption in business. It also furthers the notion that minorities and women are the underdogs, which encourages you to support them.

All things considered, the Resident Evil movies are fantastic when it comes to representation. It passes the Bechdel test with flying colours, with little to no emphasis being put on the female characters love lives. The mix of gender and race throughout Alice’s teams are refreshing and it’s great to see a lot more representation in films like this which can get pretty stuck in their traditional tropes. Let me know what you think of the series. Did you notice the difference in representation? Love it? Hate it? Let me know!

Zodiac Guide: Find your inner and secret animals

Happy New Year! As most of you will know already, today is the lunar New Year and the start of the Chinese year of the ram (sheep/goat). In case you’re wondering about the confusion over which animal the year is named after, it’s to do with the translation. The Chinese symbol 羊 can mean ram, sheep or goat, so any of the translations is correct.

Most people have a pretty good understanding of how the zodiac years work. if you’re not sure which zodiac animal you are, check out this travel site . You can pick your date of birth in the drop down boxes and it’ll generate your zodiac sign for you.

What I didn’t realise before I did a bit of research is that you don’t just have one animal, you have four. One for the year you were born, one for the lunar month (called your inner animal), one for the day (called true animals) and another for the hour (which are called secret animals). Essentially, if it can be split into an increment of twelve, then you have a separate sign for it.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a convertor for the day breakdown, but I do have guide for the month and the hour.

Here’s a quick guide for the lunar months:
The year is divided into 24 two week solar terms and each animal is linked to two of these solar terms.

Tiger- February 4 to February 18 and February 19 to March 5
Rabbit- March 6 to March 20 and March 21 to April 4
Dragon- April 5 to April 19 and April 20 to May 4
Snake- May 5 to May 20 and May 21 to June 5
Horse- June 6 to June 20 and June 21 to July 6
Goat- July 7 to 22 and July 23 to August 6
Monkey- August 7 to August 22 and August 23 to September 7
Rooster- September 8 to September 22 and September 23 to October 7
Dog- October 8 to October 22 and October 23 to November 6
Pig- November 7 to November 21 and November 22 to December 6
Rat- December 7 to December 21 and December 22 to January 5
Ox- January 6 to January 19 and January 2 to February 3

The zodiac also represent times of the day, with 24 hours being divided into 2 hour periods represented by each animal.

Rat- 23:00 – 00:59
Ox- 01:00 – 02:59
Tiger- 03:00 – 04:59
Rabbit- 05:00 – 06:59
Dragon- 07:00 – 08:59
Snake- 09:00 – 10:59
Horse- 11:00 – 12:59
Goat- 13:00 – 14:59
Monkey- 15:00 – 16:59
Rooster- 17:00 – 18:59
Dog- 19:00 – 20:59
Pig- 21:00 – 22:59

(The times are based on Beijing CST which is apparently pretty hard to convert into different time zones)

So for example. I was born in 1993 which makes me a Rooster. I was born in February which makes me a tiger and I was born about 9:30am which (without conversion into Greenwich mean time) makes me a snake.

So that’s all for now. Let me know what your animals are in the comments and please let me know if any of the information in this post needs to be corrected (especially if you know how to convert the days into the zodiac, I’d love to know!)
Happy New Year folks!

The Doctors Slipping Asexuality

If you’ve read my post about asexuals in the media, then you’ll know how strongly I feel about the importance of there being asexual characters in the media. You’ll also know how few of them there are, the main three being Sherlock Holmes, Sheldon Cooper (from the big bang theory) and the Doctor.
So it probably doesn’t shock you to find out that when Moffat announced that the Doctor engaged in premarital sex with Queen Elizabeth, I was pretty annoyed about it.

The Doctor has had children in the past (he occasionally mentions his Time Lord family) however, the Doctor has historically never shown interest in having sex with humans, and therefore could be considered as being an asexual character.

This level of plot twist is like if Sheldon Cooper had sex with his girlfriend (something which the writers constantly hint at despite the fact the Sheldon openly states that he’s disgusted by the idea of sexual acts. That’s not how you do character development, that’s how you do erasure of different sexualities). However, it wasn’t even written into the show. In an interview with the Dr Who magazine, Moffat reportedly said: ‘I said the marriage was unconsummated – and so it was. You saw for yourself in The Day of the Doctor – he ran straight off after the ceremony. Would we have put that on television if it wasn’t true? But I never said – not once, not ever – that the relationship was unconsummated!’

For a character uninterested in sex, it seems like something like this should be addressed in the show, not a passing comment in an interview. It’s like Dumbledores sexuality not factoring in the books but being mentioned by JK Rowling afterwards.

People from minority sexualities need to see representation so that their own sexuality can be validated. As an asexual, the idea that even characters like the Doctor will eventually come around and conduct in “normal” sexual activity is pretty offensive. It’s a bit like how now the Master is female the Doctor can suddenly have a relationship with her. Strange that.