Way to Go, Marvel!

I love superheroes as much as the next girl. Possibly even more. But I must say, it gets a bit annoying when you have to slog through pictures like



or even



to find just a single decent, modestly dressed, somewhat realistic rendering of your favorite characters. I'd love to be able to find a good role model in the Marvel universe, but its tremendously hard to do when the majority of the female characters are under dressed Mary-Sues. I mean, so far we've had two main personality types. I mean, we've got two main personality types among the Marvel women.

Hot headed, independent, with a single soft spot for this one guy and a fair bit of cleavage, like the Black Widow




or even worse, wimpy and overall annoying. Like Mary Jane Watson.



Of course, she can have a fair bit of cleavage too.

Marvel has no shortage of realistic characters, but unfortunately the majority of them are men.

That's why I was so happy when I found out about the 'Characters and Creators' program, though Pintrest. Marvel is aiming to create more representation for their female characters, including a focus on the female X-Men, plus solo comic books for She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, and more. Sweet!

The new Ms. Marvel, to be frank, seems utterly amazing. A sensibly dressed, Muslim heroine will throw a wrench in the traditional rut and bring a whole lot more diversity into the universe.



Now, to clear things up a bit. I've got no problem with a few exposed midriffs, or even the occasional Emma Frost type. But when I'm looking at, say, Storm, in a similar outfit, it gets annoying. I understand if the costume fits the character, but if it doesn't, I don't.

With the changes Marvel is going to make, I'll hopefully be able to empathize with a few more characters, and have more fun enjoying plain old superhero awesomeness at the same time. So thank you, Marvel.

Photo Editing

The Original



After Editing on Pixlr

Photography

One of our beautiful chickens, Skywalker. 

A picture of the leaves on our banana tree. I like the textures in this one.

Some of the books on my bookshelf.

Another chicken pic, still Skywalker...

And another! This one is Spirit. It turned out quite a bit blurrier than I would have liked.

A lemon on our lemon tree.

A wood heart... I really like the color in this one.

A windchime hanging on our lemon tree.

Looking out of a hole in our fence... it looks a bit like fairyland, so I made the colors a bit more vibrant.

A parasol hanging on my bedroom ceiling. I like how the angles and shadows.

Wings of Fire: The Dark Secret Book Review

So. I promised you all a few more book reviews, and look! Here's one now.



*Spoiler alert!*

So, this series is quite a bit below my reading level, but I still enjoy it. I mean, dragons, prophecies, and warring rival queens... What's not to like?

First of all, I must say, I loved this book.

Number one, it changed the focus of the series. Instead of focusing on the battles, it focused on revealing more about Starflight and Sunny's characters, which really needed to have a bit more focus on them- the romance between the two is adorable, but it doesn't really work up until now because there was very little characterization. Starflight is the smart one, and Sunny is the sweet one. Up until now, the series never really went further than that.

Number two, it revolved around secrets and lies- perfect for a book mainly about the mysterious NightWings.

Third... Man, that was a major plot twist! Morrowseer made up the prophecy himself to create a powerful bargaining chip in the war, so that the NightWings could get a new, less dangerous territory.

Fourth, I was glad to learn a little more about quite a few characters other than Starflight and Sunny. Deathbringer isn't just an assassin- he's a rebel. Blaze is being manipulated by Queen Glacier, so she definitely isn't a good choice for a queen.

Overall, I'm going to give this book a 8/10.

Frozen Movie Review

Oh my gosh. Disney's newest movie, Frozen, was amazing. And I know I promised more book reviews, but I just have to write this.

First of all, the music.

The music was all amazing. Some of the songs, like "In Summer" were amazingly lighthearted songs that were fun to listen to.

But the one song I really loved was "Let it Go." The music was amazing, but the one thing that I really loved about it was that I could relate to it, on so many levels.



Another thing I loved? The characters. Anna, the outgoing, naive younger sister who dreams of falling in love. Hans, the typical Disney prince who turned out to be evil. Kristoff, the sweet but incredibly shy mountain man who sells ice for a living. And Elsa, who lived in isolation to protect those around her.

Third, the fact that Frozen had the amazing combination of Brave And Tangled's amazing, strong female leads and the beautiful music of their older movies.

The acting was great, but what do you expect from a group mainly consisting of Broadway actors and actresses?

Overall, I'd give it a rating of 8.5/10

Thoughts on the Twelfth Doctor

Happy Christmas (A tad bit late), everyone! A time of happiness and cheer.... oh yes, and the Doctor regenerated. 

So. What did you think of the Christmas special? Certainly not my favorite episode, by far. But still... Eleven is dead. And I'm not at all sure what my thoughts on Twelve are. So I suppose I'll try to sort them out here.

He looks like an owl. 

Not exactly the most important thing about him, but I really needed to get that out of my system.

Owls aside, I like him. I don't like him. He'll make an amazing Doctor. He'll stink.

First of all, he seems like he'll be much more similar to the Classic Doctors, and a long shot from anything we've seen in New Who so far.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? 

Most likely a good thing. I'll miss Ten and Eleven's quirky personality, but a change from that would be good. 

As Steven Moffat himself said,

“Eccleston was a tiger and Tennant was, well, Tigger. Smith is an uncoordinated housecat who pretends that he meant to do that after falling off a piece of furniture.” 

So who is Capaldi?

Second on the agenda. He forgot how to fly the TARDIS? Oh goodness, I hope not.

Third. I don't like Clara. Hopefully he'll find a new companion soon. Maybe Scarf Girl (Technichally, her name was Osgood, yes. But Scarf Girl sounds much better) from the 50th? I really do hope so. She seemed a much deeper character than Clara.

So. That's about it for today. Thoughts on Capaldi, anyone?

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Review

Oh. My. Goodness.



**Spoilers Ahead**

I went to see the DoS yesterday, and... gosh. I don't know what to say. First and foremost, I didn't write the review yesterday because all I would've been able to do was squeal about how amazing it was.

And I'm going to try not to do that today, but I'm not promising you anything ;)

Let's start with... the acting.

Oh my gosh. The acting was amazing.

Martin Freeman did a wonderful job as Bilbo, same as the first movie.

And Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug?

His voice was so filtered that I could hardly recognize it, but gosh it was creepy. Almost as creepy as Sherlock when he's mad.

And then Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel.

She did an amazing job, I must say, especially considering the fact that I originally hated the idea of adding in her and Legolas. But now, I'm not so sure. I was quite pleased with her character.

Except for one teeny, tiny thing.

The Kili/Legolas love triangle.

I'm perfectly fine with Peter Jackson adding in Tauriel for some female representation. I mean, goodness, look at this chart.



Tolkein really could have a done a much better job with adding more female characters, which is one reason why I liked the addition of Tauriel.

But now that I've seen the movie, I've realized that even though she did get some really cool fight scenes, she was added more for the romance than anything else.

Why can't we just get an awesome female character without romance and love triangles in the background?

As Evangeline Lily herself said,

“Because The Hobbit was my favorite book as a little girl, and the Silvan Elves were my favorite characters in the book, it would be a dream come true to play one, I agreed very quickly. And then they said to me, ‘Your character’s not in the book.’ And I took great pause as a great fan of Tolkien. I kind of gulped and went, ‘Whaaaat? Everyone’s going to hate me.’

At that moment when [Boyens] said there was a love story, I agreed to the job under one condition. One condition. And they agreed to the condition, and it was in place for two years. The condition was: I will not be involved in a love triangle. (“It’s true,” Boyens confirms). Because any of you who are fans of Lost — I had it up to here with love triangles."

So now I'm going to stop ranting about the love triangle, because I really honestly did love the movie overall.

Most of the things they changed from the canon, I liked. 

I didn't mind the fact that Bard was a peasant instead of the leader of Laketown because I feel that it enforced the entire theme of the LotR trilogy- that small people can do great things. 

I liked how they began to show Bilbo's growing attachment to the Ring, something that never really happened in the book.

I honestly did love Tauriel's character, and I still think she's an awesome.

And overall, the movie was totally AMAZING.

Rating: 8.5/10

I really should be wrapping this up now, so bye, everyone!

Oh, and as a side note, all my really old posts containing nothing but pictures have been deleted. If you really want to see those pics, most of 'em are on my Pintrest page, which is linked from the sidebar.