Joss Whedon is literally the worst

Or perhaps the best, depending on how you look at it.

You know those text posts on Tumblr that talk about a whole bunch of writers who are in like, an evil club because they kill off their main characters and they're absolutely horrible and heartbreaking and you hate them but you love them? And they usually involve picking on Stephenie Meyer because she's a shitty writer for not killing anyone (which isn't true-- there's plenty of other reasons she's a shitty writer).

Well, I'm familiar with the work of most of the writers that are included on those lists: Joss Whedon, JK Rowling, John Green, Steven Moffat, etc.

And let me just say, Joss Whedon is LITERALLY the worst.

He is the only one who has killed the MAIN, TITLE character. TWICE. And he has killed plenty of other main characters. And probably the worst part is when he shows the other characters dealing with their friends' deaths.

John Green has killed two characters. And you knew Augustus was going to die. Alaska, however, was a bit of a shock, so I'll give him that.

Steven Moffat doesn't kill main characters. He just likes to cheat death in ways that sometimes don't make any sense at all. Cheating death and actually dying aren't the same thing. (Also, River Song wasn't too distressing because I didn't know her well enough to be emotional over her death, and frankly, I still don't care).

JK Rowling does come pretty close, though. Especially with Fred and Dobby and Remus and Tonks. I'm pretty sure I sobbed through the last few chapters, half because of character deaths and half because of it being over.

However, I have both read the Harry Potter books and seen all of Joss Whedon's shows, and I have to say you don't know gut-wrenching, life-ruining, I-want-to-kill-myself, pain over a character death until you've seen the episode of Angel, A Hole In The World. I even knew what was coming: I knew who died, I knew how she died. But when I watched it, nothing could prepare me for the emotions I felt. I have literally never cried that much in my entire life.

If you don't believe me, I'm not going to tell you to watch Angel because if you're reluctant to do so, you won't care as much. But if you like supernatural things with amazing characters, and strong female characters,  you should watch at the very least Buffy and Angel, and experience emotional trauma like never before.

No college anxiety, just excitement

I totally meant to attempt to blog every day in August (or at least frequently), but August came and it completely slipped my mind. Now, it's halfway through the month and I'm remembering that I have a blog. It's not that I've been busy doing other things. I've been distracted by Tumblr and YouTube and not to mention getting ready for college.

I move into my dorm in ten days, and classes start in thirteen days. As of right now, I'm just really excited. I have a great schedule with three hour breaks for lunch every day and only one class on Fridays, and I'll be living with one of my best friends, and I already met an awesome Nerdfighter/Whovian/Felicia Day fan at orientation and we've been talking on Facebook since then so I'm really excited to see her again! I'm excited to be an adult, going to college, studying what I'm passionate about, having more independence, etc.

I honestly don't feel any nervousness at all. That's making me a little scared though, that the night before I move, I'm going to have an anxiety attack or something. I'm hoping that won't happen.

I went shopping for a bunch of dorm stuff last week, and we were able to check most things off my list. We got plates, bowls, cups, utensils, hampers, storage things, shower caddy, pillow, sheets, etc. We even got a bunch of basic things like toothpaste and shampoo and deodorant and floss. I'm going to Target tomorrow to hopefully get everything else.

I just absolutely cannot wait to start school. It's a new chapter of my life. I'm going to learn so many new things and meet so many new people! And it's the first step on my journey of becoming a screenwriter and living my dream.

In other news, I'm starting a collab channel on YouTube with some other people about college. We're in a few different years and we're all studying different things and we're going to talk about our college experience and what we're learning, and we'll possibly have weekly discussion topics. We're planning on hopefully starting the first week of September, so keep your eyes open for that.

Best wishes!

p.s. When I clicked "new post", I had absolutely no idea what I was going to talk about, I just knew I wanted to write a blog post. This is what came out of that.

So many things to do!

It's summer, and I'm surprised I haven't made more blog posts over summer, but I've been distracted.  It's so nice to have a summer where I don't have any homework or reading or studying to do.  It's amazing to have so much free time to do whatever I want. Then again, most of my friends either live too far, can't drive, or are always busy, so I haven't seen my friends too much... I've mostly spent that free time on the Tumblr, YouTube, or Netflix.

There are so many things I need to do this summer, and I only have one month and two days left.  I'm trying to watch about five different tv shows.  There's also about ten books I want to read.  Plus, I've recently been wanting to reread Harry Potter and my John Green books.  I also want time to play Lego Harry Potter on the Wii, because I just got that.  I want time to do mindless scrolling through Tumblr.  I want time to write.  I want time to catch up on YouTube videos.

And on top of all that, I have to go shopping for college stuff and pack things and just get ready for this big change from high school to college.

I'm excited for college. I'm not really nervous at all.  My roommate is one of my best friends from high school, I have an amazing schedule (with only one class on Fridays!), and I already made some awesome new friends at orientation last month.  I'm excited to start learning.  I'm excited to get my core classes done so I can just study film and television.  I'm excited to meet new people and have new experiences and to just grow as a person!

But before that, I have a lot of things to do.

Les Miserables review

Tonight, I was able to see a production of Les Miserables at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.  It was my first time seeing the entire musical and let me say, it was phenomenal.  However, coming from my old high school's drama department, I do have a bit of a critic in me, so there are a few things I wanted to talk about.

If you do not know what it's about, I'm not going to summarize it because it's very complicated.  I tried to explain the basic plot to my dad but it still took about twenty minutes because there's so many little things that have to be included!  So if you are unfamiliar with the musical, you can read about it on Wikipedia so you can understand the characters and scenes I'm talking about.

Firstly, I'd like to talk about the set and lighting.  As part of the set, they had this screen that they would project onto to show the background or scenery, and in some cases it moved.  Like when Jean Valjean was carrying Marius through the sewers, they had a sewer image projected onto the screen that moved so it looked like he was traveling through the sewers.  I thought that was very cool.

The lights, though, were a bit less than satisfactory.  The overall lighting and color filters they used were good and fit the mood.  However, there were some times where a performer was not in enough light.  I don't know why, but their faces were in shadow.  There was one scene at the beginning with Javert singing and he was the main focus, but if you hadn't been paying attention, you wouldn't have known which person onstage was him because his face was in shadow and he had the same amount of light as everyone else.  Also, the spotlight that was following people sometimes missed and the people would be out of the light for a few seconds.

Now, to discuss the performers.  There's a lot I could say about them, but I will keep it brief.  The man playing Javert was a great actor, but I couldn't understand what he was saying most of the time.  I already knew some of the lyrics to the songs, so I understood those parts, but the parts that I didn't know sounded like gibberish.  He could articulate a little more.  I think that bothered me so much because articulation is one of the most important things we work on at my old school's theatre program.  The audience needs to understand what you are saying.

Eponine was a phenomenal singer, but I don't think her voice was right for the part.  The girl has an incredible voice, but sometimes, the songs would sound a bit awkward with her voice.  She killed the end of On My Own, though.  I was almost in tears because she sounded so wonderful.  Also, her acting wasn't up to par.  I mean, obviously Eponine would be a difficult character to play, and she did a decent job, but I don't think she really thought about the different layers that went into her character.  She was good, but she could have done a much better job.

I also didn't hate Cosette as much as I thought I would.  I know that there are a lot of people who don't like Cosette, and I'm not quite sure why.  She isn't a bad character.  I think it's mostly because people feel bad for Eponine, and that causes them to hate Cosette.  I love Eponine, but I also really like Cosette too, and  I like her relationship with Marius.  It's what the story needed.  Marius was never in love with Eponine anyway, and Eponine knew that.  If Marius had been torn between Cosette and Eponine, then I might understand people not liking Cosette because he chose her instead, but there was no choice.  He always loved Cosette and they have a good relationship.

I'm not sure if my rant about Cosette is considered complaining, but I'm going to stop complaining now so I don't seem whiny and talk about people I liked.  My favorite actors were those playing Jean Valjean, Fantine, and the inkeeper & his wife.  Those people were absolutely outstanding.  Especially Fantine and Valjean.  I was in tears at Fantine's Death because it was so...beautiful.  I'm not sure that's the right word, but both actors were amazing and brought so much emotion and talent to the scene that it had me in tears.  The other number I really liked was Master of the House.  It was hilarious.

I'm also glad that Fantine and Cosette actually looked like they could be related.  Often, I've seen that Fantine looks more like Eponine than Cosette for some reason, which makes no sense because Cosette is Fantine's daughter.  And then there's the the 25th Anniversary Concert with Lea Salonga as Fantine and Katie Hill as Cosette.  How do you go from Asian to white and blonde?  I don't get it.  But this time they were both blonde, so that was good.

Overall, it was a great production.  I'm actually really excited for the film to come out later this year, and I plan on going to see it at midnight!  I'm also glad that Samantha Barks is Eponine for the film because, of all the different  girls I've seen as Eponine on youtube and such, she is my favorite.

Anyway, I should be getting to bed because I have to be up early tomorrow because I have freshman orientation.  Yay college!  Before I go, I wanted to let you know that I have a new blog on Tumblr for short stories and such that I write, so you can check that out if you'd like at http://deathbypolarbear.tumblr.com/

Until next time.

I'm a high school graduate.

It's been a while since I last blogged, but since then, I've graduated high school.  I know, big accomplishment.

However, I told myself that, since I can drive, I'm actually going to do stuff this summer.  I'm not just going to sit around in bed all day long and I'm going to hang out with my friends.  Well that's not working out so well. I mean, I went to lunch with my friend Caity two weeks ago.  And I've been to two of my friends' graduation parties.  And I went to the swap meet with my mom and my sister last weekend.  But other than that, I've been in bed, not doing anything.

It's not like I don't try to make plans.  I wanted to hang out with a few of my friends on Tuesday, but only one of them was free and he didn't have a ride.  He was trying to get me to battle my conscience to go pick him up illegally (because I'm not eighteen yet).  That didn't work out.  Then I was supposed to hang out with him and a few other people today, but then my friend Bianca said she can't do today and said tomorrow instead.  Let's see how long it takes for tomorrow to fall through...

I mean, I am doing a lot of things this summer, so I'm really excited.  Like, starting next week, I've got a lot coming up!  I'm going to see Les Miserables on Wednesday.  Then, Thursday and Friday is freshman orientation, so I'll get to visit my college again, and I'll get to meet people!  The next weekend is VidCon, which I'm very, very excited for and I will give anything to talk to Felicia Day and Hayley G Hoover sometime that weekend.  I'm also supposed to get together with my director's wife and kids for a Denny's trip because his daughter Karina wants us to, and I have no idea when that will be but I hope it's soon because I miss them a lot!  Then it's July and, well, I'll stop talking about everything I'm doing this summer.

I just want to get out of the house and see some friends, but all of my friends are either busy or can't drive!  Instead, I'm stuck here, in my bedroom, watching old episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix, daydreaming about what it would be like if I were actually a waterbender and wishing that bending was real because then the world would be a better place (and by better, I mean more awesome).

Improv and coffee house

I hope you all enjoyed the poem from last time, and I apologize for not having made another post sooner.  I've been a lot busier than I thought I would be.

I'm not yet ready to say goodbye to performing in high school...  This Friday is a Coffee House and Improv night and I'm performing in both!  The first half, coffee house, is when people can go up and perform whatever they want, be it singing, dancing, a monologue, stand up comedy, whatever you want! Auditions for that were today and I'm singing For Good from Wicked with my friend Lisa, and she'll be playing it on piano.  I didn't know if we were going to do it for sure or not until today at break, so we just practiced for the first time today at break, lunch, and after school.  Except we only had the piano at break, so the rest of the time we were just working on harmonies because I am horrible at them.  I'm singing Glinda's part, but doing the high harmonies that go with Elphaba's part because Lisa can't play piano and harmonize at the same time so she asked me to do it.  And when we went to audition today, there was no piano in the theater, so he just had us sing acapella for our audition.  He said we were fine, just to work on the harmony because I screwed it up again.

And improv is basically like Whose Line is it Anyway.  There's six of us and we do a bunch of improv games and it's a lot of fun.  I did it last semester, and I'm really glad I get to do it again this semester.  I'm also glad that I get to stretch out my time before I have to say goodbye to high school theatre for good.  I'm not looking forward to the drama club banquet in two weeks because that will be a sad day.

ONE. MONTH. UNTIL. GRADUATION.  It's so close but so far...

Poetry?

Last night was closing night for my last ever high school show, The Diviners.  It was...bittersweet.  But I will discuss that later because tonight is prom and I have to get ready soon, so I have something else to leave you with.

About a week ago, Hayley Hoover made a blog post about poetry, and included a poem that she wrote with the prompt for it, inviting her readers to write their own poems based on the prompt.  Now, I'm not much of a poet (excluding that mysterious poet phase I went through a year ago...), but I decided to take a whack at writing a this poem.  I wrote it in class yesterday and the day before, then I reread it today to make sure it doesn't completely suck.  I shall include the prompt too, if you wish to also write a poem.

Warning: my poem contains mild language. Well, not mild exactly.  I kind of drop the F bomb.

In your poem, include at least fourteen of the following items: a statistic, a dish eaten cold, three forms of heat, a smell you can't forget, a line from a movie, something out of a textbook, two things you wish you had said, a reference to an aunt or uncle, some kind of moving vehicle, two words beginning with R and ending with "-ion", a stage direction, two distinct hours of the day, an historical figure, an adhesive, an animal only seen up close in the zoo, a slang expression ("call it quits," for example), something really bad that you did, something that undermines or negates everything else you've said.

Such a big part of my life
I can’t just quit cold turkey.
I want to get out of here, take a car
And drive past midnight
Sleep in until 2 in the afternoon

And they’ll say “Sorry for ending the world”
Well, not the world. My world.
I don’t want to go,
But I can’t be free here.
Like a polar bear, looking so content
But restricted to the confines of his cage.

Do I continue or move on?
Will I never again be told,
“Watch all your firsts,” or “Exit stage left”?
The sweltering heat of thirty bodies backstage
And the scorch of the stage lights.

Will I now only be warm in the sun?
In the sun I only freckle or burn, so
The smell of sunscreen is a familiar one
That reminds me of the summer I long for.

I can stay here and rebel
(In my own, unrebellious way)
Chew gum in class, and when they tell me
To throw it out, I’ll stick it in my textbook,
Binding the monotonous pages together.

But once I’m gone, I’ll want to come back.
I’ll wish I could’ve thanked those who helped me
Or given a big ol’ “FUCK YOU” to the ones I hate.
I can’t just let it go.

Aunt Olivia says she’s proud
When she doesn’t care about this, about me.
And I’ll miss the words of Shakespeare,
Bringing meaning to what others deem gibberish.
But they don’t understand.
I won’t have to let it go completely.
I’ll give this a shot.
I can duct tape my life together:
The new, and the old.

Hopefully you enjoyed it!  Now that my life isn't consumed with rehearsals and performances, I might actually post every day in these last few days of BEDA.  Maybe.

One month and three days until graduation!