I took a few hours out of my life today to read a book called Let it Snow, a collection of three Christmas stories (it says "holiday" on the cover but it's more or less Christmas) by prominent teen authors.

...Guys, I think I hate prominent teen authors. Reading three shorter stories more or less back-to-back helped to cement the fact that yes, pretty much every modern-day non-fantasy teen novel is exactly the same. And not in a good way! It seems to me that all of the books that fall into the above category are about an average teen (with a few quirks!) that has a series of crazy, but possible, events happen to him or her. There are several reasons why I generally don't like this form.

First, I really don't think that using "normal" as a base for your character is ever a good idea. "Normal - math skills + loves bacon + talks a lot" might work for a side character with a few lines, but it makes for a very dull lead. I realize that authors will want to create relateable characters, and they feel that making them normal with a few quirks is the best way of doing so. Unfortunately, everybody is normal with a few quirks, so the result is more "oh, hey, I like bacon too," than "oooh, I totally agree! Yeah, that's so true!". The thing is, a character isn't relateable because of personality traits, they are because of situations and emotions. Sure, I like to see an occasional character be a yaoi fangirl and whatnot, but that's not the important thing. In the end, I really don't care if Addie is pretty average except she's a bit self-centered and when she fights with her boyfriend she dyes her hair pink; I do care that Mitsuru is well-breed, has high expectations for both herself and others, and bears a lot of responsibility. "Normal" is almost meaningless now; use words with meaning.

As for the series of crazy but possible events thing, that just tends to go overboard. I like to see authors not try to make a whole book based on one gimmick, but there are limits in the other direction as well. When your heroine's parents are sent to jail, she's sent to meet up with them, her train breaks down, she leaves and goes to Waffle House, she leaves from there with a stranger to escape cheerleaders, they fall into a frozen pond, she bonds with his mom, breaks up with her boyfriend, and falls madly in love with the guy she just met -- all in 117 pages? (Actual story, seriously.) Too much is happening, and too much of it is bizarre.

And this is more of a pet peeve, but I don't think I've ever read a piece of modern-setting teen fiction that wasn't obviously written by an adult trying to sound like a teenager. It just... doesn't work. Heck, I follow John Green -- one the book's authors -- on Youtube and he absolutely writes like he talks. That doesn't matter, apparently, because he still writes like he's trying too hard to be cool (in his own nerdy little way) and relate to teens, and failing miserably.

Thus are the reasons that I pretty much stick to juvenile and adult fiction.

Random question for those of you who keep your mp3s organized with iTunes or Winamp or a similar program that lets you maintain a music library: Do you rate songs? If you do, is it in comparison to every song out there, or just other songs in your library?

Most of my songs are rated 4/5, and all 3/5 or higher, but anything lower than that wouldn't be worth keeping, right? Then again, that makes two of the possible ratings unused, which is also seems silly. Usually 1/5 would = crap, but since it's a given that any song I'll keep around is something I like at least somewhat, I wonder if I should start at 1/5 = decent.

adfsfgkjk; wtf is up with my dreams?

I had a dream that I was going to a rehearsal for a musical for some reason -- I wasn't the show or the crew, I was just watching a rehearsal -- and Mom was bringing some snacks. I was carrying this awesome slice of cake that was all crumbly and frosty and delicious looking, but there was a blizzard outside and it blew away. I felt HORRIBLE. (I feel worse in my dreams than in real life for some reason; I'm usually good at not being depressed over crappy stuff in real life.)

THEN WE ALMOST RAN OVER OPRAH. Who was exercising in the middle of the street. And apparently this was a common occurrence.

And somewhere in there, I made a long emo LJ post about something completely different! And no one told me how annoying I was being, even though I was. I have awesome LJ friends even in my dreams. ;_;

...I'm not sure why I decided to share that, but there you go. I think I know what it means, but that would require a real long emo LJ post, so I won't.

Sleeping Beauty is probably the most generic of Disney's princess movies. Everything here is in at least one other movie, and I think things like talking to woodland creatures and such stared to become identifiable parts of Disney movies thanks to their repetition here. Unfortunately, that makes it fairly forgettable.

In fact, Aurora and Philip are Disney's least interesting princess and prince. If they actually had personalities, I didn't notice. Fortunately, there are awesome fairies to make the movie more interesting. The faeries are pretty much worth watching the movie for; they're like your random cool great-aunt except magical. I loved watching them try to raise Aurora even though they didn't really know what they were doing, bickering, etc. The villain is pretty cool, too. She's not very well-developed, but she does get the evil powers of awesome.

This is, again, very song-light, but I do like "Once Upon a Dream". Come to think of it, I should start seeking out mp3s for the handful of early Disney songs I'd listen to over and over again. Stuff doesnt' get full-CD worthy until around The Little Mermaid.

So yeah, Sleeping Beauty is your basic Disney princess movie. It's a solid work but far from outstanding, and definitely good for the princess fans at the very least. Still, I can't see myself watching this again anytime soon.

Stop making dog movies, Disney. I don't like dogs. D:

That said, I do really like this movie, probably because the dogs act pretty much like humans. Things are told from a pet's point of view, yes, but they're much smarter than real dogs, and their emotions are more human.

Still, the plot and characters in Lady and the Tramp are pretty lackluster. The little princess and the scamp fall in love, they go through hardships, everything turns out okay. Yawn. Yeah, it's one of the more well-told versions of the story, but that's about it.

It's a very pretty movie, though. I actually like most every character design, even though they are dogs.

It has Disney's special touch, but I still find this to be a very "meh" sort of movie.

This movie warms the cockles of my heart. Okay, not really. But it's easily the sweetest of Disney's works that I've seen this summer in a lot of ways.

Like Pinocchio, there's a lot happening in Peter Pan. At its core, though, it's just a fun little adventure with a group of kids who don't want to grow up. I love the childhood-embracing nature of this movie; it really reminded me of when I was younger and the thought of abandoning fantasy for real life was the scariest thing ever. Honestly, sometimes it still is, and I think this makes Peter Pan ultimately a very relatable movie.

The characters in Peter Pan are different from many other Disney movies in that while they have pretty distinct personalities, most of them are really, really annoying. Peter is a lot of fun if a bit of a little brat, and the Lost Boys are the same sans the "a bit of". The bumbling villains are fun if forgettable, and the two little boys (whose names I forget) are just completely charming and remind me of a lot of the real little boys I know. Tinkerbell, on the other hand, is really freaking annoying and needs to get over herself. I kind of hate her for taking the spotlight lately -- Disney's made tons of fairy products that include Tinkerbell, and Peter Pan and Wendy, the movie's real hero and heroine, have been completely forgotten! (I have a friend who loves Tinkerbell, and when I mentioned that I preferred Wendy, she didn't know who I was talking about.) On that note, I quite like Wendy! She's a bit too without flaws, but her character is a great balance of a child who loves fairy tales and a growing young woman.

Also, this movie has lovely character designs. And that's all I have to say about that.

My family is watching fireworks. So was I, but they hurt my ears and my chest (I'm bad with loud, deep noises) so I left. But we're at my godfamily's house, and I have ice cream cake and my godsister's Felicity American Girl doll to play with, so life is good.

Also, I just beat Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure for the DS. It was boring. But I bought it, so I finished it.

( Review, no spoilers )

summer friending meme

Oh my god you guys the ps2 isn't reading discs. Or at least not P3 or P4; maybe it just hates Persona? ;_;

I read an FAQ and it sounds like it's just dusty (we did buy it used!) and we can pick up a lens cleaning disc and/or vacuum (yeah, I wtf-ed too) (vacuum looks kinda dirty) it to make it work again.

B-but still, I was trying to work on my video game backlog this summer, and ps2 stuff is top priority since I can't take the thing to college! (The Gamecube is mine; the Wii and ps2 are my brothers' but I don't have any wii games.)

Also, I have no idea where my DS charger is. MY LIFE IS SO HARD GUYS.

In happier news, NEW LAYOUT:
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I love the header (although I had to add a ton of blank space to the sides to fit LJ since the base image was small) I still feel like the colors are way off, though. Suggestions would make me a happy panda.

Everybody else likes this movie more than I do.

Now, that's not to say that Alice in Wonderland is a bad movie. Quite the opposite; it's a really neat work that's very different from most everything else Disney's done. It's just not a work I can be very enthusiastic about.

It seems to me that a lot of this movie is fluff that just sets the stage. Alice falls into Wonderland, and we get an hour of her wondering around and having strange things happen to her. It's an interesting spectacle at first, but a movie can only spend so much time in pure setting exploration before it starts to feel redundant. I really like a lot of what the animators did, though: Wonderland really is cool. I'd just prefer to see more plot and motivation besides Alice following a rabbit because she's bored.

For the most part, Alice is an awesome lead. She's a dreamer of a girl, smart and independent, but has a lot of the flaws that real little girls and dreamers of all ages tend to have. For the most part her actions seem to follow a logical pattern, if a bit silly to a viewer. Still, there are some points where her characterization seems inconsistent. Particularly, after she first falls down the rabbit hole, she starts crying almost immediately after. Through the rest of the movie, she slowly goes from curious and adventurous to lost and alone, so that scene seems out of place. (Also, I really want to see a character that wishes for adventure, gets it, and appreciates it. Not that I'm complaining that Alice gets homesick, but it's become so common for the lead to eventually break down and wish the crazyness they asked for had never happened.)

Alice in Wonderland also has very nice animation, although very calm and normal-looking for such a strange world. I suppose there is some contrast between the real world and Wonderland, but not very much. The music is also nice, if sparse. It's barely got enough music to call it a musical (since most if not all of the songs could take place in a non-musical reality), but when there is singing it seems very natural and mos of the songs are catchy.

It's also a highly quotable movie. I didn't bother to make note of anything specific, but there were a lot of lines I can imagine using in a banner or something. I definitely need to read the book (again? I think I've read it before); from Disney's take on it, I imagine it's very well-written.

Peter Pan, next, etc.