Category: Junior Literary

You ever thought about how easy it is to lie to someone?

…

Look, I’m probably getting eyes right now, but I’m being so honest. It’s so easy to lie to someone! In an age where fact checking is a myth because the closest thing to a real answer was Google and then it wasn’t, and you could use AI to look something up for you, but really do you want to do that?

It’s one big mess. Your social media sites? One big episode of telephone.

Someone said on Tumblr, who got screenshotted to Instagram, who was sent around a bunch of people’s direct messages that you could save someone from an overdose before an ambulance came by pouring them saltwater. And was this correct? No, it was dangerously false, but the post from 2013 where someone read something wrong is now getting posted to Tik Tok and ohh…  You just pray to God no one in this scenario is confronted with an overdose.

That’s a horrifying system! Who profits from this!

Some videos will just serve you wrong information and what? Will your mother check if NewsOutlet.com is serving her a conspiracy theory baked as a health guide? No, she won’t. It’s just the culture of the internet but now she’s involved in buying purified teeth to loop around her neck.

Which brings us back to the question: how easy is it to lie to someone?

I mean, obviously there are boundaries, if you have enough common sense you can tell when I’m lying (but the average American overestimates how easy it is to be manipulated.)

You may think I’m telling the truth, but if I’m confident, persuasive, and pretty enough, I can tell you things you would doubt experts on. Humans love to listen to confidence. And coincidentally, if your peer tells you a statistic with full confidence, what’s your chances of actually fact checking that?

Some of the things you think you know are just another myth. Daylight saving time was started for farmers, putting your phone in rice saves it from dropping in the pool, organic food is more nutritious. And then there’s the even worse ones. MSG is bad for you, vaccines cause autism, a child can’t be reported missing unless 24 hours have passed.

And that’s just the beginning!

But we’re nearing the end of this blog, so let me make the point I was going to make at the beginning. (This one is in bold because it’s the one you’re probably actually gonna read.)

Out of the five of these, four are real crimes. One is a lie. Without looking it up, which one is LEGAL?

1. spitting at someone

2. corporal punishment (Physical Punishment)

3. not having car insurance

4. Impersonating someone online

5. downloading someone else’s content

i am pretty sure everyone here knows what pokemon is, if you dont, im sorry, im not going to take the time to explain it to you so yea, i dont want to fill this blog up with too much exposition so here you:

 

Honorable mention- so for today’s honorable mention I am going to give it to two pokemon, Ditto and Ninetails. Ditto to be honest is one of my favorite pokemon but tbh their whole thing is being other pokemon so I am not exactly sure how that would have applied on my list but I love ditto too much not to mention it so. The second honorable mention today is going to go to ninetails, I think aesthetically ninetails is a really  beautiful pokemon and was really really close to being on this list.

Number 10-Arbok

As someone who is very on the nose about snakes in general and also someone who doesn’t enjoy playing with poison types I have to admit that this is an incredible design, I don’t really have too many things to say about this pokemon when it comes to its looks besides that it looks cool. Tbh out of all of team rocket’s pokemon this one is my favorite. 

 

Number 9- Vulpix

This in my opinion is everything that ninetails didn’t get to be, I think that this without pokemon is almost without a doubt one of the cutest pokemon of all time, he is at least cuter than pikachu, which I will stand by. Looking through my list I am pretty sure that this is the only fire type pokemon which I have on it which I guess is fair because it is the best gen 1 fire type

 

Number 8-Farfetch’d

So for Farfetch’d I will have to say that out of all the ones on the list, this one is for sure the most underrated, I think that this is mostly because of its relatively simple color scheme, HOWEVER, I think that it works much better than other pokemon with this color scheme, plus his little accessory is cool.

 

Number 7-Alakazam

I am going to warn you all now, I am pretty sure that there are more psychic pokemon on this list than any other kind, what I like about this guy specifically is that I think he is the only pokemon who uses silverware which tbh is a pretty confident play on Alakazam’s part.

 

Number 6-Psyduck 

I am sorry, even though I love Farfetch’d with all my heart, this is the est duck pokemon, not even in this gen, but just in general. Literally what he is known for is having a headache, HIS POWER IS HAVING A HEADACHE. Anyway he’s just a little guy and I love him.

 

Number 5- JigglyPuff

This to my knowledge is one of the only fairy types on this list, not because I don’t like fairy types, but because first gen was severely lacking when it came to making more than just a very few fairy pokemon. I have been a jigglypuff enthusiast since I was a kid so (that actually explains a lot now that I think explains a lot)

 

Number 4- Snorlax

This is one of my favorite pokemon of all time, when it comes to type class it is my favorite normal pokemon ever, period. If anyone here wouldn’t wish to just be a snorlax than I don’t trust your judgment. 

 

Number 3-Muk

Bro I love this pokemon so much, there are so many that have tried to be what this fine gentleman is and literally no one has succeeded. I swear I love Muk so much. He just looks so cool, the texture the face, THE COLOR SCHEME. Oh my god I love Muk.

 

Number 2- Tangela 

This is the only grass type on this list, which I am kinda upset about but yea I digress, I think this is the one people are going to disagree with the most. And yea, I can kinda understand it, even though this is a relatively hated pokemon I have to say that tangela is one of my favorite like, he’s a bundle of vines with shoes on, what is there not to love.

 

Number 1-Gengar

I love Gengar so much, his design, his color, his cool smile that he has, idek, I just love the way he conducts movement and I think there should be so many more ghost type pokemon. I even have a gengar sticker on the bottom part of my laptop. Even thought that is like, the only piece of pokemon merch I own (besides the cards) so.

 

I remember one day in first grade, I went to spend the night at my best friend Dannica’s house for her birthday. I remember riding in the backseat of her moms car with her going to her house. We got there and celebrated. We watched Wreck It Ralph while eating pizza and jumping on her litter exercise trampoline. We both slept in her bed together that night. I’m pretty sure it was a king size bed. I remember she was about to fall asleep and she let me continue using her iPad before I fell asleep. I ended up falling asleep while using her iPad. In the morning her mom came to wake us up because we had to go to church. We were going to meet my parents there so I could go back home with them. The only problem was that Dannica didn’t want to get out of bed. She was being really stubborn. She just kept sleeping. Her mom couldn’t wake her up so I tried to. It didn’t work so her mom went to the bathroom and got a hot wet face cloth and draped it over Dannica’s face. That ended up working when the cloth got cold. When we got to church, dannica’s mom gave her her ADHD pill in the car before we got out. Long story short, we went to church and we managed to convince my parents to let me stay with Dannica for the rest of the day. Or for another night. I can’t remember which. When we got back in Dannica’s moms car after church, it was about to start raining. Mrs Mary, Dannica’s mom, kept an umbrella in the backseat. Dannica grabbed the umbrella, looked at me and said, “You know, it’s bad luck to open an umbrella inside.” She then proceeded to open this umbrella in the backseat of the car as her mom was trying to drive out of the parking lot. Now this wasn’t some small or medium size umbrella. It was a big one enough to fit two big beefy men. Of course, there was a lot of yelling and laughter before the umbrella got closed but it was still fun.

Also, when yall were younger and yall went on long drives and watched movies, how did yall watch the movie? I remember my dad got a new car when I was in kindergarten and with his old car, there was a little screen on the dashboard and you could put a DVD in the music CD slot and play a movie that was. My mom also every once in a while plugged her iPhone 4s into the car via the charger and played Netflix that way. In my dads new car, he does still have that screen thing but it doesn’t play movies. I don’t think. I’m pretty sure we’ve tried it and it didn’t work. Anyway, how we watched movies in the new car was we had this really old portable DVD player that I’m pretty sure my mom got when she still lived in Canada. She immigrated here in 1997. Side story: I actually remember going to the court house with my mom when she got sworn in as a US citizen. I was 2 years old.

While I do not know how adept I am at describing my processes, I figure it’s better to try than not, because the topic for this post is writing description! Writing description is one of my favorite things to do in writing. Kind of. There’s a lot of things I like about writing.

First of all, this is basic knowledge, but it’s important you use all kinds of senses in description. Not only does it improve your work, but it also includes people who may not have certain senses, such as smell, sight, sound, etc. While writing this I thought, “Well, there’s some exceptions, like when someone screams, what else can you do but say they scream?” But then I realized I was literally ignoring one of my favorite things to do, which is translating senses into different senses. I feel the best way to describe this is with some examples.

“The choked shriek crashes into you like a wave, drenching your psyche in icy terror that sends prickles across your skin.”

“The deep red and magenta hues of the dress brought to mind the feeling of smooth gemstones.”

“The hot cocoa smelt like soft, cozy moments by the fireplace.”

Of course, these have to make sense, but also I’m the type of person that feels these things sometimes. Birds chirping being popping bubbles of colors sounds like it makes sense to me. An emotion feeling mustard yellow makes sense to me. For someone who doesn’t feel these things, I’d imagine they’d have to draw off of researching symbolisms and thinking about association. Ironically I struggle on how to describe crafting this method. I ask, “Why does X feel like X?” Does a bite feel like a kiss because the character is so used to being bitten? Does the personality of someone feel minty green because they’re calm? Things like that.

There are a bunch of more tips I can think of, but I don’t want to make this blog too long. Hope this mini talk helped!

No one is really reading my blogs, but I have to post these for class so here we go.

So, I’ve been really obsessed with my characters Atlas and Cordelia so here’s more characters from their story. I’m going to start with their kids since they only have two.

Leo Levitan

• 6-7 years old 
• Mama’s Boy 
• The best big brother in the world
• Loves learning about different cultures.

 

Leo Levitan is a 6-year-old orphan immigrant from the Caribbeans. His birth mother died a few months after giving birth to him. While his birth father was killed by some family members in an inheritance fight. Leo was sent to an orphanage in Mystic Hill where he was adopted by Cordelia and Atlas. Leo doesn’t talk much but he does communicate in other ways with his family.

 

Emma Levitan 

• 2 years old
• Giggly/Wiggly
• Loves fruit.
• Leo is her favorite person.

 

Emma Levitan is the 2-year-old daughter of Cordelia and Atlas. She does know who her daddy is. They visit every weekend when Leo doesn’t have school. Emma loves fruit, her favorites are bananas, strawberries, and mangos. Emma’s favorite person in the world is her big brother.

 

Hadrian 

• Atlas’s little brother 
• 19 years old 
• Does not like crowds 
• Loves his family.

Luna 

• 17 years old 
• Works at the kindergarten that Emma goes to 
• Loves drawing. 
•  The kindest person in Mystic Hill

 

Hadrian is the younger brother of Atlas. He is a high school dropout. He works under their dad. He stays with Cordelia to help with the kids while Atlas is still in prison. He meets Luna when he was picking up Emma. After a while they started talking and now you can’t ever find one without the other.

    Luna is one of the assistant Kindy teachers at Emma’s school. She moved to Mystic Hill when her family had borrowed some money from the wrong people. Luna took job at the Kindy school to get away from her parents who were becoming toxic to her and each other. One day during pick-up Luna meets a new person picking up one of the youngest kids, his name was Hadrian. Luna slowly fell in love with Hadria. Now their story and love continue to grow.

 

Some other characters are:

Oliver -> Mystic Hill’s Golden good boy 

James -> Mystic Hill’s best monster tamer 

Noah -> Mystic Hill’s best potion master 

Maeve-> Mystic Hill’s best warrior 

Aurelia & Benjamin-> Cordelia’s Mom and Dad 

Nicholas & Eloise-> Atlas’s Dad and Stepmom

I apologize in advance y’all these are a mess and probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day otherwise 

Untitled 1;

I like to think my prayers are heard by the birds. 

I like to think they listen, turn my pain into beautiful songs they chirp without shame. 

I like to think the roosters wake the world to my suffering. 

Because what is pain to feel if it always goes unrecognized? 

Maybe misery doesn’t necessarily love company as much as it hates isolation. 

My misery isn’t meek, its a lion. 

Roars when silenced and bites when tried to be kept at bay. 

Untitled 2; 

There isn’t a bird in the sky who hasn’t heard me scream to the heavens for you. 

Your absence an everlasting wound no bandage could close. 

As long as you’re gone I’ll always bleed. 

As long as your smile isn’t within sight. 

As long as your arms can’t hold me. 

My blood shall soak all thats beneath me. 

Every path I take shall be stained with red. 

Untitled 3; 

To be vain is one of the worst sins of all. 

To be vain is to be handicapped. 

It steals your ability to progress on the path to improvement. 

To be vain is to be stolen from. 

It steals your ability to truly know yourself. 

Your flaws play an important role in who you are, 

Blind yourself to that can only be a disservice. 

Maybe that is why you feel yourself compelled to harp on mistake made many moons ago. 

You musn’t forgive yourself for any wrongdoings because then that should mean you’re blinding yourself to your true nature. 

Untitled 4; 

I has befallen me, 

              Snow, a winter’s soft kiss decorates the ground in blankets beneath my feet. 

It has befallen me, 

              Sunshine, the worlds grin paints your skin illuminating you with its light. 

It has befallen me, 

               Your laugh, a glorious song in which no notes could capture

               There are no lyrics worth accompanying your beautiful melody. 

It has befallen me, 

                March’s swarm of pollen stings my eyes but paints your nose such a lovely shade of red I can’t bother to mind it. 

It has befallen me, 

               Autum’s warm pallet of brown and orange. 

Untitled 4; 

The words on my paper might as well be etched in my blood that is how much they are apart of me. 

We’re just going to talk about movies that have given me crazy reactions. I don’t know if any of you watched these before, but just in case you haven’t; there may be some spoilers.

SIGHTLESS 

                             I feel like I’ve talked about this movie before, but I’m still going to talk about this anyway.   

This movie was devastating a bit but the way the characters developed was so manipulating to my sense of mind that I could not be content with the ending. Yes, the character is strong, but why did she have to be resilient in that way?  It’s just, the protagonist, Ellen had the whole life she knew taken away from her.  Then when she thought she found someone to give her world back to her in some kind of form, it turns out to be distorted. She couldn’t even see colors the same way anymore, and the way they just put the viewers into her perspective was so deep that even the colors she couldn’t see looked dull to me.  If that makes sense.  I can’t really just explain it to you without spoiling it, you would just have to watch it.  Like the pacing was great and I loved how we saw what was in her mind and not what was in reality.  Also, my sister obsessed over the shot design.  

Anyway- The movie is about a violinist who was attacked and lost her sight.  She’s moved to this apartment by people she can’t see but can only hear.  Which is way important to this plot as she begins to start hearing some stuff that sounds paranormal.  So, with that, the twist left my jaw on the floor.

 

 

THE MIST 

 

I mostly adore all of Stephen King’s works, so I was a little iffy about the movie when I very first read the summary of it.  It has giant bugs in the plot which we couldn’t see.  I think that it benefited the plot that we couldn’t see the bugs because it’s kind of amped up that mental distrust.  We were seeing the characters be tortured by a threat that they couldn’t even see all the way.  There were signs that the giant bugs were there, but since the movie was more philosophy driven it was like the bugs were just a domino factor.  It seemed Stephen King needed them as the starting domino to push the conflict between the characters together. I can’t explain but this movie really makes you ponder on the survival instincts of humanity.  Like, how far will we go to survive?  Also, a bonus is that the movie was purposely grainy so that it could have that old bedtime monster pizzazz. 

Any who- The movie is a science fiction horror movie that mostly focuses on a father and son who’s trapped with a bunch of people in a store.  And all of these people have different views on how they can survive through the weird catastrophe.  The ending is insane.  If you get emotionally damaged really easily, I suggest you shouldn’t watch this movie. 

THE MENU

This movie plot is as tasty as the food in it.   I adore this movie heavily.  I’ve watched this about six times because each time I was making a new family member watch it with me so I could see their reactions (which most of the time, replicated mine) and hear their thoughts.  I enjoyed the main protagonist’s background development here and while her personality was written a little flat it was okay because her actions were diverse to me, so it kind of made up for it.  The person she was with at this restaurant was spontaneous to me and I didn’t see his character arc coming, and he was just those characters that made such an impact on the plot that it made you look at things kind of differently.   The chef also was an 8/10 but that’s just because I didn’t jump at the things he did.  Another thing, the setting was so fun to analyze, well the whole movie was, but the setting added a little spice to the drama. 

Any who – The movie is basically about this young couple who goes to this deserted island to eat at this exclusive restaurant where they encounter some issues and surprises.  Y’all this movie genre is Horror, Dark Comedy, and Thriller.  When I tell you I laughed because of how crazy this movie was, people should at least try this movie once.  Just saying in my opinion.  

THE VANISHED

I watched this movie in about early 2020 when it first came out. It was about 2 months since quarantine had started and one of the main things, I was doing for entertainment was binging every thriller and psychological movie on Netflix. It was going slow for a minute, I didn’t really find anything that just caught my attention, until… My sister and I came across The Vanished. 

This movie was gaslighting itself in a whole, you think you know the characters actions, what they plan to do, but no; you have no idea. I assumed this movie would just be about a regular suburban family who started having family issues with their marriage and raising their child, though now I wonder why I didn’t expect the darkest twist coming.  Also, the way the layers of this movie unravel were well written to me and the characters did stay in their roles, they just kind of evolved a little. 

Anyyywayy – The Vanished, is supposed to be about a nice good ole family vacation with a mother, a father, a daughter, and even the dog, though of course nothing can go well in these kinds of movies.  Since nothing can go well, the film had to make the daughter go missing.                                                               And of course, the parents will need to go insane to find her. 

That’s all, you all should go watch these movies if you haven’t yet. 

So for this week, I wanted to write more about music and albums. And I wanted to revisit the post I made week before last. I thought it would be neat to show you guys my favorite albums in themes of the covers. And this will start least to greatest in favor. 

I don’t know where to even start. This album was introduced to me by Cooper, and I think its one of my favorites. The slow music, the soft vocals. I want to have this on vinyl so badly. This just seems like the perfect album to slowly drift away to as you fall asleep. If you’ve had bad day and you just need to be somewhere else for a moment, this album takes you there. 
I really like the cover as well. Albums with Dog covers always have a special place in my heart, this one especially. 

I really like this album. I think it’s really unique. It combines instrumentals and vocals I’ve never seen before. The vocals themselves are especially unique. I’ve always been a fan for vocals that put everything in their work. The Lyrics are really heartbreaking in some areas too. I would highly recommend this album if your ever getting out of a nasty relationship.

I’ve liked Alex G for a long time without even realizing it. I liked these songs but never really put the name to the songs. So When I found out who wrote them, I immediately went through Alex G’s albums race and treehouse. I knew about treehouse back in like… 2020 I think. Anyways the vocals in this our interesting, I don’t think I could put a label on them, but the instrumentals are really good. However, if your looking to get into Alex G, I would recommend his album “Race” first.

I was introduced to this album recently by Erin, It quickly reached one of my top favorite albums. Technically the mascot is a dog so…. I’m counting it. 
I really enjoy this album, the Lyrics, vocals, and instruments all come together to make this beautiful cacophony of music. I’ve been slowly going through Car Seat Headrest’s albums, And I’ve had a general liking for the most part. I think one or two of the songs are like 14 minutes, which I can find hard to pay attention to for long. However, I can still appreciate the hard work that goes into them. 

One of my favorite albums of all time. It’s a short 3 song album however, I love each and every song. “Change your name” Has been a long time favorite of mine. I don’t even remember how I came upon this album. I just remember it always kind of being there. The vocals are really heavy, and the instruments are really neat. I would highly recommend this album to anyone who likes rock. 

Anyways, those are my favorite Dog Themed albums. Thanks for reading this far! I don’t know what I’m doing for next week’s post, but I’m thinking more themed albums like this one. 

So, for today’s blog I really wanted to talk about something that has been bugging me lately. And yes, I am aware that I am a little late to this whole thing, but I really have ben itching to talk about it so. 

 

I do want to give a quick disclaimer though, a lot of the topics that I am about to touch on I cannot completely understand, ideas of being MTF, or even what it means to be a woman is something that I cannot really give too much of an insight on because, yk. But anyway, I digress.

So, about a month ago a popular influencer named Dylan Mulvaney came out with a song called “Days of Girlhood” this song was to commemorate her two-year anniversary of when she came out as trans and when she began to document her journey through her transition digitally. The song has had a relatively negative view by most, when it comes to my personal experience with it, when it comes to the music itself, it isn’t exactly my style, and while a lot of people agree, this isn’t the issue. Instead of critiquing the song itself, hundreds of people online have used this song as an excuse to spread misinformed and transphobic hate speech. 

The largest percentage of people who are making these videos and supplying hateful comments such as these are what most people have deemed as “TERFS”

If some of you aren’t familiar with this term I will explain, terf is an acronym for “trans exclusive radical feminist” this to be put simply is someone who agrees with most feminist ideologies but does not acknowledge trans women to be actual women. The main argument that they provide is that Dylan gives the song a marginalized “dumb girl” side that most women fight hard against, however this is not really the case, from my experience listening I don’t think that in any way does she say that this is what girlhood is, instead all she is doing is providing her individual experience. (She also gives some really valuable insight on the trans experience in her song so for that alone I recommend that you check it out.)

Dylan contributed a song deemed just another “white girl song” WHICH IS COMPLETELY FINE. For the most part, I don’t even really like the song but to use it as an excuse to try to say that all it does is prove that “Dylan isn’t a real girl” or “what she is doing is harming other women” is unacceptable. The way you orientate yourself with the music you choose to create is never an issue unless it causes pain to others, there have been so many songs that have been similar to what Dylan has made, songs such as “I’m just a girl” by Gwen Stefani or “Girls just want to have fun” by Cyndi Lauper have proven to be staples in millions’ playlists and music tastes, they were created and no one had a problem with them, but the moment a trans woman makes one it is as if suddenly they become harmful. Even though I have a lot more to say about the situation I will leave it at this final statement: Just because a song doesn’t sound good doesn’t mean that gives you an excuse to be transphobic.

 

Here are a couple of people who put in some really good opinions if you want to check them out. Also, if you want to stream the song here is the link, Days of Girlhood – Single by Dylan Mulvaney | Spotify

There are a couple movies/shows out there that I’m convinced only I’ve watched. For example (here comes the list):

 

Kubo and the Two Strings

I feel like no one has seen this. It came out in 2016 and I watched it in either 2018 or 2019. My brother was like “Hey Georgia, wanna watch a movie about two strings?” I was so confused. Anyway, it was a good movie.

 

Wonder Pets

Again, I’m convinced no one has seen this. I never watched it on any streaming service but I did go to the Long Beach public library and check out a DVD copy of like five of the episodes. “The phone. The phone is ringing. There’s an animal in trouble. There’s an animal in trouble.”

 

Oswald

I swear to god I’ve brought up this show so many times and no one has heard of it. I had a couple of the episodes on DVD when I was younger and I’m pretty sure I still have it. One of the episodes involved Oswald putting too many popcorn seeds in the popcorn popper thingy and then too much soap in the pool outside and he went to go up the stairs to get popcorn but the popcorn was like flooding down the stairs and then bubbles from the pool were like flooding up the stairs and he got somehow trapped on the stairs. I remember being like five and seeing that and being like, “why can’t he just walk through the bubbles?”

 

Pingu

Ok I feel like people have probably seen this one considering it was a little bit popular on social media a while ago. This was like my favorite show as a kid. That and Garfield.

 

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

 

Ok I have no idea if people have heard of Wallace and Gromit but if you haven’t, you are uncultured and should be locked up (in my opinion). I had this, again, on DVD and both my brother and I watched it multiple times. I remember when we got it I was like 3 so my brother was 6. I was talking with him about this episode a couple months ago and he told me it scared him and after watching this show he wouldn’t go near rabbits again. I thought that was really funny considering I was three years younger than him when we both saw it and I wasn’t scared. Pretty much all of the Wallace and Gromit series was my entire childhood.

 

The Great Mouse Detective

THIS WAS AMAZING YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT. I remember the scene where the dad gets kidnapped scared me and so did the bat. That bat really FREAKED me out.

 

Garfield and Friends

I forking loved this series. 10/10 definitely my favorite repeat series. That and the original seasons of The Garfield Show.

 

Dexter’s Laboratory

I feel like people might have seen this one but I’ve never heard people talk about it. Like ever.

 

The Yogi Bear Shoe (1961)

I haven’t ever heard anyone talk about this show. I lived for this series when I was like three. The sound Yogi made when he ate a sandwich always made me want a sandwich. Now I want a sandwich.