tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28914138490149780682024-03-13T08:29:03.867-04:00A Faceless AuthorJaya Lakshmihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05768626295383622935noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-1919247153512899592017-08-25T19:00:00.000-04:002017-08-25T19:00:24.094-04:00A New Blog and A Thanks to Many People<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Hi everyone. I know it's been a while. I haven't been updating for various reasons. Though the simplest is that it seems that it's hard to put things into words.<br />
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My birthday was last month. I spent it with family who worked to make it a memorable, loving day. I got a new Harry Potter mug, and Harry Potter Clue. We played, and it turns out having Dark Mark cards adding wrenches into the system make things interesting.<br />
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We're still here. We're still alive. At least, most of us are since the start of 2016. I wish the ones that hadn't made it were still here. They are in our thoughts.<br />
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My blog is ten years old. With bittersweet feelings, I am moving to a Wordpress site, www.priyajsridhar.com. A Faceless Author will stay up, and I promise to leave them up if anyone wants to browse or have some nostalgia. Part of me wonders if I should back up the texts on my hard drive or Google Drive account. Either way, it's time to make a fresh start.<br />
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I started this blog in 2007 for a journalism workshop. We were asked to write and post on our thoughts. According to the posts from then, I had promised myself to only start a blog when I had a book published. It's been ten years, and My friends from that workshop are still listed in the sidebar. I don't know what they're doing now, but one day I may go and ask. That was an insightful workshop into seeing what made a newspaper work, and how to print up a story.<br />
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It's odd, rereading these old posts. I have no memory of writing them. Certainly the entries were a bit more spread out than they were. Harry Potter came out around that time, as did Mirrormask. The posts didn't have images, because I didn't know that optimally one would break up text with images. I had written a story for a bad books anthology but didn't finish the story in time. Since then I've submitted to at least four anthologies this year and hope to submit to more, to learn from the experience.<br />
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I'm moving blogs because I'm not the same teenager that started A Faceless Author. In 2007, I wasn't posting my photo online due to concerns about safety, especially given the MySpace horror stories that we heard from speakers in high school. Noteworthy is the hypocrisy about how the speaker apparently met her husband online, through a dating site. I didn't care, but others did. These days, my face is associated with my profile. Thus I am no longer faceless. In addition, I have grown in my career. <i>Neo Mecha Mayhem </i>is out, and last month two anthologies accepted short stories from me. This blog was written by a teenager who was stubbornly balancing school with reading, but now I'm an adult who is balancing writing with a full-time job and other responsibilities.<br />
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Thank you, everyone who has followed me since 2007. I hope that you'll subscribe to the new blog on WordPress. My goal is to do two posts a month, while still submitting regularly to other anthologies. We have a new journey ahead of us.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-89486251332012794092017-06-26T22:54:00.004-04:002017-06-26T22:54:44.095-04:00Twenty Years of Wizardry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Twenty years ago, Harry Potter's story appeared in black print. A young wizard with a lightning bolt scar and messy black hair takes charge of his destiny, by attending a wizard's school. He would spawn a franchise that would include eight movies tied to the books, a play that did not happen, a theme park, and lots of merchandise. </div>
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My feelings of Harry Potter mainly comprise love. I was a big fan of the series as a kid, nursed a major crush on Daniel Radcliffe, and wrote fanfiction that mercifully never saw the light of day. These days, I only see Harry Potter fic on Tumblr if someone reblogs it, or if a writer I know is compiling a wicked awesome zombie apocalypse fanfiction. </div>
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These days, I feel more divided. While Harry Potter remains a great series, and one that impacted international culture, it also has its flaws. So does the author. It's difficult to reconcile that what you read as a child has different implications when you are an adult. I will be discussing what feels different now that I am an adult, rereading dog-eared and in one case a torn edition of the Prisoner of Azkaban that I bought when I was nine. </div>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Entering the Snape Spoiler Zone</h3>
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Snape is a prime example of these unsettling implications. The grumpy Hogwarts professor bullies Harry and his class, while serving as a double agent to both sides. We later learn that he's on the heroes' side, but doesn't do a good job of showing it. He was originally a Death Eater but defected on learning that his big mouth would get Lily Evans Potter, his childhood crush, killed. JKR on Twitter recently apologized for killing Snape. </div>
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I hate bullies. Let's get that out of the way. Snape is a worse bully than Malfoy, because unlike the latter he has power and wisdom to know better. The slimy Slythern takes out his frustration about his life on children, namely the child of his crush Lily, and another potential chosen one Neville Longbottom. Lily ended their friendship because Snape couldn't renounce bigotry that targeted Lily, and one that would eventually get her killed. Snape refuses to learn from his mistakes when he tells off Hermione Granger, who is as brilliant as Lily and Muggleborn, for always showing off when she means well. </div>
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Fanfiction and fanon noticed this gap. When <i>Order of the Phoenix</i> took several years to come out, people wrote fics where Snape got more character development beyond the "bullying professor". A few fics accurately predicted that he had a crush on Lily and begrudged Harry for surviving. Others gave him moments where he didn't harass students for the fun of it. What did we get in canon? Useless Occlumency lessons in book five, and an explanation in book seven. We had to wait until the last book to get the development we craved.</div>
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The Good Qualities About Snape</h4>
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Snape's first redeeming quality was his correct observations. He notes that Harry thinks he's above the rules, doesn't apply himself thoroughly, and needs to learn to block his mind to become competent. All of these criticisms apply and play out through each book. Harry obviously doesn't listen because Snape also exaggerates these points, and uses them as an excuse to belittle Harry. </div>
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His second redeeming quality was his actor. The late Alan Rickman also portrayed Snape well. The man was a talented actor, who could portray the Slytherin with measured sympathy. He in fact refused to play the part until JKR told him a few backs about the character. Off-camera, he mentored the child actors, and even asked Rupert Grint to sign a caricature that the latter made.<br />
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The third redeeming quality is that Snape kept us guessing. He served an integral part to the overarching plot, but he inspired a driving question: why did Dumbledore trust him? When we learned he was good at blocking his mind, a necessity for spying on anyone, how were we sure he didn't fool the older professor? We didn't know which side he was on for several books, after it was established that he only saved Harry in the first book to satisfy a life debt. Harry and the reader had to tolerate a nasty teacher for six books, and that mystery remained. We finally got an answer. Boy did we have to wait for it.<br />
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The Nonredeemable Qualities: Snape's Entitlement</h4>
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Snape's crush on Lily is not cute. They
grew up together, but that doesn't mean he was entitled to her heart. He
ostensibly hated Muggles because his Muggle father was abusive; Lily
had a sister that hated her for being the pretty magical one, but she
hoped to remain on good terms with Petunia. (Petunia also doesn't get
any redeeming moments for her actions, only a deleted line from the film
where she expresses regret on having lost her sister.) Lily made a lot
of excuses for his racist behavior while they were in school, but
eventually his cruelty reached a tipping point. Snape had an option to
renounce that bigotry if he valued their friendship but ultimately
decided that his little gang was more important. If he hadn't become a
Death Eater, Lily wouldn't have become one of Voldemort's many targets;
even if we assume another Death Eater had eavesdropped on the prophecy,
Snape made a disastrous choice. If he truly cared for Lily, he would
have realized that Death Eater bigotry would kill her. But he didn't,
until it was too late. </div>
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Snape is also a bully in the classroom. He terrorizes any non-Slytherin and reserves special nastiness for Harry and Neville.This bullying leads to Harry not learning
Occlumency from him, and the remaining Hogwarts students committing
mutiny when Snape becomes headmaster. What's worse is that no one calls
him out on his selfish, mean behavior; while Dumbledore keeps reminding
Snape to be kinder, no one else does apart from an impostor teacher that points out the unreasonable grudge. The fact that Moody's impostor pointed this out speaks volumes about how a loyal Death Eater sees the absurdity. Snape also holds himself accountable to no one, except to Lily's ghost. Even that doesn't carry far; Snape doesn't apply the logic that Lily would hate him further for being nasty to her son. <br />
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Do
Snape's actions throughout the books redeem his bullying moments? To me,
no. He had a clear choice to become a better person, and to change his attitude. In fact, he had multiple opportunities before Harry had to go on the lam, but he squanders most of them. <br />
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With that said, I don't mind that Harry named his second son after "the bravest man I've ever met". Harry made the choice to forgive Snape and bury his grudges, something the man couldn't do. He couldn't justify Snape's cruelty, or forays into the Dark Arts, but he could acknowledge Snape's courage. For that I commend Harry, though I hope he names one of his kids after Hagrid.<br />
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JKR, you let us into your private world for fifteen years and counting. I may not agree with all your choices, but I commend you for trusting us constant readers. Our lives changed as we grew with the Boy Who Lived, and the people who became his new family. Thank you for Harry, and for his legacy.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-3831442605149615392017-06-09T20:00:00.000-04:002017-06-12T17:38:58.164-04:00Our Internet Reputations: When YouTube Stars Disappoint<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</script>Hey all. I hope you had a happy Memorial Day. We're still here, and let's honor those that aren't. Let's honor victims of hate crimes, of emotional abuse, and of prejudice.<br />
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This summer I have a novel coming out, <i>Neo Mecha Mayhem</i>. It will be a sci-fi novel, set on the island of Okinawa, inspired by Batman and by Satoshi Kon's films. I'll be posting more information as I get the publication details.<br />
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A fiasco happened earlier this year, regarding YouTube gamers. These Internet celebrities, the lucky ones, gain a following by playing a game with style. I've been following Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, since they make scary games less scary. They gained so much fame that mainstream entertainment companies like Disney took notice. Then they didn't.<br />
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One gamer messed up. Felix, aka PewDiPie, made the mistake of paying two South Asian actors to dance around with a sign saying "Death to the Jews". He claimed it was a joke and was horrified they actually did it, even though most South Asians would most likely not understand the implications, and $5 USD is roughly 332.95 rupees in Indian currency. That isn't chump change. The Wall Street Journal reported on the video, as well as how white supremacists and Neo Nazis took the video, and others with similar humor, at face value. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/13/pewdiepie-youtube-star-disney-antisemitic-videos">Disney ended a multi-million deal with Felix</a>, and YouTube Red cancelled his second season of<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">Scare PewDiePie</em><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">. Felix later made an apology video, while he condemned the <i>Wall Street Journal </i>for painting him as a Nazi. The apology felt backhanded. </span></span></div>
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Felix was insensitive and didn't think through the consequences of his actions. He also had a terrible sense of timing, posting his videos right when Neo Nazis were becoming mainstream again, and when the Trump campaign was attacking everyone none-white and neurodiverse. Disney of course has a history of standing against Nazis, despite what conspiracy theorists may think, with its war films and cartoons made to speak against fascism.<br />
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Of course, one has to ask why Disney would go with Felix. Disney has its adult franchises and minor companies, but he isn't child-friendly material. Felix is foul-mouthed for one, and has an abrasive character. He's entertaining, I will admit. </div>
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I'd like to think that Felix really didn't know about the rising conservatism and hate. Given by his reaction in the video, and how he later responded, he didn't seem to realize what weight his actions would have. His friends and fellow gamers Markiplier and Jacksepticeye vouched for him. Jack also had the decency to admit that Felix messed up badly, while Mark has asked for people to remain respectful.<br />
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Then we contrast this behavior with that of another gamer. JonTron, half of Gamer Grumps. The son of immigrants, of course Jon Jafari stands with racist right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric, even though he benefited from the system and labels himself as white. After Rep Steve King came under fire for his comments on anti-immigration, Jon defended them and added his fuel to the fire with inflammatory comments during a stream. He then offered a back-handed apology where he claims his views were misconstrued, and that he's against "tribalization" of America. He still got cut from an <a href="http://time.com/4711706/jontron-yooka-laylee-playtonic/">upcoming game</a>, and his channel has lost multiple subscribers.<br />
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There are minor differences, but the rhetoric remains the same: "We think that we are above the consequences to make these jokes and we can justify our words using 'context'". It's shameful that we have to remind people that the Internet has consequences, and that our image can easily shatter. I wonder where the basic human decency goes. While Felix may have the excuse of not understanding bigotry, Jon ought to have known better when having an immigrant family.<br />
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Granted, we have a history of celebrities behaving badly. Actors and actresses had dalliances, while authors like H.P. Lovecraft faced criticism for racist rhetoric. Daphne Du Maurier chronicled her father's affairs, while ignoring hers as a married woman. None of this is new.<br />
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The difference lies in how the Internet rapidly increases communication, and breaks down the barriers that were there before. Before people would write letters, or send telegrams. There would be time to think of what one would say. You could still mess up: Alexander Hamilton, for example, published the infamous <i>Reynolds Pamphlet </i>at a time when one had to assemble metal blocks on a printing press. These days, it takes less time to destroy a reputation.<br />
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We can't control if people misbehave. We can chide them, or educate calmly about when not to make a tasteless jokes. Sometimes we get lucky and get a celebrity who will own their mistakes. Markiplier, for example, has apologized to his friends for being controlling over video production. <br />
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Let's keep reminding each other about basic decency. The world is much more ominous than it was two years ago, and we should remember that the Internet has changed society. I hope Felix and Jon shape up, realizing their words and videos have consequences. If not, we always have Mark and Jack.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-6348344287447350122017-04-11T20:00:00.000-04:002017-04-11T20:00:18.444-04:00A Letter to Myself While Recovering from a Virus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dear Priya:<br />
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You were sick last week. You are sick this week. Because of that sickness, your writing output went down. That is nothing to be ashamed of. You still managed to write a fantastic artilce and now you are fighting to get back on track and prove that you are not a waste. I say this because the negative thoughts need to battle with ongoing affirmations. You already know that you are not a waste. You submitted two columns this week, and have sent off a story to an anthology.<br />
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Not everyone can write when sick. Neil Gaiman suffered acute meningitis and couldn't write for months afterward, until he produced the brilliant "Problem of Susan". Probably there are other writers that were bedridden and needed to muster the energy, just as you have. While your nose is still runny, and you have a mild headache, the sickness isn't making your head fuzzy.<br />
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The blog hasn't updated for about two months, not since Valentine's. That's because you are making a transition to another blog that has a Wordpress-based server. You also hope to post more optimistic content, since the most recent draft concerns the closing of Ringling Brothers, and you have content on your phone that you need to translate over to it. That blog will update more frequently and have constant feedback.<br />
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Reminders for this week: You will be attending RetroCon 2017 this weekend, at the Miami Airport Convention Center. You will be selling books with Phil McCall III and ideally show off your writing repertoire. You are also filing taxes for the first time, and learning what income to track. A writer's friend wants content for an introversion contest, and a column about literacy activism has a deadline on the 23rd. You also need to update your blog with a proper profile picture, an Instagram, and probably a buffer of more positive posts about writing and gaming.<br />
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Spring is here. You know it's spring because the curry leaf tree has new tiny leaves, a sign of warmth. The sun warms the water when you swim, and the air when you run. Starlings fly in and out of the hole in the roof, smugly noting that you and most people cannot reach them. A hole and leak sprung in the house library, which led to a lot of waterlogged books, but you managed to save most of them and will later figure out which ones should go to donation or recycling. There's still time to read through all the books on the shelf, to see what treasures you have missed.<br />
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In short, don't blame yourself for getting sick and not being able to write. It happens to the best of us. Your mother broke her arm, and so she could not cook. You learned to hone her recipes. You are writing now, and you are back on track. Reusing the tools that worked before, like writeordie.com, has proved a huge help. This morning you looked over one of your drafts as well as the comments that a thoughtful reader left on such a story. Sunday you did the same thing, on a tale that you wrote two months ago during a tough time and which nevertheless came out fairly well. You mailed a Netflix envelope without a problem, using priority mail, and you managed your Treasurer dues at Toastmasters. What's more, you are still creating.<br />
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Write on now, while you are healthier. Find ways to return to fiction, and to remember the deadlines and self-imposed goals. Camp Nanowrimo may have gone off to a rocky start, but you can still add more to the black comedy about trolling. You can block out the events that really happened, and add fiction to make a dysfunctional family lovable. The story you have coming out this year from Alban Lake will prove a treasure. You have someone you trust reading it, and hope to poke them in two weeks if they don't respond. Other emails will get responses, courtesy of you.<br />
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Good luck, Priya. You will master this week's goals. Feel better after the runny nose goes away.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-41737695728691931782017-02-06T19:00:00.000-05:002017-02-06T19:00:33.314-05:00The Start of the Year: On Loving and Living<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have a draft of a post about the Ringling Bros. Circus closing, but with the current events of the past week it feels inappropriate to post about nostalgia when an unconstitutional executive order is tearing families apart and has killed more than thirty people. That will have to wait for another day.<br />
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Things have changed. On one hand, people are more united against anything our current president mandates, in due part to his not having signed off on any beneficial executive orders. On the other hand, our republic has turned into a dictatorship within a week. Most news items are train wrecks. My opinions and fears have caused me to doubt some people while allying with others.<br />
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Despite all this, we have to keep living. We have our jobs, our hobbies, and our families. While we make donations and spread the news, the dogs need walking, the dishes need cleaning, or our library books need returning. Sometimes living in the face of such disaster feels surreal. Yet we have to keep going through the motions, to find meaning in the little things while not knowing when the end comes. Sometimes watching other dogs, like the Animal Planet Puppy Bowl helps.<br />
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Loving isn't that much different. We say that love is eternal, and in some cases it is with families and with good friends. When love ends, however, say for a fictional work or for someone we once admired, our heart breaks. Hearts don't care if Orson Scott Card once wrote books with diverse casts and now shows racism in his diatribes; they fragment, and repair slowly. Yet, as Aaron Burr in the musical <i>Hamilton </i>puts it, despite love taking our feelings and our hearts, "we keep loving anyway, we laugh and we cry, and we break, and we make our mistakes".<br />
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Valentine's Day is coming up, and it usually focuses on romantic love. This year, I think I'm going to focus on all kinds of love. We writers are more than romantic beings. We adore the craft, we adore the authors and books that came before us and that are coming out now, and we love the readers. We also love the people that support us, and the fictional characters that come to life. My friends have been there for me during the past two months, and so have my family.<br />
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On Valentine's Day, I'll explore different kinds of love in detail, since at the moment the definition feels murky. The patron saint Valentine died converting people to Christianity; that sort of sentiment doesn't reflect the candy and flowers of today's holiday. I'm going to attempt to appreciate love again, and simply joys from knowing a person or an object is in your life. I'm also going to attempt to love living.<br />
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We are living in tough times now, but living is the greatest source of rebellion. The best way to fight an attack on the arts is to make art. The best way to fight injustice is to expose it. The best way to care for innocent strangers is to spread their stories, and to never let them go out of mind. We need to love those strangers and lend our hearts to them, to give them the chance that we gave.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-21095788769471050092016-12-31T22:00:00.000-05:002016-12-31T22:00:22.413-05:00Why I Couldn't Manage Nanowrimo This Year, and more on 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hey all, it<span style="font-family: inherit;"> has been quite a year. <span style="font-family: inherit;">We've seen so many tragedies and losses <span style="font-family: inherit;">that it seems almost laughable. We've also learned that a good number of people don't know how to behave decently or to recognize when a rich man cons them and promises them castles in the air. Haters in the night will paint swastikas, and <span style="font-family: inherit;">celebritie<span style="font-family: inherit;">s will pas<span style="font-family: inherit;">s when <span style="font-family: inherit;">we e<span style="font-family: inherit;">xpect them to live for an eternity. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I'm not sure what kind of year it has been per<span style="font-family: inherit;">sonally, so I will attempt to <span style="font-family: inherit;">recap</span>.</span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Academics</b></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I graduated with a Masters in Business in May 2016. I attended my graduation because it felt like an accomplishment to finish the year in between job interviews, attempting to write seriously, doing freelance work for a hair salon corporation. Having that graduation photo, and my diploma in hand, brought to home the work that the past two years entailed. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My friends from grad school are doing well. One who asked me if I could take in a black kitten moved to Las Vegas with her family, and she posts happy updates on Facebook. Several others have received lucrative job offers, gotten married, and bought houses. I'm really happy for them. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I went to my first three jobs, finally settling at the company where I work now. My supervisors and coworkers are nice and honest, while helping me learn how to do my tasks better. Right now my goal is to work my hardest and accomplished the tasks set out to me.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<b>Publications and Writing</b><br />
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This year I wrote three pieces for <i>Enchanted Conversation</i>, and one got published: a poem about "Donkeyskin". Roar 7 published my story, "The Golden Flowers," and I plan to submit to the year 8 anthology.<br />
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Book Riot's sister website <i>Panels </i>hired me as a freelance columnist, and then I started working with Book Riot. I was lucky to attend the live event in November, and to meet my coworkers. <br />
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I sold my third story to a professional publication, "Memoriam," to <i>Where the Stars Rise</i>. In addition, Nightmare Magazine reprinted "The Opera Singer," and <i>Beneath Ceaseless Skies </i>released "The Jeweled Nawab Retreat". I wrote four short stories on commission, and will be do more in 2017.<br />
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<b>Nanowrimo</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month, when hundreds of people across the globe try to write 50,000 words. I've been attempting it for the past few years, though the only<span style="font-family: inherit;"> time I came close to the 50,000 word goal was in 2013. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At the end of <span style="font-family: inherit;">November 2016,</span> I had 5300 words, not due to a lack of time, but due to a lack of faith and <span style="font-family: inherit;">structure<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To write well, you need to figure out your safe space. You also need to figure out what will nourish your writing. A story is like a plant in a cultivated garden, and a novel is like a bonsai. A bonsai is a tiny tree that can grow in a flowerpot; gardeners take years to cut the roots, shape the limbs, and attend to the leaves. The end result can stun many a viewer. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In November, I couldn't take care of my novel. I hadn't written a plot outline or a journey, due to making up my project on the fly. The characters has to stand on their two feet. Thus I could have either written it as fan fiction or taken a step back to evaluate it honestly. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I did not do any of the above. No plan for the novel ever came to mind. I did write small pieces and poetry, as well as columns for Book Riot. Then the election happened. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">For a few weeks, as shown by my </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">November blog post, I felt immense despair about the power of words. It felt like words couldn't make people feel the way I do or see things the way I see them. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My faith in people and justice shook, and has fragmented. It's only coming together now.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Entert<span style="font-family: inherit;">ainment</span></span></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Gravity Falls</i> sadly ended this past February. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Wander </i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Over Yonder</i> ended this summer. We hope that <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wander </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">gets a third season, though the creators are doing a <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ducktales </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">reboot that looks promising. <span style="font-family: inherit;">As <span style="font-family: inherit;">for <i>Gravity Falls</i>, I do hope that we get a reuni<span style="font-family: inherit;">on o<span style="font-family: inherit;">r a Christmas <span style="font-family: inherit;">special in<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a couple of years.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Hami<span style="font-family: inherit;">lton</span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> without a dou<span style="font-family: inherit;">bt saved the Tonys in June. After a terrible day that started with the Orlando shoot<span style="font-family: inherit;">ing, it seemed <span style="font-family: inherit;">one could do nothing agains<span style="font-family: inherit;">t the <span style="font-family: inherit;">despair of more <span style="font-family: inherit;">tragedy. Then the <span style="font-family: inherit;">actors took the stage, and p<span style="font-family: inherit;">erformed with joy. They showe<span style="font-family: inherit;">d that </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Steven Universe</i> in the m<span style="font-family: inherit;">eantime co<span style="font-family: inherit;">ntinues to surprise me, and <span style="font-family: inherit;">helped during this past summer</span>. <i>Voltron </i>entertained my brother and me.</span></span></span> We got a show called <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stranger Things </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">wh<span style="font-family: inherit;">ich went viral and reminds us of the power of an entertaining story.With luck, <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Moana </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">when I see it will follow suit.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As for <span style="font-family: inherit;">video games, I stand behind <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Undertale </span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">wholeheartedly. I also think that <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Last Guardian</span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is a work of art and that one should watch a playthrough of it at the least. Trico and the Underground monsters make for <span style="font-family: inherit;">creatures to protect in the fictional world.</span></span></span></span></span> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Res<span style="font-family: inherit;">o</span>lutions</span></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This year I am going to do more writing for myself. I'm going to figure out how to write what I want to write, rather than make other people happy. While I'm happy to do it for my friends, who I trust. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I<span style="font-family: inherit;"> am also going to build on my writing stamina, to do longer tales and to perhaps finish an actual novel.</span></span></span> I need to work on my structure for stories,
especially with setting and characters, so that the finished drafts
become stronger. I hope to recapture that structure and more of the
passion.<br />
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Happy New Year, everyone. Raise a glass to fighting oppression and writing in the face of uncertainty! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-7857997455092936912016-12-24T12:00:00.000-05:002016-12-24T12:00:01.966-05:00Christmas Dancing: Thoughts on the Nutcracker<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We really need to end this year on a good note. Christmas is in a few days, and with luck we can put 2016 behind us and look to a new future. To do that, I'm considering the best winter story for this time of the year, to dive into a new world that promises hope in the face of darkness. <script type="text/javascript">
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The Nutcracker is a fairy tale by ETA Hoffmann, which later became a ballet and Western pop culture icon. Marie, a young girl, receives a strange toy soldier from her godfather Drosselmeyer. At night, mice creep out from the cracks in the wall, including their seven-headed king, and attack the nutcracker, while Marie tries to defend against magic and against how outward appearances deceive. In the ballet, seven-year old Marie becomes teenage Clara, which takes away the "ick" factor for when she later falls for the nutcracker, who turns into a boy her age that wants to marry her. </div>
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Every winter our elementary school would take a field trip to see <i>The Nutcracker </i>at a local theatre, probably offered by the Miami City Ballet. I have good memories of listening to the music live, and watching the dancers. The mice mourned their fallen king with surprising pathos, while the Doll Kingdom remained ethereal and elegant. At home, I would watch our cassette of <i>Fantasia</i>, Disney's experimental and transcendental approach to classical music, and later on find the Russian cartoon of the Nutcracker on PBS.<br />
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I can't really explain what makes <i>The Nutcracker</i> appealing. The music certainly has persisted in staying with us, and with the Western world. The story, as it starts, certainly captivates us with the fairy tale lore and the hunger for adventure. In addition the dancing is memorable and soothing, a perfect remedy for a day outside of the theater.<br />
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<a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/12/17/pnb-tiger_custom-17409b106560e2d4037fadbcc2c2e3fe8978a7e7-s900-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/12/17/pnb-tiger_custom-17409b106560e2d4037fadbcc2c2e3fe8978a7e7-s900-c85.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Between the many versions, I prefer the original fairy tale the best, which has a longer story than the ballet does. The Mouse King retreats after losing to the nutcracker, and Marie falls ill in bed from cutting her arm on glass. While she lies bedridden, the Mouse King returns through a hole in the wall and extorts all of Marie's toys and candy at the threat of killing the Nutcracker. She finally decides to take action and borrow a toy sword from her little brother. The Nutcracker makes good use of it in the final confrontation.<br />
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I do recommend reading the book illustrated by Maurice Sendak, since it's got the most interesting illustrations, and he choreographed the Pacifist Northwest Ballet's interpretation. The ballet itself is a beacon of calm during the bustling holidays, and no commercialization can cheapen the music's impact on the mind. Plus, nothing is better than a girl who when shrunken and threatened, tosses a shoe at a mouse.<br />
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Merry Christmas Eve to all, and I hope you have a good Christmas Day. This year has been really weird and disappointing, but with luck we can end it on a calmer note.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-81877525735349514132016-12-12T18:00:00.000-05:002016-12-12T18:00:01.205-05:00Survival Has A Price<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Disney
has kept with the times, acknowledging the decades' worth of shifts in female
roles. Frozen has princesses that take action and responsibility for their
actions, while Wreck it Ralph and Big Hero 6 show female characters in roles
unusual for animated film -- gaming, science and technology. We see progress in
that the medium acknowledges that these women exist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">At the
same time, Disney's live action films have dived into remakes, from Sleeping
Beauty to Cinderella. They insist on rewriting animated history, to give
Maleficent depth and Cinderella's stepmother some sympathy. The princesses take
charge of their destinies when they previously didn't. With that said, I feel
that the original princesses were survivors-- they endured harsh circumstances
and remained sweet-natured people. Slowly but surely, Disney drops their
survivor narrative to suit the times, and lose a valuable, poignant quality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LmoO_crrptQ/maxresdefault.jpg</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">I admit,
I have a great deal of nostalgia for these original films, despite their storytelling
and characterization flaws, since they demonstrated high quality animation and
music that is a rarity in this day and age due to cost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a child I watched and rewatched them,
regretting the day I brought my Sleeping Beauty cassette to school and lost it,
for the animation and music have stayed with me. This nostalgia makes me wince
at the backlash towards princesses in modern days, and how parents stress that
they won’t buy princess dresses for their children in favor of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>better role models. I believe in princesses,
and I believe that their existence in fiction makes the world a better place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Snow
White, Bambi, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella were Disney's original
survivors. Most of these were also princesses who in modern times are viewed as
anti-feminist. The male protagonists Dumbo and Bambi were infant animals, but
they engage in more free agency, albeit with help from their friends and family
respectively. No one ever calls Dumbo passive, because insulting an elephant
calf that has lost his mother is wrong, which the film itself notes.</span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" dir="rtl" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2840/10838834563_c111f41068_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2840/10838834563_c111f41068_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image source: https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2840/10838834563_c111f41068_b.jpg</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Princesses,
however, are fair game to the modern viewer, even to Disney. People ask why
Cinderella didn't rebel against her wicked step-family, or why Snow White
accepted an apple from a stranger and wanted a prince to rescue her. We forget
that Disney mainstreamed the animated film genre, and to insult the earlier
films for the characters they portrayed is quite a disgrace. Passive sexism has
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Survivors
rarely get lauded as heroes in mainstream media, with few exceptions. That's
because survivors, by definition, have to endure in a harsh environment and
have fewer opportunities to change their situation. They have little to no
control over their circumstances, and must hold out for a drastic improvement,
or to go to desperate means. Surviving requires enduring war, death, or
despair-- and the feelings stay with the victims long after circumstances have
improved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg/1024px-Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg/1024px-Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg" width="400" /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">source<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg/1024px-Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Most
survivors tell their story, in the hopes that others will listen, and yet the
media ignores their narratives. Some people even attempt to change the
narrative, to blame the victims. I imagine some people wonder why displaced
people in Syria or Rwanda didn't fight back against war or genocide, for
example and Lithuania has even started a campaign defaming Holocaust survivors
in 2006 that has continued to this day. We lose our humanity when we condone
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a high, impossible standard. Thus the survivor narrative becomes more
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Snow
White was the first Disney princess, and the first animated feature film star.
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land, forces her to dress poorly and do tiresome chores like washing the
cobblestones, and Snow White really has no other place to go. The Huntsman
reveals this when the Queen orders him to murder Snow White in the woods, and
instead he tells her to run away and never return to the castle. Her only home
is gone, horrible as it is. After she gets lost and terrified, and calms down,
she points out to her animal friends that she doesn't have a place to sleep for
the night, and asks for help. When the dwarves consider whether or not to let
her stay, after she's cleaned up their cottage and cooked dinner, she tells
them that if she leaves she'll most likely get killed. Although she puts on a
cheerful front, Snow White knows she has an unstable situation.</span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OCLAowUanSk/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OCLAowUanSk/hqdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ima<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ge source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OCLAowUanSk/hqdefault.jpg</span></span></span></span></div>
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<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></span></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Most
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attempting to murder them, and more so that no one will stop their parent.
Still more will freak out at losing the only home they have, and relying on the
mercy of strangers. Snow White does freak out a little, but she turns her
previous humiliation into a strength by offering to cook and clean for the
dwarves, even joining them in their merry song and dance. Her dreaming about a
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Cinderella
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stepmother reveals herself as a cruel gold-digger, Cinderella finds herself
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relatives with kindness, even when they do not return the favor.</span></div>
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<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" dir="rtl" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://orig02.deviantart.net/fde9/f/2008/163/c/5/stained_glass_cinderella_inv__by_chibi22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://orig02.deviantart.net/fde9/f/2008/163/c/5/stained_glass_cinderella_inv__by_chibi22.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: http://orig02.deviantart.net/fde9/f/2008/163/c/5/stained_glass_cinderella_inv__by_chibi22.jpg</span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Cinderella
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has until she has reason to rebel. Orphaned after her father dies and her
stepmother reveals herself as a cruel gold-digger, Cinderella finds herself
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">I'm
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stepmother's power, by quoting from his book Matilda: "I think that I am
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label invites immediate suppression. When she points out that she can go to the
prince's ball and in fact has to per the royal command, for example, Lady
Tremaine makes sure that she has no time to make a new outfit, and then
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7431/14009222829_c1febb6f64.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7431/14009222829_c1febb6f64.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7431/14009222829_c1febb6f64.jpg</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Sleeping
Beauty provides the most problematic case of a survivor's tale, because said
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Princess Aurora starts the film as a cursed infant, and she spends most of her
screen-time singing, dancing or talking to her aunts, actually her fairy
godmothers. She grows up happily in a small cottage in the woods, without the
luxuries of royal life and away from most people. Animals are her closest
companions, and she's been warned not to talk to strangers. We do know that she
trusts her aunts to have good judgment of said strangers, especially if they
dance with her in the woods, but that is about it. Yet she matters to her birth
parents, to her godmothers, and to her friends. She leaves a good mark on the
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godmothers, and crying a bit further when they offer her a crown as a final
birthday gift. Even so, she remains gracious towards her "aunts"
about the ordeal and doesn't lash out. She has to leave the cottage's safety to
return to a castle she doesn't remember, so as to prove that she will survive
the finger pricking, and for a long time after that anticipate Maleficent's
next move, for the dark fairy is vengeful and can draw from the powers of Hell.
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">We need
the survivor narrative to remember that sometimes, all we can do in a terrible
situation is endure it until a better opportunity arrives. When you take away
that narrative, you take away that endurance, and the hope in a dire situation.
As Disney moves forward with their newest live-action additions, I hope that
they pay adequate homage to the past.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-86485453531517250192016-11-11T00:16:00.001-05:002016-11-11T00:16:08.822-05:00When the Words Fail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>"There are moments that the words don’t reach</i></div>
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<i>There is suffering too terrible to name</i></div>
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<i>You hold your child as tight as you can</i></div>
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<i>And push away the unimaginable</i></div>
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<i>The moments when you’re in so deep</i></div>
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<i>It feels easier to just swim down"</i></div>
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<i>- </i>Angelica Schuyler Church, <u><i>Hamilton</i></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6091/6212226939_6d11d8d9c6_b.jpg</span></div>
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Words have failed me. Rather, the words are not sprouting like tiny milkweed shoots at the beginning of summer. Instead of being young and green, they lie in a crumpled heap with the dead leaves. They shrivel as the light fades from the day into colder, breezy nights that herald the start of November. </div>
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We suffered a devastating defeat this week. Our country decided not to elect a woman who has been in politics for twenty years, in favor of a convicted jerk. Hate crimes have already started, from racist graffiti to grabbing Muslim women's veils. The next four years will become a bigger fight to prevent disaster. More environmental damage will happen, which means flooding in Florida, poisoned drinking water, and increased pollution.</div>
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A few years ago, a guy from Denver tried to cut off my mom at the gas station. She stood her ground. He proceeded to curse her out and call her the "n" word. When I rushed to defend her, she told me not to; he could have a gun and fire on both of us without ramification. She told a cop, who listened with sympathy. The Denver guy drove away, to harass other people of color and to go about his life thinking he was a righteous angry martyr. I think of that guy today, how there are dozens like him.</div>
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It's been an exhausting four days. Writing has become harder, to process what has happened and to express my feelings. Hatred and the Denver bully won a decisive battle. People preferred to vote for a rapist rather than for a competent politician, and they are silent about the ensuing violence and hate. They may not believe it, but they said with their vote that they don't care for others' quality of life except their own. Disabled rights activists will have to fight twice as hard for basic care, and we have to read about <a href="http://usuncut.com/news/go-back-asia-trump-supporter-grabs-woman-police-arrive-handcuff-victim/">women getting arrested</a> for defending themselves against Trump supporters.<br />
<br />
Things aren't going to be okay. They may be manageable, but this is not okay. We can never accept this as okay, if we want to keep everyone safe. I feel like I've been stabbed through the heart. So many others feel the same. We need time to rest, and recover.<br />
<br />
Everyone have a peaceful weekend. I'll be at <a href="http://bookriotlive.com/"><i>Book Riot Live</i></a> on Saturday, to hang out with fellow columnists, write and wind down. We all need a break.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-87545766614805548462016-10-31T22:55:00.002-04:002016-10-31T22:55:55.170-04:00Tricks and Treating<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HL73ToxNXncY7bWq-43tVWBwsKcE5Ml_zd6eBadwuoh3uenQMX_PqxjtUU92WY6coK-RKGJG9ckPbupLd9mK31dgCm3zWBqtqL76QZ6SJPplu9m1YYA-bN-QmwVRxnWrzMHS02ooZKI/s1600/IMG_2829.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HL73ToxNXncY7bWq-43tVWBwsKcE5Ml_zd6eBadwuoh3uenQMX_PqxjtUU92WY6coK-RKGJG9ckPbupLd9mK31dgCm3zWBqtqL76QZ6SJPplu9m1YYA-bN-QmwVRxnWrzMHS02ooZKI/s320/IMG_2829.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
This was my costume for trick or treating Sunday evening, and to go to our neighborhood party: a polka dot dress with an elegant sheet mask. My brother had gotten the sheet mask from his summer trip to Japan, and he suggested that I could wear it. It created quite the eerie effect. A lot of people who saw it liked it.<br />
<br />
Only one rub existed: there was no trick or treating. It wasn't because of the grey sky, or the rain from the morning. It wasn't because of damage from a hurricane, since a hurricane missed us by a narrow margin. No, it was because the neighborhood association decided that trick or treating would take people away from the block party and dog parade.<br />
<br />
"Halloween without trick or treating?" I pretty much said. "Are you kidding me?"<br />
<br />
We went back to the party instead, and walked around, admiring the decorations. We accidentally picked up a bag of dog treats, ripped cupcakes from cobwebs, and watched a group of children in costume dance with the DJ. Then we drove home and washed up for dinner. It felt like a satisfying night.<br />
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<br />
Halloween is my favorite holiday, because it's the only day we get to dress up and show off our best costumes. The fun of trick or treating comes from seeing the decorations that neighbors put up. You have the traditional pumpkins, and cobwebs and skeletons, but then you get some creative stuff, like giant purple spiders. Last night we also saw orange torches that flared with power.<br />
<br />
Trick or treating also has its fair share of risk. Parents worry about their kids getting run over in the street, or walking around in the dark. That's why these days most trick or treating happens before sunset, with parental supervision. Our mom insists on driving us around since we don't have sidewalks, and one can easily get exhausted. There are the usual rumors of pranksters running out, and strangers poisoning treats (the latter of which was disproved). <br />
<br />
Next year I may suggest that our family go to another neighborhood or a mall for trick or treating or another neighborhood. While the party is fun, I do miss the crawling around to see what other houses offer. Plus, one can't refuse free candy.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-59923107355279784962016-10-23T17:01:00.000-04:002016-10-23T17:01:00.011-04:00A Small Potter World: Why We Don't Need the Cursed Child<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
At midnight on Saturday, July 30, my library system held a release party for the script book of <i>Harry Potter and the Cursed Child</i>. The play premiered this year, and made waves for casting a black woman as Hermione. J.K. Rowling didn't write the script, though she did write the screenplay for <i>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them</i>, but she did approve and allow the story to become canon.<br />
<br />
I didn't attend this event, for one important reason: I may have grown up with Harry Potter, but I read the books to their official ending.That ending came one day in 2005, when "nineteen years later" seemed sufficient at the time.<br />
<br />
<b>Spoiler warning: Do not read further if you don't want to know details about <i>The Cursed Child</i>.</b> <br />
<br />
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When Harry Potter ended, it marked an era of change. It meant that the kids and adults who grew up with the series had to find new works, but could keep creating the scarves, songs and crafts. Daniel Radcliffe could move onto Broadway, while Emma Watson developed her film career while attaining a college degree. We felt satisfied, with a few loose threads hanging. Pottermore vignettes would provide nuggets of information. <br />
<br />
<i>The Cursed Child </i>doesn't tackle the issues that the end of the series would bring up, like the struggle to reform the wizarding world after a great war, the Muggleborn witches and wizards who became lost to the school system, or the next generation bearing the scars of their legacy. While Harry struggles with the trauma of surviving as so many died, his son Albus struggles with fitting into this new world. They both encounter Draco Malfoy's son, a nice kid named Scorpio who is nothing like his father. Scorpio instead of dealing with the obvious legacy issue -- that his dad was a prejudiced Death Eater wannabe -- deals with rumors that he's Voldemort's son, conceived via his mother going back in time. Drop in a new character that could be a fanfiction offshoot, as well as time travel, and you get a convoluted, unnecessary plot that makes readers stare at the script with a bewildered expression. <br />
<br />
Harry Potter teaches readers to be compassionate, that you have to look at a person's choices to judge them, and that being brave is extremely difficult. Conflicts reinforce these events within the narrative, as well as the need to constantly see the other side of the story. Karma hits everyone in the end, good and bad, for their actions, while occasionally good people suffer terrible things.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>The Cursed Child </i>doesn't reinforce any of these themes. Scorpio, the best character in the script, doesn't want to be his father but is constantly judged before he even gets a chance to pick a side, even by Harry. Harry can be judgmental at times, but he knows better than to distrust someone because of what their parents did. That makes no sense at all. Harry, an orphan who craved a loving family, would never tell any child that he wishes they weren't his son, which he does in the play. That's just one of the many inconsistencies in the show. The rumor itself seems too ridiculous, because Time Turners work on stable time loops, and it's something that a DNA test could verify. And the character that appears and convinces Albus and Scorpio to go back in time? The original series had no hint of her, or plausibility.<br />
<br />
So does <i>The Cursed Child </i>bring anything new? It brings up the pervasive survivor's guilt, the wishing of saving someone who suffered. It brings up that you can't change the past, which anyone can tell you, but you can make different choices to improve your future. At the same time, these themes can't save the show, or the script. <br />
<br />
Growing up gives one a different perspective on
Harry Potter. As a child I read Harry Potter for the magic, the
descriptions of food, and for the adventure. It was easier to ignore
Professor Snape's bullying and Umbridge's abuse because they got karma.
As an adult when I read the books, however, I get anxious. The real
world has many people like Umbridge who get away with their actions, and
you wish someone in the books would stomp her onscreen. We already got a world where karma kicked in, instead of undoing that karma temporarily using a Time Turner.<br />
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<br />
<br />
We have enough Harry Potter, enough of the good films and the books. Time Warner gave us those, LEGO games, and theme parks. We have the fanbase, and enough fanfiction to fill the Library of Congress. Heck, we even have loving homages to Harry Potter's impact like <i>Fangirl </i>and <i>Carry On </i>by Rainbow Rowell. The market meets our needs.<br />
<br />
We are satisfied, J.K. Rowling. We don't need another story to muddle the narrative. And if we did, we need one that reinforces what you wrote first. So please, let's read your thrillers instead.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-54303068106046114972016-10-02T22:15:00.000-04:002016-10-02T22:15:03.522-04:00A Spare Pair<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last week I decided to try something new; I pulled out an old pair of glasses that I hadn't worn since high school. My current glasses are rectangular with thick black frames. They look rather stylish, but one of the right handles is loose for some reason. A tennis racket colliding with the frames probably had something to do with the looseness. I took it off so that I could get the frames tightened. I opened a compact box and pulled out my old glasses to wear for several days.<br />
<br />
I have to admit that seeing the <i>My Big Fat Greek Wedding </i>sequel contributed to this idea. In the second movie, protagonist Tula loses her glasses after her dad breaks them by accident, and she has to temporarily wear her old plastic frames before renewing her contacts. Her reflection in the mirror gives her memories of that hard time, of before she met her husband and found her career as a travel agent. She switches to contacts as soon as she can. <br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Reading_glasses.jpg</span><br />
My old glasses have thinner frames, and tiny plastic nubs for balancing the lenses above the nose. The sensation wasn't that much different. My prescription has remained the same since I was a teenager, and I could see clearly once I wiped away the dust. They didn't spark many memories, since I can't remember which year I wore these frames. But when I put them on, I looked in the mirror and thought I still looked good with them. <br /><br />
I've worn glasses since I was a kid. Before my eyes developed mild astigmatism, I wanted to wear glasses because my heroes - Arthur, Harry Potter, and such-- wore them and seemed to enjoy themselves. Later on I wanted to wear them because contacts seemed very uncomfortable and tended to get lost while I was a middle school student. I do wear contacts for work, but at home I prefer glasses for convenience. Usually I get comments about how glasses hide my eyes, and that contacts reveal their large size and pupils.<br />
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<br />
Sometimes I want glasses to define me. Glasses show that I read a lot, that I write a fair amount, and that I do think. Other times I want people to see my eyes, and I wear contacts. Neither of these choices make me less attractive. That's something I know with confidence. Other things seem far more uncertain, like if the sonnet I submitted to a magazine will get accepted.<br />
<br />
I may pull out those glasses again to try on, and to remember how I felt as a teenager. It would be nice to dive back into those feelings as we enter another October. I may not have confidence about many things, but I am confident about when I decide to wear my glasses.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-87886529620225773182016-09-13T00:40:00.001-04:002016-09-13T00:40:57.418-04:00Compressed Tragedies: Thoughts on 9/11<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yesterday was a tragic anniversary. Fifteen years ago, three hijacked
planes crashed into American buildings. Thousands died in New York, and
the last rescue dog from 9/11 passed away recently. Airplane
regulations changed, so that you could no longer walk a loved one into
the airpor tot say goodbye. People are now judged by their names, if
they wore headscarves, and they have new labels: "terrorist,"
"fundamentalist".<br />
<br />
I remember the classroom; it was a
trailer with a portable classroom inside, with chalkboards (which I
adored seeing) and a small television for morning announcements. In the
middle of class someone, probably the teacher, turned the television on
to show the planes. I didn't understand what was going on, why we were
seeing the same footage. To a kid whose father had just died that
summer, death on television seemed very far away.<br />
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<br />
Fifteen
years later, I wonder if we have become kinder. This past June a man with a history of domestic abuse and anger
shot up an Orlando nightclub for LGBTQ residents, desecrating a safe
space on the day that Broadway would host its Tony Awards. In the United States one school shooting happens a week, with one happening last week at the start of the school year. Refugees
flee from Syria in the face of war and drought, to face prejudice in
Europe, while during our election cycle there are people that enact violence to protestors and suffer no repercussions. An oil company set attack dogs on peaceful protestors in North Dakota and have issued an arrest warrant.<br />
<br />
Even though I know that people are cruel, and
that haters will hate, it still boggles me that people will act on the
hate, believing that it's right to kill on either side. A minority with
power doesn't comprehend that the terrorists that hijacked those planes are very different from the everyday Muslims that want to be left alone, just as they didn't comprehend that the Japanese Americans living peacefully on American soil did not stand with the Pearl Harbor attackers. School board members insist on printing textbooks that leave out unpleasant facts and reinforce racism. We have had many moments of kindness and small victories this year, but the hatred feels cyclical and weighing.<br />
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We remember 9/11 because it defined my generation, and the generation that came after it. People poke fun at the 1990s because it had interesting hair choices like mullets, funky pop music, and advertising that tried to be "hip". In the 1990s, however, when I went to school I had the reassurance that things would work out as an adult, that all the hate was in the past and in our history books. I also had the reassurance that if I went to the airport I would only have to worry about saying goodbye to family and arriving on time. After 9/11, that sense of security departed. We could no longer pack shampoos or soaps onto planes unless they were a certain size, and if our names didn't pass scrutiny we could no longer fly. In the meantime the tragedies keep increasing, and we have more pain to remember.<br />
<br />
We can't control all the problems of the world, and we as individuals need to figure out which ones we want to tackle. We need to figure out how to remain kind, and how to stay hopeful. Some of us are fighting the bigger problems, one by one, and some are handling the smaller ones. I've recently seen hatred on a smaller scale, that has angered me in turn because of the victims. It's been an effort to restrain my anger to the private sphere, and to try and turn all the negative feelings into good art, and into good lessons. The best good I can do is to tell other people what happened, to comfort those that the harassment hurt, and to restrain the urge to hope that this particular person is exposed and forever branded as a liar.<br />
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<br />
Next year, I hope that we don't have to keep remembering the tragedies, and that we can outnumber them with enough large acts of kindness. The hurt weighs too heavily on my mind, and on our collective minds. Maybe on September 11th in 2017 we will remember the good that has happened and how far we have come.<br />
<br />
We have a lot of work to do in the next 365 days to make that possible. I believe it is possible, however. What kindness can take the weight off a great tragedy, and many tragedies? What will you do to combat the overwhelming hate?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-44753892245621885672016-09-05T00:44:00.000-04:002016-09-05T00:47:13.438-04:00Two Months In Two Hundred Words or Less, and My Inner Editor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hi everyone, happy Labor Day weekend. It's been too long, and there are so many things to blog about, like the Hugo Awards and my most recent short story publications ("<a href="http://www.mantidmagazine.com/#!sridhar/ztpcf">The Farthest Nebula</a>" in Mantid Magazine, "<a href="https://smile.amazon.com/9Tales-Elsewhere-8-ebook/dp/B01HZX88YO/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g2563698942?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&ie=UTF8#nav-subnav">The Gnome in the Rosebush</a>" in 9Tales from Elsewhere) and upcoming ones. <br />
<br />
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The main reason is that I've been job hunting while writing short fiction, and my mother broke her arm. In the middle of August she slipped in our front yard and landed on her right arm hard. She was unable to bend it, and When it wasn't feeling better the next day I drove her to the ER after dinner, and the doctors wrapped it up in a cast. We didn't get out of the hospital until 4 AM, and I got up around seven AM to go to Toastmasters.<br />
<br />
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<br />
My mom's arm will be okay; the cast comes off in a few weeks. My older brother and I have taken over the cooking, and learning all my mom's recipes. I've learned how to make rice and lentils in a pressure cooker, fry chicken with olive oil, turmeric powder and garlic bits, and curry various vegetables. My respect for my mother has grown knowing she makes a three-course dinner every night.<br />
<br />
With that, my goal is to resume the attempts at blogging once to twice a month while job hunting and writing. I'm this year's Treasurer at my Toastmasters club, so I need to update some balance sheets and pay dues soon. In addition, I had started a job as a columnist at Panels online; Panels has become a part of <a href="http://bookriot.com/"><i>Book Riot</i></a>, the online website, and so I'll be writing two articles a month related to literature and comics. <br />
<br />
So with that, I want to turn to a more writer-like topic. I was reading a <a href="http://positivewriter.com/inner-editor/">Positive Writer post</a> about a writer's Inner Editor. The Inner Editor, or the Internal Critic, is the voice in your head that discourages you from writing, judges the quality of the work you produce and the amount, and compares you to other authors. The Positive Writer post suggests to visualize your inner critic, since having a concrete image can help one talk down that critical voice so that you can do your job and write. <br />
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<br />
<br />
My inner editor looks like my mirror image. She has curly black hair, square glasses, brown skin, and light brown eyes. She means well, and has been meaning well, but she's noted how often I forget to write things down, how I don't organize my plots or develop my characters. When she talks, it's like hearing a snippier version of myself. She asks why I don't write more, why I'm not submitting to more magazines, why I let myself get down and disappointed by real life so easily. Inner Editor makes me go to Sweater Town, to quote from <i>Gravity Falls</i>. <br />
<br />
I'd probably sit down and talk to Inner Editor over coffee. Sometimes she makes good points, like about submitting for anthologies well within deadline briefs and limits. I'd like her to help me adapt her criticism, and others' constructive words, into building better routines. I'd like to turn her doubts into reassurance. We can work together, and she wants to help.<br />
<br />
If Inner Editor won't listen, I'd like a strategy for her belligerence as well. I'd like to leave her presence, and stay with my thoughts for the day. Meditation can help with that, and refocusing on my goals for today. Maybe she'll listen after a day of not seeing me. Or maybe she'll try to barge in and make her opinion known. Either way, I'll ignore her.<br />
<br />
Here is to a new month, a new perspective, and some new writings. Have a fun Labor Day!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-50697194335276401382016-07-04T19:12:00.001-04:002016-07-04T19:12:18.250-04:00Fourth Cleaning: Photos and Thoughts (Art of Connection Part Two)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Happy Fourth to everyone! Hope you're all enjoying a nice dose of history, celebration, and the nation's colors.<br />
<br />
Weekend was the Florida Supercon, which was loads of fun. I got a photo with Tara Strong, one of the best voice actresses ever, as well as a signed print from Jim Cummings. In addition I sold a book, connected with fellow Undertale fans, and basked in a safe space for people that enjoy fandoms. One reader who bought a book last year came to talk with me, and gave me his card so I could email him. It was a good Sunday, with all of these great events happening.<br />
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My first thought was how sweet Tara Strong was to her fans. She complimented one family's Incredibles cosplay and during an hourlong Q & A was a good sport about answering questions as the characters she's played: Twilight Sparkle from <i>My Little Pony</i>, Raven from <i>Teen Titans</i>, and Bubbles from <i>Powerpuff Girls</i>. Two girls in the cutest outfits asked the same question during a time-pressured event, but she gave the same answer in two different ways. It's important to be nice to fans who are children, and there were plenty of them in costume and not, because they are innocent and new to the world of lovely animation and books. Several kids asked to take photos with me, and I always obliged. It was quite flattering. <br />
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Today was a cleanup day, so I've filled one garbage bag with various items, and noticing how dusty my room becomes when books and papers gather in one place. I've also used up some scrap paper for sketching, started charging a digital camera that can record video since my iPhone can't record sound, skimmed magazines to toss them, and went for a bike ride to clear my head in the hopes of writing for Camp Nanowrimo.<br />
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<a href="https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/02/17/13/38/cleaning-268134_960_720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/02/17/13/38/cleaning-268134_960_720.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/02/17/13/38/cleaning-268134_960_720.jpg</span><br />
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There was one photo I was considering whether or not to toss, one of the pictures that was taken when I was in preschool. I don't have many memories of being that young, but I remember having that photo taken multiple times because I wasn't smiling right. Apparently I was showing too much teeth and grimacing. Given the photo was sitting on my windowsill, not in a protective frame, it had become faded and dusty. Before I could make a decision, my mother made the benevolent decision to take it and store with our baby photos.<br />
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It's amazing how much photography has changed in twenty years. When I was a kid, I wanted a camera on my own and had several disposable ones that were one-time use and relied on film paper that would burn up if exposed to light. Now I have a digital camera that works quite well when charged, and probably needs its memory cleared with all the photos I took during university.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nDFQ9J1fGzHbvUbUGieZ46mgJGJBXLr008zCTz2I8u2xX1Jby7885d0yURnrN87IWcZBdX7KIbP1MCzYvvYqtd52joK0QxqPIw7QJRsChYaekyDxQrlUrAqIJRvyMiB8osQH-aeg06Q/s1600/DSC00321.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nDFQ9J1fGzHbvUbUGieZ46mgJGJBXLr008zCTz2I8u2xX1Jby7885d0yURnrN87IWcZBdX7KIbP1MCzYvvYqtd52joK0QxqPIw7QJRsChYaekyDxQrlUrAqIJRvyMiB8osQH-aeg06Q/s320/DSC00321.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This is a photo from my digital camera, showing some parrots that are renting our palm tree.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I greatly enjoyed connecting with people at the Florida Supercon. My sales skills still need some practice, but seeing so many happy people in one space offered hope in light of the tragic news that hit us in June with the Orlando shooting. Next year I'll certainly remember to take more photos. My
goal this summer is to take more videos and photos with my digital
camera instead of my phone, and to behave like an actual writer. I've
signed up for a Camp Nanowrimo month, as well as a July Flash Fiction
challenge. With luck by the end of this month I might have a short novel, or at least some good stories.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-2065551631443781132016-06-19T23:31:00.002-04:002016-06-19T23:31:14.502-04:00Father's Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwyiXee7gd7V2qsft5Zw-9uq7JcqifQoK478oTvUDcU-srhWWfovHpSAWsXhGLCpPkGf-SnJL2orvBK31fP5oZTAmc-kng_LP-5V5yF3PTIwhnrt2X5wKSMse79tbs7hPNcnqSUVCObQ/s1600/Appa+and+family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwyiXee7gd7V2qsft5Zw-9uq7JcqifQoK478oTvUDcU-srhWWfovHpSAWsXhGLCpPkGf-SnJL2orvBK31fP5oZTAmc-kng_LP-5V5yF3PTIwhnrt2X5wKSMse79tbs7hPNcnqSUVCObQ/s320/Appa+and+family.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Thanks to my sister for this video</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
My dad played tennis. He planted palm trees, mango trees, and banana trees in our yard. He recorded hours of us playing with his camcorder, on various tapes that we would later play back on television. Kasi Sridhar, MD, was also an oncologist, and he saved many lives. A few of his patients have kept in contact with us. They express their gratitude by offering to help in various ways. <br />
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It's 2016, 15 years since my father died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. My mother raised five of us alone, and we spent this Father's Day sitting out in our backyard, eating watermelon, and then picking mangoes from the trees that my father planted. We were testing out a new fruit picker that could reach high into the tree tops, and a mango fell on my head as we tried to catch it. The fruit picker worked like a charm. <br />
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The trees have grown into large canopies, with several rogue mango saplings having taken root in odd places. The key lime that my dad planted got chopped down after Hurricane Katrina, despite being perfectly healthy, but the curry leaf trees have blossomed. The bananas give fruit every several months.<br />
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I don't know what my dad would have thought of how I turned out. On one hand, I graduated with a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree, and have become a published author. On the other, I wasn't exactly the saint or the straight A student that my siblings were. He believed in the value of education, and of knowing what you wanted to do. He also supported my arts and crafts as a kid, and would have liked to see my reading habits. I'd like to think he was proud of me.<br />
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Happy Father's Day, to everyone who doesn't have a father this year. We made it this far. I hope your dads loved you as much as mine did. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-58152819494018413792016-06-11T16:43:00.001-04:002016-06-11T16:43:31.836-04:00Considering the Source: Handling Book Recs from Former Friends<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hi, all! It's been too long. I graduated from University of Miami with my MBA and started a meaningful job where I can make a difference.<br />
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Right now I'm reading <i>Red Queen, </i>a Young Adult fantasy romp. It talks about a world where magical people oppress normal people, the way benders do in the series <i>Avatar: The Legend of Korra</i>, and a girl who instead of being shipped off to war ends up in the royal courts as a spy. Despite the good writing, the intriguing plot and the promise of moral ambiguity, I'm not enjoying this book. This is not the book's fault and I know it. The fault lies in who recommended the book.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QHPlAZqdYbU/maxresdefault.jpg</span><br /><br />
A few months ago, tragedy struck the<i> How to Train Your Dragon </i>fandom, and some anonymous trolls are trying to ride on the resulting shockwaves. In the meantime, a not-so anonymous user has been suffering problems, and he recommended <i>Red Queen </i>while I reached out to comfort him. Shortly after recommending it, he became verbally abusive, and I had to cut communication with him to not lose my temper. That was a couple of months ago; I only finished <i>Red Queen </i>today, but I'm associating each prose with the frustration and disgust.<br />
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This isn't the first time I've experienced such an association. My first beta reader and I had a fallout several years back when he recommend <i>A Game of Thrones </i>-- the book, not the show-- and <i>The Gospel According to Christ</i>, and I took issue with the fact that both of the books kill characters with glee and don't really relax the reader. As a result, though I occasionally check<i> Game of Thrones</i> updates I hold irrational resentment towards the franchise. I've also gone softer on my fictional characters, more reluctant to make them suffer.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/10/07/04/44/bomb-477229_960_720.png</span><br /><br />
There are two explanations for this frustration: one is that the book recommendation shows the person's state of mind when they vouch for you to read it, or that you can't believe that the bad conversations will surge in full force, as well as the bilious emotions. <br />
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The first explanation holds a grain of merit. Both <i>Game of Thrones </i>and <i>Red Queen </i>are similar in showing complicated politics and the villain gaining a massive victory, with infatuated characters getting screwed over in a bad way. While a person's taste doesn't necessarily reveal their personality, since author Hannah Moskowitz is a bubbly, cheerful person while writing about teen angst and pain, it might provide a few red flags. The red flags come from when someone defends the author's choices with verbal abuse and with assuming that another person with a different opinion is in the wrong. <i>Red Queen </i>takes a <i>Hunger Games-</i>like approach to a new fantasy world, without the hope that <i>Hunger Games </i>has for a better world and for people to survive their own mistakes and capacity to cause violence. It also incorporates a lot of political games that aren't really my cup of tea. Thus while I know other people who are fans of the show and the book, I make sure we can discuss other works appropriately.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Game_of_Thrones_Oslo_exhibition_2014_-_Brienne_and_Jaime_costumes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Game_of_Thrones_Oslo_exhibition_2014_-_Brienne_and_Jaime_costumes.jpg" width="343" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Game_of_Thrones_Oslo_exhibition_2014_-_Brienne_and_Jaime_costumes.jpg</span><br /><br />
As for the second explanation, science would support that. Obviously the psychological associations need to be taken into account,
in that we create connections with items based on experience. The other is that I read these books in the hopes of becoming better friends with these individuals. I like reading fiction in general, especially that which helps me escape to another world. When I don't enjoy a book, it hits me hard since I try my best to finish it despite any clunky prose or unwanted emotions. Sometimes when a book is too well written, it will strike nerves that are not meant to be struck and I react rather poorly. That is what happened with <i>Game of Thrones</i>, and why I didn't like the story at all. Instead of talking through why it's an upsetting book, my beta reader yelled at me for reading it too fast and for believing that all fiction needs to be escapist. Following a similar argument over <i>The Gospel According to Christ</i>, our friendship didn't survive past that summer. For that reason I associate what happened to Ned Stark and Joseph with those arguments. <br />
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With all of this said, it seems the easiest solution lies in not accepting book recommendations from people that feel strongly rooted in their opinions. If someone else won't create a safe space to disagree, then a reader may as well not participate in intellectual exploration. Even that solution is not so simple on the surface; sometimes people are fine with others having different tastes, and sometimes people are far from reasonable. Word of mouth is also the strongest means of spreading books to people, and I like to find new authors to read.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/11/24/08/04/cactus-1059633_960_720.jpg</span><br />
<span id="goog_967675766"></span><span id="goog_967675767"></span><br />I'm not going to reread<i> A Game of Thrones</i>, <i>Red Queen</i>, or <i>The Gospel According to Christ </i>due to the associations and the source material. When it comes to rereading, I choose the books that fill me with joy and contentment. Despite that, I won't disregard a book or give it a two-star review because of circumstances unrelated to the prose or the choice of narrative style. That would be unkind, and as an author I don't want to be unkind in that way. Someday I hope that my stories don't cause schisms, and instead bring people together.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-85530629432665796012016-04-24T00:32:00.000-04:002016-04-24T00:32:56.349-04:00Thinking of the Children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A few months ago, before Alex Hirsch made an important announcement, I caught a video of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE_9TgEbcZM">people reacting to an altered opening of Gravity Falls</a>, a fantastic animated show on Disney that is worth more than several blog posts. People these days on YouTube sometimes post their to watching episodes blind, so that they can provide entertainment and connection with the viewers. It gives me an incentive to work out and do yoga while watching, at the least.<br />
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In this case, the reactions varied because the opening featured an antagonist distorting the traditional opening credits and theme song. Three kids reacted; so did about eight adults. While the adults' reactions varied from open-mouthed gaping to wide grins, the two kids at the end laughed at seeing what the antagonist had done.<br />
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<a href="http://img06.deviantart.net/5de3/i/2016/077/4/7/frases_de_gf___parte_1_by_djmusicandcartoons-d9vkc2m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img06.deviantart.net/5de3/i/2016/077/4/7/frases_de_gf___parte_1_by_djmusicandcartoons-d9vkc2m.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: http://img06.deviantart.net/5de3/i/2016/077/4/7/frases_de_gf___parte_1_by_djmusicandcartoons-d9vkc2m.jpg</span><br />
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"Where did these kids get their courage?" I wondered. "How come they're enjoying themselves when this is terrifying the older viewers?"<br />
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As a kid, everything scared me. I watched a lot of PBS since we didn't have cable, and mainly I preferred the cutesy or hilarious stuff on YouTube. My favorite shows included <i>The Magic Schoolbus</i>, <i>Sailor Moon</i> (the watered down dub that had synthesizer music), <i>Arthur</i>, <i>The Jewel Riders,</i> <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i> and <i>Superman</i> confused me, while<i> Johnny Quest </i>seemed too dark. A few late night commercials that featured people drowning gave me a fear of going on boats for a long time. Thus I wasn't a kid who would laugh at a hostile show takeover.<br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d8a02450-39e4-b89d-488a-0a0a482041f6"><span style="font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i> and a dark version of “The Three Little Pigs” were probably the only books I read that I laughed at while other people found terrifying, in part because the characters in both stories seemed to not realize they were in a morbid fairy tale. In fairy tales, characters receive rules like to stay on the path, be kind to strangers and offer your food, and use your brains to outwit evil. Within Willy Wonka’s factory, the children ignore direct instructions to not drink from a chocolate river or chew untested gum or attempt to snatch a squirrel, and the results are morbidly hilarious. </span></span>Quick recap: the book, films and theater adaptations feature five kids and their parents going into a factory with sweets that defy traditional convention but also are made quite dangerously, and four of the kids end up suffering terrible fates because they try to mess with the factory's mechanisms.<br />
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As for the "Three Little Pigs," the version that we read in preschool involved the three pigs surviving and boiling the wolf for stew. The picture book illustration featured the pigs setting the dinner table, and preparing to dine on wolf meat and bread. It felt hilarious, and other versions didn't quite meet the same amount of karma with either the wolf simply getting boiled alive and two of the pigs eaten,<br />
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<a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TP2L4ol3H_Y/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TP2L4ol3H_Y/maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Fear is a conditioned response, that children learn from their environments. People may develop arachnophobia, for example, by witnessing their parents reacting to spiders with fear <a href="https://youtu.be/H5_UEYa6EE0?t=246">as the Eyewitness documentaries mention</a>, or being trapped in the car with one as a child. Television taught me to fear drowning. The older we get, the stronger or weaker these fears become, depending on our experiences; learning to drive, for example, got rid of most of that fear of drowning, though watching <i>Titanic </i>still makes me anxious. I also become more scared when characters I like get hurt, because my empathy for them has increased with time. <br />
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Does this mean that kids who aren't scared of <i>Gravity Falls</i> do not perceive the same fears that adults do when watching the same material? It's possible, but it may also be possible that children can see a story as just a story, while adults know that people can and will get hurt in real life and see their fears reflected in an animated medium. An antagonist taking over the introductory credits implies that he can enter our world and change our reality, which can be nightmarish and a mind-screw. Having that in a "kid's show" adds to the fear, because it slips past the censors.<br />
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<a href="http://img14.deviantart.net/bd5e/i/2016/086/1/2/nightmare_by_johnvini-d9wneyf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img14.deviantart.net/bd5e/i/2016/086/1/2/nightmare_by_johnvini-d9wneyf.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
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In either case, I believe that we should nurture courage in children, because learning to be afraid of irrational things is just as bad as being afraid of reasonable dangers. It's better to laugh at the things than cannot happen, than to recall the things that can. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-51320209201024366092016-03-17T13:21:00.002-04:002016-03-17T15:16:29.079-04:00Allowances for Idiotic Decisions: <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2d322b28-8601-ff5b-f1c6-a03cc4b69459" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On TVTropes, I found myself at first disliking the "What An Idiot" page because it seemed to be highly nitpicky. Then I started creating pages of them for animated shows, like Gravity Falls and Miraculous Ladybug, to point out the character moments of weakness that lead to the plot occurring. When I moved on to Undertale, however, the response was quite different. One troper deleted two of the entries, without talking to me directly. When I asked why, a moderator gave me the gist of this response:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Contrived stupidity is not okay. Human nature and reactions to stress are okay in fiction."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="423" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/GlMvgN8Avt2U8Un4N-1Qqo-OPrcjvo8RCNZpN_tJ2UEtOq0-uZ2f3K4WpAJOMjh6CKuiV1quiXGQqDYsQpEdqwXzt0IPqqhJ9xfXhpyQESdjo2O6tu_0CRheSmP9RRYZT1Jbb9Yk" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="533" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: http://orig15.deviantart.net/385a/f/2016/038/c/d/__undertale__hearts___by_xxlynn_nanakoxx-d9qxcyi.png</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am mildly curious as to how to pursue this discussion. Eventually the entire page got deleted, to my chagrin, and once more I wasn't contacted about why. There were discussions </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the page, but again I wasn't consulted or easily able to find them. I let it go, though I'm still astonished that the person simply didn't talk to me about why my entries were wrong. Below I've copy-pasted the page because I do want to spark a discussion around the idea if human (or monster) nature is enough to allow for cases of idiocy, as well as plot holes in the backstory.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you haven't played Undertale, or plan do, do note these entries have spoilers. The game is about a human child that falls into an underground realm of monsters, with the player deciding whether or not to be a pacifist, a serial murderer, or something in between. They also have to contend with nearly every monster trying to kill them, and the power of resets. Spoilers are unmarked, so BEWARE!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="300" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/OF08PmwVmvYpO_JAb-YWfb0ACy0zTT9VfF7tOzFrbVfUFmS_1n-sdSDxcyyW74ZHL4yTe130snIzAIGTAS30ouOSJfcjl5bbKAZeDWWZI5LoCLwS9KBf2U9AqU_RZ4jjH6eusT8g" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="533" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ctgAvgwivKA/maxresdefault.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">General </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> There was a war between monsters and humans. It's implied that the war started because most </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">monsters are not aware that their bullet patterns can hurt humans, even when they are trying to be helpful or friendly, while a human with enough murderous intent can kill a monster with ease.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For some monsters and humans to try and find a way around this problem, like protective Temmie Armor for the humans or some sort of hazard suit. Having these precautions might have prevented a war, even if one assumes that humans imprisoned the monsters in a case of prejudice. Surely a little bit of kindness would go a long way.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: This never happens. You can acquire Temmie Armor in the game with enough farming for gold, but humans above-ground know nothing about how to defend against monsters.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is kind of important, given that monsters can easily kill a human if they're not careful, while humans have to deliberately want to hurt a monster to kill them. Hazard suits or armor would do well in preventing a great war, or at least allowing monsters and humans to mingle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/G6YWBJ18v-nFRWa02S5b1mjAkTw3w_UGENahWKfbTjhI-QK1eGf2io27bvdx1b3hkIHSxf4pmuX4M1pLw-k-BH0iOYpGyRBp70aKtQiCWavbZW3VQxWDf4Ge66Dmqc1yY9YmrCzk" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="533" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/21F8rjZgRd0/hqdefault.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The humans won, forcing the monsters underground into Mount Ebott and sealing them in with a barrier. There happens to be a giant hole in this mountain that doesn't block humans from coming in, and quite a few do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For the humans to either cover the hole with something sturdy like a wooden cover, or a net, so that no one falls. What's more, someone ought to add a lot of caution tape about the hole or figure out why children keep going there.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Also Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For humans to remember the monsters, the good and the bad. They may come back one day, if they get enough souls to break the barrier.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The humans do none of this. The hole is a literal tourist trap for at least seven children, and these children have no idea how to handle monsters. Most of these children die as a result.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I actually am scratching my head about this because in the game's prologue one can see the size of the hole relative to that of a human child. It is a rather large hole somewhere on Mount Ebbott, and at least seven children have found it. The big question is why, and how this was allowed. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Backstory</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The first Child that fell, whom the player names at the beginning of the game, becomes Asgore and Toriel's adopted child, along with their son Asriel. The Fallen Child and Asriel become best friends, and with the best of intentions they make their dad a pie with buttercups instead of cups of butter. This makes Asgore very ill, but while Asriel and Toriel fret, the Fallen </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">laughs</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: That after this incident Toriel would have an antidote for buttercups on hand, and take note of the Child's behavior. It's especially troubling in that Asriel feels weak in that he wasn't able to laugh like the Fallen. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For some reason, despite her fire magic and healing abilities, Toriel does not have an antidote for buttercup poisoning, so that when the Fallen dies by deliberately eating buttercups, she does not realize and can't do anything about it. Asgore has an excuse in that he's not a healer, as far as gameplay reveals. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This I felt was an oversight on Toriel's part, given she heals you quite easily in the game. Why would buttercup poisoning end up beyond her powers? What part of the story did we miss here?</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0px; border-left: solid #000000 0px; border-right: solid #000000 0px; border-top: solid #000000 0px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="533" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/BVcVlQVHridXvLz8UPkgPzPq3A2rToP3hEDYAXpeB05yOclD0tHwiTv92emsGC8nymlYaTVRAS1uBMlxBZ6sN5S6DWq15HU79AwrH7Hhe_27cO3no5V6WQPaE9nM7J9YbcIB2LJ4" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="464" /></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0px; border-left: solid #000000 0px; border-right: solid #000000 0px; border-top: solid #000000 0px; padding: 4px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Fallen Child, coated in monster dust.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: http://orig12.deviantart.net/8888/f/2016/038/7/8/__18_left__undertale__by_crimsonian_leviosa-d9quzbl.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On that note, the Fallen ate the buttercups to enact a deadly plan, ostensibly to break the barrier. They would die, allowing Asriel to merge with their soul, cross the barrier, and retrieve the souls needed for the procedure. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd think</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Asriel would point out all the flaws in this plan, namely that if the Fallen dies, Asgore and Toriel will be heartbroken, and humans can kill monsters quite easily. Also if the Fallen isn't convinced, then tell Toriel and Asgore to put a stop to this nonsense. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Despite his reservations, Asriel goes along with the plan and doesn't tell Asgore or Toriel about it. Somewhat justified in that he's an eight-year old child and his parents would have not allowed this plan to happen, but still.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are children allowed to make these sort of mistakes? It is hard to say. Seven human souls in total are needed to cross the barrier, and a monster can only obtain them Underground from the children that fall. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Asriel and the Fallen are merged with the goat-boy's body, and the Fallen compels Asriel to carry their human body to their village to rest on a field of golden flowers. It's there that, when Asriel is seen by the villagers, that Asriel realizes that his adoptive sibling is homicidal and wants to kill all the humans. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For Asriel to at least put up some self-defense, run for his life, or that if he and the Fallen have gone this far to at least obtain the souls. In that way, at least this journey won't be fruitless. Likewise, you'd expect that the Fallen would stop wrestling for control and allow Asriel to flee, or at least have them form a temporary alliance. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Asriel doesn't allow the Fallen to fight back against the angry humans and returns to the Underground mortally wounded. Asgore and Toriel are devastated when they see their son dissolve into dust on their throne room, and don't even know of the plan.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trope is called "Do Wrong Right" since morality is relative, and sometimes it may be better to do the wrong thing for the right reasons instead of dying due to humans being righteously furious. </span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0px; border-left: solid #000000 0px; border-right: solid #000000 0px; border-top: solid #000000 0px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="240" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/eJuMBg2xufHRxnr3-HzvDLKPyvRmsfDFIDM0aC_jM3SdLVbr510K0pq1o-pu0TX2YvyZ1PSbjn9utx6Puk6F8-8bUXwXFD1BuhBJWXnPq8-DEZEeqmf8xb3msaM0H3fEe4kB2sCi" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="427" /></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 0px; border-left: solid #000000 0px; border-right: solid #000000 0px; border-top: solid #000000 0px; padding: 4px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Asgore when he fights you. He can't even meet your eyes.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WPNjhApacY4/maxresdefault.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another entry not here is that Asgore in a fit of grief declared that any human who entered the Underground would die, and their souls used to crush the barrier. This I feel was a stupid move on his part since it costs him his marriage with Toriel, Asgore doesn't actually want to kill anyone, and the monsters are invigorated with hope. People who disagreed with me pointed out that Asgore had just lost two children in one night; I feel that as the king he ought to have made a more responsible decision and not been rash. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After Toriel has left, and faced with the prospect of killing seven humans, Asgore hires Royal Scientist Alphys to see if artificial souls can be made to break the barrier instead, and if the comatose monsters that lose hope can be revived. The artificial souls are a disaster, and injecting determination into the monsters ends up causing their bodies to melt and turn into the Amalgamates. Most cannot even remember who they are and are potentially dangerous. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Alphys to realize that it's not her fault that the Amalgamates formed. Scientific experiments go wrong all the time, and the test subjects' families knew the risks. In addition, it's dangerous for her to handle it alone. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Alphys internalizes the guilt, nearly commits suicide, and refuses to answer any calls. She believes herself no better than trash for failing with the experiments.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As someone who studied biology in undergrad, I believe that you have to be prepared for experiments to go wrong. Alphys did the best that she could under the circumstances. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was the only one that I agreed on deleting due to the ambiguity of the situation. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alphys during her experiments creates Flowey by taking the largest golden flower from Asgore's throne room. Flowey in the Genocide Run recounts that he woke up and called for his parents. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For Alphys to have communicated with Flowey as soon as the flower woke up, and to monitor it. Once she realized that Flowey was a reincarnation of a soulless Asriel, she'd notify Asgore immediately. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: For some reason, Alphys wasn't there, and though Flowey called, "nobody came". Flowey left, as the journal entries in the True Lab note, tried to adapt his SAVE file and rescue everyone, and soon realized that he lacked empathy and was unable to return to his true form without a soul. This turned him into the game's main villain, and becomes even more heartbreaking since Asgore during his fight with you says he wants to see his son again.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some sort of plot hole happened here. Why didn't Alphys and Flowey team up? Why couldn't Alphys help?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 11pt; margin-right: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="427" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/osb03VbL7r_Bf1wjnvK5_poKTi5GvjZ_Ts4XQjodE90rhDZ3O5BVGYDmb-6rI6aT7i3qW5Uy8CBd1V5CxJRKVIc03z8tfi9KKX7Fp9F3X2KNOoF1QdTOloX0XB73JW0RhReUXPwT" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="239" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: http://img11.deviantart.net/a02c/i/2016/038/a/4/smiling_flowey_by_animalover1502-d9qut0i.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gameplay</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flowey introduces you to the game play. He was also hoping to obtain the six souls from Asgore, but couldn't because he's not strong enough.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: That he would form an alliance with the player character, or deceive you into bypassing Toriel, getting out of the ruins and going to Asgore. This would be much more efficient having you alive rather than dead.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: He succumbs to his murderous nature, tries to kill you with "friendliness pellets" due to wanting your soul for himself, and Toriel knocks him away with a fireball.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is egregious on Flowey's part, since he immediately tries to go for your soul and Toriel saves you without breaking a sweat. He's not stupid due to the number of resets he's done; thus he ought to know that she's patrolling the Ruins. In AU fics and fan-comics where Flowey is good, he </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">help the player character bypass Toriel to the best of his ability.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toriel after rescuing you wants to keep you in the Ruins, for your safety. If you express a desire to go home, and the game cannot progress unless you do, she plans to destroy the one-way exit and warns you three times to not stop her. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd think</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: That the player character would explain that much as they would like to stay if they so desire, that if you try to go back to bed after her final warning that a strange voice tells you to wake up and calls you by the Fallen Child's Name. Then at least Toriel would realize that you are haunted by her dead child and will switch her tactics since someone is obviously manipulating you into leaving and breaking her heart.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The player character doesn't have that option, even when talking to Toriel in battle. As a matter of fact, "You cannot think of anything to say." This leads to tragedy whether or not Toriel lives or dies.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gameplay demands that you have to defy Toriel and leave the Ruins. You cannot bypass this, unless you decide to stop the game at staying with her and watch her read about snails. Yet you cannot tell her why you have to leave, especially that you have a bit of the Fallen haunting you. Being able to communicate would save a lot of pain.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 11pt; margin-right: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/hgjh5odyi6GA86UEfYHsHElE1i8lRepgB-AdRvNeXaeRi8GZRIDRSpb7Z-enlfdqC5RckiWiW8Te2nvsj5urt4iXJKkpuoFHQ0ftndVeOLmb-loV5rmwYTpOZWLg6pg4XpyIRupQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="533" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6LVVrbnChyM/maxresdefault.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the game itself, at least two monsters, Papyrus and Undyne, want to capture the player or take their soul. Papyrus wants to be a member of the Royal Guard, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: That Papyrus and Undyne would immediately capture you and escort you, either willingly or forcibly, to the king and reap your soul in front of the barrier. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Papyrus due to his ego wastes his time making you do puzzles, and only locks you up in his garage three times if you lose to him. Undyne does hunt you down multiple times in Waterfall and the Dump, but she forces you to fight and doesn't think to simply sling you over her shoulder and carry you to New Home.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This refers to a Pacifist Run, where you as the player character pose no threat to the monsters and thus are vulnerable in most of the fights. In other runs like Genocide where you kill everyone, Papyrus spares you immediately, trusting in inherent goodness, and Undyne fights you to save the humans.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With that said, in any run Papyrus and Undyne are strong enough to sling you over their shoulders to encounter the king. Their fatal flaws undermine their attempts, however; Undyne likes to fight and wants to kill you in a Pacifist Run to give the monsters Freedom, and Papyrus wants to be your friend and join the Royal Guard at the same time.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 11pt; margin-right: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="300" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fEtclf45RBWbmWCSkIsv7pc9uo50q5-p6W6Ty-kpKEH_Qp7jDBiWV0PvsVauRTAgEEBjvdCMRn7yDTT1UnBeeUEZX1tnfApMdbkYJEYqaks1glP1JSyEvx6pJTLQ570Q2MvJqN66" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="533" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fvRUQbhzzzI/maxresdefault.jpg</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sans tells the player on certain runs that Papyrus, if you spare the latter, has been talking to a flower. He believes that someone is playing a prank on Papyrus since you can record messages with an echo flower. The player immediately realizes that Papyrus has been talking to Flowey</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You'd Expect</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: That Sans would realize that something is up with the flower, and if someone is pranking him, say that only he can pick on Papyrus, and put a stop to the nonsense. If not, then he'd find Flowey and tell him to stop. You'd also think that the player character would tell Sans since Flowey is a murderer and dangerous, since Sans is the older brother and protective of Papyrus. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Sans, due to his despondence at life and being aware of resets, does not put in the effort. The player character also cannot tell Sans about the flower, which would save a giant sneak attack at the end of the Pacifist Run.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5954545454545455; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah. Sans's main priority is to make sure that you don't condemn all of the Underground with your actions, if you decide to fight or spare Monsters. He doesn't consider that a tiny flower could pose a threat, despite hinting that he remembers the resets.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So for those who play Undertale or know of the game, what are your thoughts? Are these reasonable moments of idiocy or a case of nitpicking?</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-26533950928839395852016-02-14T09:00:00.000-05:002016-02-14T09:00:06.730-05:00Disliking Vs. Hating Stephenie Meyer's Work: Power of the Written Word<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Valentine's_day_M%26Ms_in_the_shape_of_a_heart_(8418026760).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Valentine's_day_M%26Ms_in_the_shape_of_a_heart_(8418026760).jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I<span style="font-size: xx-small;">mage source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Valentine's_day_M%26Ms_in_the_shape_of_a_heart_(8418026760).jpg</span><br />
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Happy Valentine's Day! Monday will be the Gravity Falls series finale. I'll probably post my thoughts on the latter at another time. For now, though, in light of one of the most romantic and commercial holidays, I will talk about one pop culture phenomenon with books: <i>Twilight</i>. Four years ago, author Shannon Hale wrote a <a href="http://oinks.squeetus.com/2012/11/in-defense-of-twilight.html">blog post about Twilight</a>, namely about how people have made it acceptable to mock the work and to belittle it, despite Twilight being a success. This paragraph from Shannon's blog has stayed with me, all through the years:<br />
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"I recently heard a writer speaking at a conference (a writer I
respect, like, and who has had objectively admirable success). When
asked by the audience to name a favorite book, he answered, "I'll tell
you one I wish had never been written: Twilight." It was an unnecessary
and petty comment, I thought, but what really troubled me was the
audience's reaction: they applauded and cheered. I've encountered
similar scenes dozens of times. By all means, don't like Twilight. Don't
read it. Or read it and have intelligent conversations about why you
don't like it. But I question why it's become okay to hate, mock,
demean, ridicule this writer woman and her series that's loved by so
many women." <br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8_1wmXbKBqo/maxresdefault.jpg</span><br />
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Several thoughts always come to mind when I think of this quote. The first is that I admire Shannon's work so much, as well as her kindness to everyone. She's given me hugs at book signings and before she received too many emails would respond to mine frequently. The second is that I wonder how often I've mocked a work that someone worked hard on, or critiqued it on this blog while expressing my opinion. The third is that I wonder if I would defend my writing friends if they ended up in a similar scenario, though probably they never would because their writing is fantastic. <br />
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The first Twilight book deceived me, but not for the reasons that one may think. I knew going into it that Edward was a vampire, and Bella was going to fall in love with him, and develop an obsession. That became clear on the back cover, and from the newspaper article that talked about how book two started. To be honest, I've read only Twilight, not the rest of the trilogy, precisely because the first book changed the plot in the last hundred pages and shifted gears, all to create drama. I felt tricked. I do not like books that deceive me in such a way. Who cared about Edward or Jacob when the writer pulled the rug under our feet unfairly?<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3542/3685927144_da8f236519.jpg</span><br />
Despite this dislike, and my having done a speech about "What to Do When Your Friends Like Twilight,"I try to make it clear that my opinions on books are not the end-all, be-all, unless I'm in a verbal or digital argument in real time. Two of my writer friends are huge Twilight fans, and I don't wish to spoil their enjoyment. In addition, as a writer whose short stories are still in the process of constant submission, rejection and revision, I know what it's like to have hurt feelings when someone I care about doesn't like a particular tale or reacts viscerally to it.<br />
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Words have power. They can be the words exchanged over a family dinner, the email sent with a rejection letter of a short story, or the kind message that you send on Tumblr to someone when they're feeling down. More often the crueler words stay with you, for months or years at a time, and they crop up in your memories like burrs catching on shirts. Cyberbullying has become a serious issue online, with anonymous harassment and tackling bullies' Facebook posts. Just this past week what ought to have been a civil disagreement in the How to Train Your Dragon fandom led to fans, including myself, taking sides and to a lot of hurt feelings. We don't want to censor our words, but we also want to be kind about people's life work and opinions.<br />
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Image source: https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/10/14/01/42/no-987086_960_720.png<br />
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Is there a way to critique and gently mock a problematic story with love, so as not to hurt the author or readers' feelings? Probably, but some argue whether or not we even need to make the effort to soften the blows, especially when a story can be genuinely problematic. Words in this day and age stay around for a lot longer thanks to computers and social media, so we need to decide what words we want to put into the world. More importantly, we have to figure out our levels o kindness.<br />
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This Valentine's, pass on kindness to someone in need of it. Praise an author posting their work ona website for critique if they deserve it. And for Shannon Hale and Stephenie Meyer, maybe refrain from mocking <i>Twilight </i>for the day. All in all, think about what impact you want your words to have.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-13642463259502792402016-02-05T18:24:00.000-05:002016-02-05T18:24:46.527-05:00No Dark Ages: Surprise Power Outage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWq1j37YUgM4AAljyDa3dwZRgKK34EJRA1TlTiuz9ro8txCzqT1PeHXUsflOckaYNScsIphEEeRnKSPNfIyovNQh68e3kvCaubynxrRrajRiBW8TIgp-o0RE1gzUHABjdFYl4UyoiTnM/s1600/IMG_1063%255B1%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWq1j37YUgM4AAljyDa3dwZRgKK34EJRA1TlTiuz9ro8txCzqT1PeHXUsflOckaYNScsIphEEeRnKSPNfIyovNQh68e3kvCaubynxrRrajRiBW8TIgp-o0RE1gzUHABjdFYl4UyoiTnM/s400/IMG_1063%255B1%255D.JPG" width="297" /></a></div>
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<br />
This was a picture I took of lighting a brand new candle in the dark, one I had planned to use for meditation. I took another photo of the candle in the light, when the power came back on. It brought me to mind of all the children's shows that claim that one can entertain in the dark, and find things to do when there is no power. Those shows emphasized the value of one's imagination.<br />
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Our neighbors next door have been building a new house, ideally to sell on the real estate market. They asked my mom in December if they could build a wall instead of a fence, and if they could take down our fence. She thought it was just going to be a small matter and agreed. If we had known what would ensue, she would have stood her ground and refused. As it turns out, they not only took down the fence without batting an eye, but also cut off our yard water, our Internet and phone for a couple of hours, and a few square feet off our property. Each time these incidents happened, my mom filed a report with the neighborhood committee, since they were quite a nuisance. The foreman seemed genuinely apologetic, but one incident after another occurred despite the apologies and our dwindling patience. We hoped the Internet would be an indicator that we wouldn't accept such nuisances.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source:https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TJSzuXsaGBI/hqdefault.jpg</span><br />
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A few weeks ago, while I was driving to a job interview in the morning, I got a phone call form my mom. It was nine in the morning, and the power was out in our house. She couldn't make coffee, or my younger brother's breakfast. Fortunately we had extra coffee in the fridge, and we had a propane stove for hurricane emergencies. She was able to make him breakfast, and heat up his lunch.<br />
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Thinking it was a power outage caused by the recent cold front, I called an FPL repairman, who came about six hours later, two hours after I arrived home. FPL is Florida Power and Light. The repairman had to call four more trucks, and they worked for about two hours to get a temporary cable up. That's right: temporary. No power outage had occurred. The construction workers next door had cut through our power lines while digging a trench for a wall. Such repairs would take at least two weeks, and in the meantime we have a long cable snaking around one side of the yard that covers our power. The foreman next door apologized, <i>again</i>, and he promised that the repair costs would be covered by them, but my mom and I don't trust him. This was the fourth time that such an incident had happened, all because my mom gave permission for them to build a wall on the property line.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1m0hyphenhyphenlR-31L7ly1Vnk_NkhGFiWtc7TF5I6wIYdeyDU_B0hcrBa4lacZt0hladlQdTg4p2R60Qxe3DZ7V-CP4EbvH2MY1mdZkmaFwKniTkg_mSv2EBsKerZ86AABbDicwNjKJQOyRgEc/s1600/IMG_1064%255B1%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1m0hyphenhyphenlR-31L7ly1Vnk_NkhGFiWtc7TF5I6wIYdeyDU_B0hcrBa4lacZt0hladlQdTg4p2R60Qxe3DZ7V-CP4EbvH2MY1mdZkmaFwKniTkg_mSv2EBsKerZ86AABbDicwNjKJQOyRgEc/s400/IMG_1064%255B1%255D.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This was the other photo I took, of when the lights came back on</b></td></tr>
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Not having power for a day is awful in this day and age, not just because we lose the "entertainment" that comes from television and video games, but also because you lose the electricity needed for cooking, maintaining the house, and running the schedule. My younger brother has severe allergies, so my mom has to cook all of his food from scratch; cooking on a propane stove was more laborious for her given it's smaller than our electric stove and could have burned her. I wouldn't be able to send our my stories to magazines, share them with friends, or email my resume to potential recruiters. We had to cancel a cleaning service that was supposed to come and put off evening activities such as running laps around the driveway. Because of the cable, we cannot mow our lawn and have to take care not to step on it or drove on it. A power outage from a storm is one thing; that sort of event has a risk of happening. A neighbor cutting off your power and not realizing until you leave a voicemail detailing the situation could have taken more care.<br />
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I am certainly more appreciate of power in my life after every outage, because it's a necessity for our household. Certainly I have learned from this that when someone tries to make a cagey deal and starts creating disturbances to face them head on and refuse to accept their nonsense. My mom deserved better than this.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-21473318738613108202016-01-03T00:32:00.000-05:002016-01-03T00:32:51.700-05:00Trips to the Museum: A Slice of Nostalgia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Happy New Year, everyone!I hope that you all had a wonderful end to 2015, and we start with 2016 on a fresh note. <br />
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On a Sunday in the fall, a Miami institution closed its old building. A new building for the Miami Museum of Science has been undergoing construction downtown, taking place as a giant dome and a large aquarium. The Wildlife Center is still going to rescue injured birds, an important necessity, but we who live about thirty minutes away will not be able to visit the large white buildings next to Vizcaya except for "pop-up events". We're not sure if we can park in the huge lot either.<br />
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Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Coco_Grove_FL_MoSaSTP04.jpg<br />
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I have many fond memories of the Museum of Science. As a
kid I attended the summer camp for several years, trying out many
activities; at the camp I discovered that I loved the stage and
performing, and that sailing is a nightmare for someone like me that
fears boats capsizing. Before I went to camp there, my elementary school
class went on a field trip, complete with a terrifying demonstration of
electricity and how a current can pass through the human body.<br />
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The exhibits were also quite memorable: one year the main corridor had animatronic dinosaurs, which included a bunch of carnivorous dinosaurs feeding on a live herbivore, and another year they had live snapping turtles that showed off their beaks if you wiggled your fingers. One show featured a giant animatronic sloth behind a curtain, and a time machine; another displayed stage magic and great escapes. You could see videos of boys receiving heart surgery, climb a plastic rock wall that was relatively easy, and go head-to-head with a VR basketball player and try to break the record of baskets shot. Often a lot of kids would stand in line for the last one and don the glove; I enjoyed that exhibit a lot.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>These weren't the same turtles, but you still don't want to put your fingers near your mouths.</b></td></tr>
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The summer camps also helped me to refine what I liked and didn't like. As mentioned before, sailing sessions were a nightmare for someone that prefers for a boat to not go vertical and has a phobia of drowning, but writing film scripts and seeing your words acted out brought a wonderful story. Criminology showed us how to dust for fingerprints with talcum powder, long before talcum powder was determined a health hazard, and photography involved hours in a darkroom showing how precisely one could render images in black and white, including dead fish. We also took long walks around the neighborhood to nearby Alice Wainwright Park, where we learned how to identify poison oak and various banyans. <br />
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The Museum was also the last place where I did singing and dancing on stage on a regular basis, as well as stage magic. One of the benefits of summer camp was that if you signed up for musical theater one week, you couldn't be cut out of the show; you got a part, even if you were a stage extra, and you had fun with it. When I entered middle and high school, however, I learned the hard way that if you wanted to earn a part onstage, you had to be taking drama classes and attend auditions regularly. You couldn't participate in a play for the fun of it, or to get better. That was sobering, though I still adore musical theater and kept up choir for the next seven years. At the same time, I kept writing, and attended screenwriting classes in undergrad, which gave me lots of practice with the cinema.<br />
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The museum also emphasizes another important point, both in the camps and in the exhibits: science can be fun. More importantly, nature can be fun if you learn how to find the adventure in it. My parents still recall that I knew more animal facts than most kids my age. These days, I know more about author's lives and writing techniques, but at the time dogs, elephants and endangered species were my passion.<br />
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The older I got, the less I remembered how fun science could be. I forgot how fun science could be when studying it academically, given that you have to memorize facts and processes,compete to get proper college credit, and survive numerous exams. It got to the point where I switched my major twice in college because the environmental science and biology programs didn't suit my interests and I had no idea what I would do with the degree. Rewatching shows like<i> Bill Nye the Science Guy </i>and <i>Magic Schoolbus</i> briefly reminded me of that potential path, but I think I prefer the museum approach in learning for the sake of learning.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>When I was younger I had a phobia of snakes. These days I find the knowledge fascinating.</b></td></tr>
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We last went to the museum about a year ago, in the spring of 2015. Plenty of new exhibits replaced the old ones: there were displays on Hurricane Andrew and how storm chasers go after natural disasters to measure them, a functional beehive that connected to a garden near the Raptor Rescue, and a three-dimensional printer in the museum's computer lab. A larger archaeological exhibit replaced the medical videos and the VR game with basketball players. The only things that remained the same were the Raptor Rescue, with the various owls that have been loaned for Carl Hiaasen movies and the planetarium, with a show about the myth of Perseus. The show revealed that, far from putting the adults to sleep, that it could show humor through animation of a hero armed with a sword and a tennis racket. <br />
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When we got to the Museum next time, it will be downtown, in a larger facility. We passed by the construction site and saw the planetarium and globe structures. The commute will be longer, and the parking possibly more difficult, but the facilities will be updated and the aquarium will have more space. Science will still be fun there, for me and for a new generation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-zFcPGhuTK7O7-2q69RQiTva6mVdtwiXE4SZumTKmn4OA3ELJYHNmGprerrT0PHokjkAw4Hlaz9mGDGDf_aa4jwRSL-r0_dz-lfwI55_YB5evtB4W0tAcu-ANb3WEf5N5Eye66S_ie4/s1600/IMG_0379%255B1%255D.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-zFcPGhuTK7O7-2q69RQiTva6mVdtwiXE4SZumTKmn4OA3ELJYHNmGprerrT0PHokjkAw4Hlaz9mGDGDf_aa4jwRSL-r0_dz-lfwI55_YB5evtB4W0tAcu-ANb3WEf5N5Eye66S_ie4/s320/IMG_0379%255B1%255D.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>My first 3D printer up close.</b></td></tr>
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Farewell, old Miami Museum of Science. I wish you well in your new home, though I hope that I don't lose memories of the good, fun, and wild times. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-33503008878843270372015-12-24T16:26:00.000-05:002015-12-24T16:26:27.803-05:00A Christmas Special for A Generation: Nostalgic Thoughts on Elmo Saves Christmas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! We may not have chestnuts roasting on a fire here in Miami, and the Charlie Brown Christmas special has already aired, but the date is upon us. People are happier despite the crowded stores, and the radio has started to play classic carols. Thus it feels fitting to dive into some nostalgia into what I think about the holiday, regarding a classic PBS show that has been on the air for more than forty years.<br />
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A lot of changes have come to Sesame Street over the past few years. The original puppeteer for the Count, Jerry Nelson, passed away, and the actress Sonia Manzano, who plays FixIt repair-woman Maria, has decided to leave the show, and HBO has recently purchased the Sesame Street franchise, slashing the episode times from 60 minutes to 30 minutes. These changes may be for the best, but at the moment they feel murky and stab at my heart. I didn't lear n everything I knew from <i>Sesame Street</i>, but I learned quite a bit. I remember learning a sobering lesson about Christmas from the show, via a rather unusual holiday special.<br />
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<i>Elmo Saves Christmas</i> was a special that aired for a few years during the late 1990s, when Christmas in Miami means the sun shining on the green grass for a couple of days before blasting cold would come in. Kevin Clash was still performing for Elmo, and gave the character's voice an endearing scratchiness that sounded monster-like. Another special has since replaced it, so that you can only find several of the songs online. It featured Maya Angelou narrating how Elmo, after rescuing Santa from a stuck chimney, received a snowglobe that can grant three wishes. Elmo decides to wish that it were Christmas every day, so that everyone will be happy all the time.<br />
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<br />At the time, such a wish didn't sound like a bad idea. Christmas to me simply meant one day of the year when one could receive presents, enjoy good weather, and bask in a warm glow of holiday cheer. Santa during the special then sends Elmo out with a time-traveling reindeer, to show him what happens if Christmas happens every day, keeping people out of school, out of work, unable to send mail, and obligated to buy presents. Elmo's friends seem fine in the spring, slowly start to stress during the summer, and completely crack by winter. Having a holiday everyday nibbles away at the novelty, until what's left is a hollow shell of a celebration.<br />
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The special did a good job in not hammering in the message that "Christmas every day is bad" and instead reflecting the childlike naivety. In fact, several characters, like Santa's elves, point out that Santa shares part of the blame in giving a childlike Muppet such power, and imply that similar disasters have emerged from other users of the wish-granting snow globe. Santa seems to admit this in part, especially when his morose song "Everyday Can't Be Christmas" doesn't convince Elmo at first, and he has a rather alarmed expression when Elmo uses his first wish to request a glass of water. He also takes the time to come to Sesame Street, warn Elmo, and give him a way to see what will happen. When Elmo gets a second chance to choose either the snow-globe or an ordinary toy at the special's conclusion, he chooses the ordinary toy but Santa offers him something far more extraordinary that won't cause temporal anomalies. Many questions arise from the fact that despite having given the snow-globe before, he hasn't thought to take it out of production, and one wonders what the previous gift recipients did with their wishes. <br />
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The other important thing about this special was that it showed rather than told the consequences, and used concrete imagery to convey these devastating actions. As mentioned in my previous Christmas post, it irked me in <i>Mickey's Christmas Carol </i>how it hammered so much at Scrooge being a miser would condemn him, so that you couldn't sit back and enjoy thirty minutes of animation. In contrast, Sesame Street knew how children thought, that is with visuals instead of words. Elmo can't comprehend consequences in the long term that emerge from too
much of a good thing, especially when everyone appears happy on hearing the news. Neither could the viewers at the time, including
myself, who came along for the ride. I was quite shocked to see Sesame
Street as deserted, and not even Grover trying to sell Christmas trees
could add enough humor to quell the blow.<br />
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The third thing was that this special showed one Muppet making a series of mistakes, and despite the increasing consequences manages to amend for them. Elmo wishing for Christmas every day is somewhat forgivable, again because he is a child with a childlike mentality. He makes the mistake of not taking Santa's concern seriously, which is again understandable since he cannot visualize the consequences that the man in the red suit brings. The farther Elmo travels into the future, however, the more he realizes that people aren't happy, especially his friends and loved one, but he keeps going forward, hoping that "real Christmas" will recapture the joy that he meant to spread across the year. His final mistake in what happens when he realizes that he has a way to undo Christmas everyday-- with his last wish-- and takes too long to do so, instead of fixing the problem straightaway. Despite those mistakes, Elmo finds a way to undo his wish, and save everyone from constant holidays.<br />
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For those reasons, I do hope that Sesame Street starts airing <i>Elmo Saves Christmas</i> again, with its memorable songs that can make one laugh and also sober up instantly. It isn't often that we have a Christmas special with such mood swings and strong plot to show the consequences of our actions, <i>It's A Wonderful Life</i> notwithstanding, and makes us feel like little kids again. For the moment, as we all do with Christmas, I'll keep the hour-long special with me through the year, with my memories of childhood Sesame Street.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-604838935274664172015-12-17T19:27:00.000-05:002015-12-17T19:29:28.761-05:00Undertale's Moral Dilemma: Love and Experience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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During finals, while writing two take-homes, I came across a playthrough of the game <i>Undertale</i>. The game made for some interesting white noise as I typed discussions on topics on international business and marketing. The game stirred a lot of feelings in me -- anxiety, anticipation, heartbreak, and disbelief. What stirred the biggest disbelief is that people would consider being cruel in it. <br />
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<i>Undertale</i> follows the adventures of a child that falls into an underground world full of monsters and human remains. Monsters tend to hunt down humans out of fear, and the player character has to decide if they want to fight back or attempt to spare their attackers. One can either be a pacifist, a self-defending neutral character, or a serial murderer. A heartbreaking past haunts your playthrough, and all your past actions come into play if you decide to reset.<br />
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I had previously seen Undertale fanart of Sans, Papyrus and Frisk on my Tumblr, mainly involving bad puns and shipping with the game's goat-mom, Toriel. Aside from some character designs, I had no idea what the game was about. I started watching Markiplier's playthrough, got scared by Flowey, and started reading up on the details, including who the characters were. Then I started editing the Undertale page on TVTropes. The game gripped me, to the point where I wished that our class case studies involved the game since I could justify my disorganized thoughts. Obsession with the game's potential for violence grabbed me, especially as I watched the true pacifist run and dramatic boss fights.<br />
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Unlike most games,<i> Undertale</i> asks how much responsibility a player character has for taking another life. In a traditional game like Super Mario Bros., you have to kill the tortoises and Goombas because otherwise they will kill you, and in an RPG, as Flowey callously puts it, "It's kill or be killed". You have a choice to spare the monsters, and to even hear them out. On a Pacifist Run one can bond with all the characters, the way Aang from <i>Avatar the Last Airbender</i> or Wander from <i>Wander Over Yonder </i>does. You get to make them happy, to cheer up sad ghosts and imbue shy scientists with confidence about their crushes. You get to comfort those who believe they're beyond comforting. Markiplier during his run asks, "Why would anyone want to kill these monsters? They're cute!"<br />
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That question makes me agonize over the more violent runs of the game. The genocide run is the run where you, the player character, decide to kill all the monsters, regardless of their threat level, and its existence freaks me out. Cuteness of the monsters aside, by logic you get a happier ending if you don't fight. <br />
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Why does it scare me? First, the fact that the game assumes that a player would be that callous. As mentioned before, one could technically do a similar run in Pokemon, counter-intuitive as it would be to make every wild Pokemon faint and not capture any, but the game wouldn't call you out for it, any more than Minecraft would call you out for hunting down digital spiders and octopi. Jacksepticeye as of now is doing a genocide run, undoing the happy ending he's provided for his characters, since his viewers have requested such a thing. I cannot believe that so many people would ask that, to disassociate from these three-dimensional characters that have to fight tooth and nail for their happiness.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The ghost on the right is always sad but you can cheer him up.</b></td></tr>
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Second, the acknowledgement that players can be so violent calls too much to the real world. I prefer to play games and read stories that have an escapist sense, where we can be someone else and while we might learn something like history, mathematics, character development or logic -- I grew up on edutainment gaming like Jump Start and Carmen Sandiego-- we don't get severe wake up calls or tragic endings. Oftentimes the player has to resort to violence out of necessity, say in Minecraft if archers shoot and zombies walk, but in edutainment games the worst that one could do was blow up an asteroid aimed at a satellite, or feed a hungry plant monster a chemical sedative. When I read the news, actions have consequences. Our hateful words echo across the Internet and television far more strongly than our positive words do, and our more extreme sentiments can lead to massive tragedies. Children often suffer in the crossfire, and people often reduce victims to statements, or to blemishes on a seemingly perfect landscape. Seeing these attitudes reflected in a fantasy world, where we have more free agency to act as a human being, for better or for worse, hits too close to home.<br />
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Third, the varying endings that resort from the player characters' choices unsettle me, in their degree of happiness or tragedy. Most of the edutainment games that I played, unless they were for kindergarten for first grade, had a very linear progression, in that one has to complete a set of activities to get the rest of the story and cannot deviate from the set path. When you have critical choices in a game, as you do in life, choices become paralyzing, more so when one sees the consequences of bad ones. <i>Undertale</i>'s player character if he or she wants to progress cannot stay with goat-mom Toriel and eat butterscotch pie with her, any more than one can stay in Mettaton's hotel or in the Temmie village. Yet to go forward comes with its risks, of defying Toriel to leave her, of finding yourself with monster blood on your hands, or dust as it were. You can either break a lot of hearts, or kill a lot of monsters.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>When you want a scene to break your heart . . .</b></td></tr>
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<i>Undertale </i>is phenomenal and yet devastating in how it asks gamers, atypical or not, to shed typical gaming behavior. A game had to ask those questions at some point, at what a person would do if they have the option to play without fighting. I hope that if I do play a game, however, that watching a Pacifist run will not hinder me from diving into a new world, to gain more experience.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2891413849014978068.post-20050099376098430372015-11-30T09:05:00.000-05:002015-11-30T09:05:22.727-05:00"But I Don't Want to Say Goodbye to Gravity Falls"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have to confess something: I'm a huge <i>Gravity Falls</i> fan. <i>Gravity Falls </i>is a traditionally animated show on the Disney Channel about two twins, Dipper and Mabel, who spend the summer with their charlatan great-uncle and discover strange creatures in his tourist trap town. At first starting with slice of life episodes, in which the twins encounter ghosts, gnomes, mermaids, and even a cherub, the series has taken a darker turn with new characters in the second season. Currently the season two finale has been taking place over second episodes, in which the show's world has turned upside down.<br />
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Several weeks ago the show creator, Alex Hirsch has announced that after the season two finale, <i>Gravity Falls</i> will end. Within the show, summer will come to an end, and Dipper and Mabel Pines will have grown up. This came as a shock, as the season finale has pretty much destroyed the world so far and pushed the main characters to their limits, raising the physical and emotional stakes. We have a vast amount of questions that require answers, as well as multiple unresolved plot-lines. Hirsch has three episodes to handle a vast amount of material, while not telling us how the world will change from a near apocalypse.<br />
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Before <i>Gravity Falls</i>, the best Disney show on the air was <i>Phineas and Ferb</i>. While the show is brilliant with the references and storytelling, it relies on a rather straightforward and almost predictable formula. In addition, it operates on strange logic at times, has animation that at one point is lampooned as MC Escher-derived and romanticizes the notion that one can do so much during summer and winter vacation. The format feels very limited, and the best characters were the ones who didn't speak. It takes one a long while to get used to that show, and to its zany sense of adventure.<br />
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When it comes to animated shows, Disney's Golden Age from the 1990s spoiled me; the humor and fluid animation from shows like <i>Chip 'N Dale</i>, <i>DuckTales</i>, <i>Darkwing Duck</i>, <i>Bonkers</i>, and others had me accept high standards for their successors. A new show would have to wow me with an awesome opening or preview. I caught one or two episodes of<i> Gravity Falls</i>, and they seemed to be heavy-handed in telling morals: don't change an aspect of yourself just because others are making fun of it, and don't cheat at mini-golf even if your opponent is nasty. <br />
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Then I saw the season one finale; it won me over with an epic fight scene and important character development. Tumblr also screen-capped some of the show's best moments, including a deconstruction of the "friend zone". I started to watch more season two episodes, including one that hit very close to home for someone with an introverted personality, and I started watching episodes on the days that they premiered. Slowly, with each standalone story-line, I got into the show, and started working out to it. A few fanfiction pieces are even saved on my digital clouds.<br />
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When the first big hiatus ended in the spring, <i>Gravity Falls</i> no longer became a weird slice of life series with a big mystery; it became a large tragedy. The episode that changed this dynamic, "A Tale of Two Stans," introduced a character who understands how the weird <i>Gravity Falls</i> logic works, and has even found possible explanations for it. We also see a family torn apart, a sobering reality in this day and age, and fears of the past repeating itself with future generations. This character has made the world of <i>Gravity Falls</i> bigger, more complicated, more fascinating, and more dangerous. He talks about the future, or the lack of one.<br />
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With all of that material, that emotional investment, that fanbase that can be delightfully divisive when debating over the main characters' selfishness or morality, just how can we say goodbye? It feels like we've only gotten started. A lot of Chekhov's Guns have gone unused, and the characters have to figure out how they've changed now that the world has ended. Yet we have to accept that the story ends with summer, and with quite a few ramifications. <br />
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Good shows do have endings; Avatar's two series had
wonderful finales. The fact that Alex Hirsch announced this right as
season two is ending, however, feels like a shot to the heart. It would
have been one thing if he had told us at the season premiere, so that we
could brace ourselves to say goodbye, the way we prepare to say goodbye
when a dear friend or family member moves away. Instead we have gotten
the announcement that a friend has to leave on an emergency red eye, and
we can't even see him off at the airport.<br />
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With that said, I cannot thank Alex Hirsch enough for the ride. He restored my faith in the Disney animation block, so that I've discovered other shows like Wander Over Yonder and Star Vs. the Forces of Evil. He wrote a good story, and one that has been rewarding thus far. Thank you for your imagination, brains, and willingness to relive childhood. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15786475206547123446noreply@blogger.com0