Dear Team StarKid,

You need to plan your events better, because they always seem to fall really close to when I have my history AP tests. Granted, I got a 4 on US History last year even though Starship premiered on YouTube that weekend, but still, not cool. It’s almost sounding like a “the dog ate my homework” thing. “Oh I didn’t do as well as I would have on my AP European History exam because I was too excited about Apocalyptour.” I mean, I’m good when it comes to AP Tests. You’re my kryptonite, my one weakness I can’t avoid. I know I’m not the only one. It’s no secret that most of your fans are nerdy (read: they may be frumpy but they’re super smart) high schoolers. They have finals, AP tests, and IB exams too. So maybe you could possibly take that into account the next time you plan on traipising around the country?

If you don’t I’ll still love you anyway.

Yrs,

Aria.

People who say that we live in a postracial society are full of shit. We’re not, and to suggest that we are is insulting in a lot of ways. Here, let me backtrack so you can understand what I’m saying.

I have finally taken one step into adulthood by making my own decision on what to put on the box of “race/ethnicity” that is seemingly on anything. I have decided not to go with my mother’s insistant “Latino/Hispanic” (1) nor everyone else’s “white/caucasian”, or as they think to themselves “Just shut up. You’re white. Stop trying to be a special snowflake and saying you’re not.” Instead, I have decided to go into the foray of uncharted waters by checking the “other” box, and if they ask for specification, I’ll say I’m “Brownish”.

Admittedly, this is a risky move. I have yet to see an “other” scholarship. You’re more likely to get a move to get Inuit people (2) integrated into a given program than “other” people. Perhaps the media is the most telling example of this. People are almost defined races. They’re white (3), black, Latino, Asian, so on. There is no moment when you see a person who is pointed out as different who is not clearly something except when it’s used as a form of whitewashing. Probably because “other” people have no reason to receive affirmative action, which is one of the main reasons we see ethnic minorities on our screen.

That’s because what race in the United States is. It’s a measure of how screwed over you have been by society. White people are viewed as being held at a pedestal of wronging others, black people (4) are viewed as having fought for years and years before obtaining equal status, which in reality, society hasn’t actually given them, and the latinos are still the scapegoats. “Other” could be any number of things, so there’s no way we could actually figure out how to right your wrongs.

Here’s the thing, race has taken on a completely social meaning. It’s not just an objective measure of melanin, which gives your skin its pigment. For example, for the longest time, I humored my mom and identified as Latina. Each time I would tell someone I was part Peruvian. I would get a look that equated with “You’re kidding me.” That’s because there is a specific schema of what Latino people look like, and I don’t fit it. Never mind that there are several white Latino people and that most people equate “Latino” with “Mexican”, whereas I’m part Peruvian. I inherited a lot of my father’s Casper-the-Ghost-white genetics, so I’m not viewed as being Latina.  I think there would be a bit more credibility to my “No really my mom is Peruvian she grew up there and everything” argument if I had brown eyes instead of green, or if my hair were silky smooth instead of the frizzy mess it is. I get the feeling that I would be viewed as Latina more often if I spoke better Spanish, and I know several kids who are viewed as Latino by a lot more social standards than I am who speak even worse Spanish than I do. So the fact that my elementary school had an awful Spanish program reflects on my ethnicity is a problem.

So much of how people perceive us depends on race. According to my psych book, in many cases, if a black person has an unknown object in their pocket, it is more likely to be assumed to be a gun than if it were a white person with the same object. Also, I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that there hasn’t been a case when you were shocked that a Latino person spoke English at all, much less without an accent. How people treats us depends more on skin pigmentation than we’re inclined to think. This is especially concerning for a number of reasons. One of the most simple is that melanin works in weird ways. It’s genetic, so who knows how someone will inherit their melanin. Some mixed-race kids will look exactly like one parent and nothing like the other, others the mix may show up in weird ways. Skin tone doesn’t even look the same day to day. Remember that concept of “tanning”? That’s melanin. That’s why some people tan and others burn. My skin tone looks completely different for months after I go into the sun for a day because I tan super easily.

The point is, I’m more than my weird racial status. These people don’t ask “Were you in a awkward situation where the parents of the students of your ESL teacher mother stopped your mother and had a conversation with her entirely in Spanish and you had to smile and nod when they said something to you because you had no idea what they were saying much less how to respond?” They just want to know how I check their box, how I fit into one category. To be honest, I don’t. There’s the majority I am, the 75% of me that’s white, and the minority that society and my mother seems fixated on that seems to compromise much more of my identity than what it actually is because of how society treats minorities and family history, respectively, the 25% of me that’s Peruvian.

So viva the Brownish. Long live the “Olive skinned”, the “What exactly are they?”, the “Is that an actual country or are they making that up to mess with me?” I’m not hating on anyone else, I’m just saying that we don’t get the props we should, especially considering the fact that we’re probably put into more awkward social situations than anyone else.

1. Actually it’s more “Latino/Hispanic” but as she checks the box she thinks “Hispanic means from Spain and Latino is a nationality not an ethnicity.” I think it’s to make up for the fact that her mother is adamantly Norwegian.
2. Who I am just using as an example here because they’re rare. I have nothing against Inuit people.
3. In almost all freaking cases. No I’m not resenting it. I could go into a rant about how we need more diversity in writer’s rooms to se it on screen, but I won’t.
4. Give me all the hate you will for using the term Black instead of African-American, but my school is a majority “African-American” and almost no one actually uses that term. Also “African-American” sounds like a really awkward attempt at being P.C.

Once I found out that the dystopian young adult novel series The Hunger Games was being compared to Stephenie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga, I was beyond offended. How could they compare such a great work of genius to a piece of garbage that does not deserve to be called literature? So, on April 1st, I am going to sit down and explain to you why exactly Meyer’s novels are superior to the toilet paper that is The Hunger Games.

Katniss is not a well written protagonist. She’s stubborn, impulsive, and violent. Everyone knows that the only acceptable flaws for a female protagonist to have is clumsiness, and even then, it must be treated as if it’s cute. They must also be feminine and well read. Katniss hunts in the woods illegally and is never seen reading classic literature. How are we supposed to know that she knows how to use her brains to get men? We don’t, because Katniss is an idiot with no actual skills.

Also, the movie made Katniss even worse. Jennifer Lawrence is a horrible actress, and her skill does not come close to matching that of Kristen Stewart. Stewart’s bland facial expressions required the script to tell me what was going on. Lawrence’s portrayal of every emotion of Katniss’ left me super confused. Since when are protagonists supposed to have thoughts?

The love triangle in The Hunger Games also leaves much to be desired. Neither Gale nor Peeta is a good match for Katniss. Gale tells Katniss too many things. She spent the entirety ofMockingjay knowing what District 13 wanted her to do. Gale didn’t do nearly as good of a job as he should have of hiding information from her. Peeta, meanwhile, has his own flaws. He spends most of his life watching Katniss from a distance. How are we supposed to believe his crush when he doesn’t even watch her sleep?  I mean, we’re supposed to interpret a loaf of burnt bread as “romantic” and “generous”? MAYBE if it was a cake that was in decent shape, but burnt bread is not a decent gift.  Edward is a better boyfriend than both of them because not only does he not respect Bella’s wishes. He also hovers over her for her own safety. Collins does not acknowledge that women are simply incapable of making their own decisions. This is why we have so many problems in society. Not only are there now more female protagonists in the media, but they also perpetuate the stereotype that women don’t need a man to protect them. How untrue!

The love triangle isn’t even the focus of the series. It’s behind some political bullcrap about government. Does it look like I care? I don’t care what my government does or how it treats me. I just want to watch the drama unfold. And isn’t that what The Hunger Games is really about? How awesome it is to watch conflict between people and not do anything else?

littlemissmars:

Songwriting is easy—just write what you feel and let it come to you.

Anyone who says that songwriting is writing your emotions is either a liar or Taylor Swift. I like to think that there are two components in writing music: the music itself and the emotion that it conveys. I don’t like to think of lyrics as a writing component but rather a subject that falls under emotion, since not all music has lyrics but all music has sounds and can convey the almost same things lyrics do.

What a lot of people fail to realize regarding the musical component, is that music is a science. While for some people it’s easy to catch on to without much study, you need a lot of developed, innate senses and instincts to understand how to organize sound. Songwriting is not just a right-brained creative task, but a left-brained puzzle. Not everything works in music, and if it does work, that does not necessarily mean that it’s good. It probably means your idea is a basic pattern or mediocre chord progression that came to you because you figured out the simple rules of the foundation of music. 

But from that springs creativity. It’s understanding what’s common and what’s basic that gets you to create something new and exciting. That’s why people like music with 7 chords and accidentals: they aren’t supposed to be chords. They are mistakes that ended up sounding beautiful somehow. 

However, this comes from discovery. Not necessarily “playing what you feel.” While creating music through your emotional episodes may produce a great piece of music eventually, you have to discover through a slightly painful, tedious experience with a lot patience what that sounds like. 

Besides the musical component, there is the lyrical one. This is mostly where people think this misconception will carry them to success.

Writing lyrics is not about people hearing your lyrics and understanding you. 

It’s about you understanding people, hearing their words, and turning them into lyrics.

Music is useless without relatability. It’s the power that takes you from just appreciating a piece of music to falling in love with it. It has to have something that strikes a chord in people and makes them think. And since human beings are innately selfish, one of the sure fire ways to get people to think are to get them thinking about themselves.

The infamous Taylor Swift is a great example for how relatability successes and fails. For groups of people like me, who don’t admire her as a musician, it has a lot to do with her biggest flaw but in a way, her greatest attribute: how personal she makes her music. I have never been a girl crying whilst playing my guitar on a Tuesday night in the rain because my boyfriend left me for a cheerleader and called  my best redheaded friend Abigail who lost her virginity freshman year to comfort me. The amount of specificity Taylor Swift writes her songs turns some people off because she pointedly describes how terribly mediocre her teenage experience was. Because I don’t care for her experience her music doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t make me care for her and it doesn’t make me feel anything. (Also musically, she’s just a mess, but we’re talking solely about the lyrical component and so that’s not a really big deal at the moment.)

I don’t want to relate to her music. But her target audience does and that’s why she’s become so popular. Millions of teenage girls across the globe listen to her for the same reason I listen to Mumford and Sons to convince myself that I’m a deep, introspective, philosophical blue-grass British hipster. Swift convinces them that their typical experiences were heartbreaking and important to their growth and will make them independent, empowered young women (although, let’s face it, life isn’t that hard when you’re a blonde, skinny, pretty teenage girl with enough boyfriends to write albums about until you’re 22.) They like the fact that they can hear the names “Drew” and “Abigail” or say “she” and “he” and try to replace them with people in their personal lives. In “Fifteen”, she writes the entire song in second person to throw that personal feeling onto the listener: this is happening to you, I know what it feels like. It also helps that she’s not the most sophisticated writer either. The lack of complexity and the same phrases she uses repeatedly are what a 14 to 17 year old girl would write. 

But another key in writing good music, that Taylor lacks at times, is universality. Her popularity and recognition and reputation is what earns her awards, not necessarily her talent or writing ability. While you certainly cannot satisfy everyone, you can attempt to be appealing to more than a restricted age and gender demographic. 

All in all, writing what you feel is a bad idea. Well, it’s not as much of a bad idea as it is one, minuscule step. Try writing what you feel and then see what comes. It’s going to be a jumbled mix of sounds and words and just…noises that you are going to love but no one else cares for. It’s taking that and finding a way to tweak it and really make it want you want to portray, what other people are going to like hearing, and something unique. 

Emotions are messy and broken and indescribable and difficult and it’s not a musician’s task to copy them exactly as they are. It’s a musician’s task to find what messy and broken and indescribable and difficult sounds like. And then make it just a little more beautiful.

Again, not mine (obviously), but enjoy!

ihopebarackobama:

I hope Barack Obama gets his Hogwarts letter.

toogeekyforwords:

somethingfandomrelated:

You are not alone. You are never alone. 

You know why?

Because you have me. 

I just wanted to take the time to tell you all that I love you. All of you. Every single one of you guys.

Yes, I mean you reading this right now. I care about you. 

And if you ever need to talk to someone or you ever need someone there or someone to rant at or someone to just listen to you, my ask and my submissions box are always open, and you can count on my to be the best listener and friend I can be, and try to help you. 

Idek why Im saying this right now. Ive just seen so many people in my life that are upset, and Ive been upset, and people on my dash have been upset and I think we can all be there for each other you know? Together we can get through anything. And I can be there for you.

I just… I love you guys. And remember that I’m always here. <3

To the left (if you’re reading this on my page), there is a thing called my ask box. If you have anything you want to get off your chest, tell me. I really want to talk to all of you more often. You mean the world to me, and I care about every single person who follows me.

This is just as true about this blog as it is about my other. You can reach me at either one if you need to talk.

kurtlovesscarves:

tater tots: Can everyone do me a HUGE favor? Help save someone’s life.

you-know-youre-a-gleek:

totsexual:

My friend, Charlie, is really upset in her life. Some personal stuff went down in her life, and now she is thinking about suicide. I keep trying to convince her that people will miss her, but she won’t listen.

I come to everyone for help. Please, take 5 seconds out of your time and put something… in her ask box. I want to show her what she will miss out on. Here’s the link:

charlieisagleek.tumblr.com/ask

Please, just take a few seconds. I beg of you, save someone’s life.

If you will, reblog and spread the word.

help out a fellow gleek? :)

(Source: aarontveitt, via struckers)