Pageviews, Concern for Ava's Demon, and 2002's "Spider-Man" (Respectively)

Hi, all.

So, first thing's first.  You got me...

EIGHT EXTRA VIEWS!  YOU WIN!  WHICH MEANS I WIN!  WHICH MEANS I LOVE YOU!  Just to be clear, I loved you anyway.  BUT NOW WE WIN!  Thaaaaaank youuuuuuuuu!  ^.^  *gives you virtual cake*  Caaaaaaaake!  (Next time you can, go buy yourself some actual cake.  Because you deserve it.)

Second thing - I realize I talk about Ava's Demon kind of a lot on this blog, but I'm actually a little concerned because it stopped updating recently (I don't have the exact date) completely without notice. Maybe it hasn't been as long as I think (my memory is just shot lately), but the author's usually pretty good about that, so I hope she didn't die or anything?  Also, I think she has a tumblr, but I don't know what it is, so if anybody has that info, I would like it very much.  ((UPDATE: nevermind, it's here, and also she was just sick for a while.  it's all good.))

Now.  Let's get down to business [to defeat the Huns].  Because Spider-Man is my favorite superhero, every now and then I go on a Spider-Man media binge.  This time, as I'm sure you can guess, the binge was brought on by The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  So after watching that and its precursor movie, I grabbed the slightly older series, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (AKA Tobey Maguire/that-kid-from-Gatsby/early 2000's Spider-Man.  That one).  Because IMDb is the very greatest movie reference site ever, I have its Spider-Man page here.

I feel I need to point out that Spider-Man is in no way a prequel for The Amazing Spider-Man.  I think people make this mistake because both came out so recently (in the same ten years, at least), but no, these renditions are in no way related other than that they were both based off of the original comic series.  In other words, trying match up and then make sense of the storylines is like trying to match up Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises with 1995's Batman Forever.  Both are great individually (Batman Forever has a special place in my heart), but make absolutely no sense put together, I assure you.

That said, let's review a movie, shall we?

Knowing me, this may take a while.

Let's start with a synopsis.  In Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire plays high school senior Peter Parker, who is fairly smart but painfully awkward, has been in love with his neighbor Mary Jane Watson (MJ) since the fourth grade, and lives with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City.  Here, dear Peter goes on a high school field trip and is bitten by a genetically modified spider that somehow got out of its container (which is never revisited or explained).  He wakes up the next morning with spider-like abilities, such as that to climb and stick to walls and that to shoot webbing directly from his wrists.  Additionally, his eyesight is now perfect (he previously wore glasses), and he has super-strength (he was a total wimp).
     Meanwhile, Dr. Norman Osborn, father of Peter's best friend Harry Osborn, is the owner of Oscorp, the city's largest science research lab.  Dr. Osborn has been working on a human performance-enhancer for quite some time, but his higher-ups threaten to pull his funding, so he skips through the process to human testing - the human being himself.  A possible side effect of the performance enhancer was insanity, and thus it drives him insane, turning him into the Green Goblin.
     Peter has a fight with his Uncle Ben, who tells him "with great power comes great responsibility" and is killed shortly thereafter by a street thug in a car robbery.  Peter then decides to become a superhero and fulfill his responsibility to rid the streets of crime.  You know, basically.

This movie is great because it's lighthearted and Tobey Maguire constitues a very likable Peter Parker because he's cute and socially inept and just completely lost for MJ.  So if you're into that, go for it.  Go see this movie for its cuteness, and to broaden your experiences of Spider-Man.  It was fun to watch.  (Particularly in a group.)  But if you really break movies down like I tend to, um...be warned, I guess.  There are a few kinks in the plan.

So when I watch or read things, I tend to put writers into two categories: those better at plot and those better at characterization.  These were plot writers.  To say the least.  The most glaring example of this is MJ.

(courtesy of: nyctalking.com)

Mary Jane Watson is a perky redhead with subtly accentuated boobs who wants to be an actrice and
speaks in a softly sweet voice.  She'd never hurt a soul, says things you'd sooner expect from a sugary romance novel, and must wait ten minutes for Spider-Man to save her from the crumbling ledge instead of just crawling off it herself.  Mind you, I am being perfectly objective; even though no one beats Emma Stone, and my official OTP is Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy (which I am fairly, if not completely invested in), I actually quite like MJ.  In other versions, she's been this sexy, green-eyed redhead with a sharp wit and a little black dress, a character who knows what she wants and always stands up for the little guy.  But in this, MJ was basically the epitome of a weak female character.  I am a bit influenced from also watching Spider-Man 2, in which this problem is I think exponentially worse, but still.

(courtesy of: comicbookmovie.com)

The other painful character is, I think, Dr. Osborn.  One of the greatest things you can do for a movie is develop the villain, but they did not take that opportunity.  His entire characterization is that he's a rich, uptight father turned crazy, bipolar scientist.  His only reason for becoming a villain is that an experiment went wrong and made him a villain, which I think is a bit of a characterization cop-out.  It started as just a conflict of interests - Dr. Osborn originally just wanted control of Oscorp back because the board kicked him off (because he's crazy), but Spider-Man fundamentally disagreed with killing the board members one-by-one, but he went after Spider-Man vendetta-style, like it was personal.  Which is completely irrational.  It's as if the writers couldn't think of a legitimate reason to make him want to kill Peter, so they just drove him insane instead.

My main dispute with stories is usually poor characterization because it's really important to me that characters - and by extension, people - are imagined complexly.

(courtesy of: splashpage.mtv.com)

However, to end this on a good not, I should point out that there is a character in this movie that I particularly like, and that is John Jonah Jameson!  JJJ is the cheap-ass, no-bullshit, always-talking-never-listening, fast-paced head editor of the newspaper The Daily Bugle, which Peter is a freelance photographer for.  He's not particularly nice, as you might imagine, but he's completely hilarious in his own blunt brutality (and doesn't mean half of what he says).  And though I've been trying not to compare the two because bias, JJJ is the main aspect I'd pick of the Spider-Man series that's actually better than The Amazing Spider-Man series.  The latter is seriously lacking, but JJJ in this is fabulous, and all in all, he makes me happy.

So that's it, I guess.  A fair post with which to end the year.

Thanks for reading,

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
  (not really, though.  it's just me.)

Vital Vocab 30 - An Ass-Kicking English Class

Vocab: vocation, wane, whimsical, zealous, zenith

Commonly Confused Words: its/it's, they're/there/their, you're/your, except/accept

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon/colon

Hi, all.  

You should spam me with pageviews.  I was hoping I'd reach 1500 page views by the end of the year, but this is my last Vital Vocab, and on Friday, I post my last required post.  (And I'll try, but let's just accept that I don't do a lot of overtime posting - especially compared to this friend and this friend and probably several others.)  I will, of course, post my epistolary when it's finished, and whatever else I write because I actually really like this blog and stuff, but...but I digress.  1500 pageviews.  And look at this!  Look.  At.  This.

Thirty views!  By the end of the week.  Can we do it?  (Probably not, but it's worth a shot.)

But so, on to other end-of-the-year things.  I know other people have already done their final Vital Vocabs on this same thing, and also, I am an awkward turtle and I suck at telling people who I really admire that I really admire them, but that doesn't make this any less necessary.  So, um, yeah.  Mr. Parker...ya done good.

Honestly, this was the best class I've had in a long time, English or otherwise.  Everything we read in class (Killer Angels doesn't count - summer reading) was something to stay with me, something useful to me, something I'll be sure to remember in a year.  We read and discussed books to care about, books to love, books to zealously shove under others' noses (just ask my mom; they're really stacking up for her).  I was excited to go to this class from the first weeks of the year, and that feeling didn't simply reach its zenith and wane.  We've got just four weeks left until summer, and I still look forward to English as much as I always did.  

Now, note that I've got four fabulous friends in my English class, a fortune I haven't been presented with since probably the third grade, so that certainly helps matters.  (And I am so sorry that there's always that constant and useless whimsical chatter from us.  Please don't mistake that for a lack of respect; it's really just our pitiful lack of control.)

Now obviously, being me, I have a personal affinity for English classes.  But this is the best one I've had in a while.  And I generally try to skirt around how people sometimes point out to me that they think I have a vocation for writing, but this class...it's really nice to feel like you're fairly skilled at something, and that maybe your life could go somewhere.  You know, eventually.

So, all in all, I'm kinda bummed about the end of the school year, except I signed up for Mr. Parker's Creative Writing class next year, so there is yet hope.  

Thanks for the reading and the pageviews, friends.  May good fortune come your way and your eyelashes not fall directly into your eyes.  Until next time.

-Allie

Vital Vocab 29

Vital Vocab Dictionary

Vital Vocab 29 - Spider-Man

Vocab: vapid, vehement, veracity, vestige, vivacious

Commonly Confused Words: course/coarse

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon/colon

Okay, guys.  We have to talk about something.  And that something is Spider-Man.

Specifically The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  

First off, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE IF YOU ARE EPILEPTIC.  There is this one scene that is no good for that, I will tell you right now.  Second off, I promote this movie vehemently, but this is not so much a review as it is a rant, which means THIS POST IS GONNA BE CHOCK-FULL OF SPOILERS.  (Mr. Parker, you should go see it before grading this.  I'm not kidding.)  It also probably won't be very cogent.  (<<ha.)

For you to fully understand all the feels I feel about this movie, you need to know two things about me: a.) I view all things media as two parts writer and one part an emotional human being, and b.) Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy always has been and always will be my OTP (One True Pairing, for any non-fandom-y readers), rivaled only by AnthoBea (Anthony Rousseaux and Bea Holmes, one-shots of which surface periodically on my girlfriend's blog here).  Additionally, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are like my two favorite actors ever because gosh they are both such adorable dorks and I love them oh my god.  They are perfect.

But so of course, they killed her.  

Yup.  

And it was beautiful.

That is not to say that Death is beautiful.  It's not.  It's harsh and ugly and desperate, and unlike every other perfect and lovely Hollywood actor, the broken way that Andrew Garfield cries portrays that quite nicely.  However, the death is beautiful from my writer-y point of view.  Having seen the movie twice in its first three days, I have such an incredible amount of respect for whoever wrote it.  

They spend the entire movie, it seems, building us up.  They make us so sure of Peter, whose web shooters never miss a beat even when they're broken, who saves every pedestrian, who responds so immediately in every situation; he is the perfect hero.  And they make us so in love with, so incredibly lost for Gwen, who's gorgeous and intelligent, not some vapid damsel in distress, but the high school valedictorian, who knows what she wants and makes her own decisions, who so obviously loves Peter and makes everything un-complicated for him, but also lives and leads her own life.  

Given that, the true excellence of Gwen's death scene relies so heavily on defeating the heavily set conventions of the genre.  When the villain claims he'll kill the girl, you know his words are written without a vestige of truth because a true superhero never loses a soul, especially not the love of his life.  Furthermore, in every other movie, when the protagonist holds their loved one's lifeless remains in their lap, crying over their body, begging them to open their eyes...the person always does.  Sometime, I'll have to review Frankenweenie to fully express my thoughts on this scene, but let's suffice it to say it is the most clichéd thing you could ever write into a story, and I will lose all respect for said story if you do.

But these writers broke the cliché.

Gwen does not open her eyes.  And somehow, whether it's due to the integrity the movie has already shown, or the sheer finality of her limp body once she's hit the ground (she falls from a clock tower, by the way), you know she won't.  And Peter's sobbing, and it's brutal and coarse and unexpected, and although it's a factor that I came in to the movie already invested in the characters, this was the first movie I've ever cried in.  When his web reached down to catch her, the end of it opened slowly into an unmistakable hand.  But he couldn't catch her this time.

But somehow, even without my two-parts-writer perspective, the crushing honesty of Gwen's death doesn't ruin the movie for me, because it ends with Spider-Man coming back to the city after his period of grief because Peter finally watched a video of the speech Gwen gave at graduation.  It says that there are dark times ahead, but not to lose hope, because people need you and things do, eventually, get better.  So Peter gets new hope and closure, and goes back to saving the city, and the movie ends with the same shadowy figure who spoke to Dr. Curtis at the end of the first movie talking to Harry Osborne, setting us up for another sequel.  

Our beautiful Spider-Man will go on without Gwen Stacy, as will his adventures.  And I truly believe that no one beats Emma Stone, but honestly, I'm pretty excited to see what vivacious or sexy redhead may play MJ in the next movie.

I'm gonna really miss Gwen, though.

-Allie

Update: so, it came to my attention in searching for pictures of Gwen's death that she actually died in the comics as well (which apparently I should have known - I really need to find those), but my points about clichés and everything still stand.  but so yeah.

(courtesy of: Sneak Peek)

Vital Vocab 18 | Vital Vocab 30

Vital Vocab Dictionary

TFiOS, Children's Stories, and Tiny, Mexican Men

Hello all.

Time for a jam-packed media post!

I was actually gonna post about how to defeat writer's block, but that actually began to give me writer's block and I couldn't deal with the irony.  And yesterday, my friends and I spotted three lovely copies of my favorite book, The Fault in Our Stars (TFiOS) on my English teacher's desk, and the movie's coming out on June 6th [link], and I haven't read that book for - jesus - almost two years now.  (One and three quarters?)  Also, Mr. Parker (English teacher) said it isn't sad, which I kind of have to fundamentally disagree with.  The Fault in Our Stars is a very sad book.  The protagonist has terminal cancer.  Her friend has eye cancer.  Her love interest...well, he doesn't have cancer anymore, but that's beside the point.  But so, I read it in the summer before eighth grade, then thrust it in the faces of all of my friends, and they came back and told me they had to stop at this one particular scene (and a few others) because they couldn't read through the tears.  (Alix actually told me I'd "broken her feels" because the book gave her too many.)

Now, that isn't to say you shouldn't read it because it's sad.  I've actually noticed recently that all good books are sad, or at least have sad parts.  I think that's because you can't really confront the world's problems without including some sad stuff.  (I would like to link to something here, but it's too spoiler-y, so maybe I will...later?)  And if you don't confront the world's problems, your book is really just...a book.

Anyways, the point of all my ramblyrambles here was to say this: I'm reading TFiOS again, and because I haven't done an audio reading in ages (and because those are fabulous fun), I would like to post it here.  But because it's All Rights Reserved and I don't have permission to use it, that's copyright infringement, which is just generally a bad idea.  So I will look into it!  And if, by some miracle, I manage to get permission, I'll update this post, or maybe make a new one with the recording.

So really this part of my post is just a review.  READ TFiOS.  O-O

However, I did promise for this to be a media post, and something I realized today is that I never showed you guys the last project I did in Creative Writing.  So here, I give you...

A Giant Mess

My junior high is located right next to an elementary school, so we went to visit a kindergarten class, and we each got a little kid to write a story for, and I illustrated mine and everything and just, just, gosh.  That project made me happy.  I took my kid's name out of the dedication though, 'cause she's like five, and this is the Internet.

The one other thing I wanted to share in this post is that yesterday morning, I went to a Rotary breakfast thingy and they have an orphanage/school place in Mexico that they were talking about and they gave us these on our way out the door.

they made pen people!  and keychains!  (it's a sombrero.  it says Guadalajara.)

hehe!

  

and that just made my day.  :3

Thanks,
-Allie

An Appreciation for Musical Stuff

Hello, all.  Happy Friday!

In this post, I would like to acknowledge something I particularly love: great movie soundtracks.

Now, I realize this is primarily a fiction blog, but I made my tagline vague, and besides, why pigeonhole myself?  This is my blog, I do what I want.

So!

Music post.

If you ever go to my Grooveshark, you will see I have a slightly obscene number of playlists.  Most of my friends have like, three?  Four?  Fun stuff, sad stuff, party stuff, etc.  I, however...I have eighty-nine.  Ye-aah.  I like to listen to most things in albums, and I like a lot of things, and this is a very simple way to access them.  And it's not like Grooveshark puts any limit on your stuff, right?  So...yup.  Currently eighty-nine.  Makes sense to me.

It looks a bit like this:

 

Exactly like that, actually.  Sometimes, you just need to show the internet your four-and-a-half pages of musical taste.  It's satisfying, somehow.  Like maybe you're a cool kid now.  (Not really, though.  Despite my 89 playlists, I still don't know anything about music.)

Now, those playlists are all lovely, but there are a few I'd like to focus on now, which are all in...

this part.  (minus "Night Visions."  sorry 'bout that.)

That's right.  Movie soundtracks.

I'm not sure movie soundtracks get the appreciation they deserve solely because, well, nobody seems to listen to them!  You'll be fully aware that a movie has an incredible musical score (that's what it's called, right?), but when you're done watching, you just...move on.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I just...I just want to...show you some things.

Fewest Words
Alice in Wonderland (2010) - suspenseful and mysterious, of course
Coraline - creepy and awesome, almost French-sounding, but not quite
Howl's Moving Castle - pretty and waltz-y and god I just love that movie oh gosh!
Inception - very intense, in case you didn't already know
(UPDATE) Ruby Sparks - this is mostly just fabulous instrumentals.  in the middle, there are a few songs with lyrics, but most are in a foreign language, so they don't really count.  a beautiful movie, and if you haven't seen it, I recommend you go find it wherever you can.  like, immediately.

Most Uplifting
Juno - various artists, like Kimya Dawson, just being cool and stuff
Meet the Robinsons - including "Another Believer" and "Little Wonders"
We Bought a Zoo - I haven't completely gone through this, but if you've ever seen the movie (which I fully recommend), you'll know what to expect.  happy and whimsical and a little music box-y and just...hopeful
(UPDATE) Happythankyoumoreplease - lots of cute, happy indie/folk-y songs.  this is one of my favorite movies because gosh, it's just so adorable and happy and uplifting!  watchitwatchitwatchit!

Some Wonderful Misc.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - storytelling and feels-y and adorable and Neil Patrick Harris + Nathan Fillion + Felicia Day = AWESOME and if you haven't seen that, spend 45 minutes on youtube.  Go.
The Great Gatsby - some rap and party music, and I'm not sure what genre "Young and Beautiful" is, but it's good.  I recommend it.

These are all lovely, and all make good writing music (for me, at least), and I just, I fully recommend the lot of them, even if you haven't seen the movies they're from.  I hope you can enjoy them!

That is all.
-Allie

The Louvre (and Scout Finch)

Hi, all.  In this post, I recommend to you two lovely things.  First, I give you...the Louvre!

The Louvre (loohv) is one of the most famous art museums in the world, located in the center of Paris.  Now, I'm in French III.  I love the language and the culture, but I try not to talk about Paris too much because, well, if you've ever been into any American shopping mall ever...

...I feel it's become a tad cliché.  I mean, gorgeous!  But cliché.

But this is something Parisian that I really just can't get over.  My teacher showed it to us in French today, and...and...welp.  o-o

You don't need to watch it with sound, but I recommend it, because the music's really pretty.

(I don't trust Blogger with videos, so here's a link to it on YouTube.)

When my teacher asked the class how many people had been to the Louvre, the anticipated answer was maybe two or three kids.  But no.  No!  Nearly half the class raised their hands.  Now, that's fine.  Good for them!  I'm glad!  So long as they don't take it for granted.  But when one girl was asked how she liked it, she only said, "eh, it was cool," and proceeded to stare at her laptop, vastly uninterested with the topic.

Are you kidding me?  It was cool?  I go to the Fine Arts and Natural History museums at the U and I freak out like a little kid.  I end up taking four minutes of video of snails for pete's sake!  (Which are actually pretty cool.  You should see them, really.)

Now, I have to be careful about calling people out on taking things for granted, because I live in a wealthy neighborhood in a very wealthy country.  But she got to go to Paris!  She got to test her broken, third-year French on actual people!  And she got to go to the Louvre.

Actually, maybe I should set something straight.  In science museums, I become like a little kid.  In art museums, I really become a sort of pretentious culture sponge.  I have to be careful not to get all faux-deep on those around me.  At least, that's true last I checked.  It's been too long: another reason I should be in the Louvre right now.

Okay, well right now it's actually like 3:30 AM there, but my point still stands.

Anyways.  One of my many adolescent dreams.

The other thing I wanted to point out in this post - just a small thing - was this:
In English, we recently read To Kill A Mockingbird, which many people may think is a pain-in-the-ass book to read.  If you're thinking that, and you have to read it like I did, just hold true 'till part two (heh, rhyme).  Pay close attention to the characters, because the farther you read, the more attached you get, and the more interesting and meaningful the book becomes.  (There will be fangirling, too.)  It's beautiful, if a little sad.  In my experience, most beautiful stories are pretty sad.  That's just how it works.

And also Scout is adorable.  (I might have to work on my transitions.)

(courtesy of: wikispaces)

Look at her!  Cutie!  Particularly if you know what scene that is.  My mom and I watched the movie last night.  :3

But so, anyways, read the book, then watch the movie, and then go to the Louvre.  I insist.

-Allie

Sleuthing Assistance?

Hello, all.  This post will be short, but purposeful.  This week, I find I encountered a bit of a problem.  It was finals week, and whenever I find myself subjected to large amounts of stress, directly after I'm kind of just...drained of creativity.  Unfortunately, we also started our mystery unit in Creative Writing this week.

There's no hope.

The rest of my class has spent the last three periods planning, outlining, and drafting.  I, however, have spent the last three periods...ahh...sitting...?  Staring...?  Listening to Grooveshark...?

Thinking about fedoras?

(courtesy of: cartoonsnap.blogspot.com)

Or better yet...

(courtesy of: jamknight on deviantart)

I don't watch Sherlock like I should, but that?  That is adorable.

Anyways, I've been painfully un-productive in Creative Writing this past week, because my mind is utterly devoid of ideas.  I do, however, have a character...name.  I have a name.  My sleuth's gonna be a Stewie Elaine.  (Unfortunately, I haven't even decided her hair color.)

So with this post, I implore you: if you have any sort of ideas for a mystery, or even if you don't, leave a comment.  My comment bar loves you.

Just like I love you.  *makes heart with hands*

I'm desperate, guys.  Please.

Please.

*coughs pathetically* 

  please.   

Magnetic Poetry

Today I'm going to post about something very beautiful that I never really fully appreciated until kinda recently.  That something is...

Magnetic Poetry.

It's hard to fully convey the sheer awesomeness of Magnetic Poetry without playing with it, but I guess I should start by explaining what it is.  Have you ever played with those funny little word magnets, and you make little sentences and stories, and it's silly because there aren't enough and's and the's and lots of words get lost under the fridge even though you're super careful just because they're tiny and there's just really no avoiding it because you're like eight?  Mhm.  Amazing.

Now, I really have no idea what happened to the set I had as a kid, and after it disappeared I didn't really encounter magnetic poetry again for many years.  Until just a bit ago, when I noticed the set in the YA section of my local library.

Books?  Who checks out books?  I just wanted to make silly poems!  Seriously though, my friend had to drag me out of there.  And when I got home, I went straight to their website, poked around, then bought a set on Amazon.

That website is great.  You can either play online or shop, and shopping is very entertaining.  Here are a few that I would actually like to have...

 

and a few that I just find amusing.

  

 

(all images courtesy of the Magnetic Poetry website)

Actually, I would kind of like the Little Box of Whoop-Ass, too.  There are other themed sets too, like Cat Lover, Mustache Lover, Artist and Bacon Poet.

I'm actually posting this because I got the Original set in the mail yesterday.  It comes with 300+ words and a little guide to poem-making, which I think is pretty cool, and the perfect set for when you're just getting started.  The first time I bought a set, I got a little overexcited and bought Writer's Remedy, because it looked cute and came in a glass-stoppered bottle.  Unfortunately, it only came with half the words.

Writer's Remedy

Original

Great words all the same, though, and I'm glad to have it.

So anyways, all in all, I would fully recommend trying out magnetic poetry, especially with a friend.  And maybe sometime, I'll post something I write with it.  But beware: it'll probably be missing some and's and the's, and a few will be lost under the fridge.

Shattered Teacups (and Anthony Rousseaux)

Hello, my friends.  It occurred to me the other day that I haven't posted any art in a while.  This is partly because my art lately hasn't been very good (or even interesting, for that matter), but I recently finished an art project that I actually really like.  And I finished it on time for class, too!  (because, you know, I did it as homework.)

The assignment was called "Cup Surprise."  We all collected teacups or coffee mugs and chose an object to draw coming out of them to "surprise" my teacher.  Anything we wanted.  (School appropriate, of course.)  So I started rough drafting (we need two rough drafts for every assignment - bluh) and I ended up with these:

Her name is Eleanor, if you were wondering.

Unfortunately, all too often my run-of-the-mill art projects just strike me as kind of...soulless.  And as soon as that horrible feeling kicks in, I'm screwed.  I look around the class, and see all these projects that look just like mine, and...I can't move on.  I find it hard to see the point.  But that weekend, I got lucky.

My mom broke her favorite teacup!  Hooraaaaay!  (We got her a new one, don't worry.)  And that broken teacup gave me a lovely photo reference.

I actually sent this picture to Sara for some friendly critiquing.  It went approximately as follows:

Me: Does this look like it's been dropped?
Sara: Um.  Yes?
Me: Or should I move it?
Sara: uh...
Sara: wait a second...
Sara: Anthony...
Me: hmm?
Sara: A-Anthony!  AnthONY NOOOOOOOOO!  WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM, ALLIE?  WHAT DID YOU DO?
Me: uhh...
Sara: ANTHONYYYYYYYYYY
Me: I was just...
Sara: ANTHONYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I really should have had a story to tell her.

But so anyways.  After drawing from that picture for the next handful of art classes, I ended up with this.

Signed and dated, my first really good project of the year.  Hope you like it.

-Allie :3

Creative Writing - "Write Around"

Hi everybody!  Hooray, a weekend post!  To think I'd had it together this week....

I've been posting a lot of Vital Vocabs lately, but this wasn't really meant to be a Vital Vocab blog.  It was meant to be a writing [and sometimes miscellaneous] blog.  So, here's some writing.  (And sometimes miscellaneous?)

A lot of things I do for English, but I'm also in a Creative Writing class.  Every class we do a warm-up "Writers Notebook" activity.  (Basically, our teacher gives us some sort of challenge or prompt to start the class with.)  This week, there was one called a "Write-Around."  We each wrote the opening sentences of a story, then passed it around the class, each person adding a bit to the plot.  And so, after some minor editing, I ended up with this.

Writers Notebook 10 - Write Around
((I only wrote the first three sentences and last four paragraphs of this - we had to conclude the stories on our own.))

courtesy of: www.pcta.org

     Trees towered high over the river’s edge, tall spindles of pine. A yellow and orange dusk was falling, and the air slowly gained its distinctive evening chill. There was a broken down bridge, threatening to tumble into the water. It was beautiful.
     Anna felt a warm breath hit her shoulder and she glanced around, but no one was there. She turned and watched the river slowly flow down the stream. Anna was glad to get away from her controlling parents for a little while. Suddenly she heard sticks crack.
     “Hey, Anna. I hear that you want to get away from your parents,” said her ex-boyfriend, “maybe I can help.”
     “John, we broke up for a reason. Now stop stalking me like a shadow!” Anna screamed out at him.
     “Ya but, thats all in the past.” He said making matters worse. She got up and started to walk away. Anna took one step, and BAM! John ran right into her and forcefully slammed his lips upon hers. She tried to escape, but she was to weak. She always was too weak. She was trembling, her whole body filled with fear. I better think quickly, if I ever want to get out of this situation. The last place in the whole wide world she would want to be was right here, right then.
     Anna started screaming at the top of her lungs, the sound echoing off the mountain walls. “Help! Help! Help! Get me out of here.” She began to run, run faster than she ever had before. John kept chasing her. She heard him panting in the distance.
     As she ran, her oversized shoes began to trip her up. She knew that she shouldn’t have worn those shoes. They were slowing her down, so she kicked off her shoes and began to run faster. She was always super fast in track and field.
     John was stumbling over grass and roots, but still trailing after her. Anna stopped and ducked around behind a boulder, knowing he couldn’t see her.
     “Come on baby,” he said, “you don’t wanna hide from me.” Quietly, Anna picked up a stone, then climbed on top of the rock. He didn’t even look up. “Come on now, where’d you go?” he blundered, completely oblivious. Anna tensed, took aim, held her breath.
     She dropped the stone directly on his head.
     “UHG--” John dropped to the ground, unconscious. Quickly, Anna took out her cell phone. It was time to call the police. 

So.  Attempted rape.  Okay, class.  But so I know this isn't my best work; I only really edited it for grammar.  It was a fun assignment though, seeing what a simple setting could turn into when passed by a bunch of different writers.  I'm curious to see what I did to everybody else's stories, too, because when we were done and people got their stories back, I heard things like "oh wow, my story got violent," and "that's so sad, my character fell into a ditch!" and I just kind of sat there like, "oh, I did that...."

But so anyways, thanks for reading, as always.  Until next time, my friends!
-Allie

P.S: if anyone would like to see it, my waifu posted a sad coupling of one-shots we wrote on her blog, here.  (Should I post my one-shots?  They're mostly Anthony-related and poorly explained.)

P.P.S: sorry if the formatting on any of my posts is screwy.  I've kinda been trying to teach myself HTML lately.  (for anyone similarly interested, this is a beautiful website.  enjoy yourselves.)

A Really Long Post About Art (updated)

Hi everyone!  I'm going to take a short break from our regular Vital Vocab story to ask a question.  Does anybody know why the Banksy website's down?  I mean, it's not really...down, but it used to take you to a slideshow of his various graffiti pieces (not every piece, but a lot of them), and now it's just this page.

And that makes me sad.  Because Banksy's one of my favorite artists.

By the way, am I the only one who's bothered by how much this

(courtesy of: Russell Darling on Flickr)

conflicts with this?

(courtesy of: stencils.tumblr.com)

That first one is on Main Street in Park City.  (The second is in San Francisco.)  There are two other Banksy works in Park City, but that's the only one I've actually seen.  And I can understand why they framed it, because everybody loves the piece and it's right where everybody's constantly walking by it, and that will keep people from vandalizing our glorified vandalism.  (Like I said, I love Banksy, but what he does is technically illegal.)  Except...it doesn't.  Recently, someone broke the glass over the one on Main Street, and painted over one of the others.  They restored them (and apparently caught the guy), but...still.  That frame does nothing.  *narrows eyes at the well-meaning frame*

ANYWAYS, I digress.  This post is not just about Banksy.  I also wanted to advertise two beautiful webcomics I've found.

So, I might have already told you about Ava's Demon, but look at this.  Look at this!

(courtesy of: Ava's Demon, Chapter Eight)

Look at theeeeem!  Ava's Demon is about a futuristic world where a girl who made a pact with a demon spirit person thing has to go find other demon spirit things and all the characters are really fabulous and unique and the artwork's just amazing and the author, Michelle Czajkowski, "interned at Pixar and worked with Dreamworks Animation," and it updates every Monday and Thursday and it's just really really cool.  And you should check it out here.

Another webcomic, something I found through Tumblr (because I started following the author, modmad), is called The Property of Hate (TPoH).  I don't really know how to explain it because it's pretty early on in the storyline, but it's really just...dreamlike and whimsical and pretty metaphorical, too, and the little girl, Hero, is just really just...really just...look at her!  O.O

(courtesy of: TPoH)

That actually doesn't express her adorableness well enough.  She's just cute and brave and really happy-go-lucky and she has to be lifted off the top bunk because the ladder hurts her feet and she's cute.  And like Ava's Demon, TPoH has a bunch of really creative and different characters, and there's also the other main character, RGB, but I can't even get started with him.  He's just amazing and well-dressed and says "cheerio" and also his head is a television.  (Yeah, I have no idea.)

(courtesy of: TPoH)

Mod (the author) updates I think one page every Sunday.  It's beautiful and you should check it out here.

Another beautiful webcomic is Homestuck, but I'm not gonna get into that right now.  It's amazing, but it's incredibly long.  I haven't read in months (I think I was on Act 5, Act 2, just before whatever the big thing is that Gamzee does).  If you wanna know more about Homestuck (which I highly recommend, regardless of length), read it here or read about it here.

(courtesy of: Siri)

This post is pretty long.  I'm proud of myself.  

Until next time!

-Allie

P.S: remind me to illustrate that last Vital Vocab like I promised.

UPDATE: The Banksy site has now become this:

*sniffle*