31st Musing: Characters I Admire (VII), Though Perhaps I Shouldn't (III)

(RLN: Wow, it's been so long... Apparently, my last update was last December? Anyways, I decided to get back into it, as I have some new topics and I'm not too busy (except for a documentary for French class about...Kingdom Hearts XD Quite a bit has happened, yet life still feels changeless. However, most importantly, I am officially on season 9 of 7th Heaven! Yeah...I know I'm the only one who's ever cared about that. I won't go into my life unless particular subjects come up, so with further ado....here's a new character analysis/fan ranting)

This musing's character is.....Peter Wiggin! (Ender's Game-by Orson Scott Card)
I honestly don't know why I haven't talked about him earlier.
MBTI: ENTJ (I'm trying not to repeat types)

He's probably the most interesting character in the series. To readers, it seems he's constantly straddling the line between good and evil. It's obvious to tell he's a good person, he's just extremely aggressive, ambitious and not very self-aware.
Peter believed he only became "a good man" because he sought to emulate the benevolent in power, but I, personally, believe you can only be good if you truly are at your core. I absolutely loved him in the end. I found him very sweet after Card gave him excellent development, but he didn't lose his personality.
(And I sort of had a small book crush on him ^^) I really admired his charisma and dedication to humanity and liked his humour (unless it got a bit crude, which was the case with every character). He's also a character I felt to have a unique voice. In Card's writing, there's three voices: genius child, man, woman. In each category, they all have exactly the same voice, really, save some exceptions (like Peter). They even use the exact same phrases: (example: we're going to get married and make babies--give me a dollar for every time I've read that in these books and I'd be rich).
I liked him a lot in the main series where he was half Ender's imagining and half Ender? I still thought he acted the same in either series--I didn't find him to be quite so Ender-ish, which is good. As much I love Ender, I enjoyed reading about Peter and Wang-mu.
Hmm...I want to write more about him, but it's like the words aren't coming. I've said what's really on my mind about him.
Whenever I tell people Peter's my favorite character, they're like "oh, you mean the psychopath?" but he wasn't one even in the first book! (However, the movie, I heard, is going to make him more one-dimensional :/)
There were still that time when you could clearly see he was only jealous and he apologized to his brother when he thought he was sleeping. Readers need to look for these details more so I can have character discussions with them...

As for the movie:

actor's name: Jimmy Pinchak

Interestingly, I always imagined him with brown hair and brown eyes, but this fits. He also has the same sort of expression--overall, I'm happy with him.

(fun fact: I sent in a headshot and resume to audition for Valentine--obviously, never worked out)

I'm sort of sad there's no Locke or Demosthenes thing...the most that happens, at least from the part of the script I read, is that Valentine has a play where there's a character named "Demosthenes"...that's it...just a reference :P

Overall, I'm very excited for the movie, though very jealous of Abigail Breslin (Valentine), but alas, 'tis not meant to be.

I guess I've written enough for now haha, so I'll try to update more often!

Why FFX-2 is Actually a Pretty Good Game

RLN:
currently listening to: Jack by Pixie Lott, but covered by Seohyun (서헌 <3)
Ughh I'm under house arrest because I'm sick (thanks to the frickin' photographer *sigh*) and I haven't been outside in like daaaaysss. On top of that, I watched a depressing Doctor Who episode and I read a terribly depressing, but also moving book called Peony in Love by Lisa See. She is an amazing writer.
You know, a lot of things have been happening to me, I feel like, so maybe I'll just write a blog post about all that sometime.
I've been playing 358/2 Days again and Roxas makes me want to write in a journal again. Maybe I stopped all those times because I dumped so much into it, but I like his; they're just simple, informative, but also expressive.
My favorite part of last week is performing Gangnam Style in front of like 1000 people, that will always be a fond memory ^.^
So yeah that's what I've been doing while away--Gangnam Style!!!....and a few other things, of course.
RLN over.


Whoa, what a plot twist--someone actually liking X-2!
Alright, I admit I actually hated it, at first. I was disappointed by all the changes and wanted the old Yuna and the old Spira (and the old music) back. However, I quite like how it's turned out. Well, except for most of the music, but not much we can do about that, can we?

First, Yuna didn't actually change as much as I thought she did aside from appearances. Yes, she's sort of trying out new behaviours she admires (emulating Rikku and Tidus at times), but she's still a people-pleaser, still withdrawn and reflective, still self-sacrificing and kind-hearted, similar vibe. If anything, I really like how she turned out because she kept all her best qualities from FFX, but developed a more adventurous spirit and became more outspoken, too.

Also, I love the songstress theme they've added in. The opening cutscene was visually beautiful and I just loved everything about it. Actually, it made me want to jump onstage and do the same (oh, if only I could sing--and not sound choked up in front of people at that).

Plot-wise, I definitely did not think it was filler in any way. Yes, it was very sidequest-centered, but I thought that was quite fun, personally!
I really love the idea of going on all these different adventures while traveling on an airship. Also, sphere-hunting made me think of treasure-hunting, which is also another fun little theme. The Celsius is pretty cool though and I totally wanted to be part of the Gullwings (Your Friendly Neighborhood Gullwings!!!--another thing I enjoyed) so I could just, well, do this:

Well, anyways, back to the plot. I really liked the story of Lenne and Shuyin, and actually felt very sad for them. I loved them, and one of the new characters, Gippal and I totally ship him with Rikku oh I just said ship didn't I? and I really like Baralai too. Nooj is...well, he's alright. I like the whole trio thing a lot, though. I just realized they all parallel each other. Yuna is to Baralai as Rikku is to Gippal as Paine is to Nooj.
I love the chemistry between YRP! I don't know why, but I like when they act like normal teenagers/early twenties, so they're a little childish and give each other high-fives like normal friends XD. It sounds small, but these little details are left out a lot.

Random battle quotes:
Yuna: Gimme a Y!
Rikku: Gimme an R!
Paine: Gimme a break.

Rikku: I'm gonna kick you in the spleen...
Paine: Spleen...???

Yuna: It's so big.
Rikku: Whoohoo no more climbing!!!!!
Paine: Could you please focus?

Yuna: Bring it!
Rikku: She's sure getting into this.
Paine: She's trying.


Okay, that's a few of them lol

I thought the conflict between two factions three if you count machine faction... was interesting, and realistic. I appreciated the mix between plot and a sort of do-your-own-thing thing.
Additionally, something new happens through every playthrough because there is just so much detail. (It's so hard getting to 100%!).
And, like every Final Fantasy, I get some inspiration out of it from, well, everything you've read above.

30th Musing: Characters I Admire (VI)

So this post's character is....

Laguna Loire from Final Fantasy VIII!

MBTI type: ENFP! (most likely)
(I'm actually trying to not use any MBTI types on my character posts until I've gone through them all.)

Here is Laguna in one of his best moments!

Here is Laguna in one of his not-so-best moments!

Honestly, I just love this guy. And now my rambling about him starts.
I really don't have a starting point. Okay, I'll just get inspired by those pictures up there.

I really love the sincerity and realism they put into his character! He started out as just another soldier traveling along with his two friends, Kiros (I love his snarkiness.) and Ward. He sort of bumbles along, doing stupid things (as pictured above) that anyone could do, really (yes, I'm drawing from personal experience teheh).
One small quirk that I loved that was also very realistic was that his leg would cramp up whenever he was nervous. He had a cute little crush on Julia Heartilly, a singer and pianist who played regularly at the Deling City hotel (so of course Laguna frequented it often). As he got up the nerve to approach her, you'd see "Oh, my leg's cramping up!" and then he'd hobble away as Squall said, "...Sad." Also this happened when he was nervous in battle.

He's just clumsy in general. I think my favorite is when they have to make an escape by jumping off a cliff into water. He pushes his two friends first and is then like oh, you guys are so brave! as he proceeds to just climb down it. I guess it's karma when he loses his footing and falls all the way down anyways. It sort of sucked for him though because he needed a lot of medical attention afterwards. Scene as seen below (pun intended).

Another favorite moment is him starring in a random movie. That was just an amusing part of the game...

But besides all of his funny, clumsy moments, he can truly be an inspiring character. After he fell of the cliff, he washed up in a small town called Winhill and was cared for by a woman, Raine, and an orphan girl, Ellone (Elle for short) about five years old. Eventually, they became like family to him and he would do anything to protect Elle from monsters or the army looking for children her age to be the next sorceress (part of the story plot, by the way). He would go to any length for her, fighting whoever stood in his way and really became like a father to her. Even when she grew up about...twenty years? A bit less? Well, even then, she still called him "Uncle Laguna." He calls himself the "Monster Hunter of Winhill" and calls Raine his commander and Ellone his assitant commander.

Laguna's dream was to be a journalist (the pen is mightier than the sword!) and make money with his travel articles. (I really want to do that--just travel all over the world and write about my stay). However, he became president of the isolationist country Esthar instead...

It happened as, some events later, ended up being captured in Esthar, which was still ruled by the sorceress. While captured he ended up agreeing to join the resistance against her. Somehow he comes up with a plan to capture the sorceress and seal her and her powers away for good (as long as close surveillance and many seals are kept on it).

For his bravery and triumph, he was elected leader of Esthar!

Then, the main characters finally meet him as they must defeat a new sorceress tyrant who has the power of Time Compression! And to overcome this, he has a short little spiel about how to not be lost in it.

Yes, I think I'll stop there... ^^

29th Musing: Tumblr Types

RLN:
So, I am far more positive than last post! It helps that I had in an audition in which I didn't leave feeling terribly or sort of "down" about. (I think the acting went quite well, though my voice was dreadful. However, I think they considered the fact that I lost my voice a few days ago. At least, I got into it and acted while I was singing though and that's pretty important, right?
Anyways, currently listening to: the Nutcracker Suite Op.71 :)
RLN over.

As I peruse tumblr obsessively, I've noticed that there are five distinct types of people who go on tumblr and I'll list the specimens here:

The Artists: comes in two subgenres--the Writers and the Photographers who post artsy stuff made to express themselves and/or inspire others, pretty self-explanatory

 The Intense Ones: people with all the feelings. Their posts will probably depress you. Some accurately represent life's trials and tribulations while others may be a bit melodramatic for your taste. Somehow people tend to be 500 times more emotional on tumblr than anywhere else.

The Fans: comes in two subgenres--Fandom Worshippers (99%) and Celebrity Worshippers (1%). Many are crazy and rabid, so caution is advised when approaching. However, if you're going through an obsessive phase, going through pages upon pages of said obsession can be quite gratifying.

The Activists: Once again, these posts may depress you. Oftentimes, they have an important message, other times it's "like this post to spread awareness" which is better than doing nothing, I guess--at least they're still spreading the message, while others are a bit extreme.

The Floaters: People like me who go on there and usually reblog instead of posting. (However I might be edging into the Fandom Worshippers XD). Their blog page consists of whatever strikes their fancy and they don't really get sucked into it even though they might spend two hours just scrolling through Avengers or Kingdom Hearts gifs.

Well, that's what I came up with, but if you have any more, tell me!

28th Musing: Why I Hate Freud

RLN:
So I sent out to a couple literary agents and one talent agency (and I had to resubmit because I oh-so-intelligently forgot to attach the resume. Wonderful. Besides the headshots, the picture I sent is pretty funny because I tried to do a Jenna-Louise Coleman (Oswin Oswald in Doctor Who) sort of face except with the eyes looking at the camera and it ended up making me look very...well, I'm not sure how to say it, but I definitely looked distinctive and like I have a lot of personality!
I guess we'll see how it goes.
oh, so I am still sick, which is pretty sad because it's been since Sunday, but I'm on antibiotics now, so we'll see when it dies down.
was listening to: the piano duel from "The Secret" a Taiwanese (I think) movie--still amazing every time I watch the video of it
RLN over.

So as I was reading about Freud and subsequently complaining about him to my friend who shares the same passionate hate, I thought why not just make a blog post with all of my complaints?
I'll just make a list for easier reading.

1. He relates everything to sex!!!
     a. example: he believed that you have always been unconsciously jealous of the parent of the same gender because he/she is in your way of having sex with the parent you "desire"
     b. the story I was telling my friend was: once he had a patient who had no feeling in their hand without any biological/neurological reasoning. So, obviously it MUST be because he "had fear of touching his genitals" (not my words)
    c. he believed that at every age (even babies...) people enjoyed deriving some sexual pleasure and believed through every age we go through some part of the "psychosexual stages"

2. He was completely sexist
     a. one of many examples is that he thought when women started wearing pantsuits that they had "penis envy". I mean, it's really hard to be objective when studying him--it's like he has bricks for brains or something.

Ok, I can't even continue he just bothers me so much.

The few things I do like is that he came up with the id, the ego, and the superego, which I think is accurate (though I don't believe the id is purely sex-filled as he, of course, said). Also, I find his defense mechanisms to be mostly true. He has some good moments, but was blinded by idiocy.

Going slightly off-topic, more and more, I'm starting to hate most psychologists/therapists just because they are generally just kinda...useless. None of them really know how to take care of a patient AAAND they are mostly crazy themselves!! So, crazy and useless. BUT when they aren't, they are wonderful! BUT, it's rare...

27th Musing: Enjoying the Moment

looong RLN:
So, I'm pretty sick and totally lost my voice--somehow that manages to happen to me...not that it goes well because any who knows me knows how terribly silent I am....
Whenever I'm around people and I can't talk, like right now, they always make fun of me by either laughing or doing the old "What?? I can't hear you!!" and then they laugh. Okay, I maybe actually find it amusing XD
But another update is that I am currently having a query crisis! So, I sent mine in to the Query Shark (you should all follow her, she is soooo funny and really awesome!) AKA Janet Reid of Fine Print Lit. for a possible chance of being critiqued. Additionally, I've joined some forums where people will just give critiques for free, which is very nice!
Oh, so I finally had ramen at a legitimate Japanese place (as opposed to some instant concoction I would make at home)! It was a combination of noodles (obviously), corn, bamboo shoots, onions, and fishcakes (these rubbery things that don't quite have taste, but they're very fun!

and here we see fishcakes! which are actually called kamaboko?

Aren't they so happy-making? :D

Anyways...that might have gotten ramen out of my system...for now!

Currently listening to: Ice Cream by: Hyuna (don't judge me, well ok, you can--I'm judging myself, too).
Current obsessions: 1. Tom Hiddleston and soon to be Robert Downey Jr. too and the rest of the Avengers actors and characters too (yes, still), 2. literary and talent agencies (who seem to hate me lol)
I guess not much has changed!
RLN over!

Now for the actual topic, I'll be pondering on something that is basically striking me from all corners and I sincerely believe it's like some sort of message at this point. I've been seeing "Enjoy the present, live the moment, etc" sort of statements before and, especially, since TWEWY. It's the main motto of the artist CAT, whom the protagonist deeply admires and part of the story is about him broadening his world and, as stated above, enjoying every moment for what it is.
The weird thing though is that I get these notifications on a certain popular social networking site (oh what could it be?) from "God" or some sort of application I looked at once before and it's basically philosophy that God would say (or something along those lines). So when it says "God has a new message for you!" I usually ignore it (sorry), but this time something inside said to click it for some reason and what comes up...is another "enjoy the moment" statement! Although, it was quite nice. I'll just repost it here:

"Every moment is an opportunity to be happy.
Don't just take a shower--feel into and receive pleasure from the water on your skin. Don't just walk on the street--enjoy the fragrances of the trees and flowers on your way. Don't just drive your car--sing karaoke to your favorite radio station" (so would MLA want me to cite this as God? XD)

It's a bit shortened, but that's the gist. Personally, when I'm walking I do appreciate the beauty of nature around me and other little things that people ignore or take for granted. I think my problem is that I'm not quite slowing down enough to be completely satisfied with my life. Even though I'm young, I have so many goals and aspirations that I feel like my life is unsatisfying when they aren't happening. I need to stop that because my life is perfect the way it is, and dreams have their time to come true.

My friend (I actually talked about her in my post about learning Korean) has her own blog (which I can't read...yet!) and she posted a philosophical quote semi-recently and translated it for me. It was a metaphor about how young people always want to be successful and achieve so many things in their lives, but they are like flowers and need to bloom fully and really develop until their time comes. Everyone takes a different time to bloom because there are, of course, many renowned young people. But, it's really just reiterating today's musing (which is not actually at midnight, go figure).
To those of you who know this metaphor, sorry if I botched it up or explained it wrong in any way.

on a semi-related note, look how pretty these floor tiles are!
I think they're Italian? They are fireweed flowers, which I discovered
a couple minutes ago. So you, too, can bloom on this floor tile! Yeah...
I'm gonna regret putting this on...

I hope my blog posts aren't too long? I would say today's can make up for my lack of speaking ability, but...they're always like this! :D
I hope you have a great morning, day, night, wherever your time zone lies!

What a Fail.

I would like to take this moment to point out that I spelled the title of my own manuscript wrong (sort of). It was one word and I botched it up because I am a fail.
And I have sent it off to agents.
That is all.
You can applaud now.