Category: Junior Literary

 

i was sitting in Carter’s room last night, fiddling with the guitar that i was first starting to learn how to play when i heard his roommate say something that got me thinking. parker was never one to say many things with much subsistence, not that he didn’t have the capability to, but because he tended to stay on light topics.  However, he asked us something that got me thinking. He said “I’ve realized that some of the best artists that have ever walked the earth struggle with some kind of life changing issue, do you think that there is something connected to all of that?”

a question like that wasn’t something i had expected out of him, it kinda was, however in that moment it wasn’t what i was expecting. and it really did get me thinking, was the pain that you experienced something that could enhance the quality of your heart, or was the art you created a reflection of the pain in which you put into the work. there were so many prominent artists of every accord which experienced so much pain, whether it be authors such as hemingway or poe, or painters such as da vinci or hopper. though i think that the form of art in which this is the most prominent is music, elliot smith, kurt cobain, ian curtis, these are all names of people whose suffering was so prominent that it caused their demise, however the beauty of their music serves as something that is a world of a difference. It was a difference that was monumental beyond any accord, but was it because of the things they experienced that caused the influence of their music to be better than it might’ve been? That is, what I wonder about the most. I don’t think I have a finite answer because the art I create come from both premises.

This one’s a little long but oh well.

1. I was like 2 and my dad took me with him to Lowe’s and we were in the aisle with those drawers filled with the fun designed door knobs and whenever we were in that aisle, I would always look at the doorknobs. Anyway, one of the workers went up to help my dad and they started talking and my dad walked out of the aisle WITHOUT ME while I was looking at the doorknobs, distracted. Side note, WHO LEAVES THEIR TWO YEAR OLD ALONE IN A STORE?? Ya I get he only went a few aisles down but when your kid is that age they can easily wander off and get kidnapped. I did half of that. Let’s say I was in aisle D when I noticed my dad was gone. I started calmly freaking out and walked to aisle E. He wasn’t there. Then, I walked to aisle C and then B. He wasn’t there. I had just turned around to go back further the other way when this nice lady who worked there was like “Hey sweetie, are you lost?” and I nodded my head. She took me to the customer service desk and asked me what color shirt and pants my dad was wearing and then she made the announcement, “Will a father wearing a green shirt and tan shorts please come to the customer service desk. Your daughter is here.” Like five minutes later my dad came. He was mad at me for wandering off. I told him I didn’t know where he went and he said, “You could have just stayed there. I was coming back.” HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT??? I WAS TWO
2. I was like 2-3 and I was in my bathroom with the door shut and locked. I heard my dad coming up the stairs so I unlocked the door. He heard the click and asked me why I just locked the door. I told him I didn’t and I had unlocked it. He said, “No you didn’t. That was the sound of the door locking not unlocking.” They both sound very similar. I was grounded.
3. When I was in prek 4, I always had to stay for like two hours after school before my dad could pick me up. Both my parents worked late and whoever got off first picked my brother and me up. It was usually my dad. Anywho whenever he picked me up, he would ask me what color I got on. We had a color system, green, yellow, and red, to represent our behavior. My teachers hated me so I was always on red. Whenever he picked me up he would ask me what color I got on and I’d tell him red and then he would spank me. I started lying. One day he caught on and had the teachers give him notes telling him what color I was on. One day I decided to not lie and tell the truth. I told him I got on red. He was like, “really? lets go see I don’t believe you.” I guess he didn’t get the note that day because we walked to my classroom to see what color I was on. The teachers had already set all the cards to green by then and left. He saw I was on green (so was everyone else) and grounded me. When we got home he spanked me. I tried telling him that the teachers must have already reset the cards but he didn’t believe me because they usually never reset them that early.
4. I talked about this in one of my very first blogs. I’ll shorten it. We were re doing our driveway and my brother and I were playing in the front yard. My dad said my brother had to watch me. Thomas dug a hole and put me in it. I couldn’t get out. He went inside and left me there. My dad came to the front yard like 10 minutes later and saw me. He grounded me for being in the front yard by myself which I wasn’t allowed to do. I tried telling him what Thomas did but he didn’t care.
5. One time my dad had to take me with him to the next state over for his dr appt. We left the house a bit late so I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast. Side note: when I’m hungry I get really nauseous. We were a few blocks away from the hospital where his appt was and I threw up in the car. He grounded me for puking??? I was like two!!! I think. Yes I was two. This was a few months after we had moved to Mississippi.
6. One time my dad asked me a question and he didn’t like how I answered it so he grounded me. This actually happened a couple of times.
7. When I was in pre-k4 my dad said if I came home with food on my shirt he would ground me. I was like 3-4, of course I was going to get food on my shirt. Low and behold, I’d come home with food on my shirt and he would ground me.
8. Ok this last one isn’t a stupid reason why I was grounded but it’s kinda funny. The summer before sixth grade my mom grounded me from my electronics (my iPad, her iPad, the TV, her computer, etc.) “until further notice” and she said if I ever asked her about it, she would sell my iPad. I never asked her about it. She forgot I was grounded. She never ungrounded me. I’m still grounded. After a couple of months I slowly started using my iPad again and she didn’t say anything so I just went back to using everything. I reminded her about this last year and her response was something about her just thinking I got sick of the internet or something. So in short, I’ve been grounded for about six years all because my mom forgot to unground me. Very fun.

I am coming in last minute with this topic today, which is just about writing in general. Well, more specifically, how my writing has changed over time. I recently freed an old, dusty story from the basement of drafts, and that is what sparked this. I don’t think I want it to be my main focus for future projects, but the difference between when it began and when I resurrected it is very eye opening for me.

Originally, I had left the story years back due to how messy its plot and world was. There was a good premise and neat atmosphere, but I never got around to truly developing the society. Plus, the character goals were really odd, and I wasn’t incorporating some cool ideas right. Eventually I drifted away from that world, and whenever I thought about it again, I knew I wasn’t going to revive it. Not in a sad way; I just wasn’t interested in fixing it up when I had other things I wanted to work on more. 

But then, I had an assignment I was struggling to complete. That assignment lead to me thinking of the story, and, in need of at least something on paper, I got to writing. I did not remember anything super in depth, but I remembered the premise. Because I only remembered the premise, and because of how my skills have grown, I found myself enjoying the story much more. Now it actually felt coherent, and the changes my mind made to fill in blank memories made the plot much more interesting to my  eyes now. Plus, I’ve grown a lot more adept at worldbuilding.

Looking back at notes on what the plot used to be doesn’t make me embarrass me, but I actually find it really interesting. “Oh, man, you didn’t focus on that idea more?” “Wait, this was never actually supposed to happen?!” It’s given me a closer look at just how much I’ve grown. I still have a lot more growing to do.

Maybe one day I’ll revive other basement stories just for fun, but I think I’m good for now.

Camp Lakebottom 

My twin and I were obsessed with this show. The premise of it is basically kids at this really freaky summer camp run by monsters that are overrunning with tons of weird phenomena. I literally never hear anybody giving this show its flowers. To this day it’s one of my favorites. 

 

Walk the Prank 

This show is kind of like Kid Punk’d meets the office-ish. The pranks themselves are said to be real and on real people but it’s spliced together with this scripted show about kids who make a prank show. The elements of it that are scripted are shot like the office while the pranks are reminiscent of punk’d. 

 

The Haunted Hathaways 

I’m sure people know about this show but like why don’t we talk about it. It’s a story about this single mom and her two daughters who move into this house that they don’t know is haunted by the ghost family of a single dad and two sons. I watched this show a lot when I was little and it was mostly a hit or miss. 

 

Crash and Bernstein 

This is a show I never hear anybody talk about. It’s about this kid who only has sisters and he wishes for a brother so this living puppet comes and takes the role of his brother. I loved this show from the theme song to the humor. I was obsessed, there isn’t one episode that I would consider a miss. 

 

Gamers Guide to Pretty Much Everything 

I love video games, and I thought this show’s premise was cool. Which is just a group of kids who play competitive video games. Not to mention Cameron Boyce was in it so I definitely wanted to watch it. 

Gullah Gullah Island 

To be completely honest I couldn’t even tell you the premise of this show besides there’s this huge frog that lives with this family. And when I tell you I was PETRIFIED of this frog. It would come on late at night and I didn’t know how to turn the tv so I would just cover my eyes whenever it came on screen. 

The Fresh Beat Band 

This show is honestly a blur the most I remember is a group of teens and smoothies beyond that I couldn’t tell you but I watched it a lot. 

Poyoco 

For some reason this show heavily intrigued me, there’s no strong premise but none of the characters speak and their actions are narrated by a narrator.

What’s up everyone I have a title today. So, this week’s blog is going to be on this old cartoon that me and my sisters use to watch. Now, so of you maybe be thinking in your head “This is stupid. There is no way I’ll be surprised by whatever it is she’ll talk about.” Well, my dear friends let me welcome you to:

Disney’s House of Mouse 

Now, House of Mouse ran on ABC and Toon Disney (till it was rebranded to be Disney XD) from 2001-2003. I don’t really remember when me and my sister started watching this show, but I think it might have been sometime back in elementary school. If you didn’t know about this show and want to go watch it I sorry to say that it is not available on Disney Plus, but the Lilo & Stitch: The Series which came out in 2003 is on Disney Plus but I digress. Anyway, The House of Mouse follows Mickey and his friends as they run a club called, you guessed it, House of Mouse. The club is mainly just used to show cartoons of Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Daisy, Donald, Pluto, Pete, Clarabell, Mortimer Mouse. The show also has other characters from all of Diseny’s shows and movies (that was created before 2001). 

      My favorite episode of the show is the episode Dennis the duck. In this episode It’s Black-and-White Day at the House of Mouse, and the club is packed with old black and white cartoon characters. This was my favorite episode because I have loved those old black and white cartoons since I was young. Those were some of the first cartoons I can remember watching on the Samsung tablets that my parents got me and my sisters.

 

So, I decided to add another cartoon to this blog, and I really believe that none of you know what this one is. 

 

Now google is saying this show ran from 2008-2023 but I don’t really believe that because I think the last episode of the show came out in 2010 and there hasn’t been anything about the show since then. 

     So, what was Angel Friends? Angel Friends was a cartoon that followed a group of Angels and Devils that are sent to Earth to follow the lessons and participate in a stage, that will lead them to becoming Guardian Angels and Guardian Devils. The stage provides Angels and Devils to form pairs, each of which will have to deal with a human called the Earthly Ones, and help him or her, undetected, to choose between the right path and the wrong one.

This show was really good, and I mainly watched it because at the time I was really obsessed with another show called Winx Club. That’s how I found this show, but I ended up sticking around for the story and the characters but guys when I tell you that this show is a product of its time I mean it. It’s really a good show I don’t really know if it came on TV, but I watched it on YT off the official YouTube page.

I am actually so stoked. After four long years of waiting, Oolong has finally released another album. I did an entire blog about them near the beginning of the year, which I’m slightly revisiting now. 

It’s actually really funny how I stumbled upon this album. I was scrolling around on Twitter (yes, I still call it twitter cause what are you supposed to say ” I just made an X” no lol) Anyways, I was scrolling through twitter when I found Oolong’s page, I was surprised they even had one, and even more surprised that they had a large number of followers. But I was scrolling through their recent posts and found a “tweet” saying that they had just released a new album That day. 

I looked through it, and it looked promising with a whopping 21 songs. I was absolutely excited to listen to it. 

However, it is with complete sorrow that I say not all these songs were bangers. 
The instrumentals were amazing in all of them; however, the lyrics / vocals didn’t feel the same in most of the songs. I was halfway thought album expecting it to get better. It seemed like they were more focused on the delivery of the vocals they didn’t care much whether the lyrics themselves were the best. 

But I still have hope, I genuinely believe that this might be a huge steppingstone into more oncoming albums. I just hope they’ll revisit a style more like their first original album. 

Out of all the 21 songs, I think I could only recommend like, five. 
Although I wasn’t a big fan of most of these songs on their album, I can’t recommend the band enough. (although I’d start with their “Imaginary friends” album first)
Their second to last song on the album was really good. “F*** it, Lego hands” It’s definitely a hit or miss, But I liked it a lot. 
Anyways, thanks for letting me waste your time on Oolong once again. 

preliminary: People look at funeral services as a vehicle for bitterness and mourning, and it’s true, they are. They can be. But I’ve seen, funerals become a vehicle for celebration, getting to know this person in your life and see what everyone else saw. I think this was meant to be a study of that, but I never got far with it.

This is a funeral for a teenage Boy, Nicholas Todd. Everyone tries their best to speak on him, but everyone has their own perceptions. This story is only in its exposition phase, so it may be a bit boring.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

MR. TODD: Nicholas’s father, just about 53 years of age. He’s known to be very quiet and thoughtful, always something but tonight, he is falling short.

MRS. TODD (not appearing): Nicholas’s mother. Candid, sweet. A couple years younger than her husband, but still loves her kid all the same.

DEVIN (not appearing): Nicholas’s best friend. Last speaker of the day.

 

(at rise) An array of chairs sits in front a single podium as a casket lays diagonally to the audience. Everything is sort of drab as the decorations are simple and hastily put together. Everyone is dressed in black.

(lights up) A preacher steps up to the podium, says a few words, people wipe their eyes, and Nicholas’s father walks up to the podium.

 

MR. TODD

I’m not good with words. I’m sure my son could’ve told you that. I’m pretty sure he did. But I’ll try my best today.

I’ve been trying to come up with a story to tell, because that last thing I’d want to do is embarrass my son at his own funeral—But whenever I tried to come up with a story to tell, my mind just came back to this one. And if here I am, telling you all now, obviously, that means I didn’t kept my word.

The crowd laughs.

MR. TODD

When my son was a boy, about five or six, he was obsessed with the show on TV: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. It had just come out the year before—we bought it on DVD, and everytime we put it on, he was ecstatic. It was his favorite show. I never saw the promise in it, but what the hell did I know, I was a man almost in my forties with a five-year-old.

Over the summer, he kept watching and watching it, and eventually just had the—the whole thing down by memory. And around August of that year, we saved up to go to the Zoo, down in—down in Pittsburgh. We saw all sorts of animals, zebras, monkeys, gorillas—But what I’m never going to forget was the tiger exhibit. What he did was he stared for about five seconds and then he stormed off. So downhearted. May tells me to follow him, so I go up to him and ask, “Nicky what’s wrong?” He shakes his head and says, “Daddy, that’s not what a tiger looks like.”

MR. TODD laughs, covering his face
with his hands.

MR. TODD

That was my boy right there. Never grew out that love of animals. Told me when he was eleven he wanted to get a frog. Bless her heart, Mae nearly fainted.

MRS. TODD is audibly heard,
laughing in the crowd.

 

To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was going to do this, mainly because I thought that I had done it before but after review I don’t think that I have, I think it might have just had something to do with how many similar music blogs I read but I digress. I also want to say that these are in no particular ranking or order. 

 

So, first off, I want to talk about how much I love this band as a whole, late night drive home is one of my favorite bands of all time and I don’t see them leaving that ranking anytime soon, the most unique aspect of this band for me is that I think that it is going to be the only upbeat album on this list. I have never been one to be crazy for upbeat music, I used to be but as I have gotten older it has started to deplete a bit.

Memo boy is an anomaly to me, it is one of those things where I am pretty sure most people know about their music however no one really knows that it is their band, it is one of those things where if you were to hear songs such as insomnia or facebook.com and you realize you’ve heard it online but I would strongly recommend you listen to more of their music.\

I cannot emphasize how this artist has simultaneously put me through horrible things and got me through everything all at the same time. It is honest to God more like an acquired taste than anything. Which I know is an odd description for music, but it is great, nevertheless. I am quite literally in the top 0.01 percent of their listeners and I know that say a lot about me but I DONT CARE.

This is one of the artist groups that I recommend to everyone that asks me for recommendations, their vibe, their music, their collaboration quality is just EVERYTHING. I am a die-hard lowertown fan and even though their audience is on the smaller side the quality of their music is still just as incredible as any popular indie bands. My favorite songs of theirs have to be gaping mouths, it is like a weird combination of a song and a manifesto, and I love it.

 

I have absolutely no idea what to write about. Usually I have some weird story to tell but this time I have nothing. For the past hour and a half I’ve been re-learning how to use powerpoint because the last time I used it was when I was in 4th grade and now I have to use powerpoint to make a presentation for my Chinese class for my final exam. 

Oh my god I just thought of something I did when I was younger. I was like two years old and I had just seen Mary Poppins so I grabbed my little spiderman umbrella and ran to the backyard where my mom had built this table. I climbed on the table, walked to the edge, opened my umbrella, stood there for about 5-10 minutes, climbed down, and went back inside. I was going to jump off the table and float down with my umbrella like how Mary Poppins did but I was too scared and chickened out.

Do yall remember those cringy POV videos people used to post on tiktok in like 2019-2020. They’d be about something like “when you turn 16 the government gives you an adjective and that’s how you have to act for the rest of your life but now you’re 17 and you don’t have one so you pretend you have one so the government won’t kill you” or something like that. I was scrolling through reels the other day and I saw one of those that someone had reposted from tiktok.

I literally have no idea what my short story is going to be about but I do, however, know that whatever it’s about, it will be trash. For that, I apologize in advance. Maybe I’ll write a story but some of the character lines are lines from songs. I don’t know. If y’all wanna use that idea, go for it. Oh god my back hurts.

At this point I’m just rambling. I do that a lot. Earlier today my brother and I were talking and I said he and I should find new land, create our own empire and anyone who abuses a dog should be punished with wet dog food. Can you even imagine how awful that would be?? Like wet dog food already stinks. I bet it would taste awful if it got in your mouth while being suffocated. I heard a statistic years ago that suffocation was one of the worst ways to die.

That reminds me of this one time in 5th grade I went with my mom to get my hair done because it was my birthday and one of her friends recommended this lady who worked at her hair salon in her house. It was so weird. She was weird. I had really long hair that was about 4-5 inches past my shoulders and I cut it all off to my chin and got highlights. I wanted blonde highlights but the lady messed up my hair and they turned out some shade of orange. It still looked good because of the shade my hair was back then but it wasn’t what I wanted. My mom also wanted highlights and the lady was like “ohh nooo you should let me dye your hair orange!” WHAT?? ORANGE?? Anyway my mom kept telling the lady no but the lady kept pestering my mom so my mom caved. It looked so bad. It was like a yellowish mandarin orange. My mom saw it and had this look on her face that obviously said she hated it and the hairdresser lady kept going on and on about how good it looked and even then she said if in a few days my mom didn’t like it anymore she could come back and she would fix my moms hair for $200. I kid you not she actually said that. We never went back there.

Ok well, I’ve rambled enough. Until next time.

As I write this I am FOAMING AT THE MOUTH. Houseki no Kuni has officially ended today, April 25th, 2024, and though i haven’t read it due to availability things, the hype is STILL THERE. I am screeching. I am rolling. I am a frog. Man. To honor this occasion, and also because I just want to write about Houseki no Kuni again, I’m going to share SOME of my favorite panels from volume 12, which were the last chapters up until today. With that said:

 

This blog post DOES INDEED CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS for the Houseki no Kuni manga, also known as Land of the Lustrous.

 

Now, onto the panels! I was only able to get some pictures because I was on a time limit, plus there’s a lot of moments I love, so no ranking today! These are in no specific order.

 

THIS ENTIRE SCENE 

 

Cinnabar is such an interesting character to me, and they have so many moments that are stuck in my brain. This, this moment, though- this has to be one of my top favorite. Cinnabar’s blank expression as they agree with Phos’ snide commentary, not backing down even though they believe what Phos says. The fact that Phos’ dialogue is literally partly them voicing their own views on themself, with how others behaved around them before they went to the moon. It’s an amazing look into both Cinnabar and Phos’ character, and it does the story incredibly scrumptious justice. Also, the mercury-phos Cinnabar crushes between their palm is a stinging callback to near the beginning, when they preformed the same action (minus the crushing) to say they weren’t completely giving up on Phos yet.

BRO. BRO THE ART. BEAUTIFUL.

DO I EVEN NEED TO ELABORATE. The clashing shapes, the way Phos’ spikes stretch towards Cinnabar, the way Cinnabar’s mercury lash out at Phos, the impeccable shiny texture of both substances, the emphasis on the battle, the varying character in each stance. Haruko Ichikawa is a master of detail, and this scene DELIVERS.

Stares

The signature symmetry is back at it again, and GRHRHRHR. This moment is so pivotal to the plot, and the construction of the scene is so chompable. I especially love how you can make out different, distinct characters in the crowded clouds, and Phos’ people being centralized despite their lower population. I can’t imagine how Phos must have felt in this moment. 

Bonus!

The cover of the volume itself. Compared to all previous volumes, this cover is very desolate and empty, which adds a very tasty contrast. The contrast isn’t for no reason, either: the emptiness and somber tone is likely due to the story within. It wouldn’t be fitting for the cover to be colorful and full when the main character is isolated and suffering.