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Kyoko’s Top 18 Most Hateable Villains (Part 3)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 31, 2014
2

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

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Welcome back to the final installment of my Top 18 Most Hateable Movie Villains in the last 20 years. Who will top the list of the most evil fiction baddies? Time to find out. Massive spoilers ahead, as always.

6. R.I.F.T from Transcendence (2014)

Various actors

Various actors

Did you see Transcendence, aka that Johnny Depp movie no one cared about? No? Good. Unfortunately, my father and I are both suckers for a seemingly decent hard sci-fi film and we sat through it. Lo and behold, while the movie was pretty lousy, it yielded one of the most hateable villain groups I’ve seen in the last twenty years.

Here’s the low down on the plot: a researcher named Will Caster (Johnny Depp), his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), and their best friend/colleague Max (Paul Bettany) are on the eve of creating the first true Artificial Intelligence. However, an anti-technology terrorist group called R.I.F.T believes that the A.I. will destroy the world and either kill everyone or turn them into slaves. They then proceed to poison an entire team of researchers associated with the project and shoot Will Caster with an irradiated bullet, dooming him to die slowly from radiation poisoning. Evelyn and Max use the last few months of Will’s life to attempt to transfer his consciousness along with the prototype of his A.I. into a singular being. They are successful, but R.I.F.T closes in and kidnaps Max while Evelyn and A.I. Will go on the run. Max is held prisoner for some amount of time and the R.I.F.T members proceed to lecture him with his own papers insisting that Will is going to take over the world and that Max should help them get rid of A.I. Will.

I don’t even know where to start with how much I hate this terrorist group, or describe which part of their “message” I hate the most. First of all, the fact that they thought they had the right to slaughter innocent people who were trying to create a technology that could help the less fortunate pisses me off. Second of all, the fact that they didn’t have the nerve to simply assassinate Will Caster in anything resembling a humane way. Dying from radiation is slow and agonizing. We watched that poor man waste away in a bed for months until his body deteriorated and he died, passing his mind into the machine Evelyn made for him. Third of all, kidnapping Max, beating him up, and then insisting that he help them stop Will, who at that point had not done one single thing to them or anyone else. Fourth of all, for having unsubstantiated claims to justify terrorism and violence and yet still being high horse about it as if it was unshakable evidence that the A.I. would turn evil. If that’s not enough, let me drop what made this movie universally panned by critics: A.I. Will’s ultimate plan? To use nanites to regrow forests, clean polluted water, and heal the sick.

I’m not joking.

Will’s master plan was to save humanity.

Not once in the entire film does A.I. Will commit an act of wrongdoing. The most sinful thing he does is after a man is robbed and beaten to death, he injects the nanites, heals all the man’s wounds, and temporarily takes over the man’s consciousness in order to speak to his wife. The people Will heals have him in their system and he can control them, and while that is morally objectionable, he doesn’t try to take ANYTHING over nor does he try to kill a single person, not even when the army teams up with R.I.F.T and shoots Evelyn (which she dies from sustained wounds thanks to these assholes) and when R.I.F.T turns on Max YET AGAIN and tells A.I. Will to either shut himself down or they kill his best friend.

The cherry on top?

R.I.F.T. doesn’t stop A.I. Will.

He surrenders because of his wife, who lies dying in his arms.

So R.I.F.T is not only a pack of murderers, they are a pack of ineffective murderers.

The final insult is that the film implies that this is a good thing, that their blind anti-tech nonsense is valid and should be argued against in the future. It leaves the most disgusting taste in my mouth. I absolutely cannot stand the way they get away scot-free with killing so many people for a result that was inconclusive and they did so to an entity that never made an attack on anyone. If that’s not evil, then I don’t know what is.

 

5. William Stryker from X-Men 2 (2003)

Played by Brian Cox

Played by Brian Cox

I think there is a special seat in hell for people who betray their own flesh and blood, and that’s probably why Mr. Stryker is so high up on my list. You all know this story by now, even if fanboys seem to prefer the preboot-quel X-Men films these days. William Stryker is a government official whose sole mission is to control or eliminate mutants, with preference to the latter.

What burns me up so much with William Stryker is that he was not only okay with eradicating an entire race of people—y’know, genocide, because that’s always a good idea—but the fact that (1) he was okay with forcing the man who fought hardest for mutant rights, Charles Xavier, to commit the actual act (2) was okay with manipulating his own mutant son into doing it (3) thought he was completely justified in his actions because of isolated incidents. I guess no one ever told him the “one bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch” thing as a child.

Don’t get me wrong—I hate me some Magneto. I considered placing him on my list for his actions in all three of the original X-Men films, but I think Stryker made me angrier for mind-controlling mutants and for treating his own son like an animal. He made it personal. Magneto has seen some of the worst parts of humanity and while he’s not justified, he does have a good excuse. Stryker had the power to make a difference in a good way and chose to be an evil son of a bitch instead. He’d kill millions of innocent lives all for the one that he lost, and that’s unbelievably selfish and cowardly and utterly reprehensible.

4. Lots-O-Huggin’ Bear from Toy Story 3 (2010)

Played by Ned Beatty

Played by Ned Beatty

Alright, I admit it: Lotso was the first villain to ever make me swear out loud in a children’s movie. In the theater, no less.

I couldn’t help it, and I can’t possibly be the only one to think that Lotso is by far the most evil Pixar villain ever. What a son of a bitch. Only Pixar has the power to make me despise a teddy bear to the point of shouting obscenities during the movie’s premiere. Seriously, I don’t believe in talking in a movie theater, but Lotso got me so worked up that I couldn’t stop myself.

It’s bad enough that he created a prison out of the daycare center and manipulated an innocent baby toy and took away the chance for happiness from his own friends, but Lotso goes much deeper than that. He’s just a rejected plaything who thinks everyone else deserves to be treated like they are worthless, which is exactly the way he felt when Daisy got a new bear. He’s damaged goods and he’s taking it out on the world.

Look, I get it, that would jack me up too if my little girl’s parents replaced me, but that isn’t the biggest of Lotso’s crimes. He and the other toys could have found a new owner to love them and play with them, but he made the choice to become the warden of his own sick little prison. You have to be pretty bent to inflict that kind of pain on others who have done nothing wrong, especially when it’s all they have. Toys are made to be played with and to make children happy. Sucking the joy out of their sole purpose takes a new brand of evil.

And finally, we come to The Scene. You know the one. Where after Woody sacrifices time and effort to save Lotso’s sorry ass, what does he do? Not hit the button and doom our beloved toys—our childhood memories, for Christ’s sake—to die just for ruining his plan. I can’t even describe how much I hated him in that one scene, and the fact of the matter is that he got off easy for his crime. I worked at a Toys R Us for two years and we had real-sized Lotso bears in our store for a period of time and when no one was around, I kicked one of them just to make myself feel better. Petty, but true.

If there is a Toy Hell, I hope Lotso gets Lots-O-Huggings from Toy Satan.

 

3. The Other Mother from Coraline (2009)

Played by Teri Hatcher

Played by Teri Hatcher

Coraline is one of the best non-Disney/Dreamworks/Pixar films ever made, hands down. Not surprising, as the book was written by Neil Gaiman. It’s just a fantastic story with thrills and chills and stunning visuals and excellent characters. Too excellent, actually, because the Other Mother is one of the scariest and most hateable villains in the history of anything, regardless of the medium.

In case you missed it somehow, Coraline is the story of a young girl and her parents who move to a house called the Pink Palace. Late at night, Coraline finds a portal to an alternate reality where she meets the Other Mother—a creature who looks and sounds exactly like Coraline’s mother, but instead of being grumpy and impatient, the Other Mother is sweet and fun. And she has buttons for eyes. (Which is why I am utterly terrified of Lalaloopsy dolls, consequently) Her world is magical and Coraline falls in love with the beautiful sights and exciting things to do there, but she later discovers that it’s all secretly a trap. The Other Mother tries to get Coraline to stay in her world and sew buttons into her eyes, but Coraline refuses and manages to escape home. Then it all goes to hell when the Other Mother kidnaps Coraline’s parents and she has to return to the other reality to get them back.

The Other Mother’s full backstory is never given, but the bits we do get are so scary that it’s why I would consider this film to be for young adults. She’s no one’s mother. She’s a giant spider-demon thing that lures in children, “loves them” for a period of time, and then eats them.

Yes. You read that correctly.

She. Freaking. Eats. Children.

As if that weren’t horrifying enough, Coraline meets the ghosts of the first three victims, who warn her and give her advice on how to escape. Ghosts, people. OF THE CHILDREN THE OTHER MOTHER MURDERED. I mean, do I really need to say anything more?

The Other Mother is just terrifying, even before we see her final true form in the finale, and believe me when I say it’s worth a watch. I showed Coraline to my older brother and his wife and they were both curled up in the loveseat clutching each other in horror during the final confrontation of Coraline and the Other Mother. She’s a sickening fiend and you will be impressed with how ruthless and violent and awful she turns out to be by the end of the film. You think of the classic film villains like Darth Vader or the Terminator and they ain’t got nuthin’ on the Other Mother. She gives evil a fresh coat of paint and that’s why I highly recommend that people add Coraline into their traditional Halloween moviethons. Trust me, you’ll be cheering right along for Coraline to defeat her by the end.

(P.S. I’ve heard she’s even scarier in the book. Good Lord, now that’s something to keep you awake at night.)

 

2. Stephen from Django Unchained (2012)

 

Played by Samuel L. "Motherf*cking" Jackson

Played by Samuel L. “Motherf*cking” Jackson

I admit I was a middlegrade Quentin Tarantino fan until I saw Django Unchained. It completely changed my appreciation for the man as a director. For me, everything in Django just lined up perfectly—the dialogue, the setting, the characters, the music, the action, the tone, the underlying message, all of it. I’ve watched it a dozen times by now and it’s by far my favorite Tarantino film, even over Pulp Fiction. A large part of that has to do with the fact that Django pulls an amazing Bait-and-Switch Villain trope in the final third of the film.

Stephen is one of the most sadistic bastards in film history, forget the last 20 years. As I said before, villains who make things personal truly get beneath my skin, and Stephen was a true blue snake –in-the-grass kind of villain. Calvin Candie is the over-the-top slimeball racist and you love him for it. (Leo was snubbed so hard for not being nominated for this role and I will never get over it.) Stephen, however, lies low until he finds the perfect opportunity to strike and ruin everything for Django and Hildy. What really sells it is those underhanded ways that Stephen tries to bring Django as low as he can, like after Django says he gives up and Stephen says, “I can’t hear you, ni**a!” or before Django is sent off to the Le Quint Dickie mining company to work until he dies and he rubs it in his face, saying, “That will be the story of you.”

What’s so brilliantly hateable about Stephen, for me, is two things: (1) that Django brings up how a black slaver is lower than the head of the house and (2) how his role reflects how the Number One killer of black men in America is other black men. Remember that serious Stink Eye Stephen gave Django when he rode up? He knew from the second he laid eyes on him that he was going to find a way to destroy him, regardless of who he was or how he got there. He saw Django’s choice to do that with his freedom and thought that he didn’t deserve it, so he’d take it away anyway he could.

Then there’s his true role over all that surpasses the time and the setting and becomes relevant now. Sure, racism is still going strong and has a long way to go before it’s better for people of color, but trust me nobody hates black people like other freakin’ black people. Stephen is the perfect representation of a “hater”, not the stupid shallow people rappers complain about in their lyrics. A true hater is someone who wants what you have or hates that you have a purpose or quality about yourself that they don’t and makes it their personal mission to bring you down by any means necessary. Stephen is the worst kind of betrayer to his own race during the absolute worst time in our collective history, and that’s why his comeuppance is pure gold. Tarantino’s best, if you ask me.

And my personal number one most hateable movie villain in the last twenty years is…

King Stefan from Maleficent (2014)

Played by Sharlto Copley

Played by Sharlto Copley

Unexpected, huh? Well, maybe after I explain you’ll get why this mo’fo tops my list.

I love Maleficent, and I love it more because I didn’t expect to love it. I had just seen Godzilla, which was highly disappointing, and so I went into Maleficent with low expectations, especially since Snow White and the Huntsman was of a similar tone and it was also a huge letdown despite the premise and the awesomeness of Charlize Theron. Then I watched it and instantly fell in love with the story and the gorgeous visuals and the three-dimensional Maleficent in both the protagonist and antagonist role throughout the film. It was an absolute delight and everything I wanted in a fairytale re-telling, especially since I am a dork for a good fantasy film.

But man.

I hate Stefan.

I hate him so much.

Think about it. Maleficent, as an innocent child, very kindly stopped her fellow creatures from smashing little Stefan into paste and built a friendship with a lowly boy who had nothing. She even fell in love with him. How many effing beautiful Angelina Jolie fairies fall in love with short, stumpy little farmboys? He should have worshiped the ground she floated over. But what does he do instead?

He lures her out, drugs her, and is too much of an effing coward to kill her, so he instead steals her wings. Her identity. The things that make her the way she is. Her most prized, precious attributes.

Remember how I mentioned screaming curse words at Lotso during Toy Story 3’s dramatic climax? I didn’t do that with Maleficent.

I slumped down in my chair, glaring at the screen as I watched that coward cut off her wings, and continuously  furiously muttered, “You suck. You suck. You suck. YOU F**KING SUCK!”

I’d have rather Stefan killed her than let her live with the pain of being without her wings and of knowing that the man she fell in love with, the man she gave her heart to, the man who lied and told her that he gave her True Love’s kiss, stole her wings and left her so that he could become king.

I swear, that is a betrayal on a level that is just unreal.

Look, I know the villains on my past two lists have done much worse, but as a woman, I could not help but understand completely why Maleficent did what she did and could not appreciate her more if I tried for later becoming a good person again by the end of the film. Because if it were me? Sheeeeeiiiiit.

Stefan’s ass would be scattered across the damn landscape of his own kingdom.

Some of you have had bad break ups before, male or female, so you might understand why Stefan’s at the top of my list. Nothing is worse than loving someone and then having them betray you, or throw you away as if your entire relationship meant nothing. That’s happened to me before and so Maleficent’s soul-wrenching wail after she woke up without her wings spoke to me on the deepest levels. I’ve made that sound before when someone broke my heart, and that’s why Stefan is without a doubt the lowest creature in the last twenty years’ of films that I’ve watched. No one deserves what Maleficent got. No one should go through something like that, especially not someone so kind and brave.

And I did actually get so worked up at the end of the movie that I suggested Maleficent rip out Stefan’s throat and shove it up his ass.

But you know, that’s just me.

…gee, maybe I’m the greatest villain of all.

Oh well.

Happy Halloween! Don’t forget that She Who Fights Monsters is FREE all day long on Amazon. If you spread the word, take a screenshot and you’ll be added to my mailing list to receive a free e-Book copy of The Holy Dark when it comes out in the spring. Email the screenshot to theblackparadeseries@gmail.com, or if you tweet it, tag me at @misskyokom.

-Kyoko

Kyoko’s Top 18 Most Hateable Villains (Part 2)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 27, 2014
2

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome back to the Kyoko’s Top 18 Most Hateable Movie Villains of the last 20 years! We have more insidious bastards underway, so let’s keep going! Spoilers ahead, as always.

12. Clayton from Tarzan (1999)

Played by Brian Blessed

Played by Brian Blessed

If there’s one thing Disney understands, it’s dastardly villains, and Clayton—while certainly not the worst villain of their Rogues Gallery—is by far one of the easiest villains to hate. What’s so brilliant about Clayton is his escalation from selfish prick to a violent psychopath. He starts off as seeming like a single-minded, pompous a-hole escorting Jane and her father around so he can capture gorillas. For a while, he seems like just an afterthought, but then he slowly creeps his way into the antagonist role by trying to get Tarzan to give him what he wants. Then, he steps completely into the villain position when he manipulates Tarzan’s feelings for Jane in order to find the gorilla’s nest, and by the time Tarzan breaks out of prison to save his family, Clayton is long gone and there’s nothing but a monster left.

The brilliant thing about Clayton is the role reversal. He sees Tarzan and his family as nothing more than savages when in fact, Clayton’s behavior in the climax is the most animalistic thing in the entire film. The best part by far is the fact that he is responsible for his own death by allowing that inhuman rage to take over until it claimed his life.

What makes him hit my hateable villain list is that he so knowingly tricked Tarzan into getting his entire family sold into slavery, or killed, and didn’t give a damn. What’s more is that he rubbed it in Tarzan’s face, saying, “Couldn’t have done it without you.” How petty and nasty do you have to be to slaughter someone’s entire family for money and then have the nerve to laugh about it? Clayton was threatening, imposing, and just plain slimy. People really do not give this movie the credit it deserves and if anything, Clayton demands credit where credit is due if only for being one of the most smug, ruthless villains in all of Disney history.

 

11. Drew from Meet Joe Black (1998)

Played by Jake Weber

Played by Jake Weber

Well, we have another obscure choice here, but I promise I won’t go full Nostalgia Critic on you. Meet Joe Black is a film loosely based on ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ (1934) where Death embodies the body of a handsome young man (Brad Pitt) and shadows Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins), a wealthy communications mogul, in exchange for allowing him to live through his 65th birthday. Bill was scheduled to die, but since Bill has lived such a lavish, wonderful life, Death tells him he can stay alive as long as he guides him through the various things in life that are completely alien to him. Bill gives Death the name ‘Joe Black’, as he has sworn not to reveal Death’s identity to his family, and he begins accidentally upsetting things all over Bill’s life with his curious presence. Consequently, Joe takes a liking to Bill’s daughter Susan (Claire Forlani) and she reciprocates, which pisses off her boyfriend Drew, who just happens to be part of the board of directors at her father’s company and is unknowingly a mole trying to steal it right out from under the old man.

What makes Drew so insidious is the fact that he’s sleeping with Bill’s daughter while knowing he’s a few steps away from stealing the old man’s company and leaving him with nothing. Since the story starts in media res, we’re never told if Drew started dating Susan to get close to Bill or if he just happened to like her, and it’s that much more distasteful without knowing. He’s such an arrogant little shit when you consider Bill treated him with respect and took him in as one of them and all Drew could think about was dismantling Bill’s company and selling it.

Furthermore, Drew placed high on this list because he also used another member of Bill’s family to bring him down: Quince (Jeffrey Tambor), who is married to Bill’s eldest daughter, Allison (Marcia Gay Harden). Quince mistakenly thinks that Joe is making decisions for Bill, which is against a code of conduct with the company, and accidentally tells Drew, which gives Drew the perfect opportunity to vote Bill out as CEO, meaning Drew now has the power to sell Parrish Communications. Wow. That’s two family members he’s screwed over with no regard for how it will affect them, not to mention Bill himself.

Drew is one of the best embodiments of greed that I’ve seen in years. He has one end goal and he will tear through as many people as he can to get it. Honestly, I was kind of wishing Joe broke protocol and just sent his weasel ass to hell, but since Drew does get some pretty great comeuppance, I can live with it.

 

 10. Mike from Why Did I Get Married? (2007)

Played by Richard T. Jones

Played by Richard T. Jones

Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of Tyler Perry. I think he has exactly two good movies and that’s it (Diary of a Mad Black Woman and The Family That Preys, if you’re curious). To his credit, the plays he made before he got famous were also pretty damn good, but now he’s just a victim of selling out. Selling out doesn’t mean making money; it means trading in your talent for making a quick buck. There has been no effort put into the man’s work in the last 5-7 years, and I think Why Did I Get Married was the first step down his path to failure.

For those who are fortunate enough to sidestep Tyler Perry films, Why Did I Get Married is a film about four couples who get together once every year to reevaluate and work on their marriages during a couples’ retreat. Mike is married to Sheila (Jill Scott) and has been cheating on her for God-knows how long, but she refuses to see it because she thinks his mistreatment of her is due to her obesity.

I do admit that part of Mike’s hateability stems from bad writing. We are introduced to him and soon find out there is literally nothing to like about this man. He is a complete and total asshole. He insults Sheila in front of anyone within hearing range. For instance, when she is told she can’t fly with him to the retreat due to her size/weight, he tells her to rent a car and drive there and just flies without her. Oh, and did I mention the girl he’s cheating on Sheila with (a) is also going on the retreat with him and (b) is Sheila’s “best friend”? Yep. Class act, that Mike.

What truly tears it for me is two scenes: (1) when Sheila goes shopping and finds a lovely silk gown to wear for Mike and he literally laughs in her face after she shows it to him and then goes to bed (2) when he finally reveals he’s been cheating on her after all this time and cops an attitude when she is speechless. Nothing gets my goat like a bad husband in movies, especially one who constantly dumps on a sweet naïve woman like Sheila. I do blame her for being in denial about it and for marrying a guy who seriously never shows one single positive quality from introduction to the end of the film, but the thing is that there are so many women who let themselves be bullied by guys like Mike. I can understand falling out of love with someone, but Mike is so hateable because he was a coward for not simply divorcing her and starting a new relationship. Even if he was worried about money or whatever, he had no excuse not to just leave her instead of sticking around to poke holes in her confidence and put her down constantly. That kind of guy, fictional or not, is the kind of guy who needs an honest-to-God no-holds-barred beatdown. Preferably by someone the size of The Rock. Curb-stomp his ass, for all I care. Mike is easily one of the worst fictional husbands the silver screen has ever seen, and any man like him deserves nothing short of getting their ass kicked.

 

9. Professor James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

Prof Moriarty A Game of Shadows

Played by Jared Harris

Yes, the game is afoot. I love the RDJ-Jude Law-Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes from 2009. It had impeccable style, excellent music, glorious action, kick ass cinematography, and fresh spins on the characters we’ve known for decades. But that’s the first movie. The sequel? Eh. Less so.

Moriarty has been played by plenty of men since he first waltzed into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, but Jared Harris definitely did a good job making you despise this man to his absolute core. There are just so many reasons to hate him. He is arrogant, smug, has no regard for human life, vicious, conniving, and self-worshiping. Holmes may be an obsessive jerk at times, but he is nothing short of an angel in comparison to Moriarty. This man would doom entire countries for his own glory and he practically revels in the misery he causes others.

Normally, this would just make him your garden-variety villain, but there is one thing that separates Moriarty from someone like Lord Blackwood from the first film.

He kills Irene Adler.

You know, the literal best thing about the first movie.

That’s right, folks. The best female character I’ve seen in years gets Stuffed Into a Fridge thanks to Professor frickin’ Moriarty, and that’s why I hate him so much.

Irene Adler gave me air. I loved Holmes and Watson running around snarking up a storm and kicking ass, but Irene did all of that and she looked fabulous doing it. She was gutsy and smart and effective and powerful and relevant. You don’t know how rare that is for a male-centric film like Sherlock Holmes, and Moriarty just kills her like she was nothing. Screw that, and screw him. I was rooting for Holmes to throw his ass off that balcony for the fact that he took that great of a female character away from me.

Call me biased, but I call it like I see it. Destroy all of Britain if you want, but you take Irene away and it’s on.

 

 8. William Johns from Pitch Black (2000)

Played by Cole Hauser

Played by Cole Hauser

Pitch Black is one of the best thriller sci-fi horror films ever, hands down. It reinvented the survivor alien flick the way that Alien helped the entire genre find its footing. No one does it like Pitch Black, not even that sorry-ass sequel from 2013 that no one talks about because we pretend it doesn’t exist.

If for some reason you live in a cave and didn’t see it, Pitch Black is Vin Diesel’s claim to fame about a transport vessel that gets caught in a meteor storm and crashlands on a hostile alien planet. Said aliens are a race of bloodthirsty creatures that can only survive in the dark, and the planet just so happens to have an eclipse on the way, so the race is on to get the ship repaired and get off planet before the eclipse. There’s just one hitch. One of the crew members is an acclaimed serial killer named Riddick and he might pick them all off or simply take the ship and leave them to die.

Johns is the bounty hunter who captured Riddick and was taking him to a maximum security prison before they crash-land, so tensions are high. His character is easily one of the best written villains in the genre because he starts out much like your typical alpha male hero, but then you peel back some layers and you find the monster within. For instance, right after the ship crashes, one of the crew members is impaled through the chest with a piece of metal and when Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) tries to find the morphine to ease his pain before he dies, Johns pretends like he doesn’t know what happened to it. We find out later Johns is a morphine-addict and couldn’t even spare one vial—that he had dozens of, mind you—to allow that poor man a peaceful death. After that, we find out he’s not as brave and commanding as he wants us to believe, picking a fight with Carolyn before they leave in the dark to get to the ship and once they’re out in the dark and they lose more survivors.

The final point-of-no-return for Johns is when he suggests they need bait to keep the killer aliens off their backs, so he conspires with Riddick to kill one of them and drag their body behind them to keep the aliens occupied. One of the survivors is Jack, a young girl pretending to be a boy, and Johns tells Riddick to kill her. Riddick takes exception to that, to say the least.

Johns is so very easy to hate, but the cleverness of his character is that he is such a good foil for Riddick. The entire film builds up Riddick’s reputation and you are led to believe he’s nothing more than a ruthless murderer, but then you see that he’s actually more of a survivor, not a killer. Johns is the reason they didn’t get the ship ready in time. Johns is the reason so many of the crew members died. Johns is the real killer here, but he puts on an air of righteousness because Riddick is a criminal and they have a past. He’s nothing more than a coward with a big gun, and what’s more hateable than that?

 

7. Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Played by Tony Jay

Played by Tony Jay

It’s kind of impossible to pick a favorite animated Disney film, but gun to my head I’d say Hunchback of Notre Dame might be mine. It’s so fantastic, and most of that has to do with the fact that it’s so not a kids’ movie. This movie is deep. It deals with the kinds of issues that children don’t start understanding until they hit the double-digits, and that’s perhaps why it’s not one of the more popular Disney films, especially considering the deadly serious source material.

People often make lists of the most evil Disney villains, and for me personally, Frollo always wins. I mean, let me lay it out on paper for you (so to speak). Here you have a corrupt minister who has been viciously chasing down a gypsy woman and when he finally catches her and kills her (ON SCREEN, PEOPLE—HE KICKS HER IN THE FACE, AND SHE FALLS AND BREAKS HER NECK HOLY CRAP), then he turns his hatred on an innocent misshapen baby. Whom he then decides to drown until the archdeacon changes his mind. Oh, so maybe he finally grows a conscience and reforms as he raises the child—NOPE. He then gives the baby a name that means “half-formed”, and turns him into his personal slave, all the while filling the boy’s head with lies that he is a monster and no one will ever love him so he has to stay locked away forever serving his master.

Okay, so he’s not father of the year, maybe he has other qualities—oh, what’s that? The beautiful gypsy girl you want for your own stands up to you? Order her to be arrested and given to you or you’ll burn her at the stake? Then find out she has a secret place for her people and smoke them out and threaten to kill them all if she doesn’t come forward? Then when you do find her, you burn her at the stake claiming she’s a witch? Then you try to murder her and the poor boy you turned into a slave with your sword?

No, that’s perfectly understandable, Frollo. Who wouldn’t do all of that?

Seriously, people, Frollo is by far the most evil Disney villain of all time. I mean, come on. He’s just the most posturing, sadistic sick freak to ever be animated by that company. No matter how bad our other villains have been, you have a member of the church who full-on advocates genocide and then has the nerve to lust after one of the women of the race he is actively trying to eliminate. There isn’t enough room in Hell for all that evil. Frollo is hands-down always going to be the most evil person in all of Disney, and I think they are hard-pressed to create someone as horrid again.

Just like they’d be hard-pressed to make another villain song that damn scary-good.

Who will top the charts? Find out in Part 3!

In Which Orlando Jones Broke Kyoko M

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 21, 2014
0

Category: Author Events

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So this afternoon, Orlando Jones, actor/comedian extraordinaire, was asking for book recommendations. Being me, I of course jokingly tweeted: “Maybe next you can read my FREE urban fantasy novel starring a black woman [link] #NOSHAMEINMYGAME.”

Then I giggled at my own silliness and wandered off to draw for an hour.

I came back to discover the following:

ORLANDO JONES BOUGHT MY BOOK WTF

Orlando Jones bought The Black Parade.

…

Guys, I was totally kidding but he really went and got my book.

I made a sound only dogs could hear.

I told my mother and she and I proceeded to run around my bedroom screaming “Oh my GOD!” like a couple of insane people.

I just felt the need to document this life-altering moment. I’m still convinced I’m in the Twilight Zone and the twist ending hasn’t happened yet. One of my favorite actors bought my novel. Yep. This is definitely the best thing ever.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here in the corner in the fetal position breathing into paper bags.

Oh, and go follow him on Twitter because he is HILARIOUS and he live-tweets Sleepy Hollow when it airs Mondays at 9:00pm.

 

 

Kyoko’s Top 18 Most Hateable Villains (Part 1)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 20, 2014
4

Category: Book & Movie Reviews, Uncategorized

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Halloween is a celebration of all kinds of things, but what most of us focus on other than stuffing our faces with candy is remembering all the creeps, ghouls, goblins, and nasties that are associated with this holiday. While people like the Nostalgia Critic are out there naming their favorite Halloween classics, I actually want to use our beloved holiday to discuss a different type of evil. For this year, I want to focus on the most hateable movie villains in the last 20 years.

Now, my definition of “most hateable” isn’t the same as “best villains in the last 20 years.” I’m not talking about the overall effectiveness of the villain or how well they were written. This list is for the 18 villains from my favorite movies who just made me want to reach my hands into the television and strangle them to death. I’m talking about villains who wormed their way under my skin and made it personal instead of just being an obstacle for our heroes. It’s time to salute those bastard-coated bastards with bastard fillings this Halloween, so let’s get started. Spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution.

18. Alice Ward from The Fighter (2010)

 

Played by Melissa Leo

Played by Melissa Leo

A lot of Oscar Bait films get a reputation they don’t deserve, but for once, The Fighter is actually worth the hype. It’s a damn good movie. I’d argue it’s Mark Wahlberg’s best performance to date, and it’s also Christian Bale’s most compelling performance put to film. That being said, there’s a reason both Christian Bale AND Melissa Leo won Oscars for these roles.

Alice Ward is Micky’s overbearing mother, and that’s the simplified version. You would think in a film about a struggling small town boxer with a drug addict brother would cast other boxers as the main antagonists, but no. This film was brilliant in that the most formidable opponent Micky faces is not the boxers, but his hellbitch of a mother. She does all the classic bad mother things, but then amps them up to ridiculous heights.

She’s petty, selfish, manipulative, poisonous, and just plain nasty, but she also puts on this façade of motherly affection in order to get what she wants. It’s incredible. Micky has been living in his brother’s shadow his entire life thanks to the famous fight where Dicky allegedly knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard, and his mother is just as responsible for Micky’s troubles as his crackhead brother. She is constantly shoving him aside to give Dicky the attention and completely overlooks Micky’s needs in order to get what she wants. She dumps the responsibility for their entire clan on Micky and expects him to just be fine with it because he’s “family.” She’s a piece of work in epic proportions.

However, she’s low on the list because we find out that deep down, she really does love both of her sons but she is just so wrapped up in her control freak role that she can’t show them the motherly affection they both need and deserve. It’s one hell of a performance and you shouldn’t miss it.

 17. Don Rafael Montero from The Mask of Zorro (1998)

 

Played by Stuart Wilson

Played by Stuart Wilson

The Mask of Zorro is one of my all-time favorite films. Ask my brother and my parents. I can’t stop watching it. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Hell, it taught me how to write sexual tension and witty banter and I still love it to this very day. It’s got everything you need—humor, romance, swashbuckling action, a killer soundtrack, and one of the best ensemble casts to date. Plus, people of color! Nothing makes me happier than a phenomenal film with a majority diverse cast.

Don Rafael Montero is Diego de la Vega’s archnemesis for a reason. At first, he seems like your typical slimy, corrupt politician, but in reality, he is so much more than that. If you missed out on the story, he was a cruel bastard ruling over the peasant folk and Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) sought to drive him out of California forever. Don Rafael figures out Diego is Zorro, and it also turns out that he has designs on Diego’s beautiful wife, Esperanza. They fight to the death, and one of Don Rafael’s soldier’s mistakenly shoots Esperanza, killing her. They apprehend Diego and send him to jail, but Rafael takes custody of Diego’s infant daughter, Elena, and raises her as his own.

It’s amazing how arrogant a man can be to insist that a woman should be with him when she has no love for him at all, and that he has the nerve to kidnap the child of his most hated enemy and raise her as his own. That’s staggering. What’s worse is that this sick man actually did seem to genuinely love Elena even though he lied to her and tried to kill her real father so she would never know the truth. It takes a special kind of villain to twist all that misery into something else, and it’s why Montero left a lasting impression on me from my childhood to now.

16. Chris D’Amico from Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

 

Played by Christopher-Mintz Plasse

Played by Christopher-Mintz Plasse

Disclaimer: I love the first Kick Ass movie. It was fun, funny, irreverent, and the perfect satire for our superhero film revolution.

The second one? Not so much.

It was forgettable, except for one singular factor. That factor is Chris D’Amico.

If ever I could shoot a teenager in the face and get away with it, I’d shoot Chris with a shotgun point blank and sleep like a baby that night.

My God. Not only was he an immature jackass with no talent, too much money, and mouth that wouldn’t close, but he was as ineffectual as any villain can be, and that’s why he’s so hateable. Good villains have backstory and weight to their characters. They have flair. They have that x-factor that makes them formidable against our heroes. Chris D’Amico was nothing more than a spoiled, ignorant little brat, and even though he gets his comeuppance in the end, it’s not enough. There is nothing worse than a pathetic villain who just makes the hero’s life hell for a singular, paper-thin reason. Sure, Kick Ass killed his father, but guess what? His father was an evil bastard and was in the process of trying to murder a child whose father he also murdered. Not a big loss there, kiddo.

What’s more is with all that money and power, Chris could’ve chosen to do all kinds of things instead of get revenge, but he decided it would be better to become a murdering psychopath instead. For that and so many other reasons, I hate his freaking guts.

 

15. Eddie Martel from The Replacements (2001)

 

Played by Brett Cullen

Played by Brett Cullen

This villain is a bit more obscure, so bear with me, but I love The Replacements. It’s this delightfully off-beat football movie with an all-star cast of misfits, plenty of hard hits, and a plethora of laughs. It’s like if you took The Longest Yard and Community and put them in a blender. It’s great.

Martel, for me, made it onto the list for the single reason of just being a bully. An exceptional bully. I was blown away by the fact that this grown ass man—this professional athlete—was so incredibly petty and arrogant despite the life he’d been given. First, for going on the strike for more money considering the millions he was already getting paid; second, for bullying Shane Falco for no reason other than to just be an asshole; third, for ragging on a deaf guy for being deaf (yes, he really did that and thank God, got his ass kicked immediately afterward); and finally, for being a lousy player and all around jackass during the most important game of the Sentinels’ career.

There’s just nothing quite like an honest-to-God bully. They do things that make your mind implode because they think they have earned the right to treat people like crap. What troubles me about villains like Martel is that a lot of them are based on true stories, like this one, and they don’t get as much comeuppance as they should. Martel and those like him are a class act and make you wish you were a 300 lb. sumo wrestler so you could teach them some manners.

 

14. Mother Gothel from Tangled (2010)

 

Played by Donna Murphy

Played by Donna Murphy

I could rave about Tangled for hours, if you let me. It’s easily one of Disney’s best and certainly the best thing they’ve put out in the current decade. There are all kinds of reasons why I love it, and I have to admit Mother Gothel is one of them, which is why it was so hard to decide if she should be on my list or not.

The reason I almost didn’t put her on this list is because Mother Gothel is such an effective force of evil. She’s an amazing villain, one of Disney’s best, in my opinion. For that reason, I almost don’t hate her because she’s so good at being a devious, selfish monster, but she made it onto the list for that very reason.

How sick do you have to be to steal someone’s daughter and raise them as your own just so you can remain beautiful? Vanity. The deepest, cruelest, most awful kind of vanity is how. At first glance, Mother Gothel seems horrible, but when you consider she spent 18 years pretending to love Rapunzel just to use her hair, it reaches an entirely new level of evil. The fact that she could look Rapunzel in the eyes and say she loves her and not mean it is unspeakable. What a heartless witch. Then Mother Gothel murders the love of Rapunzel’s life right in front of her before forcing her into a life of slavery? Are you kidding me? There are black holes in space right now that aren’t that bloody cold and empty. She is one of the foulest villains ever spawned in fiction and as much as I adore that lovely singing voice, I was rooting for her to bite the big one by the end.

 

13. General Ross from The Incredible Hulk (2008)

 

Played by William Hurt

Played by William Hurt

I think this Marvel Cinematic Universe film doesn’t get enough love. Sure, it’s no Iron Man or Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but I still think it was a damn fine movie in and of itself. It had solid acting, great action, and tied in nicely with the building Marvel continuity. I thought Edward Norton was so easy to love and root for, and that’s in part due to the epic douchebaggery of General Ross.

General Ross is yet another villain whose arrogance simply astounds me. How can you look at something as destructive and uncontrollable as the Hulk and say to yourself, “Yes, I should not only own this power, but be able to use it against my enemies.” Are you smoking crack, General? I understand that science has come a long way, but you are so out of your league that it’s not even funny.

If for a second I could forget about his epic bad idea of wanting to replicate the Hulk for the U.S. government, then there’s the fact that he’s so nasty and vindictive about capturing Bruce, who did nothing wrong but be a victim of a freak accident. It’s even worse that he alienated his only daughter Betty for hunting down the love of her life and didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass that he ruined both their lives and chances for happiness. A single-track mind like that just needs an epic punch to the ‘nads, if you ask me. Of the Marvel villains, he’s one of my most hated because he just doesn’t care about anything except power and he uses everything he can get his hands on to take it.

Here is Part 2 and Part 3!

Also, I’m officially announcing that She Who Fights Monsters is having a Halloween sale. It will be FREE all day October 31, 2014. I’ll add a link for it in my third and final installment of my most hateable villains post that Friday.

-Kyoko

The Paranormal 13 Box Set

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 17, 2014
0

Category: Author Events, Book & Movie Reviews

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Ain’t she a beaut?

So you like The Black Parade. Would you like to read other books in the paranormal genre?

FOR FREE?

Of course you do.

Then boogie on over here and pick up a free copy of The Paranormal 13: tales of werewolves, vampires, ghosts, demons, mermaids, Norse gods, and much more! It’s a collaboration of 13 authors and 14 novels for your reading pleasure. Here are the novel titles and authors:

Darkangel by Christine Pope
Twin Souls by K.A. Poe
The Girl by Lola St Vil
Rest for the Wicked by Cate Dean
Drowning Mermaids by Nadia Scrieva
Wolves by C. Gockel
The Witch Hunter by Nicole R Taylor
Beyond the Fortuneteller’s Tent by Kristy Tate
Nolander by Becca Mills
The Medium by C.J. Archer
Dream Student by J.J. DiBendetto
Deception by Stacy Claflin
The Black Parade by Kyoko M
The Thought Readers by Dima Zales

Just in time for Halloween, too! Don’t forget to also add the box set on Goodreads and give it a review when you’re done with them all.

And while we’re discussing Halloween, check out my review of Guillermo del Toro’s new animated film, The Book of Life. It was fantastic, and what’s more, it’s fantastically diverse. 99% of the cast is people of color. You can’t beat that.

In honor of the macabre holiday, check back here on Monday for the Most Hateable Movie Villains in the last 20 years. It’ll be tons of fun.

Kyo out.

The Holy Dark Excerpt

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 13, 2014
6

Category: Author Events, Uncategorized

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,

The_Holy_Dark_3_final_Front

Are you excited for the final installment to the Black Parade series? You should be! If not, here’s another sneak peek of what’s to come.

Read The Holy Dark Chapter 1.

CHAPTER TWO

JORDAN

Hospitals gave me the creeps. All of them, no exceptions. Part of the reason was an inherent childhood fear thanks to the psychiatric hospital that had abducted my mother when I was five years old. The other part was thanks to two archdemons who kidnapped me and tried to kill me two years ago inside a hospital. Still, I ignored the tiny voice inside me that screamed for me to get the hell out and continued my way through the hallway of the Outpatient medical center. Every time a doctor passed by, I flinched and tried not to look at their bright white lab coats. It was ridiculous. I had killed bloodthirsty monsters from another plane of existence and saved the world twice yet a stupid piece of clothing made me want to run and hide.

I reached the room in less than a minute; mostly because I had been walking so fast to the average person it looked like running. My hand froze on the doorknob. I stood there, breathing heavily, remembering the last thing Lauren said to me a year ago. She’d hung up on me, her voice icy as she told me goodbye. Was she still angry? How badly was she hurt? What could I even do about it? What was I doing here, truly?

I took a deep breath. You’re just checking on her, Amador. Man up and do it.

I opened the door. The room was freezing cold. I had to resist the urge to button up my duster to shut out the chill. There were a couple of other patients dozing in their beds. I walked past them, searching for her. She was in the last bed to my right.  My chest constricted as I saw her for the first time in almost a year.

Lauren was a couple inches taller than me with straight black hair that used to make me envious. Mine had to be treated to get that perfect glossy look that fell around the shoulders, but hers was natural. She was Korean, buxom, obnoxious, and hilarious. Her nails were painted blue this time instead of pink or purple. She’d been in the hospital for several hours so they’d cleaned her up a bit, meaning she had no makeup on. She looked years younger than her age of twenty-seven.

Her right arm was in a cast and a sling, resting against her stomach. There was a bruise on her cheek as well. They said she got mugged. I hoped they caught the bastard. Hell, I hoped I caught the bastard so I could teach him some manners.

Lauren opened her eyes, sending a sharp jolt of fear and surprise through my gut. I’d hoped she wouldn’t wake up just yet. Her gaze wandered around for a few seconds, probably a result of the painkillers, before settling on me.

I offered her a weak smile. “Hey, Lauren.”

Her voice came out hoarse. “Jordan?”

“Yeah. I, uh, hopped on the first thing smoking to get here. It was shitty, by the way. The carry on alone put me back eighty bucks. Don’t ever fly with—”

“Get out.”

I managed to cap my nervous verbal diarrhea, staring at her. “What did you say?”

She raised her voice, glaring a hole through my head. “Get. Out.”

I stepped forward, imploring her. “Lauren, I know you’re mad, but please, just let me explain—”

“I’m not going to tell you again. Get out!” she shouted, scaring the guy in the bed across from us awake. I had never heard her sound like that, not to me, only to her scumbag ex-husband. Guilt gnawed through my insides. I had been right. She was still angry, and understandably so.

“Okay. I’ll go. I just…wanted to check on you,” I mumbled, turning away from the fury in those brown eyes. I shuffled out of the room and collapsed in a chair in the hallway. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried the pain inside me as deep as I could. I felt ashamed of myself. I wanted to go back home and crawl under the covers and hide. But that wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t matter if she had disowned me. I still had to make it up to her, somehow. Too bad if it ripped a new scar in my hide. I had plenty as it was.

Time dripped off the clock. I stayed where I was, mentally constructing a speech that would hopefully get me back into her good graces. Sometime during this process, a nurse tapped me on the shoulder.

I glanced up to see a pretty black woman, mid-thirties. “She’s asking for you.”

“Huh?”

“Ms. Yi. She wants to see you.”

I checked my watch. Holy hell. I’d been here four hours and didn’t realize it. I nodded too many times and stood up, wobbling on account of my legs falling asleep. I opened the door and made my way back to her bed, expecting the worst.

“Um, you called for me?”

Lauren stared me down for at least a minute. I tried my hardest not to fidget. At last, she spoke and her tone was still disapproving.

“Why are you here?”

“I had to make sure you were alright.”

“Oh, so now you care?”

I shut my eyes for a second. “Yes. I do.”

“What do you want me to say? Are you expecting me to forgive you?”

“No, not really. You’re pretty stubborn. Besides, if I were in your ridiculously high Prada heels, I’d be mad too.”

The ghost of a smirk touched her lips. I almost felt better. I wasn’t much of a friend, but I could make jokes until the end of the world. Which, come to think of it, might one day be my fault.

“Well, I didn’t call you in here to forgive you,” she said, sitting up a bit against her pillows. “I called you in here to ask you a question.”

“What?”

“Why did a man claiming to be a demon follow me home and break my arm?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Want to be the first to see the rest of Chapter 2? Sign up for the mailing list and get the next chapter right in your Inbox. You can also add it to your Goodreads To Be Read shelf.

Stay tuned for more announcements coming soon! In case you missed it, the official plot reveal is here.

 

Why Bother? The Two Deadliest Words to a Self-Published Author

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 9, 2014
1

Category: Inspiration

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You said it, Daria.

You said it, Daria.

Y’know what sucks? Being unemployed and your books not selling at the same time.

It’s not just the lack of money, either. I’ve been unemployed before back when my second retail job went under thanks to rent issues in 2012. The funny thing is, the first month is kind of a like a honeymoon period. You wake up when you want to, do what you want to, don’t do what you don’t want to, and feel this general sense of relaxation since you don’t have a set schedule as you don’t have to go to work anymore. You sleep pretty well and you have the free time to do practically anything.

Then it wears off.

Then the stress starts.

Okay, so it’s not like you thought getting hired for your dream job was going to be easy. It’s going to take time. You throw yourself into your writing while you’re praying to God (and sacrificing a goat just in case Satan’s listening) someone hires you. After all, your sales have been pretty consistent for the past few months and you’re slowly building readers, right?

Kevin Spacey WRONG

Out of the blue, September hits you with the biggest sales flat-line since you started self-publishing. I’m talking you don’t even make it into double digit sales per week. You close out your September sales with less money than you made in literally four hours at your previous day job. And October is looking to be the exact same way.

No big deal. Deep breath. You can totally handle it. It’s not like you became an author to get rich. It’s probably easier and more lucrative to sell crack than be a self-published author, after all. You’re in this because you love writing and you love stories and you want to share the reading/writing experience with your fellow man. That’s easy enough. It’s what the Internet is for—connecting people together across vast distances.

Except you kind of suck at it.

Twitter? Not that many followers. You get maybe a handful of replies per week. Maybe you should redirect your energy.

Tumblr? Oh, don’t talk about your book. No one cares unless it’s a natural recommendation from a book nerd. Just write occasional fanfics and reblog handsome celebrities and social justice speeches. Anything else and you get unfollowed en masse.

Facebook? Only a tenth of the people who liked your page see your posts, and even less than that like your posts? Right. Uh, keep trying. Maybe it’ll get better.

Then you’re lying in bed for a while, watching television because it’s a fantastic distraction from the horrible current state of your life, your manuscript untouched for days, and then a quiet little voice whispers in your ear the scariest words to any self-published author:

“Why bother?”

“What?” you sputter back indignantly.

“Why bother?” the voice continues. “What’s the point of putting yourself through this misery? You’ve been writing your whole life with nothing to show for it but a couple fans and a pocketful of change. You can’t make friends. You can’t get through to readers. You can’t even make enough money to get your own place by yourself. Just give up. You gave it your best shot. You’d make twice the money if you just settled for a job like your old day job. You’re never going to be the female Richard Castle. You’re never going to be a bestselling author of any sort. Better to figure that out now than before you use up all your savings and die in a gutter somewhere.”

“That’s pretty melodramatic,” you scoff.

“But it’s not far from the truth. Aren’t you tired of this? Aren’t you tired of being a nobody? Of putting yourself out there and almost never getting anything out of it?”

“I have gotten stuff out of it!” you argue. “I’ve met people! Not a lot of them, but enough. And I’ve met some really cool people who think my work is great.”

“Yes, and I’m sure you can pay your student loan bills with reviews,” the voice muses.

You hesitate. This a-hole has a point. Maybe you’re just being stubborn, chasing this dream of yours. Maybe it’s time you grew up and did what thousands of people do every day—shelve the dream in order to make a living. After all, you can’t get what you want. Who reads your work is beyond your control. You can’t hold a gun to your readers’ heads and order them to buy your books. You can’t threaten Bookbub into accepting your book. You can’t convince bloggers to review and spread word of your book on your own. Maybe it is time to throw in the towel. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe your work isn’t that good. Maybe it never will be. You have too many bills to pay. Time to get real.

But then you think about Stephen King’s On Writing. You think about how that man spent the better part of thirty years trying to get his feet beneath him, facing hundreds of rejections day in and day out. Sure, you’re nowhere near as good, but he’s fantastic and even he had to wade through the long stretch of no one knowing who he was or caring about the work he poured his sweat, blood, and liquor into.

“No one cared who I was until I put on the mask,” Bane said in The Dark Knight Rises. The fictional villain had a point. Nobody cares who you are. They won’t care until you’ve made it to the Big Time. Right now, it feels like you’ll never make it, but you’ll definitely never make if you give up. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll never be anything more than an underground author with a tiny fanbase of less than 100 people.

But guess what?

There is one goal you’re still meeting. You’re sharing your story with others, even if it’s not as many of them as you’d like. People are reading your work. People have made the choice to sit down one afternoon with your characters when they could be reading Stephen King or James Patterson or Suzanne Collins or J.K. Rowling. They said yes to you when they said no to so many others. For better or worse, they stuck with you, even if they end up disliking the book, even if they don’t want to move on through your series.

And that is why you still bother.

“Screw you!” you say cheerfully to the voice. “Maybe I’ll always struggle and not be where I want to be, but at least I met my original goal and not even you can take that away from me.”

The voice grumbles and shuffles off to that dark place in the back of your head, kicking over trash cans along the way. You turn off the television—well, after that Castle marathon on TNT ends—and crack your knuckles and open your Word document and get back to work.

You are a poor self-published vagrant and you’ve got work to do.

So keep doing it, against all odds, even those your own doubts and fears present.