thecylon

 

 

So, after seeing this post on my dash, I was prompted with an influx of thoughts and feelings about the show. Now then, instead of spamming Caitlin's ask box with them — which is what I had planned to do — I decided to share them with you all. Hey, there has to be at least one of you who is/was a fan.

Disclaimer: This is about the show, not the comics.

Robin/Starfire is my OTP and I don't get how people don't ship them - they were just so cute together. I know some people ship Robin/Raven, but I don't see that going beyond a nice friendship that doesn't need a lot of maintenance.

God then there is Beast Boy. I do ship Beast Boy/Raven, but I feel that Raven's emotional issues will keep them from having a truly fulfilling relationship. While I do think that Beast Boy could potentially help her grow, I am pretty doubtful as to whether or not he is mature enough to be in a relationship with Raven. YET I also ship Beast Boy with Terra. I like how they both can acknowledge their feelings for each other and that it is such a typical teenage relationship with is actually pretty uncomplicated. I guess that it's the blissful happy they both experience when with each other that makes me ship them, cause it is what Terra really deserves. (And serves as the perfect juxtaposition to Beast Boy/Raven.)¹

When I comes to the plot of the show, I did like the one-off adventure format that it took and I thought that not only was it appropriate for the target audience, but also for the characters and premise. Although, I must say that there should have been more recurring villains/characters. And I would have liked to see arcing. Not story arcing, but character arcing. (Okay, so maybe I am also a little bit in the way of wanting story arcs for that show, but I regress.)

I'm pretty sure someone out there is going to try to tell me that it would not work because it is a children's show, and thus cannot have depth to be successful. To you dear sir I say look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. It had character arcs and story arcs - not to mention the wonderful cast of recurring characters the show employed. Honest to god, if more children's shows were like that, then the entire genre would be changed for the better.

And again I regress to the topic at hand, which is Teen Titans. Now, I agree with what someone (@guymanuel-) said about Teen Titans deserving more then five seasons, but only just. You see, my opinions usually have clauses, and this is one of them. I do think that because of the episodic format that the show took, it did deserve more than five seasons.² However, if they had used the same format as Avatar, I think that five seasons would have³ been more than enough.

In continuing in replying to the thread, I do take issue with what @desmondismyconstant said:

TO BE HONEST / I didn't like the movie / because Starfire and Robin kissing / I was like no / you are not my otp / go away and die⁴

Seriously dude? The entire movie was ruined for you just because of Starfire/Robin? I'm sorry, but it is not a valid reason to hate an entire movie just because a couple that is not your OTP kisses. Let's be real here, your OTP preference should not be such an overriding force that it makes you hate everything that is not your OTP.⁵

You know, as I am finishing up this post, I have come to the realization that I actually spent more time on this than I did on my hundred-point Death Of A Salesman character essay.⁶

( Notes )( Random Thought I Had )

 I take all Honors courses this year, Cinema for the semester, Creative Writing next semester, and do little-to-no activities. Yet my grades suck because I am lazy to the point where it destroys nearly all of my potential. For a long while now Tumblr had been my main procrastination tool. With Tumblr down however, I think my grades may go up but I have mixed feeling about that.

On the one hand, I love Tumblr. It is what really got me into the internet and the online community and I have met such nice people through it. I really enjoy having Tumblr as an outlet for anything I might be thinking about so to lose it would be pretty saddening. And yet there is a part of me that truly believes that Tumblr going offline is kind of good so long as I do not replace it with another way to distract myself. So I honestly can't decide if this is good or bad for me.

I do oftentimes believe that I'll get s paper done on a Sunday that way I can turn it in the day after, but I always end up wasting the day tumbling. (Or obsessively watching television online as I was doing a few weeks ago.) Now with Tumblr out of the way I have more opportunities to get shit done. Interms are coming up and it wouldn't hurt if I got the two lab reports, three papers, eight current event journals, and my Bonnie and Clyde questions done.

Ideally I would get all this done, actually do more then 80% of my nightly assignments, and start to get ahead in my English and Chemistry classes. IE the two classes I care most about. They really do require a time and energy spent on them to excel. If I could I would read all my books for English ahead of time, outline them, and collect all of my thoughts for reference. Then for Chemistry I would read the current chapter before we start on it in class and come in with nice pre-typed notes and a list of questions. But I know myself and that probably won't happen. Is it too much to ask for four more hours in a day so I can tumble for all I want and still get my assignments in?

But what makes my current situation worse is that I just joined a gym and have taken up graphic making, activities which take up a good amount of time. The looming Friday is factor as well, I will be sixteen and thus will be required to take on a job. Don't get me wrong, I want my own source of money but I am afraid that it will be too much for me. Besides, I would like to get my grades up before I even consider having to dedicate two to four hours a day to a job in a place I will most likely hate.

Daniel, you have SERIOUS work to do on Amanda-A’s program. Over on my Tumblr I live blog all of the Caprica episodes and I call it my  "Caprica Commentary". My full Caprica Commentary can be viewed, in order of postage, under the cut.
 
( Caprica Commentary: Episode 13 - 'False Labor' )
 

The Caprica Commentary tag can be viewed here

( Episode Questions that may be semi-spoilery )

Want #1  -  Lately I've been very into screencaps and graphics, and seeing all these people with their amazing work and the people they attract, it makes me want to get into that whole world. I already have Photoshop, so thats not a problem, its just me using it. I honestly have obsolutaly have no clue where to start with and, and my main issue is that I know I wont be good at it, and that to become a good graphic artist, I have to practice and practice, but I can't help looking at my work and then comparing it to the amazing works of others who have so much more experience. When I compare my work to the work of others I just lose all drive to it and I keep thinking that I just don't have a natch at this and so I give up. That is probably why I tend to stay in the writing community, because I am a naturally good writer, But I desperately want to expand my creative horizons into the sector of visual art.

Want #2  -  Tea has always intrigued me. I have never tasted it, but I want to. My only issue is that if I taste something and I don't really like it, then I know that I will most likely give up on tea entirely despite the fact that I am aware that there are a million different kinds of tea out there. This fear is irrational, I know that the flavors of tea create a rainbow of tastes, but I can't shake the feeling that to my strange taste buds, they will all insight feelings of disgust.

Want #3  -  A feeling has emerged inside me, I want to be able to wake up one day and have it just magically be the day of my high school graduation. I want to skip high school not because I hate it or can't stand the people who go to school with me, I want to skip it simple because I think that I am currently taking classes that are pretty useless either because of a useless subject matter, an ill formatted class (schedule wise and such), or because of a terrible curriculum that I can do nothing to change. I honestly want MORE control over my scheduling or as I said above, the opportunity to just skip right over into college. And I don't think that having more control over the scheduling of my classes is a bad thing, nor is asking for a better curriculum.


In my eyes, I should be able to omit classes like PE by taking a test periodically throughout the year that confirm that I am in good physical condition. Either that or a PE class that actually stresses the importance of a good diet and daily exercise and has us set goals for ourselves. But that is another idea entirely. My class idea would be to be able to basically reduce my time in certain classes I am not trying to focus on like Honors Algebra 2 and Trigonometry. I do not think that class has to be 45 minutes long, all the time I really need to spend in there is 15, 20, or 30 minutes. Just enough time to take notes and see some example problems then leave.

I don't think that paragraph format is warranted here.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
10 AM	H. Chemistry Lab	Honors Chemistry	Honors Chemistry	Honors Chemistry	Creative Writing	Creative Writing
11 AM	H. Chemistry Lab	Creative Writing	Creative Writing	Cinema	Cinema	Cinema
12 PM	H. World Civilizations II	H. World Civ II	H. World Civ II	H. World Civ II	Cinema	CLASSES OVER
1 PM	H. French III	H. French III	H. French III	H. French III	Cinema
2 PM	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK
3 PM	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK	BREAK
4 PM	IDK	IDK	H. Algebra 2 & Trigonometry	H. Algebra 2 & Trig	Test Prep: Math
5 PM	H. English	H. English	H. English	H. English	Test Prep: English

I know that may look like an ill conceived scheduling plan, but I quiet like it. After all, I feel the block scheduling is better than the strange times that they give us already.

Now something I cannot show you on this chart however is the fact that I made changes to the courses (in my head). Chemistry would remain the same. But creative writing would be a class focused on good fiction writing strategies, but with writing assignments that are very abstract. Cinema would be different too. The class would be built around Friday (now that is just me being hopeful), every Friday, the class would sit and watch a movie, then at the end, people would share their reactions and feeling. The assignment for that night would then be to use notes from during the movie/after the movie and make some notes about what you like, what you didn't like, any symbolism you see etc and then the next day would be when the class talks about the movie, debating or sharing some personal thoughts from the notes. On that day, an assignment based on the movie would be assigned and due Thursday. On Thursday, the assignment would be collected and then there would be a test on the movie. After the test then finally would be the introduction to the next movie in the class.

World Civ II would be a class that is more comprehensive and one that is driven by discussion as well as lecture. (NOTE: World Civ II is about non-western civilizations) Oh and don't even get me started about the changes I would make to my French course. IT would go so much quicker, and there would be little in class exercises and practice. A period would consist of learning the vocabulary of grammar and then people asking questions until everyone properly understands, then it would just be some examples of manipulation. And the class would NOT be held up by the outliers that do no properly get it.

Just, UGH I love the French language but I mean French II was almost entirely review and the French III book assumes from the very start that I know what the imparfait is when in reality we didn't even make it past passe compose (which we learned in French I, Part 2) and objects (me, te, nous, vous, le, la, les, lui, leur, y, en) and objects in PC. I just feel like the people who are in the honors level course don't really want to learn the language, have no idea how to speak the language, and are only in it for the grade and the ability to put 5 years of advanced foreign language on their college application. I cannot tell you  how much I hate those kind of people.

And as I said before, I would only take H. Algebra 2 and Trig. twice a week because of the simple fact that most of the work is simple calculations that can be easily assigned as homework. In just two periods per week we could cover the amount of subject matter that we go over in five periods.

Now in English I honestly want to cut out all the vocabulary work and focus more on proper grammar and essay writing and book reading like the class should be. So there. But the one thing I did add to the schedule were two "Test Prep" periods on Friday for Math and English. These would be periods where you go to a class and focus on good test taking skills, but also learn things (like vocabulary) to help you do better on standardized tests (like the PSSAs), class tests, and the SATs along with the PSAT/NMSQT. I also think this class would be used for developing better study skills and other minor, subject wide skills like organization and time management.

So wow, that last section dragged on longer than I had anticipated. Sorry about that.