An Open Letter to Stephen Moffat

Dear Stephen Moffat,

Congratulations on being in charge of Doctor Who. Really, I mean it. It’s a great opportunity. But, one factor of being in charge of an insanely popular tv show is that you need to listen to what the fans want. The fans are the people who determine whether your show is going to survive or not. If the fans are continuously ignored, many will eventually decide to jump ship, because it’s not worth investing in the show if the show runner obviously doesn’t care about them.

For the last month, you’ve been hyping the new Doctor. Now, before you jump to any conclusions, I’m not dissing Peter Capaldi. Honestly, I’m very excited for Twelve, and I know that Mr. Capaldi will do a fantastic job. What I am dissing, is that you, Mr. Moffat, built up the hopes of all the fans who aren’t straight, white, males, and then crushed those hopes and spit on them. Seriously, why would you spend months hyping that the new Doctor will be different, that the new Doctor might be something other than a straight, white, male, only to tell your fans that there is no chance of the Doctor being anything other than what he has been.

Now, Mr. Moffat, I’m sure that you don’t mean to disrespect your fans. I’m sure that coming from the privilege that you come from it has never occurred to you to make the Doctor anything but a straight white male. But, there are many people who are not as privileged as you. There are a lot of people that barely see anyone that look like themselves on tv. Personally, I would like to have more role models on your era of Doctor Who than just The Girl Who Waited (For a Man) and the Impossible (Puzzle for a Man to Figure Out) Girl. 

Honestly, I could live with your casting choice, if it weren’t for a few other factors. For one, comments such as “I like that Helen Mirren has been saying the next doctor should be a woman. I would like to go on record and say that the Queen should be played by a man,” are not appropriate. With that comment you’re saying that women can’t steal spaceships and travel throughout time. They have to be “special” women chosen by a man to have that privilege. And for the record, the Queen has been played by a man. Multiple times.

Again, I’m sure you don’t mean to disrespect your fans. And I for one, am not going to let this keep me from enjoying the show. But, it doesn’t change my hope that someday people won’t find it ridiculous that a woman can be a time traveling alien who stole a spaceship.

Sincerely,

A female fan who just wants to see characters like herself on tv

Day 3

Day 3 of the 30 Day Song Challenge is a song that makes you laugh.

For me, that song will forever be, “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al. I call that song my personal theme song, because I am both white, and nerdy. And the music video just makes the whole thing better. I am physically incapable of listening to it without at least smiling.

Day 2

Today is day 2 of the 30 Day Song Challenge. And today’s topic is, drumroll please, a song that always clears your head.

Okay, I’m going to cheat a little bit with this one. I don’t have one specific song that clears my head, but playing a song on the piano does. And by a song, I mean, a pop song that I’m really into at the moment. I don’t know why, but focusing on the keys, my fingers, and the music just forces all other thoughts out of my head. I love playing so much, and I love that I can do something I love to unwind when needed.

30 Day Song Challenge- Day 1

Hey peeps. I know I haven’t posted in a while. But, I want to get back in the habit of posting, so I have decided that I’m going to do a bunch of 30 day challenges to ensure that I post at least somewhat regularly on here. For the first 30 days, I have decided to do the 30 Day Song Challenge

Day 01 – A song that makes you happy
Day 02 – A song that helps you clear your head
Day 03 – A song that makes you laugh
Day 04 – A song that reminds you of something sad
Day 05 – A song that has a new meaning to you every time you hear it
Day 06 – A song you can always relate to
Day 07 – A song that is your guilty pleasure
Day 08 – A song you liked when you were younger
Day 09 – A song that makes you want to dance
Day 10 – A song that makes you cry
Day 11 – A song that reminds you of summer
Day 12 – A song that reminds you of your best friend
Day 13 – A song you sing to in the shower
Day 14 – A song you like hearing live
Day 15 – A song people wouldn’t expect you to like
Day 16 – A song that holds a lot of meaning to you
Day 17 – A song that annoys you
Day 18 – A song you have as your ringtone/want to be your ringtone
Day 19 – A song you’re currently obsessed with
Day 20 – A song from a new album you are waiting for to come out
Day 21 – A song you want to dance to at your wedding
Day 22 – A song that would be the theme song to a TV show about your life
Day 23 – A song that makes you angry
Day 24 – A cover song
Day 25 – An acoustic song you love
Day 26 – A song by your favorite band
Day 27 – A song you make fun of
Day 28 – A song that reminds you of your boyfriend/girlfriend (if you don’t have one, make one up :])
Day 29- A song currently stuck in your head
Day 30- A song that you haven’t listened to in awhile

So without further ado, a song that makes me happy.

This is a tough choice, but I’m going to have to go with “Some Nights” by Fun. I know that the lyrics themselves aren’t necessarily “happy,” but it has such a good beat that every time I hear it I want to get up and dance while singing along. The message of hope contained in the lyrics also helps had to the happiness while listening quotient. And any song that starts off acapella and is described as a cross between Queen and The Lion King is going to steal my heart right away.

A Very Magical Birthday.

I’ve mentioned before that I have been a Harry Potter fan for many years. Part of being a childhood book fan is the inevitable, themed party. Mine was when I was 8 years old. It was right in the midst of my Pottermania. I had finished the fifth book (the latest one out) six months earlier, and I was in love. So, when it came time to pick the theme for my latest party, Harry Potter was the obvious choice.

I was insistent that everything be perfect. Everything had to be Harry Potter, right down to my outfit. My grandma sews for fun, and she had made me a Harry Potter short and polo combination, that I decided was perfect for the occasion.

To this day I still don’t know how my mom came up with the ideas for the activities, but she pulled off the real magic of that day. My friends and I participated in every thing from Potions (root beer floats with pop rocks) to Quidditch. My cake even had a Hermione Granger topper. In fact, I even received Harry Potter lego sets.

Even years later, my 8th birthday party stands out in my mind as some of the most fun I’ve ever had. Just more proof of the dramatic impact Harry Potter has had on my life.

Vikings

A few weeks ago, I was bored and looking for something to do, when I remembered a girl in my Advanced Composition class talking about the tv show Vikings. I had been curious about it for a while, and I knew that an actor that I liked was in in, so I went onto History Channel’s website to see if I could watch episodes online. Lo and behold, episodes 4, 5, 6, and 7 were online. I decided that I wanted to watch it right then, instead of waiting for episode 1 to air on the History Channel again, so I started watching episode four. And completely fell in love with the show. The characters are compelling, the drama never gets to be too much, and it stays as accurate as possible to the time period that the show is set in.

My two favorite characters are Lagertha and Athelstan. I like them because neither of them really fit into the Viking culture. Lagertha is a shieldmaiden, or female warrior. When most people think of Vikings, they typically do not picture women. Yet, Lagertha embodies just as many traits associated with Vikings as the men do, and proves herself in battle many times. In fact, her first scene combines the two roles that Lagertha plays in her life. The scene begins with her doing housework and cooking and ends with her single handedly fighting off two would-be rapists by using different objects found around her house.

Athelstan, by contrast, is a monk that Lagertha’s husband, Ragnar, captured on his first raiding expedition to England. Athelstan is meant to be the audience surrogate, as he is just as new to the Vking culture and just as much of an outsider there as the audience is. But, the reason I like him so much is that Athelstan is a very interesting study in faith, and is often used to compare Christianity and the Norse religion, without promoting one religion, which is rare to find these days. Despite his faith wavering from time to time, Athelstan never completely loses it, even when surrounded by Vikings.

My only complaint about the show is the lack of female characters that affect the plot. While there are four females in the main cast, only two of them really affect the plot. The other two exist merely to show the softer side of male characters and to be used as pawns by the men.

Arrow

Back in the fall, my dad and I started watching Arrow on the CW. While we both love superheroes, and found the premise interesting (neither of us read many comic books, so we didn’t know much), but, we didn’t have much hope. Boy, were we wrong. Right now, Arrow is one of my favorite tv shows. I love how it combines the present day action with the flashbacks to show how Oliver became the Arrow. But, Oliver isn’t the only one that changes. Even though the show is only inits first season, no character is the same person they were in the first episode. Plus, the ahow is turning into a Doctor Who reunion, since both John Barrowman and Alex Kingston have joined the cast.

My favorite character in the show is definitely Laurel Lance. I love how fierce and unafraid she is, but at the same time she recognizes her limitations. It’s also awesome how she’s a lawyer. Not many tv shows that portray lawyers have females as lawyers, especially as the main lawyer, so I think it’s awesome that Arrow features this. Plus, having Laurel played by Katie Cassidy was a good choice. I loved Katie as Ruby, so it’s nice to see her on my tv screen again.

All in all, I would highly recommend Arrow to anyone that enjoys superheroes, or even just a good mystery. Arrow has both qualities in spades.

Chapter 2- Th Vanishing Glass

Warning: Here there be spoilers

Finally, we have reached the moment we’ve all been waiting for, a description of the Dursley’s living room. Actually, rather the opening paragraph. It reveals just as much about the Dursleys as the firat chapter did. Now, in addition to knowing that the Dursleys spoil their son and hate anything that isn’t “normal,” we know that they flat out coddle Dudley, that they hate change, and that they let their hatred of the abnormal affect their treatment of their nephew.

Speaking of their treatment of Harry, I’m surprised that Child Services haven’t taken Harry out of the house yet. It’s fairly obvious that he’s been neglected, at the very least, and once we see how the Dursleys actually treat him, it’s also clear that they verbally abuse him. I would think that at least one teacher would see that Harry’s been malnourished, and would have heard mention of the cupboard. Now, I don’t know much about child abuse laws in England, but in America, if a teacher even has a suspicion that a child is being abused, they have to report it immediately. Now, I know that even here in America kids slip through the cracks, but I find it very unlikely that nobosy got suspicious.

My favorite part of the chapter by far is the snake incident. Not only does Dudly get his comeuppence, but J.K. Rowling beautifully sets up a major plot point of the second book, parseltongue, without makingit obvious, or even letting on that Harry has an unusual talent. I haven’t seen many authors pull that off, so I applaud Ms. Rowling.

The Host

This weekend I took my little sister to go see “The Host.” I’ve read the book before, but that was three years ago, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the movie, especially since most reviews that I saw were pretty negative The movie actually succeeded my expectations, and in my opinion, was better than the book.

I loved how the film portrayed Wanda essentially becoming human. The movie is about a race of aliens, called Souls, that have to livw in host bodies and essentially kick the host’s mind out of e body. However, when Wanda is put into Melanie Stryder’s bosy, Melanie fought back to gain control. Eventually, Wanda runs away to find the rebel humans that Melanie was a part of. Once she gets there, obviously no the of the humans trust her, and so she spends the film learning why the humans want to stay free, and grows to become part of their community.

One thing that did bother me about the movie was how they handled Melanie and Wanda sharing a body. I understand that there aren’t a lot of ways to portray telepathic communivation on screen, but it just seemed cheesy to have Melanie screeming at Wanda, seemingly from nowhere, especially since for the majority of the movie, they are portrayed by the same actress.

The Boy Who Lived

I am taking part in a rereading of the Harry Potter series where I will be posting my thoughts on each chapter and I will also be writing essays on various topics from the books. This is yhe forst installment

Rereading this chapter, I remember why I fell in love with the Harry Potter series. I love how tongue-in-cheek the narrator is, even without appearing overtly so. The opening words are especially magical to be, because in two sentences, J.K. Rowling manages to tell you everything you need to know about Vernon and Petunia Dursley, without even revealing any personal details except for their names. I also love how Vernon’s confusion is presented and how he tries to jusitfy everything, despite his justifications becoming weaker and weaker. It shows just how out of his league he really is.

The narrative seemlessly transitions from focusing on Vernon to focusing on Dumbledore on page 8. Even when I was 7 I could tell that the Dursleys would not be a good place for Harry, and now that I’m older, I doubly believe so. I understand that Dumbledore wanted the blood wards to protect Harry, but I don’t think that that protection was worth the emotional and mental damage that was done to Harry there. Even though it isn’t explicity stated, Harry was clearly abused with the Dursleys, and as an educator and the one responsible for Harry’s well-being, Dumbledore should have intervened and taken Harry out of that environment. But, that would have just destroyed his big plan, so of course he couldn’t do that.

In conclusion, this is still the story I remember reading as a young kid. Too often I’ll go back to rewatch or reread something I loved as a kid, and I’ll find that I can’t stand it any more. That is not the case with Harry Potter. Even after all these years I can still see exactly why I fell in love with it, and why I still reread it and watch the movies to this day.

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