Senior Literary – Literary Arts Blogspace

How I’m Healing My Inner Child

Since I’ve started my senior year of high school, I’ve adopted a very special personal project. Unfortunately it’s not a YouTube channel, a new sketchbook, or a novel (yet!). I’ve started a journey to heal my inner child! When I began, I didn’t intend for this to be a fully structured journey. It was more so a way of living that I wanted to establish for myself. I simply decided: I’m going to start doing things for little me rather than anyone else.

Everyone’s heard the term “healing your inner child,” maybe even too much. But as a 17-soon-turning-18-year-old, I think it’s a really important journey for everyone to go on regardless of age. In teenagers, it directs you on a path that might help limit the stress of graduating, college-searching, and the incoming terror of officially being an adult. And if you’re not a teenager, maybe an adult, I think healing your inner child is still a worthy journey to go on. Your childhood years are even further from your moment in life so I can see it being even more gratifying.

I think an idea I see a lot is that you can get to a point where your inner child is healed and you’re done forever. I don’t really see it that way, I believe it’s a constant practice. You can’t go back into time and actually change the way that things happened in your childhood. Even if you think your inner child is “healed”, you wouldn’t be the same if your childhood was never hurt (as sad as it is to admit). So why stop there?

While healing my inner child, I’ve learned that it gets worse before it gets better, but that can be said for a lot of things in life. There’ve been many dips in my journey and I honestly think those are very necessary in doing it effectively. (Note: I thought about saying “right” rather than “effectively” and I want to use this as an opportunity to say there’s no right way to heal your inner child. My description of my own journey is no way a series of instructions. It’s more of a preparatory description of this kind of project and what I’ve been experiencing.)

When retracing your steps to your most formative years, you’ll probably be reminded of unpleasant moments. You might also become depressed thinking about childhood. It sounds terrible to say that it’s normal but in this context, I’m sure it is. Starting your journey is difficult when you have to go back in time to the reason why your childhood doesn’t feel fulfilled. Also nostalgia is a sickening feeling and you’ll have it constantly in your journey, just adding to that depression.

I’ve realized that healing your inner child is also extremely embarrassing! I’m humiliated to admit that I watch My Little Pony, Aphmau’s MyStreet series, and 10-year-old LDShadowlady and Vixella videos. But that’s literally what it’s about. It’s embarrassing and that’s perfectly fine. If it makes you happy deep down in your soul, where the little you resides, that is all that matters.

After it gets better, though, it’s unbelievably rewarding. You feel free and your life becomes yours again. It’s fun when you live for that little kid you used to be. There’s still some major dips but I think that just comes with high school.

When you think you’re done, when your inner child feels healed enough to move on, it’s important to keep catering to that little you so your progress doesn’t get rewritten as you enter a new stage in your life. Keep watching that childhood favorite show when things in college get hard, keep pursuing that childhood dream as a hobby when your job feels like it’s asking too much of you, keep doing things the younger you loved when you feel lost.

The reason I think things like this are so important is because I believe our child selves are the truest versions of us. That’s us before any wrong doings from older generations, before the terrifying experience of growing up, before the stresses of society and adult life. Those things change us for the worse. They make us angry, scared, and small minded. Live as if the little you is controlling the organic machine of your brain. You’ll take more risks, say no to things you actually wanted to say no to and yes to things you wanted to say yes to, you’ll laugh more, play more, generally do more things that give you an archive of experiences that change you for the better.

I feel silly being not even 18 talking about the horrors of being an adult. I haven’t even gotten there yet, but I’ll admit that I am terrified. Imagine it’s not even that bad for me when I get there (I highly doubt it). Maybe it won’t be if I’m already preparing like this.

This was partially an excuse to be able to talk about how proud I’ve made my younger self. I’m pursuing her dreams of being an author and I’m working on fulfilling her dream of having a YouTube channel. I’m dyeing my hair the way she’s always wanted, and I’ve never been happier with how it looks. And I’m being extremely cringe like she always was. That’s really what this post is about, I just didn’t know how to gracefully fit it in here.

Things I’ve learned in philosophy class

As an online dual enrollment student, I take plenty of classes that I don’t necessarily have an interest in. Honestly, taking these classes isn’t all bad because I also take classes that I do like and genuinely enjoy. But there’s always that one class that I can’t fathom, no matter how many placebos I’m juggling at the time. Although I expected intro to philosophy to be included in this bottomless pit of classes, it wasn’t. In fact, I learned the most in philosophy I’ve ever learned in another online course before. I took a genuine interest in the material and learned valuable things about life. This knowledge not only had an impact on how I viewed the world, but it put into perspective what I could do to change my own actions. In this blog, I’ll be talking about what I’ve learned in philosophy class and how it impacted my understanding of the world and myself.

The mind and body as two separate entities:

There’s a famous philosopher who specifically studied the correlation between the mind and the body. The body, in this philosopher’s brain, is an unthinking, machine operated being, and the brain is a non-extended thinking substance. Rather than seeing the mind and body as one whole that works together to carry out life tasks, he sees them as two separate entities that work closely together but have little in common. He backs his belief up with the fact that the body is divided into multiple parts, whereas the mind is only one whole and can think independently. Thinking about the mind and body in this way makes a lot of sense because I feel that my mind is vastly different from my body in every aspect. So, because we deal with two separate entities, it’s important that we care for them individually and through different methods.

There’s a lot of power in reflection:

For an assignment, we wrote about our feelings on Socrates quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I remember reading this and thinking that the quote was a bit too serious. But the more I read and wrote about it, I realized that the unexamined life really is as bad as Socrates believes. An unexamined life refers to a person who acts constantly but never reflects on the consequences of his or her own actions. This might seem easy for people to comprehend, but it’s not hard to get trapped in a cycle of doing and never reflecting. Reflection is how we achieve knowledge that can help our specific circumstance, and I feel that I especially stray away from it because it’s hard for me to accept criticism. It’s a harsh truth, but reflecting can do more inner work than we think.

Act now, reflect later:

This might contradict the paragraph above, but it’s just as important. I’ve heard a version of this advice in every school I’ve been to and I’m just now understanding how relevant it is to everyday life. My dance teacher used to tell us to say yes to everything and no to nothing when we are actively creating art. When we create art or make decisions, we often do so with a conscious, logical mind. Removing the inner critic that’s always within us can help us create better art, it can ease our minds, and it can prevent or limit the chances of thinking ourselves out of opportunities. This can be especially helpful for people who struggle with procrastination, as it encourages them to act rather than go through the process of convincing themselves. This advice isn’t always easy to follow, but it works as a reminder that simply acting on something is all it takes to get started.

Pentatonix

This may contain: a group of people standing next to each other in front of a wall with one person wearing — this is from 2012 but still so cute omg

Pentatonix, a name that is a play on the pentatonic scale, is an acapella group who started in 2011 with Kirstin Maldonado (Alto), Mitch Grassi (Tenor), Scott Hoying (Baritone), Avi Kaplan (Bass), and Kevin Olusola (Vocal Percussion). Kevin has also been known to play to the cello in many of their songs. The group mostly does acapella cover of songs but have made a few originals. One being “Can’t Sleep Love” that was very popular. There most popular cover video is Daft Punk which is a collection of songs from the group… you’ll never guess. Daft Punk. The music video is so freaking awesome like it just really takes me back even though the blue contacts always freaking scared me.

Official Video Daft Punk Pentatonix - YouTube — November 2013

Pentatonix - Can't Sleep Love - YouTube — September 2015

Pentatonix was such a huge part of acapella music becoming mainstream. They have made covers of so many popular songs with nothing but the sounds of their voices, and almost every year they come out with a Christmas album because Christmas is their thing. I’m 92% sure that they are a Christian group, but they’re so amazing and two of them are homosexual (Scott and Mitch), so the group is talented and inclusive! Both Scott and Mitch made the song Guy.exe in a duo group called Superfruit in 2017. They both planned to branch off and do solo things but just decided to do it together. The last music video was posted 7 years ago.

Superfruit – GUY.exe Lyrics | Genius Lyrics — they just want a guy who’s 6 feet tall and super strong

The group continued to grow in popularity but in 2017 also, Avi Kaplan left Pentatonix. It was said that he wanted to spend more time with his family instead of touring around. The group continued to be friends with Avi, but he was replaced by Matt Sallee just a few months after, I think. It didn’t take very long is the point, which is good because they need a freaking bass. It pulls it all together.

Buy Pentatonix Australian Tour Tickets 2024 | The Ticket Merchant — 2024, I think???

The group continues to go on tours and has been going strong since 2017. And also, they take awesome pictures like this, and their outfits are always so unique, and I think that’s awesome. Pentatonix has been one of my favorite groups for years and though I’m not as into them as I was, I still love their music, covers or original, they really do have some crazy talents. I know a group like this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but Pentatonix did have a really big effect on music back in the day, pop and Christmas music mostly, and I think that’s important to acknowledge.

Family Dynamics and Bob’s Burgers

One of my favorite television shows of all time is Bob’s Burgers. There’s a number of reasons for this: the writing is consistently amazing, the characters are complex and well rounded, and the humor is a comfortable mix of sophomoric and light hearted. My absolute favorite thing about the show is how similar the Belcher’s family is to my own. People often talk about the importance of seeing yourself represented in media and I’d like to raise another concept; the idea of seeing your family represented in media. Obviously your family is a part of who you are, but I’m specifically referring here to the dynamics at play between the characters and their friends and family. In this blog, I’m going to dive into my own family’s similarities to the Belcher’s family from Bob’s Burgers, as well as highlight how this representation has given me and my family a better and more sympathetic perspective of each other’s lives.

To start off, Bob’s Burgers centers around a working class family of five as they do their best to survive whilst running their own business. While my own family is a family of four, this is the only main difference. The father of the family, Bob, runs his own business with his name attached: Bob’s Burgers. My own father runs his own law firm, also with his name attached: Law Offices of Wes Stover. The mom, Linda, doesn’t have an official job of her own (besides being a mother and a housewife, of course) but she does work as a sort of co-manager of Bob’s Burgers. My own mom has a very similar role at my dad’s office. She spends most of her day taking care of me and my sibling, but will work at my dad’s office as he needs. The Belcher’s family also has three children: the oldest daughter, Tina, a son named Gene, and the youngest, Louise. Throughout the show, Tina is portrayed as a middle schooler/eighth grader, making her about 13 years old. Gene is also a middle schooler, though younger than Tina. He’s supposed to be around 11 years old. Louise is the youngest and is meant to be about 9 years old. While my sibling and I are the only two children in our family, I think it’s pretty cool to mention that we have the same age difference as Tina and Louise: 4 ½ years.

Bob’s Burgers gives a wonderful perspective into the struggles of owning one’s own business. It shows that, even if you are extremely talented at your craft, it is extremely difficult to compete with wealthier businesses. When I was younger, my dad briefly worked with other attorneys before starting his own business. With three head attorneys running a law firm, you can easily handle a much larger group of clients. Now, my dad is the only attorney of his firm and his office struggles to make enough to pay workers. A lot of this is because of the economic impact that COVID restrictions had on small and family owned businesses. With quarantine and other strict barriers implemented for people’s safety, it was difficult for my dad to meet with existing clients and near impossible for him to meet new clients. Because of this, my family had to rely on government checks for a while. I think that, while never directly talking about COVID, Bob’s Burgers does a perfect job at showing how a family business can exist somewhat comfortably for years and also struggle the entire time with their income. Watching Bob’s Burgers at a young age helped me better understand my family’s situation. My parents constantly talked about money and I struggled to understand their concerns; clearly we had enough for the bare necessities so what was the big deal?

The main issue with self-owned businesses is the unreliability of income. There’s no guaranteed amount that my dad will make in a day or a week or a year. Sure, there are rough estimates he can make based on past years income, but there are so many factors that will impact those rates. COVID is the best example of this. Before COVID, my dad had an annual income that could not only support our family of four, but could also afford him multiple employees. During and after COVID, my dad’s business has struggled to meet those past income rates. For a while, he was only able to afford 1-2 employees. Recently, his business has started to even back out and we’re finally seeing rates somewhat similar to those pre-COVID. Bob’s Burgers discusses money quite a lot, as the Belchers’ financial position is an important aspect of the show. The kids struggle to comprehend their financial standing and that is often a conflict they have to get through with their parents. Seeing that in the show really helped me put my own family’s situation into perspective.

Besides the financial situation, the overarching family dynamics of Bob’s Burgers have also been very important in helping me understand my family. For example, Bob’s mother, who he was very close with, passed away when Bob was young. Because of this, the Belcher kids never got to know their grandma. My own father was extremely close with his mom and she passed when my sibling and I were quite young. While I was technically old enough to remember her, I don’t. I struggle with my memory and only have brief and blurry memories of my grandma. My dad really struggles with this because he loves his mom deeply and he wishes I could remember her the way he does. I struggle with comprehending death and it’s been hard for me to understand and relate to his grief. Believe it or not, the Bob’s Burgers movie helped me put things into perspective and find a way to relate to my dad. In the movie, Bob explains that Louise’s signature rabbit-ear hat is actually an homage to a hat that his mom wore all the time. Bob talks about how seeing the hat always reminds him of his mom and that Louise has a similar personality to her grandma (his mom) as well. Louise never got to know her grandmother, but she feels connected to her through the hat. My dad has mentioned many times that my hairstyle (dyed black and cut in a shag-mullet) is nearly identical to how his mom’s hair looked when he was younger. While I obviously didn’t know her back then, I feel a deep connection to her through my hair and through the photos of her I’ve seen where she has my haircut.

Now, enough of the sappy stuff- here is a lightning round of some random similarities that my family and the Belchers’ family have. Linda bonds with the wild raccoons in the back alley behind their restaurant; my mom cares for any and every wild animal she meets. Teddy, while not directly related to the family, sort of presents as a godfather or close family friend who is always around and quiet close with Linda and Bob; my uncle Scott not only looks identical to Teddy, he also acts very similar and has a very similar habit of showing up at random times to just talk with my mom and dad about whatever is going on in his life. Linda has a sister that she only sees from time to time; my mom has the same situation with her sister. The Belcher kids help around their dad’s restaurant, even when they don’t want to; my sibling and I help my dad around his office when he truly needs us to. Tina has an obsession with this horse show that’s clearly a parody of My Little Pony; I love My Little Pony. Tina is an author who writes a lot of fan fiction- me too. Gene loves to make music on his electric keyboard; my sibling can play any instrument they put their mind to. Louise, Gene, and Tina have a tight group of friends, many of them closer to Louise and Gene’s age; my sibling and I both have tight friend groups and I am also very close with my sibling’s friends. Louise has a loft bed, I have a loft bed. Tina wears glasses and Louise sometimes picks on her for it; I wear glasses and my sibling loves to steal and hide them from me. Gene talks often about not being a boy or feeling more feminine; both my sibling and I don’t identify with our gender assigned at birth and have found comfort in dressing and acting in ways that are somewhat androgynous/ both feminine and masculine. Bob and Linda are both very open minded and accepting people who influence their kids to have a similar outlook on life; my parents gave me and my sibling the gift of knowledge and empathy. And the list goes on.

I hope you enjoyed this blog. I love Bob’s Burgers for so many reasons, but this is such an important aspect of the show for me. There are many other details that I didn’t mention or go into detail on, but I’ve already written too much. I hope you enjoy and I highly encourage you to go watch Bob’s Burgers from the beginning- it is worth it!

the observation of morality

Three years ago, I started my practice of witchcraft. My father had grown up Methodist, and still held those beliefs even into his period of agnosticism. One day, he asked me something. “If you don’t follow the Bible, or have any major code of religion, what keeps you from murdering and stealing at will?” I didn’t really have an answer for him because I thought it was so simple that I didn’t need to explain it. I don’t go out murdering and stealing at will because it’s not conducive to my life and it does not aid me or anyone else in any way. I run into this “moral dilemma” a lot and sometimes I find that some really believe that they need something external to tell them how to be a person (not talking about any person or sect in particular). I do also think that this idea has the same emotional roots as the desire for external validation, especially in the context of social media. Performative kindness has seen such a rise in social media that it’s impossible not to have seen some sort of video where an influencer is offering monetary or food assistance to someone in need. Many of these videos have been outed as disingenuous, and I can’t help but wonder how we got to this point of performative morality. I mean, I’m sure that the original teachings of most religions speak strictly against things like this, so why do it and proclaim that one is following the words of their deity? Like most things in society, it’s to fulfill the needs of ego, either by directly appealing to such, or indirectly, like appealing to society. All of it really does circle back to ego, though. We mostly see performative morality in the form of purity culture, often based heavily in religion. Linda Kay Klein’s book, Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, does a stellar job of investigating this relationship and the trauma that results from growing up with it from a young age. This type of morality shapes self-image, behavior patterns, brain chemistry, and trauma responses. It’s used as a shackle for many, preventing healthy relationships with things like the body, the mind, health, and with other people as well. When you become afraid of a perceived lack of morality, those fears ingrain themselves in the very structure of your being. It can take a person years to process their way through them, and some aren’t ever able to truly move past them.

My Fav Children’s Fiction Novels

One of my all-time favorite genres to read is mystery/children’s fiction. In grade school I was one of those kids who went crazy over I-ready points. I-ready was basically a platform where grade school children and teachers tracked how many points a child earned through reading.

So, the more books you read, the more points you got, and I really wanted those points. So, I ended up reading a lot. Me and a friend of mine would recommend each other good books and series, and some of these books I still read today.

The books I’ll be talking about in this blog have stuck with me since grade school and have influenced my life in so many ways. I really loved reading these books back then and I still love them now. So, I’ll be talking about a few of them here.

Freak the Mighty:

Freak the Mighty is written by Rodman Philbrick and it’s a story about a 13-year-old boy named Maxwell who has low self-esteem due to unresolved trauma involving his parents and because he genuinely thinks he isn’t smart in any way.

He lives with his grandparents, Grim and Gram, and sometimes he overhears them talking about his father, Kenny Kane or Killer Kane, who is in prison for murdering his mother, Annie.

Next door lives a boy named Freak who suffers from Morquio syndrome, a life shortening condition that affects the development of his bones and organs. This syndrome impairs his ability to walk, and to get around he must wear a set of crutches.

When Freak loses one of his many gadgets in a tree Maxwell swoops in and helps him, and this marks the start of their unlikely friendship. Together they become Freak the Mighty because of their obvious size difference and their ability to compensate for one another’s shortcoming.

This novel is very colorful, a little sad, and a whole lot of interesting. I always love reading this because the writing is so humorous. It’s the kind of story where the narrator is a little unreliable and it’s clear through the manner he tells the story.

I also love the trope of an unlikely friendship. I remember reading this back then and thinking that Maxwell and Freak could never become friends, but then they do and it’s heartwarming to see.

Holes:

Holes is written by Louis Sachar and it’s about a 14-year-old boy named Stanley Yelnats who is convicted of a crime and is sent to serve a sentence at Camp Green Lake, a boys detention center where the boys dig holes all day to ‘build character’.

Throughout the book Stanley claims he is innocent; however, no one truly believes him.

He blames his horrible luck on his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great grandfather. He also blames his grandfather for his father’s failed career as an inventor.

At Camp Green Lake he meets other boys with unique nicknames like Zigzag, Armpit, and Zero. When the guards tell Stanley to report if he finds anything while digging, he starts to wonder if they have an ulterior motive for making them dig the holes.

Could the guards be using the inmates to search for some mysterious underground secret? Stanley and the other inmates team up and embark on a journey to discover the mystery of Camp Green Lake. He also embarks on a journey to prove his own innocence.

Although this novel tackles a tough subject like injustice, it’s still very humorous and it’s a joy to read. This book has plenty of hidden secrets, and the story is told at the perfect pace for all these secrets to unfold. I truly love how unique the characters are, and how much fun they add to the story.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime:

This book is written by Mark Haddon, and it’s about a 15-year-old boy named Christopher Boone who discovers a dead dog, Wellington, in his neighbor’s front lawn. After he wrestles with his own conscience, Christopher vows to uncover the mystery behind the dead dog and to hopefully bring it justice.

He starts to investigate his neighbors. During one instance of his investigations, the police are called. Christopher’s father, who deeply opposes the entire investigation, warns him to leave the murder mystery alone.

Although Christopher receives a stern warning from the police he continues the investigation in his own way. He writes down his thoughts in a journal, which is the book we are reading, and he also uses it to keep track of his findings.

After another dispute with his father regarding the murder, Christopher is close to giving up the investigation until he finds something appalling under his father’s bed. In a box, there are letters from his mother who he assumed had died of a heart attack two years ago. And not only that, but there are clues that link his father to Wellingtons death.

If you can’t tell, this book has plenty of twists and turns. The first time I read it, it reminded me of the Girl on the Train, which is another thriller/psychological fiction novel, because it unfolds in this really creepy yet surprising way that you would never expect, but it was kind of your face. This was one of the first novels that got me into reading murder mystery, and I really enjoyed it because it takes the identity of a murder mystery and spins it in this childlike way.

Anyways, I love all these stories. They give me so much joy and inspiration. Bye.

College

Just like everyone else, I am also dealing with college preparations. I just wanted to share some of the current plans here just so I can look back at this in my dorm or rented apartment/house/condo or my parent’s house and see how different my plans ended up being.

Initially, my plans were simple. I was going to go to USM for digital journalism and live my life as a freelance journalist or something like that. I was going to live in a dorm and rely heavy on scholarships. But then I realized their English program was heavy on creative writing and I decided I wanted to do that. But a tour around the communications building on the campus hanged that to broadcast journalism. Back then, I was very attached to USM as it is a school that many of my friends are at or are going to be, and it is close to home. So, letting it go became very hard and other colleges didn’t ever cross my mind.

It wasn’t until after I decided on the English degree again and began to apply for college. This was when I started expanding my horizons, as I knew it was dumb to just go with one school. I knew about the in-state schools and applied to all of those knowing I wouldn’t be going to any of them, but I did begin to realize that I may be missing out my not visiting any of these campuses. This made me cross a few off the list and bring others higher up. Belhaven was almost equivalent to USM on my list as I was able to imagine myself living there to a certain extent, but in the end, I feel as if my religious beliefs would not align with those of the students there.

An English degree then began to look a lot less appealing when I realized how different an English class and a creative writing class could be. I’ve always been more in touch with the creative side of literature rather than the technical/”boring” side. So, USM, though still being a top school out of technicality, became very vulnerable in this race and would make it very easy to move out of the way. That is what happened after the professor for creative writing at Belhaven told me about the University of South Carolina. This school seemed like a great choice for me because my father lives an hour away, but I still didn’t like the idea of being away from my friends. That idea sat for a little bit until my father began telling me things about the school. One thing he informed me of was that the school had a very impressive film program. This sparked an idea in my head. I’ve always wanted to write scripts and make movies one day, so why not study film? I began to research the school even more and now I can safely say that the University of South Carolina is now my top school. I will be applying for a primary major in either English or journalism, and a secondary major in Media Arts.

But that is not the end. Of course, there’s all the money and financial aid and stuff that needs to be worked out, but I have figured one thing out. I want to live off-campus and not with a family member. A friend and I will be moving into either and apartment, mobile home, or condo alongside attending college. Before that happens, I plan to get a job and work for the rest of the year and work all summer to save up money. I’m excited for this because of how badly I want control of my life. Coming to MSA have given me a taste of freedom, so now all I want is to go out and live in it. I know I can still feel freedom on campus, but it’s for the plot I swear.

My change of heart about Superman

If you would have asked me my opinion on Superman like two months ago, I would have said that I hate him and he’s lame, but if you ask me now, I would say that I love him, but he’s still lame in a good way. So, where did the switch come from? Well, it may have started on a very late night almost like 3 am when I watched Superman Returns. I did not like the movie at first, but all of a sudden, I started seeing art of Superman and I consumed it because of course I did, so the more media I consumed the more I begun to understand him. So where am I going with this? Well, let’s talk about Superman Returns (2006). Now most of this is gonna be explained through memory and a little research because I can’t watch it for some reason. It’s probably on a streaming service but I have the DVD, and it won’t work… anyways.

Superman Returns — this is such a scary angle omg…

So, Superman is missing! He’s been gone for five years to look at Krypton, the planet he came from, to find any survivors. He finds nothing, of course. Lex Luthor is out of jail, and we see him in the fortress of solitude, Superman’s home in the Arctic or whatever. So, Superman comes back and continues to work at the Daily Planet. I’m not sure if I’m skipping much because I did NOT see the beginning of this movie. I just remember Clark Kent going into the Daily Planet. He finds out that Lois Lane is married to this guy named Richard and they have a five-year old son named Jason (she moved on quick omg). He sees a picture of her and her new family. He also sees that she won a Pulitzer Prize for a paper called, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” So, he’s like really salty at this point. Also, Lois Lane doesn’t know that Clark is Superman.

Superman Returns - Reeling Reviews — Richard, Clark Kent, Jason and Lois Lane (Left to Right)

But he goes out with his friend, Jimmy, to a bar, and they’re watching tv. Theres this space shuttle that’s piggy backing off of an airplane, and Lois and a couple other journalists are in the plan which is honestly really unsafe now that I’m writing it. But the Shuttle was meant to detach from the plane and go into space while the plane continues its trip. This goes wrong because remember Lex Luther? Yeah, he stole a crystal from the fortress of solitude because the material that it’s made of generates more crystals, or idk how it works, but the little crystal can make bigger crystal. So, why is he doing that? We’ll get back to that, but when the crystal is dropped into water, it makes all the power in Metropolis go out, and this messes with the plane, so the shuttle doesn’t detach. So, Superman has to go save everyone, and he takes a really long time guiding the shuttle into space because he flies it all the way out of the atmosphere like really slowly, like there isn’t a plane hurdling to the ground as we speak. Of course, he catches it and sits in a baseball field where a game is going on because there’s a crowd of people there, but this is how everyone finds out that Superman has returned!! (omg like the title). Lois Lane sees him because he goes into the plane and he’s all like, “Is everyone okay”, but he’s staring right at her like a loser. And they just kind of stare at each other until everyone processes that Superman is back and he leaves.

Superman: Every Live-Action Lex Luthor Actor (& How Their Versions Differ) — Lex Luthor, Kitty, and his goons

So, everyone is happy because he’s back! You know who’s not happy? Lex freaking Luthor. So, he works with this girl named Kitty who he uses as a distraction. He puts her in a car, cuts the breaks, and she makes a bunch of commotion to get Superman’s attention, and distract him from the fact that Lex Luthor and his goons are stealing Kryptonite from the museum. Superman is really lame for letting that slide, like he doesn’t even find out about it until the next day because he gets assigned to figure out why the blackout happened while Lois Lane has to interview Superman, which she doesn’t want to do because she’s still in love with him but she’s married or whatever, and she brings up the museum, and Clark is like omg what are you talking about?? But yeah, there’s like a scene where she goes out to smoke and Clark bumps into her, so he dresses up as Superman and goes onto the roof to like to fly her around town, and they get back and almost kiss, and as I was watching it, I realized that if I ever met a girl who was with Superman, then I would never even try because how do you even compare to that?? But she’s really upset with him because he left without saying goodbye or whatever.

Anyways! A day passes or something, and she is supposed to be going to a dinner party but instead she goes to investigate the blackout which isn’t what she’s supposed to be doing, but she has Jason with her because Richard didn’t pick him up from school so she had to, and for some reason she brings him with her onto the boat. And Jason is like a chronically ill child, like he has a bunch of things going on with him like all of the time. She goes onto the boat and sees Lex freaking Luthor. So, he gets his goons to keep an eye on her and the boy while he tells her his master plan which is to use the Kryptonite Crystal, infuse it with Kryptonite, and then make his own super continent where he’s like King, and Superman can’t live there because it’s made of Kryptonite. And so around this time in the movie, Kitty is starting to get nervous because she didn’t know that a bunch of people were gonna get hurt. But get this. When Lex Luthor is telling Lois Lane, he’s holding Kryptonite and little Jason has a weird reaction to it. So, Lex Luthor is like, who is that baby’s father, and Lois Lane is like Richard obviously! Yeah whatever… So, he leaves, and she like tries to send a fax message to someone for help?? But the goon that’s in the room goes to attack her and all of a sudden, a freaking piano flies at him, and Jason, or as I like to call him baby superman, threw that freaking piano. And like you don’t see it happen, but you see it fly towards the man, and it pans back to Jason, and it’s really funny. And like of course it’s Superman’s baby. He’s five years old!!! Superman left five years ago!!! If I was Richard, I wouldn’t even have tried with Lois Lane. Like I know they’re together, but Superman was her ex, bro.

Jason White (Superman Returns) | DC Database | Fandom — Lois Lane and Jason

Anyways, Lex Luthor goes and drops the crystal into the ocean, and it starts expanding. I think around this time the boat gets split in half and Lois Lane and Jason are stuck, and she’s trying to get him to use his powers to get them out but for some reason he’s too scared to do it, so they’re stuck and that’s like all I remember from that part. Idk who saves them. I assume Superman does, but it might’ve been Ricard. Whatever. Superman goes to Lex Luthor on the island, and he’s weak because it’s made of Kryptonite. Lex Luthor impales him with a piece of Kryptonite and then pushes him in the ocean. And Richard is piloting a sea plane because he went out the help Lois Lane, and she sees Superman in the water because she’s like, “We have to go save him!” And man, if I was Richard, I would not have turned back because Superman can really just take your girl at any minute. But he goes back and she jumps into the water to haul him on the plane, and she gives him mouth to mouth, and Richard is just sitting there!

Superman Returns Flying With Lois — you see how her hair is wet?? She really jumped in there and Richard really let her… aw man

Okay, I’m gonna drop the fact that Richard should absolutely be on his toes with Superman around. Actually, no I won’t, but you’ll see why. Anyway, she saves him and he goes underwater to pick up the landmass that is forming and take it into space. So, Lex Luthor’s goons die because this big rock falls on them, and it’s just him and Kitty who get on this helicopter to escape but she throws the crystals out because she doesn’t want anyone else getting hurt. They get stranded on an island after running out of fuel. Superman throws the landmass into space and immediately falls back onto Earth, weakened. So, people try to save him. They take him to the hospital but obviously can’t do much because he’s an alien and his skin is too hard for them to use needles because like the man of steel duh. Lois Lane pulls up with Jason, and she’s like talking to Superman while he’s in the coma, and then she kisses him on the lips!!! before she leaves. When they doctors go to check on him later, he’s gone. Where is he? He’s in baby superman’s bedroom, giving him a speech that his father gave him when he was a child. Baby Superman is asleep, and Superman knows that it’s his baby. But he leaves, and we see that Lois Lane is writing a new paper called, “Why the World Needs Superman.” and if I was Richard, that would be my breaking point… At the end of the movie, he like flies up into space, and it’s really cinematic.

A Penny in the Well: Penny Thoughts ‘13—Superman Returns (2006) — he kind of looks like a wax figure

Anyways, I really loved this movie. And now I love Superman! The movie is kind of dumb, but it was really intriguing for actual first introduction to Superman… I may have not described it in the best way, but I’d honestly recommend this movie. Now, I may not be the person to take recommendations from, but I just like to be entertained, and I love Superman and how evil Lex Luthor is, and I love Lois Lane even if she made some interesting choices in this movie…. But yes! That is Superman Returns.

Why did they Animate Homestuck?

Genuine question. I’m still not sure. The cynical part of me wants to believe it’s just a cash grab. Historically, that is something that’s very much in Hussie’s wheelhouse. The less cynical part of me wants to enjoy it, but it’s hard. I’ve been a homestuck fan for a long time, and it’s hard to not feel nostalgic about the old webcomic. I’m using this blog post to give my honest review of the animated pilot, as well as a brief ramble/introduction to how I first discovered Homestuck and why it means so much to me.

First of all, what is Homestuck? Homestuck is a webcomic that was created back in 2009 by Andrew Hussie. It centered around four friends playing an online game together and accidentally tearing holes in reality and the space time continuum. This created multiple different timelines, portals to different universes, and various versions of themselves. Also central to the comic are the twelve trolls (one for each zodiac sign). That’s probably the most brief introduction I can give. The story of Homestuck is extremely confusing, even to the creator himself.

It’s also important to note that, while Homestuck was created by Andrew Hussie, it was also equally created by the early fans who engaged with Hussie’s forum posts back in 2009. In the early days of Homestuck, Hussie would upload comic panels and then make forum posts, asking fans to vote to suggest what the characters should do. Because of this, Homestuck was extremely influenced and contributed to by the fanbase. Also because of this, Homestuck involved a lot of internet culture, mentions of celebrities, and other copywrite-able things that cannot be transferred into a fully funded, animated show.

So how did I get into Homestuck? Well, I’ve known about Homestuck since around 2015- at least from what I can remember (I have a really bad memory). Homestuck officially ended in 2016, but remained popular throughout the 2010s. In the early 2010s, but especially 2015 and 2016, I was on musical.ly (old tiktok) all the time. For those of you who don’t remember, cosplayers used to dominate musical.ly. The first time I was ever introduced to cosplay was through musical.ly and specifically through compilations of Homestuck cosplayers. Did I understand what was going on? No. But I thought they looked super cool and I wanted to be them. It wouldn’t be until 2017 or 2018 that I actually started to read the Homestuck web comic. I believe 2019 was when I finished reading it for the first time.

A lot of people are critiquing people for critiquing the Homestuck pilot- which feels like a dumb, self-made paradox, but whatever. The main reason for this stems from the argument of “Homestuck was never good in the first place, so what does it matter if the animated show is bad?”- and to that I agree and disagree. Homestuck is not some outstanding work of fiction that should be regarded by scholars and students alike. It is a product of the late 2000s, early 2010s era: filled with stereotypes, slurs, and other topics of discourse. Does it handle those topics well? Not always. The creator is a white man who definitely didn’t know what he was doing and has since vetoed many of the decisions he made in the plot. However, all this to say- all of Homestuck is not bad. In fact, Homestuck has powerfully deep character development, storylines, and lore for a story that not only has multiple universes and timelines, but also has maybe a hundred characters, give or take. It genuinely baffles me that people are able to ignore the genuinely strong and well-written parts of the comic just because some sections weren’t perfect.

All that being said, Homestuck is a product of the fanbase. This is something that the creator himself is well aware of and fully content with. Because of this, I don’t intend to gatekeep Homestuck from the younger fans who are first learning about Homestuck through the animated pilot. I worry it will be a different experience altogether and I know they will miss out on the joy of the early Homestuck days, but technically I did too so who am I to talk. If you enjoyed this rant in any way, shape, or form, I’ll be back very soon with a deep dive into the pilot itself and everything I liked or didn’t like about it.

Homecoming Violence

In the United States, there are more guns than people. It’s a simple, harrowing fact. For every two American citizens, there are about three guns. In 2023, Mississippi had the highest firearm death rate in the US, after the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. In that same year, the leading cause of death for children was not sickness. It was not accidents. It was gunfire. These statistics have not shrunk since that time. In fact, we had six back-to-back shootings in a matter of three days. October 10th, 11th, and 12th all hosted a mass shooting.

October 10th.

The first was in Rolling Fork, at South Delta High. Two people are in custody in connection to this shooting, though WAPT 16 News says that it is unclear if anyone was injured.

168 miles away, in Heidelberg, two people were killed and one died a few days later from unspecified injuries, again at a football game. The victims were identified as follows: Mikeia McCray, Cayus Stevens, and Chris Newell. Mikeia was 28 and the mother of four. Chris Newell was 35. Cayus Stevens was 25. Six people have been arrested. The first, Tylar Jarod Goodloe, has been charged with two counts of capital murder, and one count of being in possession of a deadly weapon on educational property. His bail has been set at over 2 million. Damarin Starks and Jaylen Gammage were arrested and both charged with accessory after the fact and tampering with physical evidence. Jadarius Page was charged with one count of accessory after the fact. Finally, Jabari Collins was charged with possession of a deadly weapon on educational property. The final person arrested is unable to be identified publicly because they are a minor.

The Leland shooting was the last of that night, but arguably the most violent. Around midnight people gathered on Main Street after the game. After a disagreement, gunfire erupted through the crowd, hitting eighteen people, killing seven. The four victims killed at the scene were Oreshama Johnson, Calvin Plant, Shelbyona Powell, and Kaslyn Johnson. Two died the next morning: Amos Brantley Jr., and LaMichael Jones. On the 18th, Ebanee Williams died. As this post is being written, this is the deadliest mass shooting in the US in 2025. Nine suspects were arrested. Teviyon L. Powell, William Bryant, Terrogernal Martin, and Morgan Lattimore were all charged with capital murder, and Latoya A. Powell was charged with attempted murder. Latoya and Teviyon Powell were aunt and nephew, and Shelbyona Powell was Latoya Powell’s niece. Four arrestees have not been publicly identified.

October 11th.

On October 11th, an 11-year-old boy was shot in the stomach in the tailgating area of Jackson’s Veterans Memorial Stadium during a football event. It is still an active and ongoing investigation, but details about other victims have not been made publicly available. There is no suspect information.

In Lorman, MS, on Alcorn State University’s campus, 29-year-old Brekyra Fisher of Vicksburg was killed near the Industrial Technology Building. Two others were injured. Taevion Doss has been arrested on charges of murder, two charges of aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm on educational property. Doss appeared before a judge on the 17th, but was denied bond.

October 12th.

Jackson was the site of the last shooting of the weekend. On Cynthia Rd, near Highway 49, a woman was struck in the head after bullets were fired into a grey Honda SUV. The male driver of the SUV pulled into a nearby Sprint Mart to call for help. Only the woman was injured, but her 6-year-old child was present.

Shootings like this have become all too common in Mississippi, and in our nation overall. Many proposals for stricter laws on guns have been shot down, opponents citing an attack on “2nd Amendment freedoms.” Gun violence is being marketed as a “complex issue” when it really isn’t. It’s difficult to say what should and shouldn’t be done, but this needs to be spoken about.