15th Musing: Characters I Admire (II)

Shall I do shorter posts when possible? I think so...
So this character is........

Kate DeVries!

MBTI type: ENTP

 from an actual BOOK! not anime/manga/video games, etc.! (You probably will not see this often...)
Anyways, she is from the Airborn series by Kenneth Oppel. (Ooh I just looked up his picture and he looks about twenty years younger than he really is...but anyways--)

She is basically like a Haruhi Suzumiya (oh and there is the anime reference) who isn't morally crooked or exceedingly tyrannical (though she is a bit bossy, which I don't mind). Personally, I related to her because we're both quite individualistic and off-beat on the inside in a very similar manner; we follow our own path and are very strong-headed (and she in the very early twentieth century where one had to be far more proper), but we play along with society and try to adhere to its rules to generally be accepted. However, once you get to know us, we tend to live outside the rules that tend to bog people down.
We differ in the way that she loves biology and I find it boring, but we would both happily go on an adventure on an unknown island to find a mysterious creature! Adventures are fun! I think I really admire how straight-forward she is and have tried to develop that quality in myself. So next time I'm having trouble saying no or I want to deny my opinions/feelings on a subject to someone, I remember Kate DeVries now. The one passage that stuck out to me was when the main character, Matt, was trying to make her jealous by kissing another girl. It worked, though he didn't know if she actually saw them or not (odd circumstance) but later when they made up after a fight, he apologized and said he was trying to make her jealous and she just came out and said that it worked and she was quite jealous and mad at him for doing that (and they weren't even...what would you do in those times? Date?).
So yes, I love her character!

There aren't any pictures of her, so she's that teeeeny person on the right...

14th Musing: In Which I Talk About Fashion...

Yes, nothing deep this time! Just me...musing! All my blog posts are basically things in my head that I ponder from time to time and this is one of them.
For awhile now, I've wanted to make a fashion blog, but I think I'm just too lazy to actually implement this idea because I don't feel like taking pictures of myself or people on the street or clothes I see on the internet, etc. but that might change...
This new game I got called The World Ends With You has sort of resparked my interest (Shiki's love for fashion, especially really cool Japanese fashion, is rather contagious lol). I'm not very interested in American fashion for some reason, though British fashion can be pretty cool. Maybe it's Western culture in general that interests me less than the East.
But seriously, after playing that game and looking at all the clothes in Shibuya, I think I'm starting to dress a little like someone off the street of Tokyo (though I suppose it's nothing new). I do tend to be inspired by characters (for example, Yuna who wears a scarf as a sort of crossover shirt with her obi sash over it. I made my own scarf into a shirt, then put a big black waist belt over it (not to mention with black lace fingerless gloves as an added accessory) and received a lot of compliments. One comment was...I couldn't quite tell what it was, but I was quite entertained when someone passing in the school hallway called out "your scarf is really intense!" and literally ran away and up the stairs. Whatever she meant, I enjoyed the whole scenario either way! XD
Oh, but also in the game the character Shiki Misaki wants to be a designer and she's a very talented seamstress. That really made me want to get back into cosplay and sewing again! Just recently, I had material I never used and some scrap ribbon and lace and decided to make a skirt out of it. No one could tell I made it! I was very pleased, as many of my projects are less than successful...though that may be because I get a bit impatient with the details.
On a random note, I realized that the way I write is very much like the way I think, but very different from the way I talk. Yes, I know that's only interesting to me. Thought you all should know...
Alright, that concludes this post!

Okay, I lied, quick note: I think I'll try to put in a picture to go with the post more often. Nothing excessive though. I read this one article about a woman who was a dentist, or in that field, who pulled out all her ex-husband's teeth and the article writer had to put in a picture so he put one that was a random dentistry picture and labeled the caption: and here we see an unrelated picture of a dentist and her patient. I thought he had a sense of humour.
Okay, tangent over.

And here we see Shibuya street fashion!

And here we see an uncomfortable-looking dentist patient!

13th Musing: Ramblings About the Future

(You know maybe if I kept this blog up more often, I'd have more than two followers who only follow me because they're my friends...)

So I have recently discovered after several years of holding on to the dream of being an actress, I realized that the theatre is not exactly my forte. I really love acting...but when I'm alone where I cannot look foolish in front of an audience. It's really facing other people and gauging how ridiculous my interpretation of a monologue is or something that inhibits me. Also, I am terrible at screaming or crying even when I'm alone, so emotions are just very hard to show on stage. Film acting sounds extremely fun and I'd probably do very well at commercials being the upbeat sort of person I am. However, real acting is a challenge. In school, I dropped my last year of theatre because we weren't doing anything except reading children's stories out loud to each other or other busy work exercises like pretending to be parts of a machine (to learn teamwork!! :/ ) and then she criticized us for doing a half-assed job whereas I wanted to criticize her for giving us a half-assed activity. Or maybe more like 10% assed. What a weird expression.
Currently, there are many things I want to be, though what I would love to be soon is a published author. I love creating characters most of all (and I don't know why, but naming them is really fun...)
In another life I would love to be a concert pianist (but I'm afraid it is not important enough for me to spend hours upon hours of practicing and studying theory). Fashion designing sounds really fun too, but once again, the level of dedication has to be there. Also, I dress very well, but I don't like mainstream fashion as much. I like when it has a certain flair. I think street fashion, especially in Japan, is pretty cool...
Oh, but anyways, I find it interesting when I find my friends or other people even ten years older than me saying they still have no idea what they want to do in life. I've always known in every stage of life--I had a very large goal and smaller, more practical ones.
I know that school makes it hard to focus on your desired career because they force you to study subjects you hate, especially in East Asia where you have to study for hours on end--like Korea where you have to stay at school until 10 at night. Without free time or a more specialized approach, it's hard for someone who really knows themselves to get a sense of what field they want to go into. Though this could bring higher test scores to fuel the government's love for competition, it can ultimately hurt a country because there would be no innovation or passion for their work, but instead a lot of business people or doctors or lawyers who may not want to help people so much as want money, a respectable career, and a stable job. It just hurts everyone.
I'm not saying this is everyone's case, but it is definitely a clear outcome that is all too common.

12th Musing--Characters I Admire (I)

Some posts, like this one, will be an analysis of characters I admire and why. It kinda segways into other topics to explore, but maybe not. I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say...

Character One: Tohru Honda! from Fruits Basket (manga)
Here she is!

MBTI type: INFP

To be honest, most of my friends hate her because they think she's a pushover, too nice, unrealistic, etc. While I agree that she can be too nice/generous at times and a doormat, there are key traits that make me love her. She is extremely compassionate, forgiving, caring, and trusting. She's not even overly trusting despite what everyone thinks. She has a healthy dose of caution.
I also love that she's not naturally talented, but she is very, very hard-working and that takes her far. Whether in work or with the people she cares about, she never complains about a task and gets right to work.
I have read through the whole manga twice and each time, I believe I've grown by emulating her example. I value hard work and I am more caring and generous towards people. Additionally, I am more forgiving because I know that everyone makes mistakes and most people truly do have good intentions or they did and lost sight of how they originally were. Tohru has taught me to believe in the goodness of others, which I wrote about on...perhaps my second post? I can't remember.
I think a good example is with, for those of you who know the manga, Hatori. She was told not to be left alone with him because he couldn't be trusted, so I was also quite wary of him. As we both freaked out when he called her down to talk to her about the whole situation relating to the plot that I won't explain because it'll take too long, her friend who was living with him (they were related) told her a story about his life that opened her heart to him, though she never would have heard it Hatori himself.
Another example is when she helped to emotionally heal the character that everyone hated. But that character was so terrible because she was facing so many problems of her own that no one else knew about, but expressed them in all the wrong ways.

So Tohru and the rest of the manga has really taught me much. That is why I say artists are perhaps some of the greatest benefactors of this world because they can affect people where it matters.

10th Musing: About These So-Called Social Hierarchies

(random ultra special life note: I'm on the fifth season of 7th Heaven now. It's weird how a few months ago, I thought this one character was so young, but by now she's the same age as me...)

This is lengthy so my main point is under the next bold if you want to skip...
So on to the main topic...
Throughout my life I have had many experiences trying to define social hierarchies, wondering how one places themselves higher or lower, whether it exists or not, etc. The answer to the second question I've found is that it does...and it doesn't. Like I said, I've had many revelations on the subject, but the one I had today really clicked with me.

I won't give any names (and if you're one of these people and you happened to stumble upon this, the description of you will be objective, but not very flattering for either of you, so...sorry.), but I was with three other people ranging from friends to acquaintances grouping up to get work done. I'll call them H, Y, and F.

F talks to Y, but always talks about her behind her back. However, to her face, I wouldn't think that she particularly disliked Y. F also likes to feel superior to Y. I could be wrong, but it's what I'm gathering.
Y seems dependent on being accepted so she always talks to F because she's a familiar face even though she seems a little uncomfortable with the "friendly teasing" at times.
H also needs to be accepted, however F has nothing bad to say about her so this less-and-less wallflower type follows F with her teasing of Y.
I tell Y not to listen to either of them because they're being annoying (of course in their same joking manner, though I do think they are being a little rude to her).

The result is that now Y has someone of good company (me) while F is initiating little irritating remarks as H follows.

Lazy readers (just kidding) start here!
So I've finally gotten to my main point. I realize that the social hierarchy of our group went like this from most power to least, I guess we could say: Me (hear me out), F, H, Y. And no one assigned this except we, ourselves. By trying to get acceptance and not standing up for herself concerning both F and H... Y then put herself below them all on her own. By imitating F's actions against Y to get acceptance, H thought herself above Y and below F. By not caring one way or another and being a sort of leader?, F placed herself in her mind above both of them.
And why am I above them? Because I was willing to sort of help Y out and actually talk to her instead of making jibes and really not caring at all what the other two think, even though I love them as friends of course (you know how it goes) and knowing I don't need to copy others or change my behavior in general in order to gain acceptance from those worth it (and this last sentence was a general life lesson as opposed to concentrating purely on that situation, so as not to seem dramatic ;D)

So yes, there is my long rambly musing.
Thanks for reading!

9th Musing: Female Protagonists (especially in YA)

As I am an avid reader, I obviously come across many female characters (as that is our topic of today's midnight), but rarely are they ever satisfactory! Ironically I've noticed they're least annoying, which is to say, lovely, in the average middle grade book and only semi annoying in the average "adult" book. As for the YA (young adult) section, they are absolute book-ruiners. In teen books there are generally a select few personality types authors choose to use:

1. The melodramatic "I'm just so in love with him" type. Instead of giving you examples, I'll tell you to look at any romance, especially that of the paranormal subgenre. Bella Swann is our captain here.

2. The girl who tries to be tough and "badass" but just ends being a #1 (see above). I'll say that Tris Prior from Divergent is the poster child for this. (Though I admit I feel bad, as I couldn't decide whether I liked the book or not and I really liked the idea, it just seemed like it was written in the tone of every other teen book, and I wasn't a fan of Tris, though I really loved the guy that came in (go figure), and a few other characters as well, though I think she killed off too many people, run-on sentence, run-on sentence, run-on sentence....)

3. The girl who must be snarky at every moment and find some smart-ass comment at any given time. I mean, I love snarky/sassy!--but when it's done CORRECTLY! For example, Diana Ladris from the Gone series does it perfectly and she's a wonderful three-dimensional character. However, Sophie Mercer was great in the first book Hex Hall but in Demonglass, she was a little too much.

4. They're just meek and blend in with the wall paper. Usually they end up becoming brave and do stand up for themselves, but their personalities are still quite plain to me.

Now I feel a little bad because I did like those books (excluding Twilight--that one is a literary shame, which I probably will continue to reiterate when it comes up). In high fantasy, however, the women are all just sort of these boring, maternal blobs! We need more Hermiones and Diana Ladrises (as far as grey characters go) and Kate DeVrieses (oh what a brilliant character she is <3 ) and etc.
Does anyone agree with me? (As not many people read this I don't expect actual comments but mental concurrence is nice too).

8th Musing: Religion

(Hello, I'm back! Did my followers miss me? All two of you? Actually I'm back here because my friend reminded me to write, so I'm writing! I just lack good subject material in general lol)

On to the main topic...

For me, this whole subject of religion has become quite ironic recently. I was possibly as cynical as anyone could be about religion, especially Christianity (and I'm very sorry if that offends anyone reading this, but it's true). I tended to ridicule most religions, finding them stupid, irrelevant, wrong, a waste of time, the list could go on. However, as I watch 7th Heaven (middle of fourth season!) while I continue to work on an Aerith cosplay :3 I feel like I'm slowly being converted. It's really weird actually because my opinions are slowly shifting all the way to the other side. No matter what religion they talk about on that show (in the rare occasion they discuss one other than Christianity), it always sounds wonderful. Judaism, Buddhism, etc. (though I've always liked Buddhism even if I couldn't agree with it on some points). My views on Catholicism haven't changed a bit, but the show put everything else in a new light. I realize that it isn't the religion I couldn't stand, it was the corruption made by people willing to use it for war, amassing wealth, blaming others, etc. In its purest form, the reason for its creation, Christianity seemed far more loving and accepting than it does now. (And of course, good old Reverend Camden sticks to those ideals). I think about everyone I know will find it weird if I suddenly decide to join a church. I've been the furthest thing from atheistic, though I've also been the furthest from religious. I have a more spiritual mindset. Perhaps it is the spirituality I hold in my beliefs that first crafted the religions in their incorrupted form.

Just some thoughts that passed through my mind.