Frozen

   First things first: I am a huge Disney fan. I love Disney; I love the classics and most of the new things they do. They're an incredibly talented corporation with some serious stuff behind them. I also love The Snow Queen, which was supposedly what this movie was based on. So of course, I was anticipating this year's Frozen.

What. A. Huge. Disappointment.

   There were so many things wrong with it, so many things that could have been so much better. The thing that is most unbelievable is that they had the audacity to say that this was based off The Snow Queen. Now, I know Disney takes liberties with their stories, but there was literally nothing that was actually similar to the original story. It feels like Disney wrote their own story and then stuck in random bits and pieces of The Snow Queen to try to stay true to their "inspiration". But I won't dwell on this; in fact, let's ignore this in the scope of this criticism.

    The pace of this story was also wrong. It was much too rushed, and there was no expository anything. We barely got to see their parents before they get killed. We don't learn the name of the kingdom, or the girls' royal roles, until much too late in the film. In the first ten minutes of the film, we go from tiny kids who are best friends playing, to a herd of tiny trolls, to fifteen years through a snowman song, to Elsa's coronation. Uh, what? There was no development whatsoever. I saw what it was supposed to accomplish, but I didn't feel how it was supposed to be. I also have strong issues with the parents. Who locks up their kid in a room for fifteen years? And what was the whole thing with the ship? And later on, the trolls? Oh, let's not forget the random snowman and the reindeer and the whole gang of buff males who were there...why? There was just too much stuff with no room for it in the story.

   Next, we get to the theme of this story. Except...what theme? Sisterly love? Don't marry the guy you just met? Loyalty? If you love someone, you'll do anything for them? Everything is so scattered, so diverging and running off on all tangents possible...it was very difficult to see any linking theme.

   The music is also completely in the wrong place in this film. Good music? Yes. "Let It Go" was masterful, "In Summer" a delight, "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?" moving--but only in itself. Within the story, all of them seemed forced, with bad transitions from speech to music, or just a scene that has little to no smoothness to it, as if you ripped the movie into pieces and tried to patch it together again--without tape. Good music, but all in the wrong places. There wasn't space for it, nor proper transitions.

   ...I won't even get into the animation. Not even the magical teleporting of body extensions through other parts of bodies. No sirree. That's not my place.

   There are so many plotholes and character downfalls that I can't even begin to name them all. Firstly, Elsa is supposedly so powerful that she could freeze all of Arendelle with just one hand, right? So how the heck does a pair of gloves inhibit all that power? The trolls...I'm not even going to go there. There are so many things wrong with that. The fact that Anna fell in love with two dudes over the course of, like, three days...I don't even. And Elsa, who magically changes her entire personality in less than a day. From "Conceal, don't feel" and "I can't do it!" to "I will save everyone because sister". "Let It Go"--also in the wrong part of the film. This is supposed to be a turning point for Elsa, yes? It's supposed to be her epiphany, her point of no return. So why is it that immediately after that huge "I DON'T CARE", she goes back to her "Conceal, don't feel, conceal, don't feel" mantra? Why is it that right after that she not only goes back to not embracing her powers, but still keeps them away from everyone and everything? Sure, FEAR, but "Let It Go" literally just said that she didn't care and it was time to see what she could do. So go do it! Don't just hide there and alienate yourself!

   This lacked a cohesive story. The dialogue was poor and unrealistic, and everything was stated outright. Everything was said, not shown. "There's so much fear!" Yes, Elsa, there's fear. Now show that. Don't tell it. Don't even mention it. Just show us how you feel. The love between the sisters was said to be there, but it wasn't shown, because hey, they spent fifteen years apart with just about no communication other than Elsa telling Anna to go away! There needs to be a sort of story behind that kind of love, or closeness. Anna claims to "know Elsa", but once again...fifteen years.

   Not only that, but the characters were also incredibly lacking. I saw what the characters were supposed to be, but that isn't how they came off at all. Anna was supposed to be this sweet, caring, loyal princess who loves her sister no matter what. Instead, she came off as a naive, stupid, dramatic, and foolish girl whose innocence is so complete that it is a flaw. She stupidly chases after her sister without a plan, without food, in the dead of winter, refusing help. Uh, what?
   Elsa was actually one of my biggest problems of this film. What's she supposed to be? She's not a hero, she's not a villain, she's just...there. She's supposed to be a beautiful, misunderstood girl with powers she herself doesn't understand and so caring that she's willing to lock herself away to save her family. Except she came off as another stupid, foolish, naive psychopath (and not a good one; not like the Master or Jim Moriarty or River Song) with no emotional control, all sex appeal, and a coward. Instead of facing her powers, learning to control them, and using them for the better like all the best heroes (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Maximum Ride and her gang, Donna from Doctor Who, etc.), she hides it and runs away from it, literally doing nothing to offset that. She accidentally kills her sister twice (even though she feels regret both times), but she doesn't learn her lesson either. She's a very typical Mary Sue--in fact, the best canon Mary Sue I've seen in a long time. Beautiful beyond belief? Check. Superpower? Check. Perfect in every way except for one defining flaw? Check. Everyone in love with her, and all those not portrayed negatively? Check and check. Saves the day? Check. Disney even played up on her sex appeal (look through the movie; you'll find it)--Mary Sue if ever I saw one. There could have been so much done with the story had Elsa not been such an incorrigible character.

   Essentially, Disney could have done much better. I expected better. I dislike Frozen for many of its aspects. Though I will admit this: those landscapes? Fantastic.

A New Year

                Happy New Year! As 2013 ends and 2014 begins, I would like to think back not only on this year, but the past few years. I will say this: while in some ways I have been the most unfortunate person imaginable, in others, I have been extremely lucky. I’ve had dark days and days where everything is light, days where the world collapsed around me and days when I could hold up the sky. There’s been so much, and I can’t hope to do it all justice.

                Firstly, I am going to make this clear: Life is not simple and it is not easy, nor do I expect it to be. But sometimes, I expect it to be better than it is. Yet despite that, I’ve found that my bitter experiences sweeten the taste of those beautiful, good experiences.

                So before I start my spiel on everything, I want to say this: Thank you. Thank you to all who have stuck with me. Thank you to all who have ever helped me through anything. Thank you to those who opened my eyes to something new and wonderful when I couldn’t see anymore. Thank you to you who led me when I was blind. Thank you, ones who showed me new worlds before my very eyes. This year, more than any other, was when you all affected me the most. This was my open year, after blinding and crushing pain, after careful recovery, when I needed to rediscover who I was, and all of you who interacted with me helped that. 2013 was special because this is when I found out who I wanted to be and everything I needed to be. There’s still such a long way to go, but I have had the best beginning possible.

                In the past two or three years, I have finally been able to make friends who stay. While there are not many of them, they are there, and for that, I am eternally thankful. Before my eighth grade year, I had never had a friend who stayed—they always left, and I became a bit afraid to make friends. During eighth grade, however, I met the person who was to become my moirail, or my soul mate in a completely platonic sense. It was also during eighth grade that the most difficult period of my life occurred—my “darkest hour”, if you will. In eighth grade, several very important events happened, without which I would not be half the person I am today. I became more aware, more thoughtful. I became Sherlock as well as the Doctor. I lost my hard-driven “me-me-me” ways and instead put almost everyone and everything else before me (which was another extreme that I eventually got rid of). I became truly passionate about violin, and I dove further into physics and astronomy than ever before.

                Ninth grade was more a year of recovery than anything. Eighth grade had been unbelievably harsh on me and the person I was. It completely shattered apart my character and rebuilt it from scratch, on only the barest of bases. It was a very lonely year, but it was expected and needed. Being on the swim team didn’t hurt either. By the time tenth grade started, I was ready to try reintegrating myself into normal society a little more.

                I’m still not a part of “normal society”. I doubt I ever will be. But I no longer make my distasteful remarks about everyone and everything out loud. I no longer make a huge effort to simply get others to leave me be. I don’t openly antagonize people anymore. But I do feel very strongly about being myself around everyone. Anyone who talks to me will get a full dose of nerd an musician. The darker parts of me are usually shut down during interaction, unless you happen to be one of the very few people I trust. In that case, things may be different. Regardless, all of that is still me. I am always a nerd and musician. I don’t say “sir” or “ma’am”, not unless you truly garner my respect. I believe that those titles are honorific and should only be used with those that you truly honor. If you are not one of those people for me, you may as well stuff all dreams of me ever calling you that.

                As far as my family goes, well, they exist. That’s all that needs to be said about them. They don’t need to be mentioned more than that here.

                Now we come to my friends. As the Doctor said, “My friends have always been the best of me.” In my case, that’s true, especially this year, when I slowly started to rebuild myself from the ashes. My friends reflect me. Some of them reflect who I want to be, and others reflect who I was, and all of them help me to become who I need to be. The ones I have right now are the friends that I can’t lose. My moirail, my wonderful, great soul mate (once again, platonic), who is always there, awkward or not. My other two friends, fangirls and always the lightener of moods, the ones who pull me back up when I fall. My friend-perhaps-more-or-less-something, who is confusing and gives me something to hold on to for someone else, but helps me whenever he can. Mr. Astro-Rocks, who is analytical and always ready with some sort of science conversation. Miss Astro, who is the person to go to for random crap, astronomy, and violin, who is my ultimate vent for, well, everything. They are my honorary family. They’re all such wonderful, great people. One of them in particular is easy for me to relate to, because we are so very similar in so many ways; even our dreams for the future match.

                These few years, I’ve also began to finally know what I am truly passionate about. I’ll be the first to say it—I am a jack of all trades. I swim competitively. I do Science Olympiad and I do it well. I love math and physics. I write novels and short stories, and they’re good. I write poetry and am co-editor-in-chief of my school’s poetry newsletters. I paint and I win art competitions. I draw and sketch, and I am good at it. I volunteer at the hospital and in the ICU—the only underclassman to be accepted. I can do calligraphy like nobody’s business. I play violin and am good enough to warrant a violin worth thirty grand (though I got it for much less). I can compose music and once again have won competitions with that. I design robots and build them, and they work. I can do all manners of things, but I don’t want to do them all. I have realized that my true passions lie only in science and music. I love everything else I listed up there, sure, but I would be all right without them (even if surviving without writing would be pretty tough). But if you take away my music, you take away my soul. If you take away my science, you take away my world. So this year, that is what I will focus on—the science and the music. I’m not saying that I will stop doing any of the things I mentioned; in fact, I’ll still do them and so much that I won’t have time to do anything  else, but I will really begin to truly focus on those things that are the world to me.

                It’s also in the past couple years that I’ve finally managed to really start working towards my dream. Ever since I was tiny and little (like, when I was two), I’ve dreamed of flying out to the stars. When I was young, it was just because the stars were pretty and I wanted to see everything that was pretty. When I was three or four, my dad began to teach me about life, death, and the universe, and I started to realize that the stars were far away and so much more than just specks of light in the distance. I wanted to go to them because they were far away. As I grew progressively older, I began to understand more and more of what the universe was.I started to realize how expansive it was, and how much there could be out there. By the time I was twelve, I’d started to truly comprehend what it would mean to go out there. My dream turned into an obsession, and I began to study astronomy in earnest when I was thirteen. By the time I was fourteen, I could name almost every star in the sky and half of their locations.

                That’s my dream. My dream is to go out there in the huge, huge universe and see it. I want to be there. I want to build the machines that will make it there. I want to create FTL drives and build the ships, and more than anything, I want to fly out to the stars. I want to see what there is out there, because there is so, so much and it is going to be so, so beautiful. The universe is so big and grand, and this Earth is so small; how can I be happy with my mind and dreams only staying here? There’s a glorious place out there, just waiting for someone to go out there and discover it, and I intend to be one of those people.

                You see, when you’re young, you think the world is so big and so small at the same time. Everything looks big to you. Everything seems larger than life. But as far as you know, the world only stretches as far as your family and the places where you play. Your fantasies are reality, and that’s your world. When you get a little older, you start to learn about the world, and you start to realize that the world is so much bigger than you ever thought it could be. Suddenly, the world seems so huge, and you feel as if you can never experience it all. Some people stop here. Most people are happy with this stage, even though most of them slowly realize that the world isn’t as big as they first thought it was.

                But there are some people that go farther. There are some people for whom the world isn’t great or grand enough Those people start to realize the universe and start to come to know how tiny and insignificant we are, and suddenly, just this world isn’t enough anymore, because there is just so much more. I’m one of those people. I find different worlds in music, in writing and painting and all my artistic abilities. I delve into a world of science. But I always want to see more and feel more, experience more. I want to write the music of the stars and paint the fires of a supernova. I want to play the beams of quasars in indescribable patterns and walk on the stepping stones of the universe. Because there is just so much out there, so glorious and wonderful, and I have to see it. I’ve seen New York and the Pleiades, Atlanta and the Orion Nebula, China and the Andromeda Galaxy, Chicago and Canis Major, and I know that none of that, nothing, will compare to the indescribable beauty and wonder of finding and discovering the whole wide universe. I want to fly among the stars. That’s why I want to be a physicist or an engineer.

                And since I’ve realized that, I’ve started to actually work towards it. I have started to hunker down and study astronomy and physics, math and chemistry. I took enough extra classes and AP classes to graduate a year early, which is horrifically hard in my school system. I make sure that my grades are up to par and I remember to let the artistic side of me out too, because that’s what I’ll use to describe the universe when I get out there.

                That’s what I’m going to do in this upcoming year. I am going to make my dream start coming true. My violin inspires me, so I practice and I let the music move me to action. I will start really doing calculus until I can do it all, and I intend to read as many articles as I can about modern aerospace engineering. I’m going to take as many AP classes as I can and perhaps register for classes at a nearby university. It’s not that I want to overwork myself, or that I want to be better than anyone else. It’s just that there’s so much that I don’t know and I can’t wait to discover it. Because I will do it all.

                And you know the best part?

                I am not alone.