Author: Caroline Nations

What is free will? Is free will all that it seems to be? Or is everything already set up for us, and we’re just being guided through it? Is someone controlling our actions down to what we eat for breakfast in the morning?

Black Mirror’s most recent installment, “Bandersnatch,” explores this concept with more depth than one would think that this concept would need. I first began watching this at 5:30 in the morning after getting no sleep. I can say with certainty that if you want to avoid having a complete existential crisis, then don’t repeat that mistake of mine. This hour and a half long episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror is interactive- it lets you choose the actions that the main character of the story, Stefan, takes as he tries to get his choose your own adventure game in the mid-80s.

It’s interesting to see all the choices that you can make, down to the more minute details of his life, and how they can affect the story in a drastic way. If you choose a certain cereal for Stefan to eat, you see the commercial later on a tape before the intended recording plays. If you choose a certain style of music, you hear music from that artist during the introduction and sprinkled throughout the rest of the film.

When you go to the gaming company for Stefan to pitch his game, you meet two new people: the sleazy owner of the company named Mohan Thakur, and a famous video game developer (who also enjoys getting high) named Collin. You can agree to work under the company to develop the game; however, this results in the game getting a lackluster review because of its poor quality. You can choose to start over, and when you go back to the company… Collin insists that you’ve met before. This is our first hint that not all is as it seems with this particular character.

Now, we know the correct choice: say no to working under the company- rather, have Stefan insist that he can get the game finished by himself, and the company can publish the game. Now, the story can continue properly.

As Stefan continues to work on his game, he begins to spiral more and more into a state of anxiety and stress. This comes to a breaking point, and his dad tries to take him to a therapist. However, you can choose to go with Collin instead. And this path brings us even more questions than we already had.

Collin tells us about everything that he seems to have learned everything about the meaning of existence. He reveals that he knows that nothing is truly his own choice: everything has already decided for him. The government is planning their lives, they put drugs in their food, they record you no matter what you do.

I won’t spoil anything else for you, but this show does make you start questioning your reality. It’s definitely a strange feeling, to be intervening with the life of a relatively normal person. This feeling of existentialism will cause people who watch this show to start viewing reality in an entirely new light. Overall, I highly recommend this episode, and the series Black Mirror as a whole. Maybe I’ll dedicate another blog post to this series… as long as someone doesn’t choose a different path for me.

Undertale, an indie game made by Toby Fox, was released in 2015, and quickly skyrocketed from an obscure game into a staple of internet culture. This game, though criticized by some for it’s rudamentary graphics and lackluster story, actually has a deeper plot behind the veil of such a simple game.

In the similar vein of such games like Doki Doki Literature Club, Undertale brings a new meaning of “meta” to the table. Early on, you learn the mechanics of the game and the different actions you can take: you can choose to be a pacifist, using your actions to placate the monsters you encounter and leave them unharmed; you can pick and choose who you kill and who you spare, leading to different ending with different characters; or you can choose to completely wipe out the entire underground, slaughtering every monster in your path until there are none left.

This game gives you a clear precedent: your choices matter. Who you kill and who you spare affects how the game continues and how other characters interact with you. Kill  certain characters, and you get different dialogue. A clear example is if you choose to kill off one of the more popular characters of the game, a skeleton named Papyrus. His dream is to be a royal guard, and to achieve his dream, he tries to capture you. If you choose to kill him, his brother then begins to show a clear contempt for you, as well as the captain of the royal guard, Undyne, who specifically asks you “Papyrus… what did you do to him?” However, if you spare him along with everyone else, he leaves the underground with his friends and brother, and in the end credits you can see him driving a fancy car down a highway.

Deltarune, however, is almost completely different from the first game Toby made. Yes, there are returning characters, and the art style is similar, but other than that, the story is far from what most were expecting when Toby dropped the game on Halloween after a few ominous tweets. You create your human, only to have it all erased with the message “we can’t choose who we are in this world.” You play as Kris, a silent human who goes to school and has to deal with the formidable bully of the class, Suzy. You are both sent to a dark world, and after meeting the kind prince Ralsei, you embark on a journey to bring peace to the land and bring yourself home. What options you choose do very little to do with the game as a whole: you can choose to fight everyone, only to have them run away before you kill them, or spare them, leading to a slightly more peaceful ending. The message is clear: your choices do not matter anymore.

I find it fascinating how one man can create two vastly different games. His first game was a huge success and brought about a new era to the indie gaming industry. Many were anxious to see what his next project would be, hoping it would live up to the legend that was his first game. I can only imagine how stressful it would be to have the entire world watching you, waiting for your next “big thing,” unknowing on how your next idea will be delivered. He confessed during a series of tweets that he didn’t know whether or not he would ever finish Deltarune in his lifetime, because he had so many ideas and mechanics he wanted to put into the next installments of the game.

This duality is something that many creators experience: burnout. We are pushed to create, build off of past successes, but what if we don’t want to be known for what we’ve done in our past? What if we have new ideas, but we don’t know how they’ll be taken, because it’s different from our known content? We don’t know until we try it, and that’s a scary thing. So we keep chugging out sequel after sequel, using the same ideas over and over until they become old and stale. It leads to a society that doesn’t know what original content truly looks like because everything is just a copy of everything else. We need to learn to push past this fear of failure, embrace new ideas, and accept that not everything is black and white all the time. And that’s okay. We choose to keep looking forward, to new ideas, and that is truly art.

Sometimes new content is as simple as making an anagram of a title you already used, turning it into something new.

Ever heard of the game “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy”? Well, let me tell you, it’s a doozy. It’s one of the hardest games that many people have ever played. Many YouTubers made videos of them playing the game, and many of them soon began to scream in rage at the unfair controls and construction.

In Getting Over It, you start at a rocky plain. A cauldron sits on the screen. The cauldron trembles and shakes. From the cauldron rises a bald man holding a long-handled axe.

Ah, Diogenes. So many people ended up hating this man, not because he’s a bad character, but the game is very hard to control. All of the control you have is your mouse, controlling the tip of an axe. You can use the axe to swing yourself up and over objects that are in your path. That’s it.

Soon, Bennett Foddy himself begins to speak.

He tells us that learning to get over difficult situations is hard to do. Whether it’s ruining a nice shirt, leaving your wallet at home, or having a disagreement with a friend, it’s hard to get over a difficult situation. He tells us that if we’ve already been having a bad day, we shouldn’t play this game, because it will be frustrating.

And from personal experience, let me tell you, this game will enrage you. It will make you scream and want to throw your computer across the room in anger. I will admit, I ended up slamming my laptop shut in frustration more than once while playing this game. I cursed at Foddy’s voice saying meaningless inspirational quotes after I had fallen once again, losing thirty minutes of progress in the span of two seconds.

I’ve never gotten past the first incline.

Normally, when I play video games, I have patience. I usually enjoy a good challenge, which is why I love playing games such as Undertale and Cuphead, games that require problem solving, quick reflexes, and skill. However, this game felt different. Foddy was a constant presence in the game, and would often make light commentary as you continue your ascent higher and higher up the mountain made of the most ridiculous things (construction cranes, a table with oranges on it, and furniture). He makes commentary on how he beleives our society is slowly degrading in what we deem as “art” and “culture.” He calls it a “B culture,” one in which you can take trash and pile it together, and it becomes the next sensation that is popular for five seconds before we move on to the next thing. His commentary is thought-provoking, and you cannot help but pause and take a moment to listen to what he’s saying.

Foddy makes a point in saying that those who succeeded in climbing up the mountain that he has made are different than the rest. He claims that the players, in looking for a challenge, have a stronger sense of resolution and concentration. As you continue your ascent, he begins to become more vulnerable, talking about how he feels drowned in our culture, and wishes that it were different. He wants to make a difference in the world, but he doesn’t know how to go about doing so. He feels trapped under all the rubble that he’s created. He wants to not only share what he’s made, but also share an experience. He wants someone to listen to him. He wants what society as a whole cannot give him: the time out of a busy day to listen to his ramblings and make him feel worthy.

What are we getting over? The feeling of worthlessness, the feeling of inadequacy that gets stronger when we look outside of ourselves. The feeling of being trapped in a substandard culture. Getting over the hope that society will change, because it won’t, at least not on it’s own. We need to get over our own identity and look out into the world we live in.

We need to get over our own sense of self to find meaning in the world around us.

Okay, I told myself I wouldn’t get into any new obsessions this year. I really did promise myself. Well… I broke that promise to myself. I kinda got into a new podcast series. It’s called “Welcome to Night Vale.”

“Night Vale” is a podcast that is made on both YouTube and iTunes. This podcast is… what can only be described as amazing. The very first episode enters with a voice saying these words:

“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.”

Then the music comes. Oh my god, the music in this podcast is wonderful. I love it so much, and it’s so catchy that I can’t help but hum along every time I hear it.

We discover that the name of the show host is Cecil Palmer, broadcasting on the radio from Night Vale. He talks about the events happening in Night Vale, like the civilization of people living under the pin retrieval area in lane five, or the dog park, that doesn’t allow people or dogs inside the dog park.

He also tells us about a newcomer named Carlos, who is a scientist. He describes Carlos as having dark skin, and having “long, perfect hair.” He admits that he was infatuated the moment he met him. And hoenstly, it is so refreshing to see a gay romance story in a work of fiction. There’s characters that reperesent almost every aspect of the LGBT+ community, and it’s very refreshing to see.

Later in the series, we learn of Night Vale’s enemy town, Desert Bluffs. Desert Bluffs is just like Night Vale in many ways: it’s a small desert community with townspeople who love their community. However, there is one major difference: the whole town is under the thumb of an evil corporation called Strex Corp, and they have mind-wiped everyone in the town, turning them into violent and obedient “employees” under Strex.

Everyone in Night Vale has a counterpart that lives in Desert Bluffs. Cecil’s coutnerpart is named Kevin. From his description, we are told that he looks like Cecil, except that he has “black gaping eyes and a sinister smile.” Every time Kevin and Cecil interact with each other, it’s a battle to survive the encounter.

The Night Vale community is a strange one, that is true, but there is one thing that makes it equivalent to any other town in our normal world: they love their community, and they care for their friends and family. Even when the town is threatened by the street cleaners on Street Cleaning Day, or when portals open that bring in their violent Desert Bluffs counterparts, they still do their best to protect each other.

And I think that’s a beautiful message for this quaint little show.

And now, the weather.

I may not have mentioned this in any of my blogs before, but I love the book series The Lunar Chronicles. The series was written by Marissa Meyer, and her science fiction twist on classic fairy tales is unprecedented. 

So, who is Queen Levana,  you may be asking because you read the title of this blog and are curious to know who I’m talking about. To tell you that, I will provide a visual and give you a quick summary of the stories for you. 

In the Lunar Chronicles, there is a race of people that live on the moon called Lunars. They developed special powers that made them able to make others perceive their appearance differently. Because of this, beauty was a huge part of their culture, and those who didn’t have beauty often fabricated it for themselves. 

Levana was the youngest of the two daughters of the king and queen. Her sister, Channary, was vain and shallow, and often flirted with the guards of the palace and often courted many of the men of the court. When their parents died, Channary became queen, and it was quickly shown how much she sucked at being queen. She didn’t care for politics or the economy; she just wanted to throw extravagent parties and have affairs with people. 

Levana, however, had more of an aptitude for political and economical choices. However, she was often ignored by the court. She had a deep hatred for her sister, and Channary often treated her with loathing. 

We find out that when the two were little, Channary coaxed Levana into the fireplace and burned her face severely, leaving her face permanently disfigured. She used her glamor (what they call their powers) to give herself a more beautiful appearance. Even then, she was not more beautiful than Channary. And she hated her for it. 

 Levana soon develops an infatuation for one of the guards of the palace, and tries to court him. She finds out that he has a wife, who is pregnant with their first child. However, the wife dies during childbirth, and Levana uses his grief to make him fall for her. They marry each other and Levana takes in his child, whose name is Winter. 

Channary gives birth to a child as well, who she names Selene. Levana, out of jealousy, plots to kill Channary, and uses her powers to manipulate a guard into doing it. The same night, she also uses him to manipulate her husband, so that he doesn’t come to power. Levana still cannot become queen, however: Selene is still alive. She decides to set her nursery on fire, positive that the fire kills her (it doesn’t, but that involves spoilers so I won’t get too much into it). Becuase Selene is dead, Levana becomes queen of Luna. 

Quickly, she uses her newfound place of power to begin plotting against earth. She constructs an army of supersoldiers who are half wolf and creates a bioweapon to cause sickness on Earth. Her plan is to take over the entire Earth and rule as the queen. 

Levana is a ruthless character, and we are made certain of that. She was raised in such a way that she does not know what it is like to show true kindness to anyone. She is manipulative, and clever. She has a resentment for her own sister because of the accident which caused her disfiguring. And not once are we given a chance to sympathize for her, which just makes her even better as a villain, in my mind. 

Overall, Levana is an amazing characer. 10/10 for great characterization of a villain, Mrs. Meyers. 

Dear Kai of the past,

Hey, it’s me. Your older self. I know Kai isn’t your name, but it will be what you go by when you get older. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing to you. It’s because I have a lot to tell you.

I know growing up seems scary. You’re going to dread hitting double digits for the first time, and from there, you’ll dread turning eighteen. I’m not eighteen yet, though- I still have a year to go. But that’s beside the point.

You’ll grow up being the perfect child. You’ll make good grades, and you’ll be confident in yourself. At least, for a while. You’ll begin to fall behind in Spanish class. You won’t do so well in biology. And you’ll start to doubt yourself. Don’t put all your self-worth on your grades- or maybe you already have, and I’m writing to a slightly-older version of myself than I had thought I was.

In any case, you’re going to change. Your hair will grow long, and then you’ll cut it off and donate it to charity- twice. You’ll want to paint your nails black, and you’ll have a mixed relationship with makeup. You’ll start to have fights with your dad because you want more freedoms than what he gives you. Trivial things will seem like important things. You’ll probably make several mountains out of the smallest molehills.

But don’t worry. At this time, most things have worked themselves out. You know that art school that you drive by when you go visit your grandma? You’ll be there someday. Yeah, you won’t graduate with your old friends, but you’ll make new ones there, and they’ll really accept you for who you are.

You’ll learn more about yourself. You’ll learn your favorite color (purple), your least favorite color (pink), your favorite temperature to eat pizza (cold), and you’ll learn what a mitochondria is (the powerhouse of the cell).

Change can be scary. You’ll still be nervous about moving into the dorm, and you’ll worry about grades until the end of time. But don’t worry too much- you’ll have a high enough ACT score that you’re sure you can get into college.

Oh, and one more thing. Don’t be afraid to express yourself. Don’t hide what you feel. Speak out against injustices. Tell your parents when something they say hurts your feelings. And for the love of God, be nice to your sister.

That’s all I have to say. I hope you have a nice childhood.

Love, your older self.

P.S. That shirt you lost is behind the desk in your room. You’re welcome.

I’ll be the first to admit it: I still sleep with stuffed animals. I have been since I was young. I would often wake up with one on the floor, which made me feel horrible for letting the poor little guy drop down while I wasn’t paying attention.

When I was young, I had a teddy bear that I got from my aunt for Valentine’s Day one year. I named him Teddy, like any sensible four year old would do. I often had him with me. Admittedly, I would even take him to the orthodontist with me until I was in seventh grade, because I just needed something to squeeze to take my mind off of the doctor that was adjusting the wires in my mouth.

I lost Teddy a few years ago. I have no idea where he is. He probably accidentally got placed in a storage box and put somewhere I’m bound not to look. I kinda miss him. But that’s beside the point.

These days, I sleep with two animals in particular. One of them was another gift from my parents: it was a soft stuffed owl that could almost act like a pillow because of how round he was. But he doesn’t really compare to my other stuffed animal.

The stuffed animal I sleep with the most often is a brown stuffed bear. No, it isn’t Teddy. This bear is larger than Teddy, and has more fluffy fur. I named the new bear Lil’ Muffin. Lil’ Muffin actually is very important to me, even though I didn’t even know about it until maybe two years ago.

I distinctly remember that we were cleaning my closet (becuase my closet is a monstrocity) and I was taking clothes down from the back shelf on the wall. As I reached up, I noticed something brown and furry on one of the shelves. I took it down and examined it.

I was holding a stuffed bear, brown and full of fluff. He smelled like a carpet. You know the smell. When I showed him to my mom, she gasped. I didn’t know why, but then she told me.

The bear I was holding was given to me by my birth mom. I had been adopted, something I already knew, but I didn’t know I had any mementos of my mom. But here I was, sixteen years after my birth, holding a bear from her that I didn’t even know I had.

Since then, I’ve slept with Lil’ Muffin almost every night. Not because of sentimental reasons, actually- it’s because I missed having something to squeeze while I slept. And Lil’ Muffin is the perfect size for squeezing.