Dear class of 2016,

 www.animelyrics.com/doujin/vocaloid/romeocinderella.htm <-The translated lyrics I used for this and an imbed of the song.  Warning- the song... isn't exactly school appropriate, and I'll just leave it at that.

Dozens of songs make reference to the story of Romeo and Juliet, one of the most famous love stories of all time.  One such song, with fairly accurate references as well as references to various fairytales, is "Romeo and Cinderella" by Doriko ft. Miku Hatsune (yes, more Vocaloid.  I think you were all expecting that though).

The story of Romeo and Juliet is a consistent metaphor in the song “Romeo and Cinderella”.  In the song, the narrator compares themselves and their significant other to Romeo and Juliet (one line translates to “I'm the ‘Juliet who likes to run away’” and another set of lines translates to “Just take me away, oh my Romeo, /To afar, until they scold us”) because their “love” (which seems to be more lust) is forbidden by the narrators parents (“But papa doesn't seem to like you that much”), but wishes for a more happy ending like Cinderella got (the first half of the first chorus is “The Cinderella that yearned for love all this time /Begins to run with just her dress/ The magic shall stop the time/ Or else the bad guys might get in our way”).

In addition to being consistent, the comparison the narrator of “Romeo and Cinderella” makes between their own life and the story of Romeo and Juliet is also fairly accurate. Like Juliet, they are in love (or, quite possibly, in lust) with someone their family doesn’t approve of, which is the main thing that leads to their problem, is moving too fast in their relationship (the last line of the first chorus is “Hey, won't you come live with me?”), and suffers because of it (the last five lines are “The Cinderella that had lied too much/ Is said to have been eaten by the Wolf/ What should I do? At this rate, even I/ Will be eaten someday/ Before that happens, come to my rescue, 'kay?”).

"I give all my younger family members cute nicknames.  It's my unofficial job."

How dull can her life be if she has an unoffical job of giving people pet names?  I had heard that she was unpopular and was difficult to work with... but is it really this bad?  "...I'm sorry, but did you just say 'family members'?  And does that include me?"

"Of course!  All the Vocaloids are my family members- and you have officialy taken the prize of 'most adorable cousin' from Piko."

Oliver smiled nerviously.  Oh joy.  I'm cuter than the robot boy who wears a dress.  ...I have to get rid of her before her wierdness rubs off on me.  "Look, Sonika, about the welcoming..."

"Did I do a good job?  I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomftorable, it's only my first time.  I promise-"

"Miss Sonika, you did a fine job.  Much better than most of the others.  But that's not what I was going to say.  I was going to ask you why you do this."

"That's actually a very interesting story.  A few years back, when Meiko was released, Leon and Lola decided to invite her over to a little party.  I don't know what they did, but it was so fun that they decided to try to do something similar for all the new Vocaloids released from all the companies.  Over the years, it's become a chore to some of us, which is one of the reasons why we take turns... but I didn't feel that way today Ollie."

"That is a very sweet story... as for this meeting being exciting to you: I figured as such.  Your bubbliness seemed much more genuine than anyone else's, and you actually made an effort to have a conversation with me.  Barring some sort of unforseen circumstances, I think we could be really good friends."

She smiled.  "That was my goal Ollie."

And thus ended the first meeting of Oliver and Sonika.  True to their hopes, they are quickly becoming good friends, and hopefully will sing a duet together in the near future.

Anyone who has ever been to a city knows that pigeons run rampant. You can’t go anywhere, save for wherever you happen to be staying, without seeing pigeons. However, the pigeons most people are familiar with are just one kind of pigeon, also known as the Rock Dove. Today, I’ll be comparing the many kinds of pigeons to a few of my best friends.

1. My friend Brynn would be a Dresden Trumpeter. Trumpeter pigeons are known for their distinctive voice, and anyone who knows Brynn knows that she is fairly hyper and talks a lot. Also, Dresden Trumpeters have a noticible dark red coat, that kind of looks like Brynn's hair.

 2. My friend Justin would be a Sverdlovsk blue-grey mottle-headed pigeon (wow that's a mouthfull).  Look at the pigeon below.  At first glance, it seems like a very plain bird, nothing really special or out of the ordinary.  However, it is actually a highly valued show breed with a long list of impermissable "defects".  Justin is similar to this breed because at first he seems like the average introverted bookworm, but once you get to know him, there's so much more to him.

3. My friend Antwon would be a German Nun.  This breed requires much less care than other breeds, and Antwon is a very self-sufficent person.

4. My friend Naomi (who doesn't go to this school, so you'll just have to trust my description) would be a Cumulet.  The Cumulet is the breed of pigeon that most closly matches the white dove, which is very common in fiction, but isn't often seen in person.  Likewise, Naomi fits the description of a steryotypical "dumb" blonde (which she aknowledges and seemingly embraces... even though I think that "absent-minded" is a better descriptor for her most of the time), which is often seen in jokes, but not in reality.

In conclusion, many of my friends have traits that match up to traits of breeds of pigeons.

A feminist would celebrate the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

The first reason a feminist would celebrate this show is because it has a large, diverse cast of female characters.  The six main characters have a variety of interests and personality traits, and while this occaisonally causes conflict, they all play off of each other nicely and have good chemestry, which is an important thing for making a show entertaining.  This is a large improvement over many forms of entertainment where female characters have the most importance when they are the love interest or relative of a male character- in fact, it seems to be the exact opposite in this show, as evidenced by the character Big Macintosh, who until recently didn't have much signifigance beyond being the older brother of Applejack and Apple Bloom, and when he finally got an episode where he had a signifigant role in the plot of an episode, it was the Valentine's Day episode (Hearts and Hooves Day) which was all about his love potion-induced romance with Cherrilee.  This show's large and diverse cast of female characters is one reason a feminist would celebrate My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

The second reason a feminist would celebrate this show is because the portrayal of female characters is positive overall.  While there have been episodes with female one-shot villans (like Boast Busters, which saw the one and only appearence of The Great and Powerful Trixie, who became a fan-favorite despite her arrogence and exaggeration), and episodes where the six main characters have made major mistakes (like Sweet and Elite, in which Rarity lied to the Canterlot upper-class in order to get accepted, and then to her friends in order to hide her ill-gained status), the overall message remains positive.  All the main characters are shown to be independent and able to hold a sucessful job relating to their special talent, and are willing to overcome their faults for those they love, as shown in Dragonshy, when Fluttershy, the quiet and meek pegasus,  yells at a dragon and gives him a death stare after he had assulted the other main characters, even though she's terrified of full-grown dragons.  This is another reason a feminist would celebrate My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

In conclusion, a feminist would celebrate My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Make your own slide show at Animoto.

“James! Wait up!” Sonika yelled, realizing that the bird likely didn’t understand her. “Oh, we’ll never find Ollie at this rate…”

I promised you guys that I would write the full version of this eventually, so... here it is. Part 1 anyway. Copy-paste from last version: "One thing to keep in mind with VOCALOID fanfiction like this is that the author is writing the VOCALOIDs how they see them. My portrayal of Sonika is largely based on her official twitter account maintained by Zero-G staff members, and I made up most of Oliver's characterization as I was writing." So... hope you all enjoy this.

How does Mr. Halloway fight the Dust Witch?  Why do you think this works?

Which color hat does Mr. Halloway wear?  What about Jim and Will; what color are their hats?

Now for another imagination
game: first, if you don't have a younger sister, imagine you do. Now
imagine that your parents let this little sister take control of the
TV. It's Saturday morning, so the new episode of her favorite show
is on In this week’s episode, a young pony named Apple Bloom makes
a potion that reveals her cutie mark... and keeps giving her new
cutie marks and talents Try as you might, you actually find yourself
 enjoying  this show. But don't feel ashamed- this show, My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic, has managed to spread far outside its original
target demographic of young girls and supports a large internet
fandom of teens and adults, both boys and girls. In this essay, I’ll
be talking about the basic premise of the show (and yes, there will
be more videos this time- these ones being full length episodes. And
songs. Lots of songs.) show you some screenshots from the show
(because you guys seem to like pictures better than videos), and show you some of the fanmusic.

First, I have to tell you what
the show is about. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic focuses on
six ponies (Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie
Pie, and Fluttershy) and often one baby dragon (Spike) and their
adventures, ranging from helping settle a dispute between a group of
ponies and a group of buffalo (in the episode Over a Barrel) to
ruining the biggest party in all of Equestria (in the season 1 finale
Best Night Ever).  The episodes can be watched in any order, but
I recommend watching the first two episodes (Friendship is Magic Part
1 and Friendship is Magic Part 2) first.  In these episodes,
Twilight Sparkle goes to Ponyville to check on the preparations for
the annual Summer Sun Celebration and make friends, as per Princess
Celestia's orders.  Instead of Princess Celestia raising the sun
the next day, however, Nightmare Moon appears and vows to make an
eternal night.  In order to bring the Princess back, Twilight
and her new friends have to find the Elements of Harmony.  The
combined episodes are about an hour long.

Next, I'll show you
screenshots of the show because the lack of response to last month's
freewrite has convinced me that I need to include lots of pretty
pictures to get you guys to pay attention to what I write.

Finally, I'll show you some
fan music the community has done, because for a fandom based on a
cartoon about colorful talking ponies we have some epic music. I'm
going to try to include a variety of genres here; the first x songs
are remixes (songs include Becoming Popular (The Pony Everypony
Should Know), Find a Pet Song (which will worm its way into my
Consumer Science project, so if you're in my class look out for
that), Winter Wrap Up, and Cutie Mark Crusaders Theme), the rest are
originals.

Also, because I have to
include a widget, have a Voki customized to look like a human version
of Rarity doing an actual quote from the show with the actual audio
(the specific episode is called Cutie Mark Chronicles), and the
original scene:

Note before I begin- One thing to keep in mind with VOCALOID fanfiction like this is that the author is writing the VOCALOIDs how they see them.  My portrayal of Sonika is largely based on her official twitter account maintained by Zero-G staff members, and I made up most of Oliver's characterization as I was writing.  Also, this doesn't really have a proper ending because of the length limit of this assignment- I plan on writing a full version in the future to make up for it.  Despite this, I hope you all enjoy it.

(A couple notes before you read this essay: Most of the caps-lock in this essay is done simply for stylistic purposes, and most of these terms/names can be spelled in normal case, but go with all caps if you're ever in doubt.  Also, there are a lot of VOCALOID songs that would be deemed "Not Safe For Work" (not to worry though, I didn't include any in this essay unless your mind wants to interpret them that way).  Finally, you probably won't be able to really read this at school... not much I can do about the YouTube ban though.  I instead encourage you to read this at home (and cue this getting no comments).  I'm including these here because I don't know where in the essay I could put them.)

Imagine this- you're watching the news (I'm willing to bet very few of my classmates ever actually do this, but you're supposed to be pretending) and one of the standard stories that can best be described as "random thing that isn't really important but someone on staff found it interesting so we're telling you it anyway" comes on.  This video is shown:

Possible key phrases include "virtual pop star", "Crypton Future Media" and "hologram concert", with the most important thing being a name: Miku Hatsune (and the most importantly lacking thing being the words "supercell" and "ryo"- both of which would have actually given credit to the person who actually wrote the song). It's one of the (surprisingly common, given that the event happened in March in 2010) news stories about the Miku 39's Giving Day concert in Japan. Now in the story, you're probably left wondering why they just talked about a teal-haired singing hologram, and in reality, you're probably wondering why an event that happened in March of 2010 is relevant to "the beginning of a new era". It's relevant because Miku isn't actually a hologram, she's a mascot for a voicebank that runs on the VOCALOID software (specifically the VOCALOID2 engine) (and if you want to get really technical about it, the concert was really just a pre-rendered video of a 3D model of Miku (and Luka Mugurine, Rin Kagamine, and Len Kagmine (all of which are also VOCALOID2 voicebanks made by Crypton), but only one of them has been mentioned in a news report as far as I know... and the broadcaster thought that Luka was Miku. Needless to say, we had a field day with that one (even though it was in French)... but I'm getting off topic.) dancing projected onto a glass screen). In this essay, I'll be talking about what VOCALOID is, giving some pointers on not making a fool out of yourself in the fandom (internet(?) term meaning "all the people who are fans of a certain thing") and some of my favorite producers (fan term meaning "someone who is really well known for and good at songs using VOCALOID or UTAU" (the difference between the two will be explained later)).

First, before I tell you anything else, I have to tell you what VOCALOID is (and, as I feel I must do about once an essay, I'll clear up a common misconception: It is not an anime. If you want to survive in the fandom that is the most important thing you need to understand). VOCALOID is a Windows-exclusive program that provides a life-like synthesis of human singing, in one of many languages (currently only English, Japanese (the language Miku is designed for), and Korean are 100% supported, but Spanish voicebanks are definately on the way, along with Chinese, but they seem to be further behind than the Spanish ones).

Second, something that really doesn't serve any purpose but making me feel better: Pointers on how to not look like an idiot in the fandom.  Yes, I know that wording is harsh, but if you do the things I tell you not to do, that's pretty much what people will think you are.  Now, on to the list:

• Don't trust the wiki.  You know the way your teachers always tell you not to use Wikipedia as a resource because anyone can edit it?  It's the exact same thing with the wiki.  Anyone can edit it, and many times the information is false.  It's pretty good for song links and official art though.


• Get on VocaloidOtaku.net, VO for short.  This site is pretty much the hub of the English fandom, and the place to go if you want to have good conversations about VOCALOID/UTAU related things, have up-to-date, reliable news and information, or find a sense of community within the fandom, even if you don't ever actually contribute.  But you should probably stay out of the "Teh BR⑨ L⑨UNGE" until you understand how things function everywhere else on the forums. Even then, lurking for a couple weeks is recommended.  And whatever you do, don't assume that just one of the mods or a handful of members are "the weird one(s)".  We're all wierd in our own special way.  And really perverted.


• Don't trust YouTube people.  Often they are trolls, misinformed, or... overly invested.  And if they're ignorant on how offensive certain topics can be (look up "vocaloid cantarella english sub" on YouTube to see these kinds of people, I dare you... the worst part is, it's actually a good song once you are able to understand that what the narrator does is horribly wrong and would likely land an actual person in jail), please try to inform them.  I know it seems hard, but some of the stuff I've seen could potentially trigger someone pretty bad, and the people saying that need to understand that there is some stuff that you simply do not joke about.  Someone stop me now, I'm getting so off-topic... 


• Don't feed the trolls.  I'm sure you've heard this before if you've been on the internet for a while.  Basically, internet trolls try to aggravate people simply for the sake of getting a reaction.  Sometimes this can be entertaining and produce good things (like the UTAU Tei Sokune (in my opinion anyway, there's plenty of people who don't like her)), other times they're just annoying.  I haven't had enough experience with trolls to tell you how to deal with them, but I will give you all this bit of advice: The large majority of them are on YouTube.


• VOCALOID can be whatever you want it to be.  They have no set personalities, no set world, no set powers and weaknesses- they can literally be anything and everything, the only limit being what someone can do with lines, words, notes, or all three.  This may be the most important concept of the fandom, and, unfortunately, can be the hardest to grasp.  Basically, the VOCALOIDS are actors, and each song, story, picture, and video is them playing out a part.  Take Gakupo Kamui (a VOCALOID2 voicebank made by Internet Co., Ltd; also known by the product name Gackpoid) for instance.  In the song "Go Google It" (also known as "ggrks") by aamin-P, he "plays" a guy who tries in many (and I mean many, he's incredibly persistent) to flirt with a girl "played" by Luka (sometimes being rather perverted and/or creepy in pursuit) who acts aggressive to hide that she likes him back (as wierd as it sounds, the behavior of Luka's character is actually typical a common character type in Japanese animation (anime), comic books (manga), and video games (as far as I know, there's no seperate name for Japanese video games) known as "tsundere").  In "The Gamblr" by ROY (which, by the way, is an original song, incase you started thinking of the Kenny Rogers song), however, he "plays" a man who either puts quite a bit of passion into poker, has a gambling addiction, is literally playing a game of life or death, or some combination of the three, and looses the game in the end.  I'm sure you can find examples of parallels in theme, seriousness, and musical style for every VOCALOID.


• Learn the difference between UTAU, VOCALOID, and fanmade VOCALOIDS.  UTAU is freeware and people can make their own voicebanks (Teto Kasane and Koto Fuuga are examples of Japanese UTAUs, Camilla Melodia and Tsugomori are examples of Overseas (basically, made by someone not from Japan) UTAUs).  Fanmade VOCALOIDS are... exactly what they sound like.  A character you or another person made up that is supposed to represent something in the program or the fandom.  A few fanmades based on Crypton VOCALOIDS have been officially accepted by the company and have official merchandise, but no voicebank of their own (and, repeat after me: they are never getting one.  None of them.  I have no idea why this is such a hard concept for people to understand.)- Neru Akita (based on Miku; represents trolls in the fanbase), Haku Yowane (based on Miku; represents people who create bad songs with Miku (like being off-key, horribly flat, etc.)), Miku Hachune (based on Miku; got her origins from this video, pretty much the big thing to launch Miku (and VOCALOID in general) into the "spotlight"), Meiko Sakine (a younger version of the voicebank MEIKO, which runs on the first version of the engine), and Tako Luka (based on Luka; based on the concept of a "character item", an item that the fans associate a VOCALOID with, typically a food (ex. Miku's is a leek, Len's is a bannana), but other things have been character items (ex. MEIKO's character item is sake (a kind of Japanese wine made with rice), and Rin & Len share the "Road-Roller", which is basically a yellow and black steam roller at least twice their size)).  Other fanmades like Mikuo (based on Miku; Male version of Miku) and the other genderbends, Dell Honne (based on Len; basically Dell is to Len as Haku is to Miku), and the very first annoyloid Kagami Kawiine (design based on Miku/voice reportidly an extreme edit of Gakupo; makes fun of badly made fanmades... and weeaboos... and "rabid" fans who don't seem to fully realize the VOCALOIDS are actually computer programs... and people who type in caps lock... and people who type in chat speak constantly... and probably pitchbends.  Wow she covers a lot of bases.)  And then there are fanmade UTAUs, but I'll probably do a seperate essay on UTAU another day, so I won't go into that now.


• People who pirate, pitchbend, recolor, or steal art are looked down upon, and maybe tracers... I'm not really sure where the distinction between "homage" and "stealing" is.  Basically, these are all forms of thievery , and while not all of these will get you in legal trouble if you're caught, all of these will cause you to lose most, if not all, of the respect the fandom had for you.


• Don't ignore VOCALOIDS for stupid reasons.  If you ignore the VOCALOID because you don't like their voice, that's perfectly fine.  If you ignore the VOCALOID for not being cute enough, being too masuline or feminine or young or old or whatever in appearence, or for the language they are designed for, those are stupid reasons.


• Listen to actual songs sung by a VOCALOID before you judge them.  Let me tell you a couple stories.  Once upon a time, the VOCALOID fandom was looking forward to a new voicebank to be published by Internet Co.: Lily.  When the demos came out, everyone was blown away by how she sounded, and we were all excited.  Internet Co. decided to release a 30 day trial version of the voicebank.  When people downloaded this trial and made songs with it or listened to the songs others had made, they found the songs to be of much lower quality than the demos, even in the hands of expierenced VOCALOID users.  And then when the actual voicebank was released, it was higher quality than the trial but didn't sound like the demos.  I'm not quite sure what happened with the trial being lower quality than the actual voicebank, but the discrepencies with the demos was caused by the magic of autotune.  You'd think that the fandom would learn it's lesson, something like "don't judge a VOCALOID by their demos", right?  Fast forward to the official announcement conference for VOCALOID3.  Among other things, there was a demo of the work-in-progress Korean VOCALOID.  All we got was a song in Korean entitled "I=Fantasy", the name of the voice provider (Kim Tahi), and the name of the company responsible for the voicebank (SBS Artech), but we were all happy and excited.  The demo showed the nameless VOCALOID being so much more lifelike than her predecessors on the previous engine, and we all got so excited.  However, we later learned that SBS Artech had committed a worse crime than Internet Co.: they had mixed the voice of the VOCALOID (known by then to be named SeeU) and Kim Tahi in an attempt to make the "demo" sound more realistic. Not only did this give us a false impression of SeeU, but the VOCALOID3 engine itself.

The other thing I'll talk about is what is at the very core of the fandom: the music! The wide variety of producers and the versatility of the voicebanks means there's something for almost everyone, but I'll try to only talk about a few Producers in depth so people will actually read this. For the people who are looking for songs with a good beat and lyrics that are easy to connect to (once you find the translations anyway), I recommend my personal favorite producer: EasyPop (a.k.a. BETTI). Staples of his music include auto-tune (the only thing that remains an absolute constant), fast tempos, and a variety of topics (which I tried to show in these example videos). The VOCALOIDS he works with are Miku, Luka (seems to be his primary VOCALOID), and Gumi (another VOCALOID2 made by Internet Co.; also known by the product name Megpoid). The art for most of his songs is drawn by Kiki, and typically the singer Umi is the first person to write lyrics for an English cover of his songs (I'm not sure, however, if this is some sort of an official thing or just a really freaky coincidence). The songs showcased are, in order, "Happy Synthesizer" (a duet between the Nico Nico Douga (Japanese video hosting site; often abbreviated to NND) user 96neko and the VOCALOID2 voicebank Len Kagamine (yet another Crypton VOCALOID) (an English translation can be found here)), "My Room Disco Night" (a video of NND users Sasa, Rere, Nyamo, and Wata dancing (the cover used is by Nyamo and the coreography is by Rere) (Umi's English cover can be found here)), "Cheap Time Disco"(an English dub of the song by YouTube user MewKiyoko), and "Kiss and Smile" (a YouTube reprint of the original from the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga) (the last one deviates from the musical style of the others quite a bit, but it's still my personal favorite).

If you enjoy this kind of music, then a few other Producers you may like are DixieFlatline, OSTER Project, and SAMFREE. If you are one of the metal fans at this school (and there seems to be quite a few of you), then UtsuP will probably be more your type. I don't really listen to a lot of metal, so I can't really say what sets them apart from other metal artists, both professionals and VOCALOID users, other than that their music tends to have extremely dark topics, which I hope I showed properly in my chosen samples, "Adult's Toy" (a song sung by Rin about child abuse), "Classroom Demon" (a song sung by Gumi about bullying and (possibly) suicide).

If you enjoyed those, some other Producers you might like are Yuyoyuppe (please don't ask me to try to pronounce that name or spell it from memory) and Caz.  The third and final producer I've chosen to spotlight specializes in a style that I haven't heard outside of VOCALOID music, ethnic music (basically, it sounds kind of similar to folk music... if you haven't figured it out by now I'm horrible at describing things).  All three songs are written by Intro-P and sung by KAITO (a Crypton VOCALOID running on the first version of the software) (the third one is a duet with Miku).  The first two ("Rabbit of Inaba" and "Susano'o") are based off of Japanese myths, and the third one is a spooky yet lighthearted song by the title of "Crazy Clown".  It doesn't fit in too well too well with the other two, but I decided to throw it in there because it fit the Halloween spirit.

Unfortunately, ethnic music isn't commonly uploaded, so I can only give a few individual songs as suggestions: DATEKEN's "Spinning Song", Shinjou-P's "Pane Dihira" (this is another KAITO song, and a great example of how the same VOCALOID could sound really different depending on who's working the technology), and hinayukki & Osechi's "Paired Up Wintry Winds".

And there you have it.  My basic explanation of VOCALOID, some songs, and how not to cause me second-hand enbarassment when interacting with other fans.  Hopefully I have helped you understand the appeal of synthesized singers a little bit better, and you try to worm your way into the lovely collection of people that make up the English-speaking VOCALOID fandom.  Now, as a treat to you all and to prove that English VOCALOIDS do exist (I just know someone's going to doubt that... the reason I only put Japanese songs so far is because the Japanese VOCALOIDS beat out the English VOCALOIDS in popularity at least 6 to 1, and that's just me being generous), have this little sample that VocaTone and PowerFX put out of their jointly produced VOCALOID Oliver.  He's singing an alternate version of The Addams Family theme song with PowerFX's other VOCALOIDS Big Al and Sweet Ann.  If you want to hear Oliver's voice clearly, you'll have to listen a few times, but trust me, it's worth it.  Happy Halloween everyone!

As far as I can see, I have three ways to get your attention for this: explain the Lolita fashion in a nutshell (which I already did in my introduction to my binder post) and go into more detail later , deny some misconceptions about it and tell you all the truth (the most important one of which I'll cover right now: the name is all it has in common with the book; the meaning has been adapted in the Japanese language to mean (more or less) “little girl”), or show you pretty pictures of Lolita dresses. I will go with the third one because, let's face it, that might actually get a few of you interested.

That dress I just showed you is a Lolita dress of the gothic sub-variety, made by Metamorphose (a Lolita brand) in October of 2009, features a reversible hood, and (probably most importantly to many of you) is a Nightmare Before Christmas dress. Also, it is only available in Meta's shop in Shinjuku, Japan, and it costs 36,540 yen (roughly 475.87 USD). While the exclusiveness isn't common, the steep price is among brand items. I don't know enough about money saving tips to include them in this essay, but if you're reading this, you must have access to the internet. I'll try to stay away from talking about the various brands and their costly but lovely items, in an attempt to not scare anyone more than I already may have. I will, however, talk about the influence that fashions of the Victorian era had on it (as well as what those fashions and that era basically were), the ideals the fashion is based around, the “Lolita lifestyle” (completely optional from the fashion, but I feel obligated to mention it), the different kinds of Lolita, and how to avoid being an “ita”/“cosplay Lolita” or, in (mostly) common English, how not to fail at Lolita fashion. So let's get this show on the road!

First, let's start with the older fashion that had the most noted influence on Lolita: Victorian. The Victorian Era lasted from 1837 to 1901 in England, was named after Queen Victoria (which I hope would be at least somewhat obvious), and included a wide variety of historical events, including the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (a novel that has greatly inspired Lolita fashion, and a personal favorite of mine), and On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, as well as the industrial revolution. The fashions of this era, in a nutshell, are best defined as rapidly changing. A few common pieces that live on today in Lolita are bell shaped skirts with petticoats underneath, often seen as Lolita staples (most common in the 1840s and 1850s; also, Victorian era women wore many petticoats at the same time while most, if not all, Lolita girls wear one at a time).

Next, I'll cover what ideals the Lolita fashion is based around and the completely optional “Lolita lifestyle”. First is possibly the most important ideal: modesty. The general rules connected with this are that very little skin is shown, the shoulders should always be completely covered, and the skirts are typically about knee length. The other major ideal is politeness. Now before any of you complain about how you'd have to be an angel to be perfectly polite to everyone: no, that's not what this is about. Most of my readers who know me personally will think I'm so nice to everybody, but even I have come across people who I purposefully don't talk to unless it's absolutely necessary because they aggravate me that much. What I'm actually trying to say is that in order to fulfill this, which shouldn't even be necessary if you're already an good person in regards to basic manners and caring about people, is that you just be more self-aware about what you're doing. Lastly, the Lolita lifestyle is just living your life according to these ideals and adopting various hobbies befitting an elegant lady of the Victorian time period, like sewing. Now, like I said at the beginning of the paragraph, the lifestyle is not at all necessary to wear Lolita clothes, nor are you required to wear Lolita if you are polite and enjoy things like sewing just because that's who you are. I simply felt obligated to mention it because some Lolita choose to do it, and I think that the part about trying extra hard to be modest and polite would do some people (not necessarily ones who go to my school, or are even in high school at all, but if you felt insulted by that, you either need to work at being a better person or are way too sensitive and/or paranoid) a world of good.

(wolfypuppy.deviantart.com's take on a steryotypical lifestyle Lolita, which she admits to drawing inspiration from herself for)

Next, I'll be giving a quick summary of a few of the different kinds of Lolita as described by lolitafashion.org, along with some pictures of them. One of the two most well known to those who are neither Lolitas nor have an extereme intrest in the fashon is Gothic Lolita. Like the Gothic fashion most of us (and by that I probably mean everyone reading this except me) are familiar with, it has a lot of dark colors like black and darker shades of red or purple. It also follows the Lolita guidelines of covered shoulders and puffed skirts generally in a bell shape, and also contains contrasting colors like the combination of black and white, only recommended for those very experienced in this specific type of Lolita.

Next is the the type you are second most likely to be familiar with: Sweet Lolita. The popularity of this sub-style is sometimes seen as a setback for adults wanting to get into Lolita, and I really don't blame them. Sweet Lolita is probably the style that most takes the adapted meaning of the word into consideration, barring an actual little girl dressing in Lolita (which, for those who like looking at pictures of cute kids, I'd really like to see). Sweet can be considered “girly” and “childish” much easier than other types of Lolita, due to mostly using white as accents to light shades of pink or blue, generally having “cutesy” prints featuring things like pastries, fruits, toys, and hearts, and (excluding ita) is the only kind of Lolita that can get away with having a bag that doubles as a stuffed animal.

Given that I've already managed to reach 6 pages in OpenOffice (not counting the works cited and counting the pictures), I'll be pretty surprised if anyone but Ms. Transsue actually reads this far (and considering that she already approved the introductory paragraph itself for publication, I doubt she'll get to this point in the first day), and I'll be especially surprised if any boys managed to get this far. Also, if any guys did manage to survive so far (and I apologize for using both an internet meme and a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic reference in my essay on a fashion): you are either at least 20% cooler than the guys I know personally or I don't know you as well as I think I do, and you all win the internet. The next style I'll talk about is more likely to be something you'll be interested in- Kodona (referred to as “Ouji” in Japan, which translates to “prince”; also I've heard that guys who dress in this specific variety refer to it as “Dandy”) can be considered Lolita for boys, but seems to be more commonly worn by girls (go figure). Typically the outfit seems to (I don't know this style nearly as well as the others) consist of a dress shirt (for girls, any blouse that can be worn with a Lolita dress or skirt would probably be acceptable) and either “prince pants”, which are similar to capris and cut off at the knee (I'm guessing these are more common with girls simply by the description), or usual dress pants. Usual accessories include ties, bowler hats, and long socks (in order to adhere to the “very little skin showing” guideline), or things like top hats or capes if you're feeling really fancy.

Now, if Sweet and Gothic weren't really your thing, but you still want to wear dresses and dress in one of the more popular Lolita styles, Classic (the final one I'm going to talk about) may be the way to go. It focuses more on looking classy instead of Sweet's cute, and often has lighter colors unlike Gothic's dark palette. Typically Classic Lolitas sport dresses with floral patterns, muted colors, and A-line skirts as opposed to the bell shape common in both Gothic and Sweet.

Now that I've immersed you in a wealth of information about Lolita fashion, anyone who has made it this far is either going to want to dive into the fashion right away, wondering if I'm nuts for typing this much (the answer would probably be yes), or both. Some of you who fit into the first category will actually take the time to do more research about this topic, but the majority of you will likely not and will end up either forgetting about this completely or do some things that will cause you to be branded with the label of “ita” or “Cosplay Lolita”. So, from an article on fyeahlolita.com and my own mind, I've compiled a small list of how to avoid being an ita, along with some other general tips.

-Never say that Hot Topic sells Lolita cloathes. If any of you out there are familiar with the tumblr blog weeaboostories (EDIT: the blog is now closed, sorry folks; I would have told you earlier but I somehow didn't notice until a couple days ago), you should already know about this, but calling Hot Topic's more frilly items Lolita is a mistake a large (and personally discomforting) number of itas make. Don't misunderstand me, I love Hot Topic, but I have never seen anything that they sell that even remotely resembles Lolita other than the frills; and remember folks: frills =/= Lolita.

-If an anime character character wore it, you shouldn't under any circumstances unless you're genuinely cosplaying (dressing up as) that character. This next part should be somewhat self explanatory, and isn't exactly related to the topic, but I might as well get it out of the way: if you cosplay to school and it's not “dress up as a fictional character day” or you're in some sort of Halloween parade thing (which I don't think they even have in my high school), I will stop speaking to you.

-Materials can make or break the dress, especially lace. If you get a dress made of any shiny or stretchy cloth or with stiff, low quality lace, you'll probably be ridiculed the moment you try to wear it as Lolita.

-Don't make a Lolita outfit out of your own clothes. The good majority of clothes that work with Lolita outfits are specifically designed for that purpose and, unfortunately, are expensive. Bodyline's items are much cheaper than brand items, but are still probably more expensive than the average clothes you and I wear, and the communities view of Bodyline generally isn't too good.

-The internet is your friend. (Part 1- Reviews of items) Before you buy an item from the internet, be sure to find reviews for whatever it is (this goes for pretty much everything). Try to find both good and bad reviews, and weigh the pros and cons before sinking your (or your parents') hard-earned money into that beautiful dress.

-The internet is your friend. (Part 2- Communicating with other Lolitas) This may not be essential to avoiding the ita label, but when you're a newbie, being able to communicate with more experienced Lolitas, both indirectly (reading their blog or their review of an item) and directly (actually having a conversation with them through the internet) can help a lot.

-The internet is your friend. (Part 3- Buying things) In case you haven't figured it out by now, Lolita fashion isn't very popular in the U.S. so if you want to buy brand items (and, I must unfortunately note, Lolitas who don't own even one brand item are often looked down upon), you have to get them shipped from Japan. I'm not sure which brands offer international shipping, but for the ones that don't, there are people known as “shipping agents” (or something similar) who will have the item shipped to them and then get it shipped to you. Unfortunately, this increases the price by a certain percentage of whatever item you're buying... so basically what I'm saying now is-

-Be prepared to spend a lot. This is pretty self explanatory, right?

So there you have it folks. A combination of an essay on Lolita fashion and proof that, even with Drama Club after school everyday and getting home at about 6:00, I have way too much time on my hands. In case any of you forget what I talked about: the influence that Victorian fashion had on Lolita, the ideals that Lolita is based around and the optional Lolita lifestyle, explanations of the Gothic, Sweet, Kodona, and Classic varieties of Lolita, and some tips on how to avoid being an ita. If you'd like me to answer any questions you may have or have any suggestions for another one of my long and rambly freewrites, just leave a comment or e-mail me (my school e-mail is 15173@elklakeschool.org).

Works Cited

"Victorian Dress at the V&A - Victoria and Albert Museum." V&A Home Page - Victoria and Albert Museum. 18 Sept. 2011. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. .

"Gothic Lolita." Lolita Fashion - For Lolitas of All Styles. 27 May 2010. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. .

"Sweet Lolita." Lolita Fashion - For Lolitas of All Styles. 27 May 2010. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. .

"Kodona." Lolita Fashion - For Lolitas of All Styles. 27 May 2010. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. kodona.php>.

"Classic Lolita." Lolita Fashion - For Lolitas of All Styles. 27 May 2010. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. .

 Bloggers..., Fellow Lolita. "How To Avoid Being An Ita." F Yeah Lolita. 2 Nov. 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. .

My name is Emily, and someday I would like to start dressing in Lolita fashion. Before anyone asks: it really has nothing to do with the book (which is a topic I won't go into further due to this being a 9th grader's school blog and because I haven't read it). It's actually a fashion that originated in Japan, is based around the ideals of modesty, innocence, politeness, elegance, and other similar themes, and is heavily influenced by the fashion of the Victorian era. That's all I'm going to say about it right now, but stay tuned for my September free-write which will be an essay explaining Lolita fashion in more depth. The reason I just wrote all of that is because I considered including something about it in my first English project of the school year, a decoration of my binder that represents me, which is what I'm actually supposed to be writing about.

For the part where we had to put a picture representing our personality, I drew a speech bubble with an elipse and a thought bubble with scribbly lines to show that I don't talk much but I'm always thinking.

For our picture of something we like, I drew the cutie mark of Rarity, one of the main characters of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and the Pokémon Eevee.

For the picture of one of our favorite books, I choose James and the Giant Peach because Rohld Dahl is one of my favorite authors.

For the free picture, I choose a picture of a Norwegian Forest Cat because my cat, Summer, died a few months ago, and while we weren't entirely sure what breed she was, we suspected she was a Norwegian Forest Cat.

Finally for my quote, I chose a quote by Natalie Portman that I found on BrainyQuote.com: "Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence."  The reason this quote is meaningful to me is because I see so many people my age trying to grow up too fast, and I just don't understand why.

I know I pretty much already said this on the sidebar, but I need a good conclusion, so: feel free to comment if you want to know more about me!