Category: Junior Literary

“my baby’s alright, she just doesn’t wanna see me tonight.”

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       it’s not often i hear a track that immediately compels me to speak upon it. sure, i promote music that needs to be heard as much as anyone else, supposedly even more. but something struck within me because of this song. there have been many instances where i have been in trance because of a piece of music, but never have i felt the deep urge to paint the images i see. mostly because there has never been an image so greatly detailed and developed as the one alex g’s ‘mis’ has created. lyrically, the track seems to blend in, with simple depictions of a one-sided relationship. there is a play on the word mis/miss, and alex uses the emptiness of the chorus to represent unreciprocated love. but where this track really stands out is in the instrumental. 

       we start out grounded. with each note of the piano, we are guided into the twisting and turning verse. softly in the background we can hear the guitar slowly move forwards towards us until all the lights turn on and everything comes in. the percussion is sharp and heavy in the back, with it slowing down to a soft murmur at the pre-chorus. the synths seem planned and coordinated throughout the verse, so does the guitar. but when the percussion awakes from its murmur and kicks in, everything loses its planning. the synths during the chorus flow all around you in its sporadic way, no pattern to be found, but still mesmerizing. i find myself getting lost in the chorus all the time. the percussion is rhythmic and heavy, a perfect contrast to the light and unpredictable piano and synth pairing. the guitar is steady throughout the song, a reminder that you are still grounded. everything is moving around you erratically and beautifully, but you are still grounded. 

       though i fully believe the heart of this song is where the instrumental is, there is much to say about the lyrics. first off, mis. as i previously stated, mis/miss is used in this song and is given a double meaning. he misses her. he misinterprets her. see the connection? the verses are the back and forth thoughts he goes through, attempting to make sense of his situation. he debates her intention and what he should do until he confronts her. he misses her, and he tells her that. then, her response. “she says”, and then the chorus. the absence of her response is made up by the instrumentals. she says nothing, but the music says everything.

       this song is genuinely beautiful. as of now, it is my most listened song by alex. if you like the kind of music i like, then i suggest checking him out. and if i get to see him live and you’re into his music, i’ll let you have the first look at the concert videos:) anyways, thanks for reading.

link to song (spotify): https://open.spotify.com/track/0DSgZOTRW9O7FGlheqWCHg

Hello! I didn’t really know what to talk about for this blog so we’re going to talk about my skin and makeup routine :D. Throughout the blog I’m just going to name my products with a picture and small description since I do use a lot of makeup. I’m going to format it in steps so it will be in the order I use each product.

Step one: CeraVe face wash. I start here to get my skin clean and less oily.

Step two: I then use Jergens ultra healing lotion because I also have very dry skin. This smooths the dryness for a better base.

Step three: I then go in with an eyebrow gel. I use a small brush to just shape my brows how I like them, and the gel locks that shape in.

Step four: This is where the base begins. I use Morphe filter effect foundation. It’s a medium coverage. I apply this foundation with a velvet beauty blender, also by Morphe. I put it basically everywhere except my eye lids.

Step five: I use Morphe filter effect concealer. I place this under my eyes, the crease of my nose, underneath my eyebrows, and places a blemish may be. I later put it on the bridge of my nose, but I don’t do that in step five.

Step six: In this step I start my contour. Before I do that, I spray my face with setting spray. At the end is where I will talk about the spray because it is used most last. I take an Anastasia Beverly Hills cream contour just putting it along the bridge of my nose, over the tip, and underneath the tip between my nostrils. I apply it with a thin, small brush. I blend it all out with a different small Morphe blending brush.

Step seven: After the contour I use a bronzer. I don’t like using a lot of bronzers because I embrace my pale complexion rather than making it darker, but I use some to give contrast. I just take this on a very large fluffy brush and put it along my cheek bones and hair line.

Step eight: I apply a small amount of concealer here. I put it on my nose bridge to make the contour stand out better. I blend this out with the small Morphe brush.

Step nine: Now, we set the face. I use a Morphe setting powder and brush for this. I take the angular side of my beauty blender and get some powder. I place it on the bridge of my nose where the contour is at and drag the product underneath my eyes. I get more on the sponge and drag that product along my jawline. We let this product sit for a while and do the next steps before we take it off.

Step ten: While the powder sits, I usually begin my eye makeup. I use whichever pallet suits my eye look but it is usually Morphe rose palette or the James Charles palette for eye shadow. Some days I wont even do eye shadow, but I love to incorporate it into the outfit I’m wearing. The eye shadow brushes I use are the crystal zodiac brushes by BH Cosmetics.

Step eleven: We can now wipe the setting powder off. With a large brush you just brush off the loose powder left. I’m also going to include eyeliner in step ten. I use NYX Epic Wear liquid liner. The way I do my eyeliner heavily depends on the eyeshadow placement, my mood, or if we don’t do eyeshadow, I make it big and bold.

Step twelve: This is where the phenomenal lashes come in. I LOVE my eyelashes and have many different sets. This step and step thirteen go hand in hand. I start off by picking the lashes I want and getting my glue ready. I use (ins glue name) lash glue. I can’t say I would really recommend this because it doesn’t hold very long. I apply the glue along the line of the lash then let it sit. The glue must get tacky before you apply the eyelash. While this glue sets, I move on to step thirteen. Usually after step thirteen the lash is ready to go on. I apply the lash to my lid after this, then repeat with the second lash. I usually finish step twelve the first time around. I get my lashes from several different places but mostly Shein, Walmart, or amazon.

Step thirteen: Blush and highlight. My favorite blush is a Sheglam liquid blush from Shein. I have two favorite highlighters, wet n wild hello halo liquid highlighter and Ownest powdered highlighter. Both brushes I use for this are from the zodiac crystal set. I usually just put the blush on my cheeks and up towards my brow slightly, not too much. I use the powder highlight on my cheeks. Before I get the highlight on my brush I spray the brush with some setting spray, then apply the product. This makes the highlighter more pigmented and shinier. I use the liquid highlight on my nose. I put it on the tip and along the bridge then blend it out. Occasionally I put highlight underneath my brow.

Step fourteen: After it is all complete i spray my face with the Morphe setting spray. This makes the makeup last longer

Brushes: These are all the brushes I mentioned most throughout. Morphe blending brush (small), crystal zodiac set, velvet Morphe beauty blender, fluffy bronzing brush, setting powder brush.

After care: At the end of the day, I remove my makeup with a cotton pad and micellar water. Then, I wash my face with just water to remove the extra micellar water. At night I put my acne medication and that’s all. I will say that the micellar water is not 100% the best for your skin though.

Heyyy guys! So, today’s vlog is going to be comparing and contrasting the 5 rarest squish mallows. Before we start, I’ll give a bit of background information first. Squish mallows are a brand of snuggable stuffed animals that were launched in 2017 by Kelly Toys Holdings. The first squish mallow ever released was Cam the Cat.

     Every time he drops, he sells out within minutes. In all honesty, he’s not a personal favorite of mine. He looks pretty boring to me, he doesn’t have any fun colors, or patterns, and even though I love cats and have many of them he’s never really been appealing to me. The 5 rarest squish mallows are Jack the Black Cat, Santino the Platypus, Heather the Dragonfly, Blossom the Sheep, and Brina the Bigfoot. 

     The rarest squish mallow is Jack the Black Cat. He is a black cat with closed eyes, a pink nose, and a big smile. Jack is worth about $2,000 on the market give or take 2 or 300. I personally don’t understand the obsession with him. He is a pretty cute squishy but he’s not worth $2,000 he’s pretty, plain simple, and straight to the point, just a black cat, but most people want him, because there were only about 500 manufactured and available to be bought which is probably what all the hype’s about, because he’s not all that special. 

     The second rarest squish mallow is Santino the Platypus. He’s simple as well. Doesn’t have any fun colors or anything, but he still can from about $1,000-$1,500 at an auction. 

     The next one is Heather the Dragonfly. She’s not really considered an extremely rare squish mallow, but she is often sold with a high price tag. She is blue with purple lines cutting through. She also has metallic ombre wings with antennas to match. You can buy her with her eyes open or closed. She has a big smile on her face and 2 blush pink dimples on her cheeks. The price varies from about $16-$500. The cost all depends on the size and where you get it from. 

     The next squish mallow I want to talk about is Blossom the Sheep. Blossom the sheep is very rare and can get up to about $300 give or take. She is absolutely stunning in my opinion. She’s a smooth white, crème color, with a rainbow advertised right in the middle of her little tummy with clouds all around. Her eyes are closed, with her eyelashes spread beautifully out of her eyelids, I can see why she’s rare. 

     The last squishy is Brina the Bigfoot. I’ve never seen or heard of her before. She looks nothing like I expected. She is bright pink with fur spread all over her head and face. She doesn’t have any arms, only 2 cute tiny little legs. She has a straight line acting as a smile where her mouth is supposed to be, but it doesn’t take away the sweetness from her face. She also has 2 pink little pom poms or pigtails on her head which makes her 10x cuter.  

     Well, that’s all for today, my next blog will be about all the stuffies and squishy’s I own, where I got them, why I like them, and if they’re rare.  

Hello again, if y’all remember last week’s post I opened a series of characters in the MCU whom I personally believe deserve better and they’d be listed from the one I feel strongest about to the least. To start, I did Bucky Barnes. For part 2, I will be doing Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch.

Photo from: Twitter

Wanda Maximoff first made her appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron when it was her and her twin brother, Pietro. In the beginning of the film, they are introduced as “enhanced” as it was referred to in the movie who chose to volunteer as experiments for Hydra. They both had a hatred for the Avengers that began at the time of their parents’ tragic death and they saw that the weapon used was from Stark Industries. 

After the last Hydra base was taken down, the twins meet Ultron who has an equal hatred for Tony Stark and he believed that he could save the world but was actually going to destroy. When the twins discover this, they side with the Avengers and save the the people of Sokovia(a made up European country). However, things take a dark and very tragic turn when she loses Pietro to him sacrificing himself to save Hawkeye and a young Sokovian boy.

In CA:CW, Wanda and Vision began to become very close, even though they chose opposite teams. And in Infinity War, she and Vision get together and she feels like she’s gaining a new family. Some of my favorite but most heartbreaking quotes in that film are the “I just feel you” parallels. For those who haven’t seen it, that sentence wasn’t referring to anything physical, it was more of an emotional “feel”. You’d have to watch it to understand. And, of course, because Vision had the Mind Stone that Thanos was after, he was killed.

Wanda felt that all she had was Vision, and she ended up losing him. What’s even more heartbreaking is that she had to destroy the Mind Stone to ensure Thanos couldn’t get to it. But because he already had the Time Stone, he went back and took it himself. She had to do the one thing that would break her to save trillions just for it to be for nothing.

Because Vision wasn’t killed by the “blip”(what they called the time half the universe was killed), Wanda couldn’t get him back, so during the series WandaVision, she took that trauma and created her own reality where she had Vision and her two sons. Yes, that included mind-controlling the entire town of Westview, and it did kind of make her a villain because she chose to keep it going. But, however, that is what happens when someone is visibly in pain and no one helps them. It was very heartbreaking to see that her whole world was torn down in the end and she had just gotten the one thing she wanted- a life and family with Vision.

When I first watched the series, I felt it was a slow upbringing, but it was a good character upbringing and it showed a new side of Wanda, almost like she’s going through a psychic break. This can be applied to someone in real life, if they have been through so much trauma and have not had help from friends or family, this is what happens. They go through a break, and people get hurt. But people wanted to blame it all on Wanda, and personally, I strongly believe that is very unfair.

Wanda did not deserve the trauma and pain she’s been through and that she deserved so much better.

 

Thank you for listening to this week’s rant, next is Loki. Stay tuned:)

My favorite movies 😀

1. A Silent Voice

This movie I loved. It was very sad and emotional, but it was so good. Basically, a girl moves to a new school, and she is deaf. She writes her words she wants to say down into a notebook. Kids bully her the entire time she’s there. She tried befriending one of the bullies leading to her notebook being thrown away. It skips into the future when they are grown, and the boy that bullied her tries to fix his past mistakes. It may not sound to eventful in my own words but watch the movie.

2. Batman: The Killing Joke

This is my favorite batman movie. I love it because Joker is one of my favorite characters of all time. This movie is kind of dark, not really. In this movie The Joker attacks commissioner Gordon, and his family in his attempts to drive them crazy. In the process Joker shoots Barbra Gordon paralyzing her. For those who do not know Barbra she is commissioner Gordons daughter, or Batgirl. In this movie we also get to see a story line of Jokers past.

3. Scream

We all know why most people enjoy the scream movies. I cannot say I am not one of those people, but I also enjoy the movie itself. If I had to pick only one movie of the franchise to talk about it would be the first Scream. A killer in the town of Woodsboro starts killing several teenagers by the “rules” of slasher movies. The main victim is Sydney Prescott. In the end the killers were two boys in the high school. I will keep the name secret in case anyone has not seen the movie.

4. The Labyrinth

This movie is just a classic. I grew up on this movie watching it over and over again. As a kid it was definitely my number one favorite. In this movie the main character Sarah has to babysit her younger brother. As the babies crying progresses, she quotes from her fairy tale book “Goblin King, oh Goblin King…I wish the goblins would take you away right now!” leading to the summoning of The Goblin King. The king takes the baby, Toby, and Sarah to the labyrinth. He keeps the baby in the center of the labyrinth with his many goblins. Sarah has to make it through this huge Labyrinth to save her younger brother.

5. Why do ghouls fall in love?

This is a monster high movie. I really didn’t know what movie to put at number 5, so I chose this one. In this movie it is Draculaura’s 1600^th birthday and the other girls are trying to plan her a party. Toralie Stripe is a cat, and she poses as one of the mean girls at monster high. Toralie calls Draculaura’s ex-boyfriend Valentine pretending to be her inviting him to monster high. Now, Draculaura has a boyfriend, Clawd Wolf. Draculaura is put under Valentine’s spell. Valentine’s goal is to break hearts through his spells. She starts falling in love with him in front of Clawd. Eventually, everyone figures it out and stops Valentine and Toralie at Draculaura’s birthday.

     Hey guys! SOOO, today’s blog is going to be a little different. It will be very informal and relaxed as far as the writing structure goes. I’m glad you’re here and I hope that you enjoy it. Okay, so I just want to tell you guys about one of my obsessions. It’s a lot so buckle your seatbelts because I’m going to be taking you for a ride. Writing has taken over my life. I do it so much that I don’t feel like myself without it. I don’t know who I am, or what I feel without writing. My thoughts don’t help me understand myself until I have written them down.

     If you love something like I love writing, then don’t ever let it go. We all have a special talent that allows us to do what we’re good at, but you shouldn’t make that talent your entire life. I share this in hopes of showing others that it’s okay to have obsessions but be sure you’re careful not to let them consume you. Letting your obsession take over your mind will cause you nothing but trouble. You must have multiple things in life that you care about. Maybe not as much as your talent but love it just enough that it creates balance. It allows you to escape from what you’re good at sometimes, so that you have time and space to be great at other things as well. It’s good to like things, maybe even love things, but unhealthy obsessions will take you to the pit of the depths of hell that maybe even the devil himself hasn’t visited.

     Basically, what I’m saying is that you have to watch your heart and how fast it can get tangled up with something or someone to the point where they can’t be untangled. Tangled hearts can give you heart disease and cancer just like huge amounts of unhealthy fat that can weigh you down ready to kill you. Obsessions act in the exact same way. They strangle your heart preventing oxygen and blood from seamlessly passing through making your heart stop. Once the obsessions have a choke hold on your heart there is no stopping the cardiac arrest. There is nothing to stop that obsession from murdering you. There is no begging for mercy or waiting to be rescued, because obsessions take a lot of time to get over or sometimes you just don’t get over them at all. 

Yes, this part one of at least three. And these are in a particular order. For this, I’ll start with the one I feel strongest about. This is just my opinion, and if you don’t agree, that’s okay. Well, welcome to the first part of this series. If you’re as much into the Marvel cinematic universe as I am then, hopefully, this will be of interest to you. Hope you enjoy:)

We’ll start off with Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier. Some may already know (and if you couldn’t couldn’t already tell from my profile pic), he is my favorite character. So, yes, this list is a little biased, but you’ll see why I feel he deserves better and why he’s my favorite.

(no picture available)

From the beginning, Bucky was known for fighting and following orders in the Army. When his group, the 107th, is taken by Hydra, that puts a weight of guilt on his shoulders because as a sergeant, he’s put in charge of a given group. When Steve rescues them, Bucky appears to be the only one that was experimented on. He wasn’t, he was the only one who survived. Three years later, he falls off a train fighting alongside Steve and is once again taken by Hydra.

For 70 years, he’s forced to do things he had no control over. Consistently, he’s been tortured physically and mentally. Now, let’s think about someone who is kidnapped in real life. It doesn’t take a lot of time for that kind of abuse to have control over them. Much less 70 years.

When he appears in CA:TWS, he doesn’t recognize Steve because his memories were erased and then again just as he’s starting to get them back. Of course in the end of the movie, he knows enough that he knows Steve and that’s why he pulls him out of the river.

In CA:CW, the film shows exactly how Hydra was able to control Bucky’s mind: reciting a sequence of words in Russian. This was how he turned into the Winter Soldier. I’m sure y’all knew but I just feel it was scary because of how easy it was for him to lose himself.

The film also showed someone framing him for a crime, but because of his past, the government immediately took him into custody. And when he’s questioned by the person responsible, he was turned once again into the Winter Soldier. Of course, that leads to the whole civil war between the Avengers and Tony finds out it was Bucky who was sent to kill his parents.

One line in particular that was heartbreaking to me was in the scene Tony asks, “Do you even remember them!?”, and Bucky replied  “I remember all of them”. Every victim he was forced to get rid of. Not to mention he was a victim, too.

And then at the end of the movie when he’s in Wakanda and chooses to go back under ice until they can get what Hydra put in his head out. But then Infinity War and Endgame happened.

And lastly, in TFATWS when he’s finally free from what Hydra put in his head.I really liked that they touched on the PTSD that he’s suffered from. It shows that he’s still struggling but he’s getting better.

Because of the trauma and torture he’s been through, along with how people still treated him, and he still chose to make amends is why I feel strongly that he as a character deserves better.

Hope you enjoyed, next is Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch:)

hello!! today i will be continuing an older post, my “king’s crossing” literary analysis!

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hi, it’s been a while since you saw this title huh? i know i said i was going to post a part two last week but,,,,, things happened. anyways, here are the last two lyrics i’ll be dissecting!

“read the part and we turn out fine, it’s a hell of a role if you can keep it alive”

in many songs and interviews, elliott has described the music business as a slow path to death or self-hatred. here, he compares it to being the main actor in a movie that is slowly killing you. you want to keep the part, but it gets physically harder and harder the more you continue. in the song “fake plastic trees” by radiohead, thom yorke talks about this same theme similarly:

“and it wears me out, it wears me out. if i could be who you wanted all the time”

now, the final lyric. 

“don’t let me get carried away, don’t let me get carried away, don’t let me be carried away“

this is 100% the most powerful and beautiful lyric in the entire song, and lots of people gloss over it. it may seem like a simple repetition, but the contrast between using “get” and “be” in this sentence is drastic. “don’t let me get carried away” almost feels like a request, don’t let me go too far with it. and while “don’t let me be carried away” is also a request, elliott isn’t simply asking you to tell him when he’s going too far, he’s asking you to save his life. don’t let him be carried away.

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“king’s crossing” isn’t easy to listen to by any means. but i can’t recommend it enough. go out and listen and form your own opinions about the lyrics seen here. they have depth and are begging to be appreciated. thank you.

*genius was used for some background information on each lyric!

link to song (spotify):

https://open.spotify.com/track/2GsiKnbHHXDpoL7R6cJUTZ?si=7000bff9e908415b

link to live performance (youtube): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D7vRObaTyo

Hey guys, it’s me again. For this post, I’d like to discuss my reading and writing preferences and interests. As I have mentioned in my last post, I love reading mysteries, thrillers, and fantasies. However, as I also said, I enjoy writing different topics and genres.

For years, I’ve loved reading April Henry’s books. One of my favorites is one of her recent books which, if I remember correctly, came out last year. It’s titled The Girl in the White Van and, yes, it is what it sounds like. For those who may want to read it, I won’t spoil it, but it’s about a teenage girl who is kidnapped and taken in a white van and fights to escape. If you wish to read it, I recommend it. Another favorite of mine is Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series. Don’t be fooled, it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s about a senior in high school who decides to solve a murder-suicide case that she’s convinced is not as open and shut as police think. I also like to read fantasy every once in a while. For example: Six of Crows is a good book. For those who have also read it, no I have yet to read the second one but I hope to soon.

Photo from: Amazon.com

Photo from: Amazon.com

Photo from: The Works

By now, y’all have gotten a pretty good idea of what kind of books I like to read. But, these are not the kind of things I like to write. Over the past month, I have found that I really like to write poems. Since I started this class and have written almost nothing but poems and short stories, I’ve really enjoyed it. I also really like to write short stories. There’s one that I am currently working on. I don’t really know how far I’m gonna go with it. I’ll just write until I feel like it’s at a good ending point. It was based on a prompt where the speaker starts in an elevator and ends at a beach.

Half of the poems I have written during freewriting time have been about childhood trauma and having fear and anxiety. I promise I’m getting help and they’re not all sad. All of the other poems I have written have mostly been about chasing dreams and standing while others say to sit. I know at least one of my pieces have even had romantic vibes. “Everblue” is a piece I wrote based on the prompt of giving my favorite color a new definition, and if it’s more than one color, combine them to make one and give it a new name and definition. I would let y’all read it now but because of the word count limit, I can’t. Maybe in another post if y’all are interested. Let me know:)

Now you know how different my reading and writing interests are: very. And, honestly, I feel that’s a good thing. If you’re like me and these two are almost polar opposites and ask “Why are my reading interests so different from what I write?” It’s completely okay, and if you ask this because you would like to write something similar to what you read, just give it time. Think of what you write about now as a stepping stone towards finding inspiration for writing in a genre you would normally read, if that’s what you’re going towards. Just remember: you can’t wait for the inspiration to come to you- you have to chase it and seek it.

* Authors note: This is about my best friend Ashton’s average high school day in the life. I didn’t feel like my day was exciting enough to post on here. I may do it one day but for now I hope this is interesting getting a peek into his life and how he balances his academics and multiple sports in a positive way. I hope you enjoy this week’s blog!* 

Day In My Life 

Waking up. 

My most recognized blessing 

I love the smell of cinnamon on my body 

I scratch an itch on my back 

Oh, how wonderful is that?  

Fed my dogs my most prized possessions of them all… 

What would I do without them I do not know, but I hope I will never know 

I feel alone as 3 buses pass me on my way to school 

I eat at home, so I pass the cafeteria 

So many souls in one place how do I reach them all 

Soul to soul heart to heart what will happen when we all part? 

I walk into class I examine all the sounds I am not a part of band, but I need it to make my world go ‘round… 

ACT PREP why can’t I just take the test? 

You cannot give me the questions so what am I prepping for? 

My next class is AP, how hard will it be? 

US history, do not get me started  

I do not want to be part of that party 

What history do I need to know about a place that industrialized and benefitted off the suffering of others… 

Now they are making me take college and career readiness 

What in the world am I getting ready for?  

An apocalypse?… 

Algebra 2 they just got that class out of the blue 

I have taken so much math I cannot fathom to add and subtract 

Athletics/ the only reason I come to school 

I hate learning but love running 

Going over plays is like making money 

I leave it all on the field and sometimes on the court  

The only way I could stop this cycle is to abort… 

The mission 

But that would mean giving up, and “momma didn’t raise no quitter” 

So, here I am every day getting on the bus, getting my way 

Whether it be in class or extracurricular  

The only way to succeed is never giving up!