RockinRarity

And for what it's worth, I do not think that it is fair to say that our age of Google has caused people to learn less and to retain information. While I can see the information overload as intimidating, and while it gives the lazy an excuse to look up information and pretend that they are smart, we can still tell the difference between those who learn and those who don't. It's called IQ. IQ doesn't tell people how smart they are, but it does tell people how much they are able to learn and how quickly they can learn. The average IQ is always going to be 100. Anyone who is above 100 is above average, and vice versa. This has not changed since the IQ test was first made. There are plenty of people in the Internet age who can learn, retain, and use information intelligently. It is just that it is easier for those who cannot retain information to pretend that they are smart. Is it a problem? Maybe, because I think that people can learn to learn, but if they do not see the value of learning, then they aren't going to challenge themselves.

Says someone who is using the Internet to bash people who use the Internet. I do not appreciate the fact that you have completely ignored my posts as well as others who have taken the time to counter-argue your points in depth. That is how a discussion works. People say things, and you respond. Using anything in excess is not good for anyone. 20-30 years ago however, the people who use the Internet too much would have just been watching too much TV. We still came to the same conclusion. I am 25 so old enough to remember what things were like before broadband, YouTube, Facebook, Skype, etc. However I can't personally think of anyone who is currently a "smartphone zombie" who had their own addictions when they were younger. However I compare my dad, whose vice is cable television, and my brothers and my husband, who spend most of their free time playing video games. It makes no sense for older people who complain about too many video games when they watch too much TV (not that my dad is one of the complainers, but rather his TV watching can be comparable to some gamers' time spent gaming). Modern technology doesn't make choices for people. We always have the choice to spend our time in the ways that we do. Damning modern technology lets people off the hook when it comes to personal responsibility and time management.

The past and the present each have their own pros and cons. "People are zombies" "glued to their smartphones" "can't think for themselves." Do you know how generalizing and narrow-minded those statements are? Did you know that what you are saying cannot be applied to every individual on the face of the planet? Did you know that people can own a smart phone without being glued to it? Did you know that people can still have real conversations with others, in person? Did you know that, perhaps, people use the vast information on the Internet and read it, and therefore exercise their brains so that they CAN think for themselves and that they CAN have an opinion on a subject that before they knew little about? I have a testimony. A couple of years ago when I started my current job, I had to take a "Strengths Finder" test. This is a test that evaluated what my top 5 strengths are and it gives information on how to improve on those strengths. One of my strengths is called "Input." Input means that I like to collect all kinds of information and store it in my brain. I like to read, read, and read. When I was a kid, I liked to read the encyclopedia whenever I wanted to learn more about a particular subject. I'd bring it up to my bedroom and read about it in private. That information is very limiting. Then I got older and learned to Google, and it is amazing. I bring this up because I was reading testimonies from other people about their Input strength, and one person said the following: "I'm one of those people who think that the Internet is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I used to feel so frustrated, but now if I want to know what the stock market is doing in a certain area or the rules of a certain game or what the GNP of Spain is or other different things, I just go to the computer, start looking, and eventually find it." There are people like me in the world who thrive when we can soak up information like a sponge. Just because information is easily accessible, it doesn't mean that people aren't learning. Rather, the spread of information helps people's perspectives open wide. Their worldview becomes grander because they allow their brains to gather more information. It allows people to think, to ponder, to learn. Consider this: Do you REALLY believe that the people who allow technology to control them, the people who rely on Google without retaining information that they learned, and the people who can't hold a conversation without staring at their phones - do you really think that they would have become ideal members of society without those tools? Do you think that they would have become intelligent, upstanding, model people of our civilization? Or would they still be a product of their time, saying the things they say and doing the things they do because that's what the culture propagates? Perhaps they wouldn't be glued to smartphones, but maybe they believe that women who dress immodestly are "asking for it" if they get raped. If they wouldn't be able to retain information that they Googled, what makes you think that they would retain any information that they were supposed to learn in school? A love for learning is not guaranteed if computers aren't in front of their faces. Somebody may be a good conversationalist - can keep eye contact, speak politely - but maybe they are manipulative, and politeness is a facade. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be critical of our modern culture. Actually, I think that being critical of our culture of mass consumption and distraction is a healthy thing to have. So I am not against you being critical of our world's apathy towards those who decide to let technology and materialism run their lives. But saying "the past was better" does NOTHING. It is an ignorant statement made by wearing rose-colored glasses. Here is why saying something like that does nothing: It's because we can never go back. Ever. This world that we live in, our modern culture, it's not going to go back to the 90's. It will only keep moving forward. So instead of griping about how much modern times are horrible and that things were better "back in the day," we need to be living our lives now, and figuring out how to make the most of our lives in spite of the culture that begs us to keep our minds distracted and our pockets empty. I am not sure what your religious affiliation is, but the Bible says that we shouldn't let our minds be conformed to the modern age. I think that message can apply to anyone. Always stay on your toes, is how I see it. Don't mindlessly do what everyone else is doing, and don't just accept everything that modern culture declares is normal. Think. And I think that since that message was written to people about 2000 years ago, I'm thinking that the "mindless zombie" concept has been an issue among humanity for thousands of years. It just takes a different form every generation. I do hope that you read this post and have thought about what I'm saying. I'll be disappointed if you ignore this post and tell someone else a rehashed version of what I quoted from you.

Also, for what it's worth, at some point in history, people were against words being written down. Point is, there's always some people who are against changes in technology no matter how practical and useful technology changes are. Just because someone likes the past better, it doesn't mean that the future is bad. Especially since, at some point, the future becomes the past, and people will look on that past fondly when people used to look upon that same time period with fear. Can you imagine 30 years from now people saying, "Back in my day we only had iPhones and iPads to keep us occupied! Now you kids have this new-fangled technology and I refuse to keep up with it!" I, too, am a present-oriented person.

A musician who I like on Facebook asked her followers one day if people preferred today's technology or if they preferred analogue technology from a couple of decades ago. The number of people commenting on Facebook about their preference for analogue astounded me. Partly because, of course, these people fail to see the irony of their posts. It's like how a while ago it was popular to tell everyone how terrible social media was for society... using social media to spread awareness of that viewpoint. I mean seriously, does no one see how stupid that is? But it also astounded me because I just can't imagine ever going back in time, before cell phones, before laptops, before high-speed Internet, before Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, before Netflix, before Amazon MP3 and iTunes, before Pandora and Spotify... are these people saying that the world is a better place when we don't have this technology? Just because some people like to glue their eyes to it? Just because parents don't know how to teach their kids moderation or because adults don't know how to practice self-control? Just because something may have negative effects, it doesn't mean that the notion of its existence is evil or somehow worse than the way it used to be. Because what about when cable news stations will not report on certain stories? If CNN and Fox News aren't going to report something that people should know about, does that doom the rest of us from ever finding out about it or spreading awareness? No! Because we have the power to go on Facebook and share the story and spread awareness. I have an example from my personal life. A young woman from a church group that a group of people that I associate with was on her way to World Youth Day from Mexico to Brazil. Unfortunately, she had her passport stolen and she needed to be sent back to Mexico. But on top of that, drug smugglers switched the name tags from her luggage to one full of cocaine, and she was arrested immediately. In Mexico, you are basically guilty unless you can be proven innocent, so there was no mercy for her. Her friends from Mexico raised awareness of her situation and started a Twitter hashtag for people to beg to free her. The story got enough attention from the media, and she was let go from prison about a week later. If Facebook and Twitter did not exist, would she have been saved? I'm not so sure, but I know for a fact that because of those sites and the impact that social media has in our culture, she was indeed saved from false imprisonment. So people who believe that the past is better - keep in mind that technology is simply a tool that people can use in their lives. It is neither good nor evil. But, these tools can be used for good, and they can be used for evil. They can also be used for neutral purposes. But that's all they are - tools. They don't make people impersonal, they don't make people say stupid shit, they don't make people do great things for others. Ultimately, it is still us who decides what we do with our lives, not the technology.

^ Yes, this!! The Japanese episodes of the original anime are on Hulu (the free Hulu, not a HuluPlus exclusive). They have up to episode 24 on there now and episodes 25 and 26 will be up tomorrow (there are 200 total). They release 2 episodes every Monday. Sailor Moon Crystal is available on Hulu as well - right now they just released episode 3. The difference? The first anime is loosely based on the manga and they kinda did a lot of their own thing with the plot and filler and whatnot. It's still great in its own right, but the manga is better. Sailor Moon Crystal is pretty much an animated version of the manga with the best of the anime put in there. It has a really nice modern feel to it - you can tell that the original Sailor Moon anime is from the 90's, it is so dated, lol. If you want to watch Dragonball Z, first I recommend watching Dragonball. If you don't have the patience to watch all 300 episodes of Dragonball Z (many of which consist of screaming and powering up), I recommend watching Dragonball Z Kai instead. I watched one episode (in English, even) and I found myself enjoying it very much - it was a mixture of nostalgia and "Hey this show is actually going somewhere and it's entertaining!" I also recommend Soul Eater. Now, the anime gets a pretty crappy ending IMO, at least compared the manga (which I haven't finished yet but I am past the part where the anime and the manga split directions and so far what they're doing in the manga makes way more sense), but the anime is still worth watching. The characters and their relationships are complex, there is good humor, the plot and the setting are VERY interesting, and the music is so eclectic and bizarre you have to download the soundtrack. Code Geass is really good because it takes the "mech anime" stereotype and throws it out the window and makes a good anime with good plot and good characters, you can barely tell that it's a mech anime. Some of the things that happen in the show still make me angry - that's how good it is. Everyone else's lists are pretty good. Rewatching Death Note right now and I forgot how good it is. And yes, keep in mind the legal means of obtaining anime: -Netflix (if you don't have an account, get one. It's 8 bucks a month and there's TONS of anime that you can watch in either English or Japanese if you want) -Hulu (free) or HuluPlus (monthly fee) -CrunchyRoll (free with ads, monthly fee without ads) If you love a series enough, buy the DVDs, if you can afford it. Then you will have them forever and not have to worry about any websites taking the episodes down.

The thing is that I keep the stupidity out of arms' reach most of the time. I am really only friends with people who don't post stupid shit. It is possible that I take the intelligent people in my life - or at least on my friends' list - for-granted. Yes it is definitely a problem with people. More specifically, people who don't seem to think about what they are saying before they post something on the Internet for the world to see. There is a reason why, before the Internet, the average Joe had no way to publicly express their opinions. It's because most people's opinions are pretty stupid and worthless. I include myself in this for many things, not because I think of myself as being stupid or worthless, but because who am I to comment on something that I really have no expertise in? I'd like to think that I try to limit my opinion-giving to topics that I am decently familiar with, but I may not even be judging that properly. Absolutely. Seeing my brothers' genitals did not mess me up in any way when I was a child. In fact, I distinctly remember telling my mom one time, "It's a good thing that I know what a penis looks like so that when I have a baby I'll know if it's a boy or a girl!" I was GLAD to know the difference between male and female genitalia when I was a kid! I was not "scarred for life" or in desperate need of sex. And yes, being patted down by a TSA agent would be a hell of a lot scarier as a small child, because you are afraid that you are in trouble on top of the fact that a strange person is touching you in strange places. Makes me wonder if people think the opposite for boys - will seeing a baby vagina make a boy more likely to have sex as a teenager? Probably not, but if people who think that girls seeing dick at a young age will make them want sex as a teen DON'T think that boys seeing pussy at a young age will make them want sex too, then I smell sexism/double-standards. I also saw a few posts about how boys don't play with dolls and people arguing with them. Also people saying that seeing a dick when they're little will make them gay. BECAUSE EVERYTHING ABOUT OUR SEXUAL ORGANS WILL LEAD US TO SEX SEX SEXXXX -_- I am half-polish, granted I don't know any of the language except for paczki. Why would the polish part of Facebook make me melt my brain? I'm afraid of my curiosity right now...

I went on Facebook this evening (I can't help it - I'm a wee bit addicted to reading my newfeed 12 times a day). Most of my Facebook friends are not idiots. Even the ones who I may consider to be "below average" aren't even bad and I don't care enough to judge anyways. And the people who are bad, well, I just "unfollow" them so that they don't show up on my newsfeed but they don't get upset that I unfriended them. Everyone's happy. I see idiocy on Facebook from strangers. I see this whenever one of my Facebook friends comments or likes some outrageously popular post, and then I decide to read the comments. This is the glorious post that appeared on my newsfeed today. Censored because I don't want this blog to get deleted in case this breaks any rules. Over 1000 comments? Dang. Why people are arguing about this seems ridiculous to me, but you know, telling kids the truth about our bodies is a pretty heavy controversy still. Not that I think everyone should buy this doll, but I don't see it hurting anybody, either. I had a look at the comments. Most of them were meh, normal. Most of them sane, whether I agreed or disagreed with them. Then I read this one. Yeah!! Why would a little girl need to know about the differences between boys and girls!! Telling them otherwise deprives them of their innocence, which leads to teen pregnancy!! ... ... ... Wait. I think they have a meme for this. So there you have it, folks. The solution to the teen pregnancy crisis. Don't let girls know what boys' genitals look like until marriage. I can't believe that no one had thought of that before! [Footnote: I am a woman who grew up with 5 brothers and no sisters. I took baths with one or both of my younger brothers regularly, plus there was a fair bit of running around the house naked. As a result, I think that being familiar with different body parts on males and females is healthy and can help lead to being confident with your body and your sexuality as an adult. Also, I did not have sex until I got married to my husband almost 10 months ago, and I am not yet pregnant. Also, I'm 25, not a teen.]

Lucky for you, I happen to be one of the best racers around. actually I'm just above average

Someone made a Mario Kart 8 thread earlier... I'd be in when I get the chance to play. Usually whenever I try to play online no one else on my friends list is on, haha. My Nintendo ID is SillySallyBanana in case anyone wants to add me. I'd be down for a tournament or whatever.

The DiC English dub was dubbed about 20 years ago, yeah. The Cloverway dub was more like 15 years ago (for Sailor Moon S and SuperS) but still, it was quite a while ago. Some of the dub voice actors were at Anime Expo although it was Linda Ballentyne instead of Terri Hawkes who was there (pretty much every mega Terri fangirl despises Linda, who voiced S and SuperS Serena), which made dubby fans worried that Linda would be the one redubbing. I personally liked Tracey Moore the best but that's because she was the closest to sounding like the original Usagi. I am glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that it's just people wearing their rose-tinted nostalgia goggles. Dub lovers got offended when I said that they only like the dub either because of nostalgia or because they have really bad taste - that was a ridiculous Internet argument that I roped myself into. Oops. I guess I should be more tasteful in how I say stuff like that. XP I think what bothers me the most about the nostalgia isn't the nostalgia itself, but rather the closed-mindedness and ignorance of the people who have a bad case of nostalgia. It upsets me, too, that these people would much rather cling to their childhood and preserve it like it's some kind of holy shrine rather than, I dunno, grow up? Why do people act like their childhood was the holiest endeavor that they have ever participated in? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate my childhood, but I would never want to go back. Nor do I want to indulge in horrible media just because I did during my childhood, ESPECIALLY if I KNOW that a better version of what I watched exists. Some people refuse to watch the Japanese version of the show because they find the Japanese voices to be "annoying" or "too high-pitched" or "they don't like to read their shows". I think that showing the Japanese version to dubbies who have never seen the Japanese version before would be easier. But there are dubbies who do not want to give the Japanese version a chance. There is this weird subculture of people who are huge fans of stuff that comes from Japan, but bitch and moan about being forced to listen to Japanese audio. My husband sees this in the video game industry among fans of the Tales franchise. When it was announced that the latest game was going to have Japanese audio with English subtitles, people complained until they could complain no more. And it's like, why? Why are you getting so bent-out-of-shape about listening to Japanese voices? I mean, Heaven forbid that you be reminded that one of your favorite franchises comes from someplace other than America, right? I just don't understand how people think that being closed-minded about trivial things like Japanese voices and English voice actors who aren't the same people as the English voice actors that people grew up hearing makes them happier people. Is the joy of watching an emotional and powerful animated television show REALLY worth sacrificing over the preservation of your childhood? That's what I want to know.

I have not seen this yet, but my husband watched it a while back and said that it was weird that they were only 14. But being only 14 is a good turn-off for him lol, as I imagine it would be for a lot of other people. Makes pony porn seem more appropriate, lmao.

I'll probably be ignoring it like I always have, and like I do with clop. If Safe Search Wrap-Up becomes a necessity in the Sailor Moon fandom, then I'll participate in that, but that's as far as I'll go. I dislike that R34 is a thing, but I recognize that my powers to stop it are fairly limited, so I try to focus my energy on bring about the change that I can instead of getting angry about it every time I see it. I suppose I should try to do the same thing with this particular fandom split.

When my friend posted the following link to my Facebook wall, anyone who knows me well knows that I could have died happy after reading it (as long as I got to watch everything in Heaven): http://www.fandompost.com/2014/05/16/viz-to-release-remastered-uncut-sailor-moon-sailor-moon-crystal/ I watched the trailer on that page, too. Finally being able to own DVDs of high-quality original Japanese Sailor Moon episodes? Being able to start watching it on Hulu starting on my 25th birthday? Plus: my husband gets to watch it with me and know and appreciate the show. Hell, I like to remind myself that I couldn't have married anyone else I've ever met because I needed to be with someone who was open to watching Sailor Moon one day. But I digress. I had heard about the BRAND NEW Sailor Moon anime coming out that was going to be more based on the manga! Yes!! The manga is so good! I mean I still love the old anime, but having a new anime that follows the manga's story more closely is so good. Now, they need to do it with Soul Eater. AND AND AND!!!!!! A NEW ENGLISH DUB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE THE DAY! *breathes* OK. Anyone who knows me well knows this: I loved Sailor Moon ever since I was 5 years old and I saw a Sailor Moon toy commercial for the first time. I can't find the damn commercial on YouTube but oh well. Point is, I was enamored by the idea of superhero girls named after planets who kicked bad guy butt. I guess I was a feminist in blooming? Runs in the family I think. I blame my aunt. I remember being in second grade and being in school while Sailor Moon was on TV. It was on at 2:30 in the afternoon every weekday, and I was always in school until at least 3. I remember watching the clock every afternoon, and would be excited when 2:30 hit because Sailor Moon was on, but sad because I never got to watch it. Finally, when I was in fourth grade, Sailor Moon became a regular show on Toonami. So every day at 4:00, my mom would let me take a break from homework and I would watch Sailor Moon. Every day. This was part of my routine until Sailor Moon stopped airing on Toonami a few years later. I managed to be able to catch all of the dubbed episodes eventually, and I was able to see Sailor Moon S and SuperS when they were dubbed for the first time, too. I remember being in fifth grade, and I had an older cousin in 8th grade who liked Sailor Moon too. Her best friend (a guy) also really liked Sailor Moon, and they got to talk about the Japanese version and how cool it was and how it was so much better than the English version. I knew that the English version said some dumb things, and that was always a bit embarrassing, but it was the best that I had to watch, so I kept with it. My favorite planet of the Solar System was Saturn at the time, and my cousin's friend printed off some pictures of Sailor Saturn for me and wrote up little descriptions of what she's like! I wish I still had it. I got bullied a lot, though, by some of the boys in my class. The worst thing that ever happened regarding that was I had drawn and colored in a picture of ALL of the Sailor Senshi (or Sailor Scouts as I knew of them at the time). I felt so cool drawing the Sailor Scouts that hadn't been released in North America yet (Sailor Moon S came out when I was in sixth grade). Anyways, I left the drawing on my desk toward the end of the day to do my "chore" to help clean up the classroom, and some of the boys had taken my drawing to the sink, turned on the faucet, and drenched my drawing in water and ruined it! I was beyond devastated. Sailor Moon had stopped airing on TV for the most part by the time Sailor Moon SuperS was finished. I had heard that they weren't going to dub Stars, which I thought was dumb, but I wasn't too disappointed by that. I knew that I would probably be able to watch the Japanese version one day. And because of the wonders of the Internet, and because of a website that no longer exists because it broke a lot of copyright laws (anyone remember a site called TV Links? No? Am I that old? lol) with some assistance from YouTube, I managed to get a hold of all 200 Japanese episodes of Sailor Moon. Boy, was I convinced of how much better the Japanese version was. I remember watching some comparison videos of the two, and I became angry at how much butchering they did to the Sailor Moon dub just to appease American child audiences. I can only find a comparison video of half of an episode these days, but if anyone wants to take the time to find out exactly what these differences are, there is a website called www.smuncensored.com that goes through all of the episodes that were dubbed into English and points out the changes that were made to each episode. No one really updates the site anymore but I am super impressed that people took the time to mark all of these differences so that people like me don't have to. Basically, what's wrong with the original English version in a nutshell: -much of the script was completely rewritten, and many of these rewrites include changes in character and plot. Not to mention that they make the characters talk like stupid valley girls half the time, and much of their vocabulary includes extremely dated vernacular that does not age well at all. -there was tons of censorship, and while that's not necessarily the fault of the people who were dubbing the show (Americans have stricter rules about what can be shown on kids' TV, after all), and at the time of the dubbing, it was generally believed that cartoons were primarily for children so in order for Sailor Moon to sell, it needed to be marketed to children... but sometimes, they really went out of their way to censor over nothing. Also, some of the worst cases of censorship are just plain insulting to the original work. They make really emotional scenes not very emotional at all just because it's not appropriate for children to know about death and sadness? I could get in a debate about that, but yeah, that mindset just irritates me in general and I wish that they dubbers didn't feel the need to go out of their way to censor as much of the show as they could. -LittleKuriboh made this word popular in Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series when Yugi and the gang went up against the staff of 4Kids: LOCALIZATION. Cutting references to the fact that Sailor Moon is a Japanese show (but not cutting all of it? yeah sometimes they never cut Japanese lettering) and "Americanizing" it as much as possible was the game they played. -I'm gonna get a lot of shit for this, but I'm going to say it anyways. Most of the voices. SUCK. INCLUDING Sailor Moon herself. I know that dubbies LURV TERRI HAWKES OMG SHE'S THE BEST SHE'S THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN VOICE SAILOR MOON but honestly, not a fan. Terri Hawkes made Sailor Moon sound super ditzy and like a valley girl with some sass and it's like... no. It completely changes Sailor Moon's original character to make her like that. Terri was decent with her acting so it's not like she was horrible or anything, but who honestly thought that it was a good idea for Sailor Moon to scream with a vibrato? Seriously. -Oh wait other voices that suck. Luna. Sounds like an 80 year old British woman. Which, she isn't. It's one thing to listen to her talk in her cat form, but when you watch the Sailor Moon S movie and you see her young-looking human body with that voice? It sounds COMPLETELY off. Tuxedo Mask's voice is OK but his acting is pretty terrible. Amy's voice doesn't really sound like a teenager's at all, and trust me, I've met a lot of teenage girls and I haven't met one who sounds like that (I'm talking more about the DiC Amy, the Cloverway one was better but not by a lot). I appreciate that Susan Roman was dedicated to the show enough to voice Lita/Sailor Jupiter for the whole thing but I don't really like the "butch" factor that she gives the character. Rini's first voice grates my ears (but her Cloverway voice is the best the whole series! STEPHANIE BEARD FOR THE NEW DUB PLEASE? Maybe?). Nephlite is TERRIBLE - I heard one sentence today and I was done forever. Molly is obnoxious. Zoisite, Emerald, and Fish Eye all have the EXACT same voice actress and it's SUPER obvious (I just read that she died a few months ago from lung cancer? Dang that sucks). Same goes for Queen Serenity, Sailor Moon's mom, and Sailor Neptune. Those women didn't even try to make the voices more varied - did they just assume that the kids watching the show wouldn't notice or care? Who knows. Apparently the woman who voices Zoisite et al voiced a few other characters too who I didn't notice, so she could make her voice more varied, she just... didn't. -the characters are way bitchier in the dub than they are in the Japanese version. I read the manga when I was in middle school and character descriptions said that Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars were best friends. I was incredibly confused when I read that, because I only remember the two of them yelling at each other - I didn't think that they liked each other at all!! But then I watched the Japanese version, and then I thought, "Oh... I see it now..." Way to go, dub. Ruining character development and relationships for the sake of gags and laughs. Classy. -Sailor Moon Says. Think Sonic Says, but none of them were good enough to become an Internet meme, and they include lots of awkward pauses and the morals are ridiculously forced. I specifically remember one that said, "Queen Beryl did a terrible thing by destroying the Moon Kingdom. But we need to take care of our planet by recycling and shit." I wish they actually said "recycling and shit" because that's hilarious. I'm just too funny sometimes. OK. I think you get the idea. Now to the main reason why I decided to login and write this blog post today. When the new Sailor Moon Crystal anime premiered a couple of Saturdays ago, I was reading people's comments about what they thought of it. I thought that it was very well-done, I enjoyed the return of Usagi's seiyuu, and I had the manga with me to compare the show and the manga side-by-side, and let me tell you, it is 95% the same. The new anime is almost literally an animated version of the manga. But I read so many SCATHING reviews from people who watched it. Usually along the lines of, "It's not like the original!" (and by original they mean the English dub that they grew up with) or "The art sucks!" or "The plot moves too quickly!" (they never read the manga). I think that the Facebook group I follow deleted a lot of the negative reviews because I couldn't find any specific ones anymore, otherwise I'd give some examples. Point is, their opinions were based off the fact that they had little to no experience with the source material of what they were watching. They just wanted more of the old English dub that they grew up with. I read more comments today regarding the NEW English dub of the original anime. If I thought the reviews from earlier were scathing, well, I don't really know what scathing means. These were worse: "I'm incredibly disappointed with the remastered series... But that's just the inner 6 yr old me crying inside.. I wish they would have stuck closer with the original voice actors rather than these people.. It's pretty bad. Oh well, I'll stick to the old original dub thank you!" "The new voices have ruined this for me. I will not be buying it and I LOVE Sailor Moon. I am heartbroken." "This is just a big pile of NO. In the original english dub Luna's accent made her sound older & more mature. She is supposed to be watching after the girls & now she just sounds like one of them." Stuff like this permeated the comments on the video clips that we saw for the new dub. And for what it's worth, I thought that it was pretty great. Fortunately there were some people who were similar-minded to me. This particular post sums it up pretty well: "I don't think they got the memo. They are completely stuck in the past. I mean if you listen to the original Japanese voices, they are not far off at all. The old 90s voices are and some were extremely horrible. I watched it as a kid and I admit, it will take sometime to get used to the new voices, but im excited. And to see everyone bitch so much over something like this, is so stupid. They obviously don't know that much about the original Japanese version. I mean seriously don't watch it if you don't like it. Watch in Japanese or the old cut up shit but bitching and whining people are doing, is annoying as fuck." I bolded two parts for emphasis. It's a little like reading comments from Gen 1 MLP fans saying that the new show (Friendship is Magic) is terrible because of little nit-picky things that aren't *supposed* to be a certain way according to them. Actually wait. It's worse. It's more like if fans of the Gen 3.5 cartoon came on this forum to complain about Friendship is Magic because Friendship is Magic is nothing like the "original" (which, in their minds, original means Gen 3.5, not Gen 1). I was pretty angry this morning when I read all those comments. I was actually offended. I do not really understand how people could feel that they have a right to an opinion over something they clearly have little knowledge of. These are people who call themselves huge Sailor Moon fans without understanding the source material of the new content that's coming out. It bothers me, too, when dub fans insinuate that the dub is the "original." No, the dub is not the original. The dub is a hacked and slashed version of a show that added filler and personality changes (the anime) to its original source material (the manga). Just because something is original TO YOU, it doesn't mean that it's the "original." I don't understand why people think that they have authority in their opinion when it is not very well-researched nor do they have anything to say when trying to respond to people who disagree with them. I'm not saying that these people aren't allowed to like the old English dub. They can like whatever the hell they want. But can people admit that maybe they like something because of nostalgia, and NOT because it is actually high-quality? I have seen some people here and there saying that they were "petitioning" to get Terri Hawkes to voice Sailor Moon in the redub. Do they not understand the purpose of the redub? Why would they think that it was going to be more of the same that they grew up with? I'm afraid that I don't quite understand. We as Friendship is Magic fans are in a bit of an interesting position, I know, too. Because I think that a lot of bronies get a lot of flack for hating the old gens, or at least some of the old gens. It's a little different here, though, because people dislike the old gens of MLP for being "too girly" aka not having a broad enough audience in mind, whereas people hate the Sailor Moon English dub because it DOESN'T pay much mind to the original source material. I think, though, that despite those differences, we are in similar positions, because we have people who try to dismiss our dislike. I once had a dub lover tell me, "Don't be a hater. Without the dub you wouldn't have gotten into Sailor Moon, and it wouldn't have gotten popular in the states." I think that old MLP fans can say the same thing about the older gens. While what the person said about it not becoming popular is true, I don't think that excuses the mistakes that were made while originally dubbing the show. Just because it was better for a show to be dubbed poorly than not at all, it doesn't mean that the poorly dubbed version is the best version of the dub that could possibly exist. Because people scrutinized the old dub, we will be getting a newer, better dub. And I know that not everyone will think that the new dub will be better. But based off the clips that I saw this morning, it is going to stay as true to the original source material as it possibly can. Heck, it already advertised that it would be uncut and uncensored. Pretty sure that they are keeping the Japanese music and original sound effects. So already, it is going to be better just because they are trying to keep it true to the original source material rather than try to hack the show into pieces and market the show as something that it's not. Hating is stupid, and getting angry over CHANGE and DIFFERENT FROM MY CHILDHOOD is a waste of time. I don't think that being different from what you grew up with is a valid reason to hate something. If you can be negative about something over something as trivial as your own nostalgia, then it's your loss. I just think that it sucks that there are others who identify as Sailor Moon fans who will decide to hate the new material and to cling to the past. It would be so much more fun being in a fandom where people learned to adapt.

I'm married now and had over 3 years to get to know the person I'd be stuck with forever. At this point we would only get divorced if one of us flat-out walked out on the other person, or has been cheating but doesn't want to take the steps to get out of that situation. The thing is that, terrible things in themselves aren't deal-breakers to me. It's how the other person deals with these terrible things - do they want to change and become a better person, or do they think that they can do no wrong? If they want to change, I want to support them to the best of my ability. If they don't want to change, then the relationship needs to be reevaluated, or possibly end. But these are the red flags (or deal breakers) that I would look out for when initially getting to know someone, though: -His jokes involve insulting me personally -He treats his mom/sisters like crap -He treats customer service type people like crap -He says obviously sexist/racist/homophobic things (not pertaining to values, just pertaining to the humanity of the people themselves - the values can be discussed) -He doesn't respect my religious beliefs (actually, this really is a huge deal-breaker) -He also doesn't respect my political beliefs -It is difficult to have a worthwhile discussion with him, either because he is stupid and can't, or because he has shit opinions that can't actually be argued even if he thinks they can -He doesn't respect my love for cartoons -He expects me to do all of the chores, do all of the cooking, etc, leaving him with nothing for him to do around the house. -If he has no desire to get a higher-paying job if he has a crummy one -He doesn't believe that waiting to have sex until marriage is possible (hint: it is) -He has no desire to grow up in general (always wants to play beer pong, or still thinks that he's a college frat boy into his late 20's/early 30's) -Drinks or smokes excessively. I am fine with drinking and smoking rarely or moderately, however. Basically, I don't date douchebags.

So few options... but I also have more than one favorite...

Uh, no. Because if you have read Eragon, you'd also know that the series has elves, dwarves, etc just like Lord of the Rings. If people liked the series despite it being a copycat of Tolkien's work to some degree, then having a "rider" in your book is completely acceptable. And anyone who says that you are a copycat then screw them - no idea is "original" at this point, rather retellings of the same story over and over again. It's OK to have similar concepts from one story to another. If it wasn't OK, we'd be running out of books to write and movies to produce.

I did not play much of Double Dash or DS when they came out because my brothers decided which consoles we were going to get, and by the time the Gamecube was out, my brothers all wanted Xbox. I guess I could have gotten a DS, but I didn't have money of my own to spend and I was in high school, and there were other things that I wanted to get and spend my time doing over video games at the time. Then I started dating my now-husband, and he and his brother are "we love all video games" types, which means that they always had multiple consoles from the same generation. Which meant that they had Mario Kart Wii. When we played it together, I loved it so much that I had to get the Wii bundle with Mario Kart for myself. Being able to have bikes, drifting that exceeds in dependability compared to Mario Kart 64, wheelies/flips and tricks in the air, playing online, etc. I played Mario Kart 64 after playing Mario Kart Wii and it was so... I mean, the courses are great. But you don't go very fast, drifting sucks, the character selection is minimal, so in that regard, the game lacks a lot of what makes the later games so fun and endearing.

People who do not play the current Mario Kart games and are super nostalgic about Mario Kart 64, well, that bothers me a little bit, just because the games have improved so much over the last several years that people have no idea what they are missing. Playing Mario Kart 64 feels very slow and boring to me. I would play an HD remake with grinding any day (using the courses in the new games, except making Rainbow Road 3 laps) but no way would I think that Mario Kart 64 on the N64 with N64 controllers was any better than any of the new games. Nostalgia really confuses people sometimes. XD

So far I have gotten 3 stars in all of the 50cc cups and almost all of the 100cc cups. I can't seem to get 1st place on Shy Guy Falls. Grr. I haven't tried 150cc yet though... should be interesting. And for some reason I play against the computers and get in first really easily a lot of the time. Then I play online and I get the shit beaten out of me. Hahaha.