Go Die Female Pride

So I was procrastinating doing homework, and I decided, what better way to procrastinate than to read manga. For those of you who don't know, manga is a basically comics. I know that's over simplifying things a bit, but that's really what it is. If you've heard of anime, such as Naruto, or Inuyasha, etc. then think of reading about then, except instead of just words, it's pictures. It's great for passing the time.

Anyways, I'm looking through the manga list on my favorite site called OneManga and I saw this author whose artwork I liked. So I looked at the stories he/she (I'm just going to call the author a she) had written, and the shortest one posted was also complete, so I decided, that's the one I'm going to read. Three short chapters, let's have it.

First off, the rating was mature. I can handle that, I'm mature enough, and I'm old enough. What I wasn't expecting was the message the author delivered. The premise of the story was that a boy (we're going to call him Bob) is in love with his childhood friend (we're going to call her Alice). The boy's a genius and popular, the girl's a nerd who's really dumb. Bob is able to get into a good school while Alice has to go to the"dumb"school, i.e. a community school. Three years later, they meet up again, and Bob decides to tutor Alice, so she can get into his prestigious school, mainly because he likes her and wants to have sex with her.

Alice agrees to his tutoring her, not really knowing his ulterior motive for having her go to his school, but it quickly turns into a sex lesson. And blah blah. Later on, they have sex, he publicly tricks her into admitting in front of her classmates they she loves having sex with him, only Bob can make her feel that good, and he bullies her. Bob also is a pervert who wants to have sex everyday.

So like I said, I can handle the whole, let's have sex whenever we want, but what I really hated was the message. Bob bullies Alice into having sex with him. He blackmails her, saying that if she doesn't have sex, he won't tutor her, which means that she can't get into the "good" school. And so she agrees. What is wrong with her? A better question is, what is wrong with the author? Is this really the message we want to send to young girls? Oh, so your boyfriend says that he loves you (Bob says that to Alice a lot before they have sex) and that he wants to have sex. Go right ahead. Ignore everything else, just go have kinky sex every day, just because he loves you. Because you know, that the "love" is going to last forever.

Another thing the author put in her manga is a girl talking to Bob and telling him that a girl who doesn't lay on her back for any guy, specifically her boyfriend, is the lowest thing there is. Hello? Does that make any sense? My boyfriend says he wants sex, so I'm just going to roll over like an obedient puppy and give him what he wants, because that's all I'm good for. I don't think so. If the author is a woman, which I think it is, then I am really disappointed in her. Manga's are really popular, and here she is, basically telling girls, it's alright if your boyfriend bullies you into having sex, as long as he "loves you" everything is okay. Besides, that's what you're there for, to have sex.

I think the author needs a reality check, because honestly, this idea just sucks.

I Hate Text Speak

OMG!! ays! ayfr?! idby..w/e.

Translate at your own risk.....or....tayor.

I am sick of text speech. In my honest opinion, if you're going to talk to someone, either type correctly, or don't talk at all. This might make me sound like a hypocrite, but I don't mind short ones, like 'brb' or 'lol', but other than those nice three letter ones, the rest are useless. And if you're going to spell a word, such as 'kewl', then spell it 'cool'! It's the same amount of letters, so what's so tough about it? Ooh, you spelled a word correctly, you must no longer be a scene. Big whoop-de-freakin'-doo. Or 'what'. It's not 'wut' it's 'what'.

So maybe this is me being a whining jerk. If that's the case, then fine, I'm a whining jerk. But honestly, stop spelling in waysthat are so hard to understand and start using the accepted language of English.

TAFN

I Hate Copyright

I am really upset about this. I was planning on going to Youtube today to listen to some of my music that I really love and haven't listened to in awhile, and this is what I find:
(Sorry for the bad quality) Ridiculous! Out of fourteen songs, five of them are no longer available due to copyright. What is up with that crap? What, people aren't allowed to make videos anymore, showing how awesome the music or the show is? Or wait, are the artists just so insulted that someone would *gasp* use their song to make-in this case-an awesome AMV? If no, then what is so messed up with the people forcing the videos off Youtube? I really don't understand. It took me about ten minutes to find one of the songs off of my playlist that got deleted. Ten minutes! Usually, I wouldn't have that problem. But today, I realized that people who had put the same music up had either been forced to change the music to something else, or had to remove their audio. What are people supposed to do if they're just trying to look up a song and it's deleted the same way, or the "supposed" audio is in fact a different song? I find this completely ludicrous.

If someone can explain to me why people are being so grr about this, then please, go ahead, enlighten me, because I really want to know.

I hate the House of Night novels

***Warning: Spoilers:***

***Warning: Spoilers:***

***Warning: Spoilers:***

First off, I will admit that the concept of the Vampyre finishing school is really cool. Kudo to the authors. However, I hate the fact that there is no character development, the authors constantly repeat themselves, and how it's boring.

I've read four out of the five books, my library hasn't bought the fifth one yet, and throughout the entire series, there is almost no character development. The Twins, Damien, Erik, Heath, and Jack are so two-dimensional it's sickening. Zoey isn't that much better. If anything, she keeps going back and forth from being little Miss Mary Sue to being a ho. In fact, she even calls herself a ho, almost throughout the entire third book. We get that you're a ho, now do us all a favor and just shut up. Seriously. Or if you don't want to be a ho, stop going out with THREE guys at the same time. And you call Aphrodite a ho. Wow, she gave Erik a blow job at the beginning of book one and that's all we see of her doing anything sexual, other than flirting. Zoey, on the other hand, is sucking face with Heath and Erik at the same time, starts drinking Heath's blood-which causes them to Imprint and make them want to have sex, as well as making out with Loren Blake, one of her professors, behind Erik's back and ends up having sex with him, which breaks the Imprint with Heath. So yes, Zoey, you are a ho.

Another thing about Zoey, or Z, is her Mary-Sueness. What is up with always making the main character disgustingly perfect? Not only can Zoey do no wrong, but when she does, everyone is supporting of her, or it's not that big of a deal. And even when she royally ticks off her friends, within a chapter or two, they're back to being best buds and act like nothing ever happen. Reality check, if you lie to your best friends, make out with two guys behind your boyfriend's back, and then lie about y'all's best friend not really being dead, they won't forgive you in under three days. In fact, they might not forgive you in a month. Life isn't as perfect as these authors make it seem to be.

There are probably only two or three characters that actually have some development. They're Aphrodite, Stevie Rae, and maybe Neferet. Aphrodite is obvious, because you see her as a "hag from hell", as a "skank" and as a abused daughter of her parents. Mind you, when I say abused, I don't mean physical, it's more verbal and mental. Anyways, the reader goes on to see how Aphrodite eventually realizes that there's more to life than just being rude, and even though she tries to deny it, she begins to become part of the "nerdherd" a.k.a Zoey's friends. She refuses to stay a annoying character who's only purpose is to be rude and instead becomes a character who helps move the plot along.

The only reason Stevie Rae has development is because she dies and then comes back again, only this time instead of being her typical, nauseating, cheerful self, she's the usual stereotypical idea of what vampires are supposed to be. Her dilemma is to hang onto her last shreds of humanity long enough for her bff Zoey to help her become "normal" again. Hello? Stevie Rae is undead. Yeah, that's so normal. But Stevie Rae does have some development, and it's pretty cool to see her switch back and forth from psycho land to everything's okey-dokey land.

Neferet's next, and this is where I'm not too certain that she develops. At first she appears to be the most perfect vamprye at the House of Night, and of course it helps that she's the high priestess, but then suddenly she's evil. Where's the transition? Second, why does she turn evil? Huge plot hole there. Nyx says that she turned from her past, but why? There's a lot of gaps, and nowhere in four books did she even cover anything about why she turned.

Moving onward, one of my biggest complaints is how repetitive the authors are. In every single book they find it necessary to summarize what's been happening. Nice thought and all, but we don't need summaries. It's a series, the reader is expected to have read the previous books. In fact, there are plenty of series that don't summarize everything. Lord of the Rings didn't summarize, the Pretty Trilogy by Scott Westerfield didn't summarize, and the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix didn't summarize. You know why? Because it wasn't necessary. If I wanted everything spelled out for me I would go read books for preschoolers. Furthermore, the authors need to learn how to switch up their descriptions. As part of the summarizing, they find it necessary to describe the characters the exact same way, every time. The Twins are always described as a cappuccino girl and a really white girl who instantly bond as soul sisters. Can't we have a bit more original description there? I can practically gloss over the first part of each book because it sounds exactly the same and I loose interest. Last time I checked, you don't want the readers to loose interest. It's kind of bad.

Secondly, I hate their vampyre looks. Yes, vampyres are gorgeous, yes, they're breathtaking, but no, they should not all look the same. Even Twilight differentiated between what the vampires looked like. The only characteristics the vamps in Twilight shared were the eyes, the paleness, the-ugh-sparkle, and the icy-cold hardness of their skin. But they still all looked different. In the House of Night series, they're all the same. It's so annoying. I mean, if you're going to create characters, shouldn't they look somewhat different from each other?

My last point was that the series was boring, and to me it's not so much boring as annoying. Right now I'm just reading them to see if the authors either improve or degenerate even further. I'm not reading these books just for pleasure, though I guess I could say that ranting about them is my pleasure. Wow, that sounded awkward. Anyways, if a series has declined so much to the point that I'm just reading it to bash it, then something's wrong.

Ok, so I lied. My real last point is how aggravating it is that Zoey has to continuously explain everything, even the simple stuff that might have been explained already. It might be hard to believe, but I am not stupid. Having the main character explain everything to me makes me want to throw the book across the room. In fact, I'm surprised that I haven't already.

So there you have it, my very long opinion on the House of Night novels. But don't let my review keep you from reading the books. Who knows, you just might like reading them. Each to their own.

School

Really Lame Title, I know. So, I haven't blogged in awhile, but today when I was talking to my friend she got me started on a rant about school.

I go to a school that has a dress code. Note, that dress code is different from uniforms. A dress code is like uniforms in the sense that you have to wear certain articles of clothing, such as a polo. Uniforms is where they actually give you one set piece of clothing that doesn't change and that's what you wear all the time. The reason the school implemented the dress code is because they were having problems with clothing and indecent exposure, etc. Apparently, telling kids that they have to wear certain colored shirts and pants automatically solves that little problem. Wrong! Just because you tell people to wear a certain shirt doesn't mean that they still can't let their chest pop out the collar and roll up so their stomachs are exposed. Just like telling boys to wear a certain type of pants will make them magically wear them at waist level and keep their butts from hanging out. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't see pants that go down to your knees as appealing. I really don't find it "sexy" when I have to go up three flights of steps and the guy in front of me is baring his butt to the whole world. Save it for home. In fact, I love what Obama has to say about it.
The way I see it, if the school administration really wanted to "clean up" the way we appear, don't give us a dress code where even freshmen realized the stupidity and pointlessness of it. Instead, give us the oh-so-unpopular-uniform. Personally, I could do without. Whenever I have to wear uniforms they either make me look stupid or have really itchy fabrics. Either one isn't great. But compared to a joke dress code, I'd take the uniform any day.

Anything that I have against the school is their idiotic rules. We have a rule that the only bathroom you can use on campus if it's during your lunch hour is in P building. I find the naming ironic, and it makes me wonder if they did that on purpose. Anyways, today I left lunch early to go to the library, and afterwards I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. It was after lunch and all. Anyways, I left the bathroom to go visit one of the teachers who is just down the hall. And I mean, right down the hall. Ok, I have to go down two halls, but it's not like I'm cutting through different classes and disrupting them. So I'm walking, and I got stopped by a hall monitor who asks me if I have a pass. Hello? It's my luinch hour. I'm sooo going to magicaly whip out a pass that says "Yes, I have permission to walk through the halls of the school I've attended for the last four years." I told the hall monitor, who was actually really nice, that no, I did not have a pass, it was in fact my lunch hour, and that I had just come from the bathroom and was on my way to visit a teacher. She informed me that next time I have to get a pass from the teacher. I find this hard to believe. Ok, so the school wants to make sure that we don't cause trouble in the halls, so they don't allow us in. But that's just a load of bs. If we wanted to cause trouble, we don't have to be in the halls to do it. The library, or the cafeteria, or even outside is just as suitable. But obviously, the school doesn't think that. It's just really annoying.

The Magical Josh Groban

I don't know about you, but I love Josh Groban! I mean, he has an amazing voice, beautiful songs, and very heartfelt expressions. He doesn't seem to sing just for publicity and to show off and become the best. Instead he seems to sing from the bottom of his heart and sings just for the joy of singing. I could be mistaken though. For all I know, he absolutely hates singing and is a manical performer who merely wants to make money. But I don't think so.

So, this is really short, I just wanted to say that.

I Loathe Pwer

I hate being told what to do. This has absolutely nothing to do with what I've written before, but as I am in a foul mood, blogging helps.

I am rather positive that I am not the only one who feels this way. I hate the fact that parents can tell their child to do whatever it is they wish to do, regardless of the child's own feelings or want. While this is usually a good thing, after all, young kids don't know enoughy of the world to make smart choices, I disagree with the idea that 17 or 18 year olds be treated as young children as well. I believe that by that time, not only have they garnered the ability to think for themselves, or at least attempt to, but they are also not one to stand by idly and do something that they themselves do not firmly believe in or want to do.

In my case, I refuse to audition for something that I have been in for years, just to make it to a higher section. I play my instrument for the joy of playing it. I don't play it to say, "Hey, look at me, I'm better than you." It's true that beginners are not always as good as those who have been playing for longer than they have, but I see no point to shove that in their face. I also refuse to audition when the director knows my playing talents as well as the fact that there is never anyone other than myself in my section. That's a rather easy choice even without an audition. Add in the fact that my section has no different points, and presto! I see no reason to audition. Of course, there's also the fact that I haven't had to audition for years, and my parents have never raised a huge fuss about it. It appears that all that history goes out the window once the idea of a easier and harder orchestral split comes into play.

Now, I love to play complicated music that challenges me to work harder and become a better musician. However, I refuse to be forced into auditioning for a harder orchestra when I do not want to. I'm all for a harder orchestra. Hell, I've been wanting one for years. But I don't like being told that even if I don't want to audition, it doesn't matter because I wil. That's where I draw the line.

And you may be asking, "Why would you not audition? Isn't this what you wanted?" And the answer is quite simply: Yes, I wanted this. But not when being forced into it. I am a busy person. I am involved in many activities, and as such never really have free time. My friends can all attest to that. The original orchestra is two hours long, and the harder one would be only one. But when you add in everything else I do, it really piles up. The smartest thing to do would be to drop something. And since I already play in bands at my school, my logical choice would be to drop whatever would be redundant. And see, I would rather not drop it. It's my last year with it. Kind of sad in a way. But if I'm being told that what I want has no say concerning it, and that I have to do it, and that people already assumed I would audition and be in the harder orchestra, that's when I feel the need to stop and dig my heels in.

I'm all for free will. And if doing something that imposes itself on my free will, then I'm not a happy camper. I don't think anyone would be. So, to make a long story short, I disagreed, rather loudly, that I was going to audition, and instead of ending in the familiar stalemate, it ended with my parents blackmailing me. If I don't play for one, then I don't play in my school band, which happens to include the marching band, which is my life from summer till January. So we are at an impasse: Either I do as they say, or I do what I told them and I loose my music. Most of my friends know me to be an extremely stubborn person who hates being ordered around, so chances are I will not audition. However, I can most ardently promise that I will not give up my music without a fight. No matter what.

Anyways, sorry about this little, or not so little rant. I'll be sure to post something literary soon.