Category: Junior Literary

Hello and welcome back to my blog! Today we’re just gonna try and pick up where we left off. Okay, so the last thing that we talked about was Elizabeth Afton’s death in 1983. You might be asking yourself, was that the bite of 83? Actually, it wasn’t. 

1983: The bite of 83 belongs to Elizabeth’s brother, Evan Afton, also known as the crying child. After Elizabeth’s death, their father, William, tells his other two sons to never visit any animatronics, especially not alone. Evan, like his sister, is stubborn and visits Fredbear’s Diner without his father’s permission. William had knowledge of this, though, and came up with a plan to sway Evan away from the diner. This is kinda where the lore starts getting a bit more on the weird side. With his robotic expertise, William designs little sound illusion discs to hide around Evan’s room which induce nightmares of the animatronics, hoping to scare Evan away from them. He kept going to Fredbear’s, though, each day becoming more afraid than the last. Evan’s older brother Michael had planned for Evan’s birthday to be at FredBear’s Diner, but that wasn’t the only plan he had for his brother. On the day of the party, Michael had brought three friends with him, all wearing animatronic-themed masks. Being the crappy older brother he was, Michael picked Evan up along with the help of his friends and brought him over to the two spring-lock animatronic suits trying to scare him. They all picked Evan up, saying he wanted to give Fredbear a kiss, but then they stuffed Evan’s head and half of his body inside Fredbear’s mouth. Evan cried and shook like crazy as they laughed at him from afar. The thing Michael had no idea could happen was spring lock failures. It was the only downside to the spring-lock suits. If the person wearing the suit moves around too much or creates any type of moisture, like tears or sweat it causes the spring-locks to well, lock back in to the former position. In this case, Fredbear’s normal position would have his mouth closed. This malfunction happened to Evan, causing Fredbear’s mouth to close on him and bite down violently. Thus the bite of 83′ was created. After this, Fredbear’s Diner closed for good, and William’s wife left him, causing his descent into pure madness.

1984: Henry Emily, the former business partner of William Afton, thought for months about how he could save the business. He eventually came to the conclusion of creating a team to further increase the high standards of Fazbear Entertainment. This group of people came up with the new and more friendly-looking “toy” animatronics based on the original ones alongside new and more unique animatronics like balloon boy, while the old ones were put away for parts and service. We visit these in FNAF 2. Now all they needed was security. Henry thought for a while and also used his robot expertise to come up with a facial recognition system used by the animatronics. Henry also has a daughter. Her name is Charlotte, or Charlie for short. Henry needed a way to learn from William’s mistakes. He came up with an idea to keep Charlie safe no matter what. He created the animatronic called Marionette/The Puppet that would specifically look out for her. It stayed in the music box near the prize corner.

Year Unconfirmed: William had heard of the new restaurant with brand new animatronics, but Henry closed him out, making him very mad. William felt as if Henry didn’t understand his loss, so he decided to make him understand. His next target was the one and only daughter of Henry Emily, Charlotte.

 

That’s all for this week folks. Stay tuned and I’ll see you next week!

 

OK. I know the title may be a tad bit scary to see coming from a writer, but don’t be alarmed. The writer’s block I am facing right now is less like a wall and more of a white picket fence. Which to the average person wouldn’t be super alarming, but as a suuuuppper clumsy person, a white picket fence still is a threat. The threat of tripping, running into, and falling on the white picket fence is still a possibility. 

So right now, as we begin playwriting as Juniors in the Literary Arts department, although i would rather not have any sort of blockage in my righting flow, a white picket fence is decidedly better than an entire brick wall. 

Anyways the point of this blog is to basically just say it’s okay to get a little stuck sometimes, but I hope you can find silly comparisons such as brick walls and picket fences to make yourself feel better too!

Adele the Midly Blocked Writer – signing off.

Okay, so for what is practically one of my first blogs here I wanted to talk about something that’s been on my mind for a little while: Tabletop Games Specifically, which tabletop games are good for newcomers and which ones are not.

While in pop culture the most known tabletop game is Dungeons & Dragons, there’s a vast myriad of reasons why it’s not actually a good introduction to the medium. Those are as follows:

• The first and second editions are more so intended as war games not unlike 40k, and are generally agreed to be unpolished. The first two are unrepresentative of the TTRPG medium as a whole, as they’re games made to facilitate strategy instead of storytelling
• The third edition, while closer to the typical TTRPG, is ludicrously unbalanced, has a severe learning curve that makes it less user friendly, and lacks the customization often associated with TTRPGs. Some of these issues improve with 3.5 edition, but that update makes it even LESS user friendly.
• Fourth edition is considered a bad example of a D&D game, much less of a TTRPG. Character creation is easy, but also uniform and lacking in customization. The combat system is bloated, confusing, and completely unpolished. The character classes are indistinct, making gameplay between each one feel the exact same. The game is more user friendly and balanced, but that only really matters if it’s worth playing.
• Fifth edition is by far the best of the editions, but it’s also unbalanced, has a lot of redundant rules and concepts and character abilities that become useless over time, not to mention it’s practically impossible to scale threats, stakes, or rewards to the players, as the challenge rating system is completely misleading and changing with every newly released book. The combat system is still overly complicated, though in different ways than previous ones, but still contributing to combat times lasting several hours even on small encounters.
• For almost every edition, the books are too expensive, and one often is supposed to buy the game’s multiple angles of content in separate books in order to attain the best experience.

Overall, D&D fails in many crucial elements of TTRPGs in every edition, and one can actually reverse engineer criteria judging other tabletop games by looking at the many sins of Dungeons and Dragons:

1. TTRPGs should be TTRPGs, or, tabletop games made to tell stories 
2. TTRPGs should be well balanced
3. TTRPGs should have rules made for human beings to read and understand
4. TTRPGs should have systems and procedures that are functional and constructed in order to assist the players in having fun, even if it breaks from how realistic procedures such as combat are, realistically, siege combat is not a recreational activity, that doesn’t mean all of the fun must be wrung from it with counterolls, counterules, cover calculation, and conditional modifiers
5. Not a requirement, but affordability of rulebooks needed to play is obviously a plus

Now keep in mind, if you enjoy these editions for any reason, that’s okay too! I also play D&D occasionally, I just wanted to acknowledge it’s flaws which are often overlooked because of it’s status as the genre’s flagship. The game isn’t horrible, but it is flawed, and I wanted to present some games that are strong where it is weak.

With these criteria in consideration, which TTRPGs are good alternatives to Dungeons and Dragons? In my opinion, two champions outclass Dungeons and Dragons: Monster of the Week and City of Mist.

These two TTRPGs, monster of the week coming out in 2015, and City of Mist coming out in 2017, succeed distinctly in ways that Dungeons and Dragons has failed. Because both are unique and creative games, following blog posts will discuss them each individually.

Hello! It’s been a good while since my last blog, and I apologize for that. However, this blog isn’t about my lack of blogs, it’s about my favorite movie.  You’re likely already aware of this if you read the title. Now, what could my favorite movie possibly be? A writer who constantly creates what doesn’t quite make sense?

I’ll tell you. It’s Disney’s 1951 Alice In Wonderland. I’m sure that many people have already watched/heard of this movie, but I will give a short synopsis of the plot regardless. This movie is about a young girl named Alice, who follows a White Rabbit into a rabbit hole, falling down into a fantastical world. The viewer watches as Alice explores this world, never quite sure if she’s really getting anywhere. It’s a phenomenal movie that if you haven’t seen you should.

It’s a movie that’s been with me for most of my life, I can’t even remember the first time I watched it. I was obsessed with it as a kid, and to some extent I still am. There’s nothing that can match the dreamlike wonder that this film had, not even the live action adaptations can achieve the same feeling.

hello, blog world! this is a special post for me because… well… it’s for me. i’ve been dying to write about twin peaks, as it’s one of my favorite shows of all time. i’ve been utterly obsessed with it for years now but hesitant to talk or write about it much because i don’t know any other fans of the show, or as i would say “peakies” (nerdy, right? exactly.) however, all that said, i decided that this week i would cover a rather simple and surface-level aspect of the show to spare my readers from a long, obsessive rant about why i love this show so much. for this post, i will be simply listing what i consider to be the best acting performances of the show. oh, and you know the drill- no particular order.

ray wise as leland palmer

leland palmer is an extremely difficult character to play- possessed, grief-stricken, and still chillingly humorous and clever. no actor could have captured this character in  quite the way that ray wise did. wise plays him with this undertone of fear and rage that captures the character’s mental state perfectly. the juxtaposition between his portrayal of a tortured father and a violent entity makes him one of my frontrunners for best actors in a show that is teeming with acting talent. every time i see ray wise in another show or movie, i automatically think “leland!” and get the chills- that’s how you know this guy’s the real deal.

sherilyn fenn as audrey horne

okay, don’t even get me started on audrey horne. she is one of my comfort characters, and i love her endlessly. i sometimes feel closer to her than to the people in my own life. is that pathetic? absolutely!! but you know what- it’s the truth. and it’s a testament to the immense writing talent of mark frost and david lynch and to the amazing acting of miss sherilyn fenn. fenn is a force to be reckoned with as audrey horne, with all the charm of an old hollywood bombshell and the clever mist of a femme fatale. i believe that no other actress could have brought this beautiful character to life as well as fenn, who i think is one of the most beautiful and talented actresses of the past half-century.

miguel ferrer as albert rosenfield

albert is a fan-favorite character and certainly one of my all-time favorites. he provides an appropriate but still effective amount of comic relief to a show about dark forces, murder, and mystery. every time he appears on the screen, peakies can be found wearing the dorkiest smile imaginable. a huge part of what makes albert so iconic and loved is miguel ferrer’s unmatchable acting performance. he captures the spirit of the character so accurately and artfully with his monotone dry humor and sense of humility.

grace zabriskie as sarah palmer

now, here’s where it gets a tad controversial. people don’t often regard zabriskie as one of the better actors in the show’s cast, simply because her character is often put aside as a “hysterical mother” stereotype. personally, i’ve always had a great deal of appreciation for sarah palmer, as well as grace zabriskie’s portrayal of her. she captures grief in a realistic, if dramatic, way that fits perfectly into the lynchian narrative and tone of the show. i believe that she took the material she was given as an actress and brought the character to an entirely different level. she is particularly striking in season 3. she does such an incredible job showcasing a grieving woman 25 years after her loss, stuck in time and space. also, the general casting of the palmer family is utterly brilliant to me, as i think that the actors who play the parents genuinely look like the daughter.

kyle maclachlan as dale cooper

cooper is another character that i’m extremely attached to. i could talk about him for hours, so to spare everyone from that, i’ll stick to praising kyle maclachlan for a moment. i truly believe that kyle is one of the most underappreciated and talented actors out there. he has been in many famous roles that people don’t often recognize him for, but my personal favorite will always be his role as special agent dale cooper. cooper is a unique, brilliant character, and it’s only fitting that an actor of the same merits should play him. kyle is easily one of my favorite actors ever because he takes every character he plays and makes him into a person. anyone who loves twin peaks will tell you that dale cooper is just as real to them as the air they breathe, and we have kyle to thank for that.

So, if you know me, you know that I am a diehard Steven Universe fan. And, if you know the junior Literaries, you know that top ten’s are our bread and butter for blogging. So, I figured why not put the two together? In this series, I’ll be narrowing down my Steven Universe playlist to my top ten songs from Rebecca Sugar’s animated masterpiece. DISCLAIMER: these are my opinions! Feel free to agree or disagree at will! 

10) Here Comes A Thought 

Now, it was no easy task calculating which songs out of this spectacular musical menagerie made it onto the list, especially when I had it narrowed down to the number ten slot specifically. However, when I was considering what song was worthy of the final spot, I couldn’t help but remember how calming this song used to be. I can still remember listening to Garnet’s voice as she helped me through some of my most anxious moments; from bad weather to fights with friends. For that, Here Comes a Thought earns it’s spot on the list. 

Favorite Line: “Take a moment to think of just flexibility, love, and trust”

9) Change

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. It may not be the most popular choice for this list, especially with it’s competitors, but there’s just something about Change as a song that resonates with me. Maybe it’s the central message lining up with my core philosophy of being the master of your own fate, or maybe its the gorgeously dramatic sky battle setting, but there’s something about this song that just hits different. Plus, Steven’s vocals in this song are simply amazing, and you can argue with the wall. 🙂

Favorite Line: “Starting with tonight” Purely because of that note Zach Callison hits. 

8) It’s Over, Isn’t It? 

So, this song might be the problematic member on the list. Look, it’s not my fault I cannot resist the charms of Deedee Mango Hall’s voice! Besides, if you listen, some of the things Pearl sings about are actually very easy to resonate with. The way that she describes how she felt with Rose…I only hope I can find a love that makes me feel that way someday. (Ya know, just without the codependency issues.) All jokes aside, the song is really beautiful, and the scene from that episode is picturesque. Pearl against a city light background in a tux is a vibe I didn’t know I needed until now. 

Favorite Line: “Out in daylight, my potential: bold, precise, experimental”

7) The Working Dead

Yes, we finally hit a Sadie song! Unpopular opinion, Sadie is the real reason human characters in Steven Universe are as good as they are. The way that Rebecca and her writers took a seemingly two dimensional side character and gave her such depth is a technique I can only strive for. Sadie is easily my favorite non gem character and her music is exactly why. This was a perfect debut song for her, and a fantastic foreshadowing for the phenomenal performances we see from her later. Absolutely jam to this song every time, and I will not apologize. 

Favorite Line: “Stay a thousand miles from the condition that I’ve got from all the stress I’m under.” (Never felt a lyric more)

6) Do It For Her

Okay, so I may have lied about It’s Over, Isn’t It being the most problematic on the list, and I also may be noticing a trend in my favorite Crystal Gem’s songs, but neither of those are the point. This song, somewhat concerning (And later addressed!) issues aside, is actually really good! I remember closing my eye’s to Deedee’s vocals for what felt like hours when this song found me, and I still do without a single regret. It’s so amazing to see Pearl fighting with such strength, even if it is for the wrong causes. She’s still one of the strongest gems, yall just aren’t ready for that conversation. 

Favorite Line: “Deep down, you know you weren’t built for fighting, but that doesn’t mean you’re not prepared to try.” This line summarizes Pearl’s journey so well. 

Well, that’s the first half of the ranking done, and this week’s blog done, too! I hope you’ll all stay tuned for the rest of the list next week! Until next time, 

Sincerely, someone who’s entirely too indecisive for top tens. 

almost anything can bring you nostalgia

Just imagine yourself peacefully sitting in a park. You could be people watching, waiting for someone’s outward personality to inspire you, or you could be flower picking, making a natural bouquet for your own personal collection. Then suddenly, a distinct smell dances across your nose and in an instant old memories begin to flood your mind.

You have no control over it. Whether it be a good or traumatic memory, you almost can never control what memories choose to pop up in your head. Sure, you maybe one of the lucky ones that has fast enough reflexes to block said memory, but other people may not have that luxury. Even if you do choose to suppress your memory, the fact that it even popped up in your head may not even leave your mind until the next day.

once you experience nostalgia you may stop at nothing to feel it again

It might just be me, but whenever I have a pleasant memory brought back to me, I feel compelled to relive it again. I tend to fixate on that feeling for a while, until I’m able to achieve the same bliss.  And that’s not always attainable. Which tends to shift my focus from more productive things.

On the other hand, I always have a burst of inspiration to find the aesthetics that match that memory. Which sprouts my love/hate relationship with Pinterest, but that’s another topic. From that inspires my poetry and other aspects of my writing process, so I guess you could say it’s somewhat helpful.

don’t get caught up in the small details

It’s almost inevitable to have bad memories form feelings of nostalgia. The important thing to remember is nostalgia comes from memories of the past. You can not change the past, but you can choose how to react and determine your future. 

Welcome back everybody! I know that it’s been a while since my last blog post, but I am glad to be back. It’s a new year, which means that it’s time for new goals and accomplishments. My goal last year was just to get over the mountain that is called Algebra II, and now that I’ve managed that it feels like a massive weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. It’s a new semester which means that we all now have new classes, and a fresh start to everything. Even though covid cases have been higher than they’ve ever been I hope that we all can manage to stay safe. I’m glad to be back here and I look forward to the rest of this year!

hello, and welcome back to my blog! over the holiday break, i was able to prepare several ideas for some new content that i’m really excited to start writing! this week, though, inspiration struck me to write a shorter blog about a show that i recently fell in love with- yellowjackets. it’s a new psychological  drama on SHOWTIME, and i think it’s one of the best new series in recent history. wo, without further ado, here are three reasons you should check it out!

#1 the cast

readers, i’ve got two words for you: juliette. lewis. she is completely electric in her role and truly stands out in a crowd of unbelievable talent. the show has a cast of young women and their older versions, who are extremely good matches for each other. christina ricci is also wickedly brilliant in her role as misty, one of the most well-written characters on the show.

#2 the writing

yellowjackets has a highly unique storyline and characters that you can connect to immediately. the premise of the show is a female high school soccer team in the 90s who gets into a plane crash and has to learn to survive. the show tells the story of their survival in the wilderness and their lives 25 years after being rescued. it has many different ways of storytelling that are each effective and gripping. the show breaches the genres of psychological horror, teen drama, survival adventure, and even has its perfectly timed darkly comedic moments.

#3 the music

from the moment i started watching the show, i was immediately drawn in by the soundtrack. they utilize some of the best artists of the 90s, while also featuring more recent music that has a fell that fits the show perfectly. when i watch something and look up the soundtrack on spotify directly after, that’s always a good sign.

below i listed some of my favorite songs from the soundtrack, and with that, i’m off! ’til next week, blog world.

yellowjackets mini playlist:

miss world- hole

uninvited- alanis morissette

the world i know- collective soul

gepetto- belly

dreams- the cranberries