Source: Cupcakes to Lightsabers

About Charlotte Black

Hello, lovelies! I thought it was time to introduce myself properly to you all! You may call me Charlotte Black and I'll be joining you all as a fellow fangirl, roleplayer and, of course, someone to talk to whenever you need me.
Who am I? I'm basically Belle from Beauty and the Beast in real life. Actual footage of me:

Hahaha, but seriously. I've always been a dreamer with a thirst for adventure; I'm also a wide-eyed brunette. One day, I hope to be an actress in Hollywood that has a good witness for Christ and also a published author.
This is basically a selfie of me:

And so is this one:

(Hahaha...)
I love writing, reading, singing, watching movies, acting, playing piano, hanging out with my family and friends, playing soccer, archery, playing video games and so many other fun activities!
I'm a Christian who loves Jesus Christ more than I could ever convey with words, but more importantly, He loves me and YOU (that's right, you) more than we could ever try to love Him. I owe Him my everything and I aim to serve Him through my purpose in life, through my love for others, and through a positive, compassionate Christian witness to the world. If your beliefs are different, I don't hate you at all; in fact, I love you, really. And I will treat you and love you as nicely as I would treat anyone else. You are loved, my friend, by me and my Savior, no matter who you are or what you believe in!
I'm in a million fandoms; my range of tastes in books, movies, music and TV shows is very wide! Some of my fandoms are Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Doctor Who, Sherlock (BBC, Movies, Classic movies, books, etc.), Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Disney, Once Upon A Time (it’s a love-hate relationship), Jane Austen, Shakespeare (New fan), The Avengers/ Marvel, Loki, Star Wars, Star Trek (the new movies), Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, Merlin, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, White Collar, Chuck, Pushing Daisies, Psych, Batman (Christopher Nolan), Inception, Spiderman, Phantom of the Opera (Musical, Book), X-Men, The Chronicles of Narnia, NCIS, and more that I probably couldn't think of!
My favorite movies are Inception, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Princess Bride, The Prestige, The Last Samurai, How to Train Your Dragon, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Tangled, Anastasia, Pride & Prejudice, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, X-Men: First Class, The Dark Knight, Miss Potter, Warrior, Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland,Sense and Sensibility, The Matrix, Warrior, Enchanted, Ever After, The King's Speech, Princess Diaries, Megamind, Star Trek (new movies), The Illusionist, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Anne of Green Gables, Emma, Penelope, Peter Pan, My Fair Lady, and many more that have slipped my mind.
My favorite books are The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, Beowulf by some unknown Viking, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, The Jedi Apprentice Series by various authors, Macbeth by William Shakespeare and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
My favorite video games have to be Kingdom Hearts II, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Star Wars Battlefront 2 (a childhood favorite) and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
And finally, my favorite TV shows are Doctor Who, Sherlock, NCIS, Psych, Chuck, Once Upon A Time (sometimes), Merlin, Lizzie Bennet Diaries on youtube, Emma Approved also on youtube and, so far, Pushing Daisies.
The list of my favorite characters is infinite. There are many that I love and love to talk about. Have I mentioned that I'm a bit chatty? :3 If you ever want to fangirl about something we have in common, just let me know in the chat box or through a comment!
That's all I have to say for now, dearies! I hope to see you all again soon! Have a lovely day and God bless!

Thor Review

I was not very familiar with "Thor" until 2011; before then, I just knew he was some god from some mythology. But after I watched the film and "The Avengers", I became more familiar and interested with the character. While "Thor" wasn't my favorite film, it was surprisingly good. I must admit that I was disappointed in the second film, but overall I love the Thor universe, which is probably my favorite solo MCU universe :)

The thing that Marvel did right with the story was modernizing the Norse mythology. For instance, the characters are not gods, but aliens who were worshiped due to their enormous powers. They also live in  somewhat old-fashioned way and talk like people used to in Old English, but the setting is also modern. It's like an urban mixed with Middle Ages.

And then there's the mythology itself. After Greek and Egyptian mythology, I am interested in the Norse myths. I'm always fascinated with the idea of these extremely flawed "gods", who really just seem like powerful beings, and their conflicts. Too be honest, though, I only got interested in Norse mythology because of this film. That's how good it was.

One of the biggest reasons I like this film is because of the character of Loki. There's a reason he's so popular on Tumblr, why he has so many fangirls: he's the most interesting character of the series. He's not the hero, he can play the villain, but he's not just purely evil. There's a reason behind his malevolence  Loki doesn't feel loved by his father, Odin, and is jealous of his brother Thor and thinks that Odin favors him. He is attention-seeking, but only because he's truly insecure, feels unloved by the one and only man who raised him, who feels as if he's being overshadowed by his brother.

Of course, I don't know if Loki's awesomeness could have been established without the genius acting of Tom Hiddleson. He plays Loki so well, with his touch of evilness yet vulnerability. Tom is just awesome in so many different forms. Seriously, he's one of my favorite actors. The dude has swag written over his face.

Okay, now that I'm done fangirling over Loki and Thor itself, I'll talk about my dislikes of the film, and just places where I felt like there could have been improvement:

The biggest problem with Thor was the shortness of the film. Thor appears to be a jerk at the beginning of the film, but after a little while he turns nice all of a sudden. There's no character development; it happens way too fast. The whole film is supposed to be about Thor learning to be a good leader, but I never feel it happen. It doesn't feel believable how he becomes selfless all of a sudden.

Besides Loki, none of the other characters felt as fleshed-out to me Odin is fine, I suppose, but Thor's friends, The Warriors Three, barely get any screen-time. I know it's about Thor, but they seemed really cool and fun. I wished I had gotten to know them better, even if it was only a little more screen-time.

And then there was Jane. I think Natalie Portman is a good actress, but her character doesn't have much development at all. Jane seems so interested in Thor, but I can't understand why. She seems like a very capable woman and smart scientist, but she somehow crumbles at the sight of Thor. Thor is jerk to her at the very beginning, but she seems very unfazed by this. And when he suddenly turns nice, she doesn't really make any comments on his previous behavior.

Jane is also Thor's love interest, but we barely see them together. I don't believe that they are so in love near the end of the film because they don't get time to know each other. They don't seem to have a lot of chemistry, which could just be the actors, but it's hard to tell.

I did like the first film better than the second one, though. The love story between Jane and Thor feels more forced in this one than the other one. It's two years since the first movie and Jane appears to be moping over Thor since he left in the first film. Considering the time they spent together (which I reckon wasn't very long), I don't see how him leaving would make her that depressed (of course he's Chris Hemsworth, but that's another story ;). When Jane does reunite with Thor, too, they don't spend much time together, at least on-screen (this is probably due to the little time run the film has), so I'm not feeling the emotion as much.

Speaking of Jane, I really didn't like how they portrayed her in this film. She gets possessed by the Eether, which is magical energy that Malekith wants to get his hands on, and from thereon the film is about saving Jane/stopping Malekith from getting to her. Jane gets sidestepped to the damsel-in-distress role—perhaps it's the feminist in me, but I'm getting tired of the damsel-in-distress trope. Jane basically is used as a plot device, and this causes her not to have much character development

Also, the villain, Malekith, is no Loki. Not that I expected him to be, but I really think they could have focused on him more. He barely did anything in the film. I don't mind if the villain is hiding behind the shadows (The Emperor was notorious for doing this in the "Star Wars" saga, not to mention the main antagonist of "Iron Man 3" did this as well). However, if they are, I want to see them pulling the strings on the people they put on the front line, becoming a "puppeteer", so to speak. Malekith didn't do this, and the fore I didn't find him interesting nor very threatening. His idea on making the world dark, too, I found flimsy. It's not really explained why he wants this and puts him into the Standard-Villain-Wants-To-Cause-Destruction-Just-Because category. I just wished they had spent more time developing his character.

This is more of a minor issue, but the attempt at a love triangle involving Jane-Thor-Sif suddenly gets dropped, which, I think, was again the fault of the film's short time run. We first see Odin implying to Thor that he should be with Sif, then Sif showing signs of liking Thor, and later on, Sif gives Jane a look while passing by. But that's it. Nothing else happens. I can't say I'm one for love triangles, but I don't see the point of making one if it's going to be dropped. Like I said earlier, though, this probably has to do with the fact that the film is too short for all of the story lines it's trying to fit in.

I don't like how they changed Odin in the film, too. In the first one he was pretty harsh, but I could see that he genuinely cared for his sons, wanted the best for both of them, and wanted to teach Thor to become a better king than the arrogant prince he was. But in The Dark World, Odin turns into a jerk himself, frustrated with Thor's fascination of Earth, feeling as if he belongs only on Asgard, refusing to help Jane once she's possessed by the Eether, and I think he actually uses her as bait to capture Malekith (of course, he was mad by them--I won't say why because that would involve spoilers--but it was still pretty rude). He just felt out of place, different than the Odin I saw in the first film, and I didn't like it.

I really did enjoy the "Thor" film, don't get me wrong, but it defiantly had its flaws. I think the writers/directors were afraid how the public would react to "Thor", given that he wasn't very known before, so they made it shorter. But I wish it had been longer. It had so much potential, and, while it wasn't bad, it really could have been better. It left something to be desired, you know? But I still enjoy the film series. I already want to go visit Asgard, and you can betcha I'm watching the third film :) And even if it's not my favorite film series ever, it's entertaining, and let''s face it: we all want to shut off our brain every now and then and kick back and watch a classic tale of heroes vs. the advisory :)

Iron Man and galore

And now for a little bit of Iron Man galore.

Tony Stark just being his fabulous self.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what'd you guys think of Iron Man 3? In my opinion, it was really underrated.
I thought it was awesome. The concept of the storyline was brilliant. At first, I thought the Mandarin twist was disappointing, but it kind've grew on me.
And Tony was his fabulous self, as ever.

So, what's your favorite Iron Man movie? Favorite part? Quote? Start talking! :)

Star Wars Review

Star Wars is definitely one of my biggest obsessions ever. I've obsessed over it since I was eight, and I'm still obsessing over it now. Since I love Star Wars so much, I decided to explain why I love it.

Unfortunately, I never grew up with the movies. In a way I suppose I did, given that I watched them at a young age, but by the time I was born the only films shown in theaters were the Prequels. But I was well aware of the films. It was, and still is, a cultural phenomenon. I knew who Darth Vader was, who Princess Leia was, what lightsabers were, what the Force was...yet I had never seen the films.

And then, one faithful year (I believe it was in 2005), my Dad went out and bought all six Star Wars films. Yep, all six of them. They were really popular back when my Mom was born (which was around the same time the Original Trilogy came out). But anyway...Dad got the DVDs because I guess he thought the films were good (based on its mass popularity), and wanted to watch it. By that time, of course, "Revenge of The Sith" was already out--we had to decide on which film trilogy to watch first; the Prequels, in chronological order, or the Originals, in actual order.

In the end, we chose the Prequels.

I remember how fascinated I became during the films. They were so GOOD! I was only eight back then, but I knew its genius. It is very original, engaging, thought-provoking...it was the ultimate film. I was throughly entertained throughout all the films, I believe.

And that's when my fandom was born.

I can't remember exactly when I realized that I was obsessed; unfortunately, I think it was only a few years ago! But I was obsessed, trust me. I spent hours upon hours on Wookiepedia, the unofficial Star Wars wikia; I pretended to be the characters with my siblings; I reenacted the Battle of Genosis from "Attack Of The Clones"; I made fanfictions before I even knew what they were; I connected EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING, to the films.

Yeah, I had a problem. And I still do, because I can't look at a Star Wars related item without fangirling.

But anyway, that's just about my fandom's birth. Let's get to why I am obsessed with this wonderful film.

Simply put it, Star Wars is the ultimate film for me. It's filled with action, adventure, romance, drama, thought-provoking themes, cool battle sequences, a fantastical universe...it's amazing. I literally can be taken to another world with this series. Just like our own world, too, it can't be classified in one sort of genre; indeed, Star Wars becomes its own.

I really love how original Star Wars is, too. I have NEVER seen a film series like it--sure, it has parallels, but is there any one film that it's inspired by? No. Star Wars is inspired by many, many different things. I think that's what makes it so great. Its inspirations make it relatable, yet it also manages to make itself original in its own way.

The best thing about Star Wars, I believe, is how thought-provoking it is. Yes, you've got your Jedi and Sith, your atypical "good" and "bad" guys, but guess what--no one is purely evil or good. Looking at all the films, especially "Revenge of The Sith" and "Return of The Jedi", and you'll see that there are many, many shades of grey. Heroes struggle to do the right thing; villains (or in this case, just Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader) realize that their evilness is not the right path to go. It shows you that we're all just human, and that things like fear can lead us to dark paths. Remember what Yoda said: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, and suffering ultimately leads to the dark side.

I also love how deep the characters are. Everyone's got layers, especially Anakin. I mean, is he good or evil? I suppose you could say he was "good" for most of the Prequels and "bad" for most of the Originals, but is that really true? And all the other characters have their own internal issues and inner demons to face. They just feel so real, and I love it when a fictional character comes to life.

And the universe in Star Wars--oh my gosh! It feels. So. Real. Like I could actually be transported to this galaxy far, far away. It actually exists in that wishful thinking part of my brain. I can imagine, if I let my imagination stretch that far, the universe actually existing. The characters are realistic, their problems are realistic, the wars are realistic...it's all REAL. And that's what makes a great universe.

Of course, in spite of my praise, I must admit, sadly, that the films aren't perfect. I know a lot of people have said this, but the Originals were better than the Prequels! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Prequels--in fact, I obsess over them more than the Originals--but it wasn't as entertaining as a film series. I think there was too much going on in the Prequels, so they didn't feel as interesting (except ROTS, of course :D). The Originals were simpler, and to a point I don't like that as much, but they were easier to follow. I literally had NO idea what was going on in "The Phantom Menace"when I was kid, except that the "evil" people were trying to kill the Jedi. And then there was the Jar Jar Binks character--need I say more? :P

Nevertheless, the Star Wars saga is fantastic. The whole storyline of the entire series is wonderful. It stays in my brain forever; I constantly make references to it; I quote from it; I even use it as metaphors sometimes! (I told you the films were deep!) I think that Star Wars is such a great series that it will forever remain a place in my heart--and at the current moment, it is my biggest obsession.

Nintendo officially shutting off internet access for Wii and Nintendo DS

Breaking news! Nintendo is officially shutting the door on Wifi access for the Wii and DS, slated to happen on May 20th.
Here's the full article...

Update: Nintendo has released a statement to Polygon confirming that users will still be able to Wii, DS and DSi games in offline mode. “Other online functionality on Wii and Nintendo DS, such as access to the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo DSi Shop and video-on-demand services, are also not affected at this time,” according to Nintendo. The global termination of the service will take place May 20, 2014 worldwide.

Online play for 3DS and Wii U will be unaffected, aside from Wii U’s Wii mode and “DS games played on Nintendo 3DS family systems.”

Original article: Wi-Fi service for Wii and DS will be shutting down as of May 20, Nintendo of Japan announced on Wednesday.

The shutdown will affect the likes of online play, matchmaking and leaderboards for DS/DSi and Wii users alike. However, the Wii Shop Channel and DSi Shop will remain unaffected for the time being, along with the Wii’s Delivery Channel, Hulu, Netflix, Internet Channel and YouTube. View the full list of games affected by the service’s shutdown after the jump.

A long list of Nintendo-published games that utilize online features will be affected following the cancellation of Nintendo’s Wi-Fi service for Wii and DS/DSi. The full list of games includes:

Wii

• Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City
• Battalion Wars 2
• Boom Street
• Endless Ocean
• Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep
• Mario Kart Wii
• Mario Sports Mix
• Mario Strikers Charged Football
• Pokémon Battle Revolution
• Samurai Warriors 3
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• The Last Story
• Trauma Center New Blood

Wii Ware

• Dr. Mario & Germ Buster
• Excitebike World Challenge
• LONPOS
• MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade
• ThruSpace High Velocity 3D Puzzle
• WarioWare: Do It Yourself-Showcase

Other

• Wii Speak

Nintendo DS/DSi games

• 100 Classic Book Collection
• Advance Wars: Dark Conflict
• Animal Crossing: Wild World
• Clubhouse Games
• Custom Robo Arena
• Diddy Kong Racing DS
• Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
• Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
• Mario Kart DS
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!
• Metroid Prime Hunters
• Nintendo presents: Style Boutique
• Picross DS
• Pokémon Black Version
• Pokémon Black Version 2
• Pokémon Conquest
• Pokémon Diamond
• Pokémon HeartGold Version
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time
• Pokémon Pearl
• Pokémon Platinum Version
• Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs
• Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia
• Pokémon SoulSilver Version
• Pokémon White Version
• Pokémon White Version 2
• Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box
• Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Professor Layton and the Last Specter
• Professor Layton and the Lost Future
• Star Fox Command
• Tenchu: Dark Secret
• TETRIS DS
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
• WarioWare: Do It Yourself

Nintendo DSiWare games

• Metal Torrent
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!
• Sujin Taisen: Number Battle
  
  Source: gengame.net
  

Desolation of Smaug release date!

Our first Breaking News post, everyone!
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug is being released on DVD and Bluray April 8th! :D

Welcome, new readers and old

So I know this blog has been pretty dead for a long time now.
But I've recently taken the interest in reviving it.
So, The Character World is being resurrected!
However, there's a good chance I might lose my inspiration for going on, so to not only help me keep things going, but to also spice things up around here, I will have a fan girl partner!
This particular fan girl is one of my very dear best friends whom is delighted to be taking on this awesome new adventure.

To make things a little more cooler, I'm going to completely re-decorate the layout and start adding some amusing things to it. My partner and I (who I'm keeping nameless until she decides on what she wishes to go by) will be posting various roleplays as not only as ourselves, but also characters, both ones created by others, but of our own creation, as well.
We might also be posting reviews on things we've watched or played and post some interesting tidbits and such. We haven't quite decided on what all we wish to do yet since it was just decided today, but we'll let chya know when we do come up with some ideas!

To include some refreshments for the blog, I will be posting a profile of myself that'll be a page, which I will put a link to on the sidebar.
As you all know, my name is Sarah. Many people have nicknamed me the Character Queen for my complete and total obsession with nearly every Character in creation, both bad and good.

Now, to be safe, let's go over some rules..
1. We're both Christian girls, so this blog will be kept clean. The content we choose to post here will be clean and our language will be clean. However, we do tend to say "freaking, heck, darn" and the occasional "crap", there might also be a phrase such as "screw up", but if you look at a dictionary, you will see that particular wording means "to mess up".
So if there are any readers who have a problem with that, you might wanna stay clear from the blog, but if there are readers who don't, the trash-talk only goes as far as those words. ;)
2. Anyone who I feel is spamming or acting weird/mean in any way towards us, I will ban from the site.
3. When you comment, please remember to keep your comments clean and don't be a jerk!
Be respectful of our opinions to things and don't come on just to argue. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
4. We pretty much roll with alot of various characters, but we don't do anything having to do with Harry Potter, Twilight, etc. Unless it's a joke about them or the characters are in a picture we like that we just can't do anything about. Just a heads up for the Potters and Twi...lighters?
5. ....I can't think of anything right now, but you know what I mean!

I think that pretty much covers it.
So, that being said, thank you for reading this incredibly pointless post and I hope you enjoy your stay here. Let the insanity begin! :)