When The Walrus Walks At Midnight…

Yeech, I haven't updated all week! Well, I haven't had much to say in the past week. School was okay, but not great. I didn't do much other than that, other than watch movies and do homework. On Friday I went to a rally for a bunch of schools, including mine. Honestly, the parts that stand out the most was the pizza and singing Never Gonna Give You Up with Caroline on the bus ride there.

So now it's Sunday again, and I said last week that I was going to compare the Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang book to the movie. Not for any particular reason, though, and it's definitely not that I'm obsessed with something new this month and hopefully it'll last longer than the last thing aheheheheh. However, I can't find my copy of the book. However, I can get ahold of The Princess And The Frog and the book it was kinda-sorta-not really based on with minimum effort, so that is what I will do today. Because I am bored and the Internet connection is kind of &#^%ing me at the mo.

Ah, yes, The Princess And The Frog. It's not exactly common knowledge, but the recent Disney movie was actually based on a book by E.D. Baker. And by "based on," I mean that the idea is the same, but it, in truth, has next to nothing to do with the book.

I own a copy of the book, as well as the first two sequels, and they're pretty good. It's about a defiant princess named Emma who kisses a prince-turned-frog while wearing a magic-reversal bracelet from her aunt Grassina and subsequently gets turned into a frog. She and the prince, Eadric, have to find the witch who cast the spell in the first place and then get her to undo it if they ever want to be human again. A really average story, but it had great humor and, not to toot my own horn or anything, the sophisticated vocabulary and storytelling techniques really excited little me. I always was rather pretentious.

The movie holds the same basic idea, but deposits the characters in 1920s New Orleans, rather than the fantasy world of Greater Greensward (and, trust me, it's very green). And before you ask, no, I'm not going to tackle the politics around the film, because I'm more concerned with the story.

First off, Tiana and Emma are as different as windows and doors which is an expression that I just made up and rather like. Emma perfectly fits the tried-and-true "clumsy, rebellious princess" role so common to those types of stories, while Tiana is more like Mulan. By which I mean, she has a specific goal in mind and won't give up on it—no exceptions! (Before the character development fairy flies in and dusts the movie with her patented Character Development Fairydust.)

There were also several exceptions from the Disney tropes taken with the movie. Sure, Tiana only has one parent, but it's her dad that's missing, and we are given an explanation for that. (Charlotte is a different story.) Also, Dr. Facilier doesn't fall to his death like many, many Disney villains. Also, (spoilers hidden; highlight to see) Ray's death. Good Lord, Ray's death (Oh, the cries!). Perhaps they're building up to that Snow White and the Seven Warriors movie I've heard mentioned. It's also focused on the "work hard to make your dreams come true" Aesop, compared to other Disney princess films.

In fact, a lot of the movie deviates from set stereotypes. From the Aesop the rich, blonde Charlotte actually being a good person, instead of the antagonistic "Libby" we're so used to. Oh, but there's still a LOT of shout-outs to the classics, as Disney seems to be wisely trying to go back to their roots. Not that there's not more than a few shout-outs in any recent Disney or Pixar movie. I could spend half an hour reading through a complete list of 'em.

In conclusion (because my cat is demanding attention NAO and I'd rather like to wrap this up), the book and the movie are both great in different ways. I'd encourage avid fantasy fans to seek out The Frog Princess, but if you're not a fan of the Disney princesses, The Princess and the Frog isn't for you.

Avidly shipping Dr. Facilier with Mother Gothel,

Omnia <3

(DISCLAIMER: I am not an actual movie critic, I'm just a bored teenage blogger. Any resemblance to actual critics, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and stop looking at me like that!)

Me and my books

How 4-H Annoyed Me By Criticizing My Writing

*pokes blog* 

Well, I haven't really updated in a while. I must rectify this by telling you a fabulous (and pretty long) tale of adventure, writing, heartbreak, and revenge. The title of the story is How 4-H Annoyed Me By Criticizing My Writing, which also happens to be the title of the post. Fancy that. 

Still have no idea what those numbers mean. I got the picture off Wikipedia.

Yes, a few years ago I was in 4-H. It might just be me, but it wasn't quite as exciting as TV would have you believe. But then I found out that there was a category for the fair for creative writing, and everything was happiness and rainbows and smiling clouds.

And then I found out that for a first year in said category, the word limit was 400 words.

400 words. 

I couldn't write squat in 400 words. Well, it was a long time ago and my writing skills weren't that developed yet. I could write pretty long stuff, but short stories were kind of beyond me. What a foolish, naive child I was.

But I tried. In the end, I had to count some of the words as images and leave a few things out of my word counting in order to stay within limits. I think I had maybe 399 words after that. There's no rule against cheating a tiny bit, is there?

"Actually, there is. That's why it's called cheating."

I slid past the judges at the township fair, which qualified me to go to the county fair. My general outlook on the situation was "W00T! I'm the best!"

After judging was over at the county fair, I skipped into the fine arts building to receive my enormous trophy and check for $1 bazillion dollars. Imagine my surprise to find that my story—the one I had worked so freaking hard to make the most brilliant 400 word story at the whole fair—had gotten a red ribbon.

"Lacks character development," they said.

"Lacks brain cells," I said.

To be fair, it was pretty crappy. Probably the stupidest thing I've written since the Little Kitten books. *shudder* I just couldn't see it through my rose-tinted pride-glasses and childish hubris.

The next year, I was determined to win. I had been left a bitter husk by the critiquing of my little Cinderella story. Contributing to the bitter-husk-factor was the fact that the drawing that I had worked on for hour had gotten a freaking white ribbon. Because the stones were uneven. That's how they are in medieval castles. Geez… Looking back on it, I probably could have done the stones a little better. I think my nostalgia goggles are falling apart.

This year, I could write 500 words. Apparently, a hundred little words can make a huge difference. Or maybe I was just better at writing a year later.

I spent hours—or maybe it was only about twenty minutes, as I was quite an impatient child—writing up detailed character bios for characters I ended up cutting. For those of you keeping track at home, this makes the most character info I have ever written before actually writing the story. In the end, I didn't actually use most of the information I invented. I cut swathes of details, leaving me with three major characters and two minor, which is two more characters than I had the year before.

It paid off. I would have gone to the State Fair, that unattainable epitome of 4-H prowess, 'cept creative writing doesn't have a State Fair category.

Oh well. I got a purple honor ribbon in photography, at least.

We here at Newfallen Mystery Enterprises hope you have enjoyed this random and fairly self-centered excursion into Miss Clepe's backstory while she procrastinates on writing. Cheers!

Excuses, Excuses (Irish Edition)

Rest assured, dear reader, that I would love to recount my adventures of the past few days to you. It is a fascinating tale of airplanes, exhaustion, and whiskey marmalade, but, unfortunately, even though I've been taking careful notes, they kind of degenerated into random scribbles once the jet lag set in. As soon as I remember what I did yesterday, I'll finish up writing a blog post.

Today, however, I'm going to a butter museum. A better butter museum. Betty Botter bought some butter, but the butter was too bitter…

Ta!

I'm Bored

If I had a catchphrase, it would probably be "*sigh* I'm bad at this," or if I'm being sarcastic, "I'm very good at this."

Likewise, if I wrote a book full of quotes, it would be full of things like this:

• One of my favorite hobbies is to go on Google Translate and make it say dumb things in Russian. 
• I figured out that if you press on the space next to the trackpad on my laptop, it clicks. This might be a manufacturing error, but I was really freaked out until I figured out what was happening. 
• One Thanksgiving, my cousin and I went for a walk. We ran back once we realized we had been gone for hours. We hadn't, my watch was an hour ahead. There was a moral to this story, but now I can't remember what it is.
• I was slightly disappointed when I found out I was too old to sit at the kids' table on holidays. I'm still upset.
• My mind wanders, but that's okay, because it usually comes back. 

I agree with that last one wholeheartedly.

Memorial Day

I'd post a bit about it being Memorial Day and all, but my mind still hasn't gotten past "Bluh…hot…wahhh…"

I got some ice cream a few minutes ago. In my mind, I fantasized about it looking something like this:

I kinda stole the picture from Google Images…

What a lovely fata morgana. It ended up looking like this:

Sorry I ate most of it on the way upstairs. Also: Yes, I'm eating ice cream out of a mug, and yes, I often use books as tiny little tables when I'm sitting on my bed. 

If I could think of anything else to say, I'd say it, but…bluh…hot…

Uh, happy Memorial Day! What a miserable excuse for a post. Here is my favorite awesome thing for today. If you want an awesome thing vaguely related to this post, then here and here. *drools*

(My ice cream is gone now. I am sad.)

Whatcha Doin'?

Hey, hi, how ya doin'?

Good, good… Yes, I'm alive. Now, I know you've all been pining for another post for days, eagerly clicking over here to see if I've updated.

So here's your stupid post. Laugh yourself sick on it.

Oh, sorry, did that come off as mean? I do apologize.

"Why don't you actually say something, instead of hemming and hawing and making references to The Simpsons DVD commentary? That's probably the nerdiest thing you've done on this blog."

Nerdiest on this blog, but not in real life.

"Get on with it!"

So-rry, Miss Persnickety.

"Maybe you should talk to your audience now, instead of having meaningless arguments with your muse."

You are not my muse, Claudia. My muse is an elephant. Um, that made more sense in my head, I promise.

And now it's time for some actual content.

…

Screw it. I'm taking the day off.

Procrastination

YesMomIdidmyhomeworktodayyoudon'thavetoworryabouthatkthnxbai.

Ah, procrastination. My biggest vice. Youtube, Email, blogging (heheheh), the NaNo forums, writing… I have much more important things to do, but I still automatically think "ZOMG NEW EMAIL! MUST READ!" before "I should really do some more homework. I have to get all this done before September. *twiddles thumbs*"

My biggest source of procrastination is probably Youtube. Partly because I love clicking between channels, seeing if people have posted new videos, and partly because, for every two minutes of music I listen to, I spend five minutes clicking around, looking for new music.

Ironically, I stopped in the middle of this post, which was a source of procrastination in the first place, and did some other random stuff. So I procrastinated on procrastinating (within a dream!) Funny, that.

Awesome-Video-That-I've-Watched-Several-Times-Already: I've been waiting for this forever! And--and--Steven Moffat!

*epic fangirl squee*