Originally, this was going to be a post about the ways that Smallville failed to live up to my hazy childhood memories of the show. I was gonna go on a tirade about how the show’s talk of destiny and making Clark become a superhero that wasn’t Superman ultimately made the final seasons drag on. However as I tried to write that post, I kept thinking back to the early days of the show. Back when I couldn’t wait to watch another episode and see where the story went.
Continue reading “I Was Not Prepared to Actually Enjoy Smallville”Author: Annie Simm
Turns Out Harriet Tubman Was 100% That B*tch
I want to start by saying that Harriet Tubman is probably the closest person to a role-model that I have. So when they dropped the trailer for the movie I had already decided that I was going to see it. Fast-forward a couple of months and adult life was getting in the way of planning a simple trip to the movie with friends, and I’m on my way to watch Harriet.
Continue reading “Turns Out Harriet Tubman Was 100% That B*tch”My Favorite Thing
(Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers for The Good Place)
Because I am incapable of turning off my brain, I often find myself watching a show/movie and asking questions. Questions that don’t need to be asked and don’t really help people when I ask them.
They could be little questions like “why did they trust the villain?” or “why would they think to do that?”, but I never hold questions of motivation that high on my list of problems. That would be ridiculous. It’s essentially getting upset because someone thinks differently than you.
Continue reading “My Favorite Thing”Outliving Your Usefulness
I’ve noticed a habit that is common in all forms of media. There will be this character who hangs around but doesn’t really contribute much to the story. Often times, they once served an essential role in the story.
Continue reading “Outliving Your Usefulness”Blood+ Update
Originally, I was going to do the plot section of this series based off of my 5+ year old memory of the Blood+ anime. However, the more I wrote and visited the wiki to refresh my memory, the more I realize that I actually remember a lot of what went on in the anime. I remembered major things like character personality and major plot points but little things like how Kai and Riku reunited with Saya escapes me.
So, the last part of the Blood+ series is going on hiatus until I can find and re-watch the series. (And no piracy because of something-something support the official release.) The only reason I’m doing this post is because I noticed that people were actually reading these posts and I didn’t want to stop a series so close to the end without giving them a heads up. Well, there’s that weight off my shoulders. Bye!
Comparing And Contrasting: Blood+: Diva
Finally time for the Blue Queen!
When analyzing this character, it is important to remember that Diva was not born a monster, she was made into one. When Joel started his experiment, he decided one twin would be to seem human as a social experiment, while the other twin would used for as a much more violent experiments. It was just chance that Diva ended up in chains and Saya in corsets.
Neither series forgets this fact, and each shows parallels between the sisters behavior to emphasize this. In the Anime, Diva’s energetic personality has lulls of calm that matches Saya’s demeanor. Meanwhile, Manga-Diva’s personality is very close to Saya’s before she regained her memories.
The experiments broke Diva, but how the pieces fell changes for each series. Let’s start by looking at the manga. (She’s my favorite).
Continue reading “Comparing And Contrasting: Blood+: Diva”Comparing And Contrasting: Blood+: Chevalier
Where would a Queen be with out her royal guard. While Diva liked a large group of boy toys to entertain her, Saya preferred a much smaller posse. Throughout the different stages of the story, these knight fill the roles of protector, lover, brother, father, and even enemy. Personally I feel that the manga gave the chevalier more unique and distinct personalities verse the anime’s more archetypical personalities.
Continue reading “Comparing And Contrasting: Blood+: Chevalier”Comparing And Contrasting: Blood+: Saya
What better way to start examining characters than to begin with our main character herself. Now the thing about Saya is, in both the anime and manga, she’s three different characters throughout the story: the Saya with amnesia, the Saya in the 1800’s, and the Saya that remembers her past. So for simplicity sake, let’s break this down into sections.
Continue reading “Comparing And Contrasting: Blood+: Saya”Comparing and Contrasting: Blood+
With different versions of the same story is told you are bound to get people saying one is better. So I’m here to do pretty much that! No, I actually want to be a little more objective with this comparison. After all, no series is perfect. This is more about how the different versions handled the storylines and characters. For this series of posts, I’m gonna be looking at Blood+.
Continue reading “Comparing and Contrasting: Blood+”The Laziest Hobby A Character Can Have
Have you ever noticed how the most common trait a character can have in a book is a love for literature? Like there will be a bookish main character just loves to read/write and that’s the only interest they will have.
Now, this isn’t an inherently lousy interest. After all, the reader likely shares this love of literature. The reader can easily relate to a character who shares their hobbies. This character does usually end up a fan favorite. Often times you will even hear the writer say that this character is the one they relate to the most.
So this gives me the feeling like writers are using minimal effort to endear a large chunk of the audience to their characters. By using a simple formula, they are using the same everyman for their readers to project themselves onto.
But when you’re writing a story, you should be able to write convincing characters with an array of different backgrounds and interest. After all, a writer’s job is to allow readers to connect with someone of different backgrounds. They shouldn’t keep using the same lazy cliche of the clumsy, social outcast, bookworm.
They should have the creativity to think up interests for their characters that aren’t just their own. Or at the very least, use a different one of their hobbies that don’t directly relate to literature!
Maybe this is just a personal grip that I have. In my first Creative Writing class, my professor told us to avoid cliches, and if we use them, we need to earn them. I really took that to heart, and maybe that’s why it feels like the laziest hobby a character can have for me.
I Think Thinks 