Contrary to popular belief, that is water on my pants.

Oh no I di-int! Wait, yes I did. What are we talking about? Oh, you're there too, blog readers. Don't make me use my smoulder on you! To be honest, I don't even know what that first line and a half was about, so let's start this thang properly now. I can't tell you all how uninspired I've been blogging-wise lately. But, you would have gathered that, seeing as took my longest blogging absence ever, and the few posts I made before that were pretty lameballs. Never fear though, because I have returned to save you all from the fiery pits of woeful misconduct and paranoia... or something. You want to hear a funny, short anecdote? I few minutes ago, I was brushing my teeth, and I accidentally spilt water all over my general crotch vacinity, making it look like I had wet myself. [insert lots of laughter] What, you're not laughing? It's okay, that humour is way too immature for my liking too. Waaait... [flashback to two years ago]

It was a hot summer's day, and two girls departed the school bus, laughing merrily. They had just returned from a glorious (read, painful) school gym class, where they had spent more time ranting about the misdoings of socitey than working on their fitness, or lack thereof. As the short-haired brunette casually stepped off the bus, her pasty friend suddenly came up with a mischevious and diabolical plan. Grinning like a homeless man who had just been given money for booze, the pale girl took out her water bottle and dosed her companion with it. The short hair-brunette responded with a strange mix of emotions, but seemed relatively unphased that her wet clothes made her look as if she was without a properly functioning bladder. That was, until children started staring at her as if they believed she had genuinely wet herself, which left her pale friend in a fit of laughter.

Okay, so maybe I am that immature, and I kinda sort of might have laughed at myself in the mirror. I don't think it's as sad that I had an immature moment as it is that it inspired me to go back to blogging again. It's not like nothing has been happing in my life at the moment. In fact, a lot has been happening in my life at the moment. I've had three days of rehersals for my school's musical failure, sorry, 'musical spectacular', and the term is finally finished. I presented my Extension English assignment, and was awarded an A-, despite the fact that I had a coughing fit in the middle of my lecture. I am rather proud of this, because I worked way too hard on that darn assignment.

I also saw Jesus Christ Superstar two nights in a row, which was incredible beyond words, albeit emotionally draining. [Cue rant! If you have no interest, then skip this paragraph] I have seen so many theatre productions during the past four years, which range from musicals to operas to orchestral recitals to ballet to oratorios to contemporary dance. I have seen local, national and inernational productions which had everything from four people and four chairs to extravagant sets, and casts of over fifty people. However, I have never seen anything with as much heart, guts and genuine attention to detail as JCS. The cast get into the production so fantastically; at some stage all three leads were crying on stage (two to the point where they were properly sobbing), not because they were acting, but because they were genuinely overcome with emotion because the musical was just that intense. It is also a very physically demanding musical. The guy playing Judas broke his leg after just three and a half performances into the season. Funnily enough, that means I saw his first and last full performance in the role ever. Might I just add, he was fantastic. His take on Judas' Death was more moving and disturbing than anything else I have seen in my entire life. I'm not ashamed to say that it made me cry to the point where I was shaking and sobbing. I had a similar reaction to Jesus' Crucifixion, and Gethsemane. The guy playing Jesus was possibly the most talented musical theatre performer I have ever come across. How he is able to hit and hold (for a good 7 seconds, if not more!) a C6, after already holding the G below that, and not taking a breath, is beyond me. His acting was also flawless. He appeared as such a friendly person in the first act, and turned so tragic in the second. It was very refreshing, given the 'I-accept-everything-and-am-always-calm' view of Jesus that seems to be the norm in popular culture these days. Shout-out also to the actress playing Mary. Dang, could she sing! And props for dedication to the role, to the point of crying with makeup running all down her face, and throwing herself across the stage (multiple times!) only to be dragged across it by 'the crowd'. Yeah, it's possible the most intense musical ever, and the production I saw, I am deeming the best ever. I don't just mean the best prodction of Superstar, I mean the best production of anything.

Dang it, I told myself I wouldn't rant about JCS. Well, we all know that I have absolutely no self-restraint. I really do want to make this blog interesting, but bear with me, because I really need to have the obligatory anime paragraph. I finished Hakushaku to Yousei today, which is devestating. Twelve episodes is not enough! Especially when it's left very open-ended. I'm guessing they planned on making a second season, but this never eventuated. Honestly, I wish I knew how to read Japanese, just so I could read the light novels, and find out how Edgar and Lydia's relationship progressed. Anyways, to drown out my post-watching-a-really-good-anime-depression, I started watching a new one. Usually, I purposefully avoid watching animes that I know people I know have watched, because I have serious individuality issues, but, this time I have made an exception. Being in a particularly romance-needy mood, I watched three episodes straight of Kaichou wa Maid-Sama!. Having come to the realisation that every single story that I love has a really tragic ending, I thought it would be good for me to watch a nice, light-hearted rom-com. It seriously is a great show; I can see why it's so popular! I've made it my goal to watch three new anime before the holidays end, and I shall!

0_0 ... Wow, it really is true. I know I just established this, but for realz, I don't think it's possible for me to properly love a story, unless it has a tragic ending. Which is kind of strange, seeing as I haven't expereinced too much tragedy in my life, and when I have, it's been just that- tragic. I'm all "Ohai story. Your characters all get happy endingz, and/or don't have to go through Hell to get there? Me no respect you!" With the exception of some romances, because I am too much of a hopeless romantic. I wonder if that's some sort of complex... Not that I like all tragedies. If they're like "Look at me! Imma so tragic! Cry for meee!" my general reaction is "Bitch, STFU." I find myself crying at things that most people don't find that sad, and feeling rather emotionless towards things that are generally accepted as heartbreaking. Titanic, for example. I was so happy when Leonardo DiCaprio's character finally died, because it meant that I didn't have to see his annoying face any more. I hear this is meant to be a very moving scene. Oh well.

Ohohoh! You know what's really strange? I was on TVTropes, as I often am, and I had this weird epiphany: when I was a really young child, so many of my dreams involved having Stockholm's Syndrome. I'm not going to explain what that is but, yeah, after having this realisation, WTF-ery ensued. Okay, so I'm going to contradict myself and explain: SS is when someone is captured, and they fall in love with the person holding them hostage. I'm not into that kind of stuff, so it confused me as to why I was dreaming about that, as a child nonetheless. Luckily, I've learned that dreams don't actually indicate much about anything. If they did, I'd be a sadistic freakshow, who doesn't know how to do much other than die and be ressurected again, just so I could die some more.

Luckily, I've never died. Though, unless my brain gets creative quicksmart, I may die of boredom this week. I had a lovely time hanging with my wonderful hoes on Sunday, but I am stranded at my rural property for the remainder of the week, as both my parents work. This isn't a problem for most people, because most people live in an area where there is a public transport system. asdghasdbm. Really, government, acreage doesn't mean country-living, you could at least give us a bus service! Anywayz, when both my parents take the two cars and depart from work, if I have left in one of those cars, I'm pretty much stranded on my property, with nowhere to go. This is a rather depressing concept, but at least I'll have my sister with me this week so I can torture her for my own amusement. I shall use my super-powers-of-creativity to come up with fun and whacky things to do! And then, my dear readers, I shall come and blog about them here, for your amusement. Buenos noches!

Red Oni, Blue Oni

I swear, TVtropes has ruined my life. I mean this in the most wonderful and appreciative way possible. I have been away from the blogging world for a few days because I have actually been taking some time to devote myself to my school work. I know, this is equally unbelievable and astounding. In reality, it's not, because I am a renowned nerdburger, who is constantly stressing about school and working hard to make sure that I do well on all my tests and ace my assignments. As much as I hate school, I'm probably one of the few people in my "oh-so-apathetic" grade that genuinely cares about getting an education, and is prepared to work hard, no matter what. I know I bitch and whinge about school in this blog a lot, and say that I'm neglacting my work, but I'm not really.

Anyway, back on track. I have an English oral that was due today, but I didn't get the chance to present. Darn schnitzel, I wish I'd been able to get it done! I shall be presenting to tomorrow though, so all is well! Then, I have a Maths exam on [next] Wednesday, and my Biology assignment due on Friday. Despite having a fair bit to do, I have mostly taken tonight off, for my own sanity. Hurrrm, I'm not sure if sanity is the correct word to use. Sane people don't generally spend two and a half hours on TVtropes, reading about anything and everything, buuuut... It is so addictive. Plus, I can't help but relate everything in my life to tropes these days.

I was re-re-re-re-re-watching (and seriously, for this particular episode, that's not even close to enough re's. Oh dears!) an episode of TDWT, and I noticed this:

Okay, so I'd never actually taken into account the colours of the train icon things before, because I can often fail at analysing mise en scene. However, last time I watched it, I was automatically like "ZOMGREDONIBLUEONI!" But then it occurred to me that Heather & Al were waay too similar to fit into that trope... aren't they? /creepy music/ Justification is just a hop, click and a paragraph of rambletastic goodness away, but for now, here's another picture.

Oooh, their representative colours have swapped... In the space of only one episode, too. How could this be? /dun dun dun!/ Okay, first let me explain what red oni and blue oni actually is:

Differing sets of personalities are attributed to red oni and blue oni, which have often come to be the personalities of many a protagonist/antagonist combination, or that of a pair of rivals. The two are almost always forced into close contact, either voluntarily or by some outside social or legal reason such as being members of the same family, school, dojo, soldiers together in The Squad, etc. Despite their wildly different personalities and philosophies the two often have either the same (or related) professions and/or skills. This of course gives them something to butt heads about, since they will also often have vastly different ways of going about whatever it is they're competing over and each will insist that his way is the best. [TVtropes]

For example, in real life, I am a blue oni and my sister is a red oni. She is the enthusiastic, zesty, more-emotion-than-intellect, better-people-connecting, positive one. I, however, am the more intellectual, proud, traditional, cultured, socially-strange, so-much-more-if-you-scratch-beneath-the-surface one. This picture pretty much says it all:

Poor Excalibur. I wouldn't want to be caught between the two of us either ;)

Aaaaaanyway, back to the anaylsis. Here is my hypothesis: In the sense that I'm alaylsing it, I think the visual symbolism used by the creators was purely unintentional. It does, however, highlight some of the key aspects of the two character's relations. On first glance, the two are quite similar, as they are both extremely manipulative and quite selfish. However, on deeper inspection, we can see that the two contrast eachother in many ways. Prior to the season finale [picture one], Alejandro was the blue oni of the pair. He was constantly thinking of tactics, and kept a level head and facade throughout kost of the competition. Heather, however, was very prone to letting her emotions and annoyances overpower her strategies. While it often payed off, her decisions and reactions were usually reckless and impulsive, whereas Alejandro's were extremely contrived and well thought out. Therefore, although both were antagonists that sought to win, their tactics and persoanlities, when analysed were very different. The role reversal occurs in the season finale [picture two], when Alejandro drops his calm facade, and decides that his relationship with Heather is what is most important to him. This married with his Beserk Button moment over being called Al, and his Freudian Excuse which came in the form of childhood bullying and abuse from his older brother, made him the more rash and emotional of the two. Heather, in contrast, used his newfound emotionality to her advantage, and strategically put on an act for the great majority of the episode, eventually winning the season. Yeah, this is what happens when you do too much English.

... Excalibur is asleep. I apologise if you also are. Well, at least I found my Red Oni, Blue Oni rant fascinating. Then again, I'll use any excuse to talk about shipping, or ranting in general. As a side note, the Fakiru pairing is completely ROBO, so much so that I don't even need to bother arguing it. Hnnn, I really do seem to like the whole opposites thing. Which reminds me! I totally started watching Shugo Chara today. I fangirled over a character, and shipped two characters before I even watched the show. I fangirled further over said character just because they turned up in the opening credits. I got even more crazy with my shipping, just because the two character had all of one scene together in the first episode. That pretty much sums up how I was with Tutu. You should all pray that it doesn't go down that path, otherwise you'll be reading a looot more about it. Random fact: the word 'oni' roughly translates to 'demon' or 'ogre' in Japanese. Ah, I should be getting to bed. Seeing as it is the last day of May, I did feel compelled to make one more post before the month ended. I made a sketch of Excalibur on my English notes, because I wasn't learning them properly, and Paint'd it just then. On this image, I shall end the post. Goodnight and sweet dreams, munchkinies!

//A.N: My Blogs have been being just a little serious of late. I promise you all I'll do something exceedingly random again soon. Holidays are in just two and a half weeks, and you can be sure that my mind will be flowing with crazy thoughts then. Beunos noches! x