Hello Lovelies,  I’m excited to welcome you all back to another Thriller review. 

For this post, I wanted to rank and explain the details of a Hulu show that has been trending on most of my TikTok feeds.   Some might have heard of it and if you didn’t it’s okay.  The show did skip two years to introduce a new season after originally running on Freeform.   Meaning, that a lot of people who didn’t have DirectTV, Dish, or any non-streaming channel;  most likely missed this.        I’m going to start off by writing that,  this show has a lot of layers and the first two episodes of each season were boring.  Yes, it was boring and I’m not ashamed to say it because the production team did a whole 360 and left my jaw on the floor.   There were so many plot twists I couldn’t even see all of them properly.   Listen, it wasn’t even the “ too many” plot twists, each curve and Red Herring left me packing my suitcase and saying “Bye Bye” because I couldn’t believe it.  Now, with my quirky intro over, let’s talk about the difference between the two seasons of  Cruel Summer.  

 

Season 1 

This one right here will forever be my favorite.   This season was deceiving and confusing.  The way the writers unravel each detail is great, and each new scenario is so intricate that you can barely be mad that we didn’t have a hero.  The only way you can understand what I mean is to watch it yourself.  For some people though, you really just don’t have the time. That’s why I’m going to give you a quick little background information to visualize it yourself. 

Cruel Summer is told in three parts, this is the format for each season.  There’s the two past, and then there’s the present.  The first track of the past is 1993.   This shows the build-up of what’s going to take place, in this case; one of the main character’s disappearance.  The second track is 1994, which explains the aftermath of what already took place.  The last track is 1995, which is the present.   All of these times sew up together just the right way. 

Season 1 gives us an insight into the lives of Kate Wallace and Jeanette Turner.  Kate is made out to be a kind, sweet, cheerful girl.   People say she never lies and that you can get really close to her because her soul is so  beautiful.  Some might say you Hate To Love her, that’s probably why she’s so popular.  Then we have our completely not so completely opposite of  Kate,  her name’s Jeanette.    Jeanette admires the life she wants from afar.  That life is, the perfect boyfriend, all the best-looking friends, and the beauty, she loves the beauty.   Jeanette doesn’t think she has the beauty but she loves her “misfit” group of friends.  She just doesn’t admire her braces or her glasses, she’ll trade her frizzy brown hair for silk blonde hair any day.  This is what we see from the Summer of 1993,  the contrast that both girls share.   How one admires the other one, while that one secretly loathes their expectational life.  This is what the producers want us to see, the difference between the two.   But soon the contrast turns into one defining trait once the other half disappears of all trace. 

We then see the early and late Fall of 1994.  Everything is in chaos, at this point though the chaos is more of a misidentity.   No one knows which role they were supposed to be playing.   After Kate disappeared her friends didn’t know who to follow,   Kate’s boyfriend didn’t know who to be affectionate with,  and the people didn’t know who they were supposed to Hate to Love.   The distress was all over though when Jeannette decided that everyone could follow her lead.  Jeanette planned for that role for about 3 months, she changed her hair to straight and voluminous, she took out her braces, and she started wearing revealing clothes, unlike Kate.  She actually almost had her down to the T, besides the clothes.   The other thing she was bad at was telling the truth or so we think.  The thing we do know for sure is that Jeanette is holding a deep secret behind her new pearly whites.                                                                                       

Next is the introduction of the present, which is the late Winter of 1995.   It’s when we watch all of Jeanette’s hard work blow up in her face.  We also find out what actually happened to Kate Wallace. 

This season blows your mind.  I literally threw my shoe at the TV.   Just like the Perfect Host you don’t recognize the hero or the villain.  You don’t even know if there IS a hero.  Which is personally a good ingredient to a great drama/mystery show.  

 

Season 2 

This season was amazing, but sadly I can only rank one of them on top.  

This part of the series was unexpected because after waiting two years, we got introduced to a whole new cast with a bunch of new complex characters.                  Just like the first season, this one was shown in three timelines.  There is the Summer of 1999, the Winter of 1999, and the Summer of 2000.   This season also follows computer genius and good/shy girl Megan Landy partnered with outgoing/bubbly Isabella LaRue who are all united by Luke Chambers(someone who I now love to hate, but also really love).  

In the Summer of 1999, we got the first peek into Megan’s personality.  She’s hard-working,  smart, and absolutely in love with Luke Chambers.  He doesn’t know that even though they are best friends.   Up next, we come to face the background of  Megan’s family.  They live a middle-class life.  The life with the two-story house that has about five bedrooms inside with a minivan outside.   Megan lives with her sister and her mom, who doesn’t really take care of her like a mom.  The viewers don’t know why she and her mom don’t have that cozy relationship until three episodes later. The only thing we do know so far is that Megan is upset because after her father abandoned them, Megan has to fill the role of everyone’s mom.  This new role brings light to the details of her character.                                                                                                                                      When introduced to Isabella we learn that she’s an exchange student that Megan’s family hosts for the first time ever.  This upsets Megan because her mom is trying to take care of another child when she can’t even care for her own.  That does make a good case until Megan’s mom points out she’s hosting Isabella because she needs friends, Megan can’t argue with that because her Senior Year is coming up and she’s lonely.  So who’s a better friend than bubbly, pretty, sparkly, friendly, and rich Isabella LaRue, whom I’m just going to refer to as Izzy.                                                                                                                                           We meet Izzy, and all we learn is that she’s rich and has been all over the world to different boarding schools.  We also learn that she “has” a best friend named Lisa and Megan reminds Izzy of her.  She says they are the same way.   But that’s not what we are talking about, what we are talking about is half of the first timeline we see how Megan is taking this new girl she has already set-up herself to hate all around her favorite spots of their small town called Richmond.   Richmond is where everyone knows everybody, and everybody knows the Chambers family.  Well, everybody except Izzy.  So when Megan introduces her to older brother Brent Chambers and younger brother Luke Chambers,  she already knows who she’s going to target first.  This very same target leads to someone floating in the Richmond Lake water.   Until we see the end and find out the floating somebody is dead.                                                            The second season to me was too much of a slow-burn.  I did enjoy the build-up though, but I wanted exposed secrets to punch me in the face like the first season, but it was more like meh.   It’s still good though, and each season is stand-alone which is awesome.  So I recommend you to please go watch it.  

I was sitting in my room recently, doing homework, chores, mundane daily tasks, just marinating in my loneliness for hours on end. I’m sure that any other MSA student can relate to the solitude that seems to take over everything once you lock your dorm room door. It can, at times (at least in my experience), feel like the whole world has disappeared, and it’s just you, a crappy old shower, and a few bunk beds against reality. If this ever happens to you, don’t fret. The last time I felt loneliness creeping into my bones, paralyzing me from grasping onto any rationality, I was lucky enough to be approached by Fire Hydrant Cat.

I had been up in my dorm all day, barely moving, stuck to either a phone screen or a sheet of paper. I attempted for a bit to hold onto my senses, but when I woke from my dissociative state and found myself on a bench outside, with no memory of how I got there, I realized they had left me long ago. This is a realization that should startle a person. However, I was not afraid. The second I resurfaced to the land of the conscious, I caught a glimpse of a small furry creature that found sanctuary under the shade of a fire hydrant. Yes, you guessed it: Fire Hydrant Cat.

It walked right in front of me with such audacity that I was immediately captivated. It was not a big cat at all – its skinny little legs and tiny face looked baby-ish and jovial, but I could tell by the way this feline strutted onto campus that it had already seen the world. This interested me. It was completely alone, and yet it did not seem scared, desperate for attention, or even remotely bothered. All that I picked up from this cat’s persona was confidence and peace.

The next evening, I came back to the bench. Fire Hydrant Cat returned just as I was halfway finished sketching the trunk of a tree. It was still alone, but still confident and unbothered. At first, I thought it was coming to beg for food, but when it sat in the same spot as the day before, in a patch of sun that warmed a perfectly soft blanket of grass, I realized it really was just coming to chill out. I appreciated this observation that I had made. It made me feel less obligated to give it something in return for its company.

When I am lonely now, rotting in the stench of my solitude, I always return to my little bench, and I wait until Fire Hydrant Cat inevitably comes to sit in its sun patch. Sometimes I draw it. Sometimes I just watch. Sometimes I acknowledge its presence, and it acknowledges mine, and then I proceed to doing different tasks — writing, reading, doing homework, etc. — until I feel relieved enough to go back to my room.

I learned some valuable lessons from Fire Hydrant Cat. First, I learned that I don’t need to feel guilty about being in someone’s company. I don’t have to pay them back for their time or feel indebted to them. Second, I learned to be alone with confidence. Alone time and isolation are two completely different things. Isolation is lonely and sad and crushing. I 100% do NOT recommend that. Neither does Fire Hydrant Cat, I’m sure. However, alone time can be beautiful. You can find a cool bench or a tree or a sun patch outside, and just bask in the glory of your own company. You can take a nap in your room and have epic, intricate dreams. You can journal and think and learn and grow. You don’t need anybody else in order to do those things. Just make sure that you don’t drown in the negativity that isolation can induce. If you ever start to do that, and if you’re ever feeling down, my advice is to walk around and find Fire Hydrant Cat. I’m sure it will have some wisdom to share with you.

I have found that a handful of critiques and artistic connoisseurs will identify different types of art into two categories, performing and nonperforming. I think that while this is an accurate interpretation and helpful indicator on identifying art, I think that performance pieces and performance artists are a prominent example of an artform that doesn’t adhere to that principle. While most people would automatically put performance pieces into the performing category, I think that they have just as important of an influence on the nonperforming artistic community as well.

 

Some who are reading this might be wondering what a performance piece even means, and at the expense of sounding like I’m giving a bad valedictorian speech I will give you a definition. Webster’s dictionary defines performance pieces as an art piece, exhibition, or installation that is created directly by the artist, collection of artists, or others. Performance art is often seen as what’s done when other more traditional art forms are not enough to get the artist’s point across. And while there are a number of prominent names in the world of artistic performance one of the most notable is Tehching Hsieh.

Hsieh was born on December 31st, 1956, in the southern region of Taiwan. He was the first of 15, growing up he said that while he thoroughly enjoyed learning as well as researching things that piqued his interest, such as philosophy and classical art, he never made very high marks in school. After graduating he served a mandatory three-year term in the Taiwanese military. It was only after his time served that he unveiled his first work titled “Jump Piece.” In this work Hseich recorded himself jumping a two-story building in Taiwan, twisting both of his ankles in the process. This would be his first and final piece that he performed in Taiwan, because in the early 1970’s he immigrated to New York City in a very unconditional manner. Hseich trained to become a sailor in 1974, eventually being granted a spot on a Taiwanese oil rig that was on route to the United States. However, Hsiech did not complete the trip, abandoning ship just miles out from Philadelphia he swam to shore and backpacked to New York.

Hsieh or (Sam) spent over four years in New York before beginning any art. He spent time as a dishwasher, cleaner, as well as waiter. Hsieh reported in The Guardian years later “When I got to New York, it took two years to find Soho. I’m illegal and I’m afraid of taking the subway. I only know Washington Square and I only know people doing portraits in the street, I don’t know this art scene.” It was only in 1978, over four years later, that Hsieh began the first of a series of five year-long pieces. This performance piece was titled “The Cage Piece.” Hseih created a homemade wooden cage which he encased himself in, he did not allow himself to speak, read, write, or consume any piece of media. The only interaction that he was permitted was once a day his colleague entered the room to empty his waste, give him food, and take a photograph of him to commemorate the process, his colleague was not allowed to give Hsieh any materials or speak a word to him. 

This was his first and one of his most significant pieces, followed by other works such as The Time Clock Piece, during which he clocked into a time clock every hour for a year.

The Outdoor Piece, a performance piece in which Sam did not go inside for the full duration of a year. He lived on the streets, never going inside buildings, shops, or any form of public transportation (cars, buses, subways), the only exception was when he was arrested, but was let off soon after. 

Rope Piece-in this piece he bound himself to a woman for a year, unable to leave her side, however what put this piece apart was that they were not able to touch either.

Looking back on all this I think that Hsieh is a true representation of artistic dedication. Whether it is through the harm that his body experienced or the extreme mental anguish that he experienced from a year without sleep I think that there are many people who should aspire to one day reach this level of commitment, of obsession. Because at the end of the day the true meaning of these pieces surrounds the passage of time, and how you shouldn’t waste it. 

Seinfeld, A Hilarious sitcom from the late 1980’s. 

A show about… “Nothing”.  Jerry Seinfeld, a comedian who often appeared in the Catching a Rising Star Night Club, had this amazing idea of a sitcom Tv Show about (in his words) “Nothing”. He first presented the Idea to NBC on November 2nd, 1988.  Then the show was later produced the next year. 

      I remember Waking up an hour early every morning in my freshman and sophomore year of high school before school started, to watch an episode or two of Seinfeld. It was surprisingly entertaining considering the show only follows a few main characters throughout their everyday lives. 
One Episode called “The Soup Nazi” Was all about getting soup from a local Soup Restaurant, with a Cheff that had extreme conditions for ordering the soup.

 

     

 

Rules like, Single File line, only talking about the ingredients, and waiting silently on the side. The Episode Follows Jerry’s Best Friend Geroge, trying to order soup, unaware of the conditions to place the said order, and eventually being banned from the restaurant for Talking too much. 
The rest of the episode is about how George gets his revenge by having the shop closed down by publicly Humiliating the Cheff. Or something along those lines.

But my point is that somehow this show takes the simplest of scenarios, and completely Turns it around making it one of the Most hilarious Sitcoms in the 80’s-90’s. Some of the episodes even reaching 9.5/10 stars by IMBD.
The show overall getting, 9.0/10 stars by IMBD.

Another example. 
One of the Episodes was all about how jerry had to go on live television, wearing a puffy shirt that made him look like a pirate. and the rest of the episode follows the people he knows mocking him for wearing such a ridiculous shirt on camera. Something most wouldn’t care about. Yet in the 80’s something so ordinary was called “Defining Comedy.” 

Seinfeld had a total of nine seasons and 173-180 Episodes, and a total of 2,800 actors over the course of the show. Some being Guest Stars like, Courtney Cox, who was in another famous sitcom that would later air in the 90’s, Friends.
Jon Favreau who directed, Iron Man, and The Mandalorian.  
Even Bryan Cranston, who would later be the star of one of Americas most famous TV shows of all time, Breaking Bad. And many more Guest Stars that made an appearance.  

Many of some of our favorite stars started at Seinfeld, rising to the top. 
Seinfeld was, for many, the rising action of their careers. So, if you ever feel up to watching 9 seasons of one of Americas funniest Sitcoms, I recommend you do it on Netflix.

So, what’s the deal with Seinfeld. 
Is it a genius idea, taking ordinary people in ordinary scenarios and calling it comedy? Or is it just a lucky hit in the late 80’s. 

Thats all from me.  
Thanks for reading. 
🙂

In 2021 Dreamworks came out with a new series for the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ franchise called “The Nine Realms”. Even though after the third movie came out I, like many others in the fandom thought that it was end of the franchise, was surprised to hear about a new show coming out for how to train your dragon series. I don’t think I have the space to go over all 6 seasons so I’m just going to go over season 1, it opens with a commit heading to earth, then we jump to our main protagonist Tom Kullersen and his mom heading to the Kullerson Fissure, a massive trench created by a meteor strike, which also is home to Project ICARIS: a scientific research station built to study the fissure. Tom meets 3 other kids; Jun Wong, who believes in all things mythical and magical; D’Angelo Baker, an animal-loving army brat; and Alexandra ‘Alex’ Gonzalez, a shy and reserved computer hacker. Tom runs off to see the fissure and helps Phillip Baker, Chief of Security, save a worker who nearly fell in when an earthquake struck, catching a glimpse of a glowing creature underneath the fissure. With some help from Alex, Tom finds the cave where the dragon lives and befriends it. While going on a flight with the dragon, an earthquake causes them to forcibly land and discover a crystalline cave with an entire realm filled with dragons. When Tom goes to the cave, Jun catches up and goes down to the cave where the Night Light sleeps. She is awestruck to finally meet a dragon in real life. Tom convinces her to keep the existence of the dragon a secret and, after naming it “Thunder”, brings her to the hidden world. She is amazed and sees a pack of dragons feasting on the crystals. She approaches some aggressive dragons. As they try to escape, Jun falls into a cavern while Tom and Thunder are kept busy by the aggressive dragons. She discovers a two-headed dragon with the ability to breathe fire and ice and unsuccessfully attempts to befriend them. As she laments her inability to train them, the dragon sympathizes with her and realizes they deserve respect. This allows her to bond with them and she names them “Wu and Wei”. While exploring the hidden world Tom and Jun notice an injured Gembreaker dragon nearby. As they try to help the dragon it becomes aggressive, and they decide to return to ICARIS to gather medical supplies. In the hospital area, D’Angelo is helping his mother arrange supplies and reveals to her his struggles with befriending the others. He catches Tom and Jun stealing a first-aid kit and wishes to come along as he possesses veterinary skills. A reluctant Tom reveals their secret to a terrified D’Angelo. They convince him to help the injured dragon. D’Angelo manages to get close enough to treat her and allows them to bond. Back at the cave, the group are practicing their stealth skills. Alex tries to find Tom in the woods and sees the dragons, which scares her and sends her running back home with the trio and the dragons in pursuit. The invisible dragon follows her and reveals itself to the group, which Alex is initially scared of. Her parents come home and let Alex hang out with her new friends by heading out. Alex tries to avoid the dragon and eventually opens to Tom about her past and fear of the outside world. After some comforting words from Tom, Alex bonds with the dragon. ICARIS experience dangerous tremors and Olivia suggests that they send a probe down the fissure to blow up the area that is the very source, Tom worries as it is to the entrance of the Hidden World. Wilma Sledkin arrives and tries to shut Olivia’s plan down. Concerned for their dragons’ safety, Tom and the others decide to send them to the hidden world. The kids discover that a burrowing dragon has been causing the quakes. Tom realizes that they’ll have to save their parents on their own. Tom and Jun take the probe into the fissure while D’Angelo and Alex keep watch. They confront the subterranean dragon and discover it is blind. Tom and Jun arrive at the entrance only to find it collapsed. Olivia and Baker carry out the plan, but the Fault Ripper knocks them unconscious. Thunder frees the probe allowing it to return to the surface. Together with the other kids, they defeat the dragon by exploiting its weakness to sound and send it falling into the fissure. Back at the cave, the kids swear to protect the dragon’s secret. Thunder marks a symbol on the rock which Tom recognizes from his mom’s ancestral Viking helmet. 

Now I understand the reputation that “Hamilton Kids” have but hear me out. 

I want to start the off by saying I wasn’t a part of the Hamilton fandom in either of its primes (I consider it to have two). I wasn’t involved in it when the musical first took off in 2015/2016 or when the filmed version was officially released on Disney Plus in 2020. 

I became aware of the infamous musical in Sophomore year when my school called an assembly to watch it for our Sophomore Seminar class. After watching the first half in the cafeteria I was immediately captivated by the story telling and writing (duh I’m a literary student).  In this post I want to get into why I admire it so much but first I want to say I get why some people may be hesitant about it, like when it comes to the mentions of how it downplays the founding fathers’ roles in slavery and its inaccuracies, and I think this is completely valid. 

1. The telling of History through black bodies. 

Now this is a point of contention for some critics, who feel that Hamilton used people of color in the cast while not including the story of actual POC from then, and that’s also valid but I can say that as a young Black Woman watching a group of men of color, most of which black sing about unity and brotherhood will always feel nice to see even if they’re telling white history. However, I do think it would’ve been nice to include more about how black people(slaves) had a massive hand in building this country as well. 

2. The Writing. 

Whether or not you like Lin Manuel Miranda I feel like everyone can agree his writing is remarkable. The way he writes about love in particular gets me whether that love be between siblings, friends, or parental love. Here’s some of my all time favorite lines, some about love and some just because they stuck with me.

1. “I swear that I’ll be around for you. I’ll do whatever it takes. “I’ll make a million mistakes. “I’ll make the world safe and sound for you.”-Hamilton and Burr in “Dear Theodosia”
2.  “I love my sister more than anything in this life. I will choose her happiness over mine every time.”- Angelica Schuyler in “The Reynolds Pamphlet”
3.  “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory”-Alexander Hamilton in multiple songs
4.  “And when my prayers to God were met with indifference, I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.”- Alexander Hamilton in “Hurricane”.
5.  “You have married an Icarus. He has flown too close to the sun.”- Eliza Hamilton quoting Angelica Hamilton in “Burn”.
6.   “One stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days.”- Angelica Shuyler in “Take a Break.”
7.  “Winning is easy young man living is harder.”- George Washington in “Right Hand Man.”
8.  “At least I keep his eyes in my life”-Angelica Schuyler in “Satisfied”
9.  “I may not live to see our glory. But I will gladly join the fight”- Alexander Hamilton in “The Story of Tonight”
10. “Love doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints”-Aaron Burr in “Wait for it”
11. “Just stay alive, that would be enough”-Eliza Hamilton in “That Would be Enough”
12.  “Best of wives and best of women”- Alexander Hamilton in “Best Of Wives and The Best of Women
13.  “You and words flooded my senses. Your sentences left me defenseless. You built my palaces out of paragraphs. You built cathedrals.”- Eliza Hamilton in “Burn”

There’s definitely more but If I keep adding it’s going to get miles long. 

3. Its Homage to Music (especially Hip-Hop) 

Lin Manuel Miranda has made no attempt to keep his love of music hidden, especially for hip-hop/rap. He’s been very outspoken about his love for the genre. He grew up listening to it and said it was “a no brainer” to include it in the musical. 

Here’s a list of artists who had some kind of reference in the musical.5 

1.  Biggie (Notorious B.I.G)
2.  Mobb Deep
3.  DMX
4. Busta Rhymes
5.  Beyonce
6.   Tupac
7.  Mary. J. Blige     

I could go on and on about my love for the musical, but this seems to be getting a little long, so I’ll maybe do a part 2.

Sources: 

150 Hamilton Quotes — Hamilton Musical Quotes – Parade: Entertainment, Recipes, Health, Life, Holidays

ICYMI: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s HAMthology Playlist – playlist by Hamilton | Spotify 

 

 

Zykoria pokes her straw around her slush, the obnoxious sound of scraping plastic mixing with the whirring of the drink machines behind her. The slushie, lime flavored, tastes just as horrible as she expected from a gas station like this. Her green eyes dart back and forth, scanning the grime covered windows, sticky tile floors, and the broken shelves with missing screws. There are even suspicious bloody spots by the entrance, and the two strangers present in the store don’t put her at ease. A cashier, busy reading a newspaper about who-knows-what, and an older man browsing the sunglasses display. Aren’t old people supposed to be asleep right now? It’s twelve in the morning, why is he here? Zykoria doesn’t think he’s a trucker or anything; her and Ripley’s simple van is the biggest vehicle in the parking lot. Thinking of Ripley, Zykoria shoots the old man a glare before looking across the store. She can see the top of Ripley’s afro peeking out from behind a shelf.

The same shelf they’ve visited five times.

Zykoria sighs in annoyance. She’s already gathered four plastic bags, all filled to the brim with essentials, “Ripley, what in the world is taking you so darn long?” She thinks with a frown, “The longer we’re here-“

Suddent movement in Zykoria’s peripherals shoves her out of her thoughts. She instinctively flinches, shoulders bunching up as she quickly pulls her gray baseball cap further down her face. The old man is walking closer, frowning to himself- or Zykoria? 

“What does he want?” Zykoria’s mind races, “Did he recognize me? Does he want to talk? He looks pissed. What does he want?” She tears her eyes away from the man, not wanting him to see her face despite how losing sight of him throws her emotions into a panic. With each approaching footstep, Zykoria’s heart jumps and kicks like a cornered animal, thoughts screeching about danger and demise, hands shaking in terror, the tension wrapping around her throat like burning barbed wire. She has to look up, but he might recognize her. She has to look up- he’s getting closer. Zykoria’s snaps up to stare the man in the eyes. 

The man isn’t even looking her way- he’s staring at a bag of chips with concern. 

“Was he looking at me earlier?” Zykoria bites the inside of her lip, anxieties unwavering, “Why is he staring at the chips? What’s with his expression?” 

The man slowly places his hand on the shelf in front of him, his breathing noticeably more labored. Suspicion bubbling, Zykoria narrows her eyes and takes a few steps back. She watches as the man’s face contorts in pain, eyebrows furrowing, teeth grinding, and then all of it falls as his legs collapse beneath him, body hitting the dirty floor with a loud thump. 

Zykoria stares, slushie still in hand, the dingy lightbulbs above flickering.

“Good lord; AGAIN?! What is this, the third?! I was just STANDING HERE this time!” Fear and annoyance plagues Zykoria as she hurriedly backs up from the soon to be, if not already, corpse. With a frantic glance upwards she can see the cashier looking up, eyebrow raised in confusion. He doesn’t know yet, but he might realize the old man’s gone at any moment. Deductions and plans write themselves in Zykoria’s thoughts, blueprints formulating in seconds. She and Ripley were going to steal anyways; they could use the body as a distraction and book it, or maybe they could-

“I CALL HIS FINGERS!”

To Zykoria’s mortification, Ripley, decked out in an eye-catching orange crop top and shorts, covered in hundreds of distinct scars, completely unconcerned with drawing attention, lifts up the corpse’s hand and whips out a red knife.

The cashier shrieks; Zykoria wants to kick everyone in this room in the shins, “RIPLEY! WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!”

Ripley looks over to the cashier with a crazed grin, the horrific, detailed clown makeup they wear making them look borderline inhuman, “I can make time!”

The cashier scrambles out of their chair, hurriedly dialing 911.

Zykoria grabs Ripley by the arm the moment they take a step forward. With Ripley’s weight and her own lack of muscle, Zykoria knows they could just shove her aside and continue their advance, but they don’t, “They’re already on the darn phone- we need to leave now! You can take somebody else’s fingers later or some crap!”

“That’s not as much fun, thouuuuggh,” Ripley whines quietly, but when they rip their arm from Zykoria’s grasp, they dash over to the entrance, throwing open the door with a dramatic kick. They loll their head backwards to face the cashier, “LOCK YOUR DOORS, CASHIER GUY! I’LL FIND YOUR HOUSE AND EAT YOUR TEETH!”

Zykoria smacks Ripley’s forehead with her hand as she runs out, hearing them cackle behind her. The parking lot blurs into lights and darkness, the only thing with relevance being getting out of here. She crushes a beer can under her foot as she runs, startling her so much she nearly trips as she fishes her keys out of her hoodie pocket. The bags she’s carrying get in the way, one nearly falling to the floor. The van unlocks, Zykoria clambers into the driver’s seat, Ripley gets into the passenger’s, and they both throw whatever they gathered from the station into the back. In her haste to close the door Zykoria accidentally shuts it on her left leg prothesis, wasting precious seconds. She curses, opening the door to free her foot and slip it back inside.

“OOOO!” Ripley’s eyes shine. They open their door and stick their foot outside, preparing to crush it. 

“RIPLEY!” Zykoria snaps, “Stop that and put on your seatbelt!”

Ripley huffs dramatically and throws their feet up on the dashboard, closing the door, “So not fun. Imagine what it’d feel like!”

“It’d feel like getting your foot slammed shut in a door,” Zykoria grimaces, clicking her seatbelt into place, “Do you wanna find out what flying through the window feels like, too? Put on your seatbelt.”

“That sounds really fun, actually! Let’s do it!”

“I question how we’re related,” Zykoria frowns, slams her foot down on the gas, and speeds out of the parking lot. Ripley’s laughter mixes with the beeping seatbelt warning.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother but as I already stated, he’s my brother. My brother is older than me by about three years. I distinctly remember when I was about five making him around eight, my family was redoing our driveway. While our dad was working on digging out a path for the new driveway in the front yard, my brother had the great idea to dig a hole on the opposite side of the front yard. 

After a while of digging we were finally finished digging the hole and our dad had moved to the backyard to do something. My brother, Thomas, thought it would be funny to stick me in the hole and see if I could get out on my own. I couldn’t. After a few minutes of him laughing at me and me laughing with him, he went back inside and left me in the hole. There I was, a measly five year old stuck in a hole with no savior. I did the only thing I could think of. I started screaming for help. I don’t think anyone came to help me for a couple of reasons. 1. Who leaves a five year old unattended? 2. I wasn’t yelling that loudly. 3. I didn’t really sound like I was being serious.

When I decided yelling for help wasn’t working I tried reaching for the shovel to use it as something I could climb out of the hole with. It took a lot of struggling but after a while (a few seconds) I finally got it. I grabbed the shovel, put it in the hole with me, and tried climbing the shovel out of the hole. It wasn’t working. Sometime while I was attempting to climb out of the hole my dad came back in the front yard and found me, stuck in a hole, struggling to climb a shovel to get out. He gave me a funny look, sighed, bent down, and lifted me out. At last I was finally free. (For those of you who are thinking “Who leaves a five year old unattended for that long?” this all happened within about five minutes).

After being freed from my chamber from hell, I was the one in trouble. Not my brother, but me. The reason was something about staying in the front yard when there was no one to watch me.

This is an important memory for me because I get to reflect on mine and my older brother’s childhood and relive it. Memories are important because they teach you life lessons that you need in order to thrive.

To say I am a chronically confused person would be an understatement. I have spent my whole life, waking and sleeping, trying desperately to make sense of this bizarre, terrible, glorious thing we call life. I have never known success, no matter how hard I try. Until a few days ago, when I saw the cricket on the floor.
There I sat, legs crossed, uncertain about anything and everything. The wood under my palms was cold and grounding, but everything else in the room seemed to spin. There were so many people, so many noises. So many rules and changes and thoughts all bombarding me at once, exploding my brain in an anarchy of noise and overstimulation. I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the chilly floorboards touching my skin because lord knows how impossible it would be to focus on the administrator giving me instructions. After my breath slowed and my muscles ceased their twitching, I gathered the courage to open my eyes again. What I found when I regained my vision was something quite unexpected.

I saw a cricket on the floor.

It took me a moment to figure out what it was. I had never seen a cricket up close. I had only heard them singing their lullabies outside my window before I drifted off to sleep or chirping distantly at my nighttime soccer practice, always under the protection of the shadows.

What was this little creature doing in here? With all the students, the bustle, the blinding lights? Surely, he knew that this was not where he belonged? I could see it in the nervousness with which he hopped his way under strangers’ legs – begging for a silence, a hideaway that he could not seem to find. I made my way through a crowd of bent knees and booming voices and waited, fingers outstretched, for him to find his way to me.

Only after he had explored the terrain of my limbs and deemed it safe did I make him a cave with my palms. He sat there for a while, quiet and still, occasionally stirring to click his legs together in the habitual way that he did. I decided that his name was Charles, due to a resurfaced memory of an electromagnet I made in fifth grade named Charlie. I was very proud of the electromagnet, being the first in the class to finish making one. The coils were perfectly placed, neat and tight around the perfect rivet that I had chosen. I grew immediately attached to it, and in my head, it had a personality. In my head, he cared about me, and he was proud of the meticulous manner with which I put him together. Now, here I was, six years later, attached to another spiritless object that I had personified to think was my friend. I’ve always had a tendency towards maladaptive daydreaming – lost in one fantasy or another, never staying in one place for too long. I thought I had gotten better about it, but something about this little bug reignited that long-suppressed imagination. I found myself slipping away from the chaos of orientation, safety meetings, and socialization so invasive it made me want to vomit, and I was shot instantaneously into the perspective of the cricket’s cave.

I imagined what could have brought him here. Perhaps he was new to the world, young and sensitive, and all the colors of nature overwhelmed him. Perhaps he scurried under the cracks of the doors to find somewhere peaceful to rest. Perhaps he lost sense of direction, and wandered into this room, lost and weary, trying to find his way back home? Or trying to find his way to a new home, one that he planned to make for himself? I had so many questions for him. Would he like to accompany me into the darkness of my dorm room? It’s quiet in there. I have a few houseplants for him to explore, and many caves and corners in which to hide. I wanted to ask him how he felt about loneliness, and if he, too, was not able to live without like-minded beings, but not able to function around too much of them. Up until the moment I had to leave him alone again, when we all packed up our things and went on to our next meeting, I wondered if he was like me.

After snapping back into reality, I walked outside and placed him tenderly on the softest blade of grass I could find, in the shadows of a flowering bush. It was cool and dim, and I stood there silently watching him retreat further into the darkness. As I whispered goodbye and turned my back on the little creature, I realized that I found some of that clarity I was looking for.

I had spent an hour lost in a trance, making up stories about a bug. A bug.

The sense that I was searching for – the purpose or meaning of life – is not real. You can find yourself in the most mundane and spectacular of things. When you use your imagination and storytelling to process the world, it doesn’t have to make sense. All that matters is realizing that you are part of that absurdity – that you are a human, but you are also dark and light, you are shade and sunshine, you are wind and rain. You are a part of everything, whether it makes sense or not. Therefore, it is okay to be a little strange. It is okay to find your life’s purpose in something idiosyncratic. It is okay to achieve happiness through metaphor and fantasy. And it is okay to escape from the relentless chokehold of loneliness by making friends with a mere cricket on the floor.

Since this is one of my first Blog posts, I’ve decided to write about something that I know I’m familiar with, movies. Specifically, a movie studio that I have been a passionate supporter of for the past few years of my life. This studio of course is A24. Like most people I learned about A24 through some of their famous horror titles like Hereditary or Midsommar, but I have found that if you dig a bit deeper than you will find yourself among some of the most incredible pieces of modern twenty-first century film.

There are a number of contributing factors to the rise of A24 but one of the biggest being its unique values that helped develop it as a prominent production studio. A24 was founded in late 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hedges, all three being prominent names in the studio production and finance industries. Having this prior experience, they were able to start farther ahead than most of the bigger names in the studio production industry at the time. Having that experience they were able to make risky decisions smarter, decisions that began with their untraditional way of picking up movies. That being that they would send members of their relatively small team at the time to attend some of the world’s most prestigious film festivals and pick up films as seen.

 

Another very prominent aspect that contributed to the individuality and integrity of the films that they produce is also the almost unlimited amount of artistic initiative that they give to the directors of their respected films.  I have personally found that giving more freedom to writers and directors is what makes such an incredible film its own personality. Big box office flicks might have a wider appeal to bigger audiences, but it strips any artistic integrity from the piece itself, whether it comes from a place of constant restrictions from big production companies or the need to appeal to a larger audience so you can receive a larger profit.

Going down this tangent I have started I think it is necessary to explain my predisposition contempt with bigger movie corporations. Though some of my favorite childhood movies come from such large corporations such as Dreamworks and Disney, now that I’ve grown and matured, I have become more aware of the past as well as current underlying issues with these larger production companies. Past examples of these controversies might include the problematic history of Disney’s past portrayal of people of color in their films, or even more recent issues like Disney’s attempt to monopolize holidays that have been held culturally significant to people for many years. 

 

A24 is most notably known in the film community as being the producer of very psychological and modern film, modern in a way that a large community of people might call pretentious. Films such as: The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Lighthouse, have experienced a large number of critiques from general audiences for not adhering to specific guidelines that cater to larger audiences. However, I would say that this comes predominantly from a group of people that aren’t sufficiently educated on the topic. A24 has created some of the best movies that I have ever had the privilege of watching. Notable titles such as Lady Bird, Hereditary, Moonlight, Everything Everywhere all at once, are just a few of the names that have received prestigious film awards such as best picture, best performance as well as an extensive number of academy awards. 

 

Even though I think that this post was relatively informational I really hope that I can go farther in depth with a number of the movies they produced and the artistic backgrounds and interpretations of those films.